Of Yanks, White Trash, Taiwan and Bar Review, huh?

Nobody's been on here in a while, eh?

Today was day 1 of my Summer of Pain, and it certainly lived up to the immature name I gave it. I got home from the Yankee game last night in time to watch Yankee's Encore (brought to you by W.B. Mason - which in case they don't tell you enough times, stands for 'Who But' - which can be a blog in and of itself on self-confidence and ego). The game was good (4-2 Yankees win) with an extremely exciting "Jeterian" catch (as the down syndrome kid that looks like John Sterling that they put in the CBS booth this season with Suzyn Waldman - who by the way, I could hear screeching and yapping from my seats off of first base last night). Side note - one of the greatest things about having cable tv is not having to listen to Sterling every night go - "that is deep to left, it is highhhh, it is farrrrr, that ball isssssss gonnnn - caught 20 feet in front of the wall by the left fielder - I gotta tell ya Suzyn, I thought that ball was gone, the wind must have brought it back into the park. Sometimes from the angle we are at, is is hard to tell, we've only been here for like 25 years, so we're still trying to get the angles down." Meanwhile, I go to a bunch of games a year, by no means do I sit through nearly as many as Sterling, and by the 2nd or 3rd inning of each game (and often a different seat each time) I can track the ball after it's hit without a problem. And if he's having so much trouble - do what most other people do, look at the freaking outfielders!

Though the game was solid and exciting, the highlight of the game was not the beautiful 3 run Yankee inning to take the lead, or even Jeter's ridiculous Mays like catch in centerfield while trampling Robinson Cano. Nope, it was the drunk guy in front of me during G-d Bless America at the 7th inning stretch. Let me back up and draw this out for you - it's worth it.

The whole game these annoying Taiwanese people three rows down, 1 section over (of course right in our line of vision to the plate) are holding a flag (Taiwanese i guess - but who knows, I think it had blue on it and a star or something, maybe some yellow, who gives a crap, it wasn't American and didn't have my name on it, so it was annoying) everytime Chow Ming King Wang (or whatever his name is) would throw a pitch. Of course we and everyone else would yell sit down every time, but they did not understand English.

Anyway, in the 7th inning they play G-d Bless America and the drunken white trash in the crowd, as they always do, start yelling at every minority they could find to take off their hats. The guy one row in front of us, about 8 beers into his night (and probably some steroids judging from the size of him) yells out to the group of foreigners - "Hats off Korea!!!" - which is funny in and of itself, but even funnier because...

They're from Taiwan!!!

But you know them racists, "they all look the same to us". Anyway, we chuckled and giggled like little girls at a slumber party throughout the singing of G-d Bless America by none other than the fat Irishmen with big enough ears to fly Oprah around on a world tour - Ro-Ty.

The game of course went on from there, and it sparked this brilliant stream of thought from myself to a couple of my buddies who were at the game with me.

"If I was playing first base for the Tigers (G-d forbid), and A-rod singled up the middle, I'd have a sharpie in my pocket and I would not be at all embarrassed to ask him to sign my glove. Then in between innings I would return to the dugout, switch gloves and put the signed one away... If Jeter got on, out comes my camera phone - 'derek, you mind? oh and do one of those stances when you're about to swipe second. One sec, let me pretend to hold you on at first...got it,,, thank derek.. good luck.' "

Well, back to Day 1 of my Bar Review Course - I had to wake up at 7am (which those of you who work everyday will laugh at - but hey, I've been in college and law school the last 6 years, 7am is ridiculous). I had to get up early and shower because I smelled like hell and finished watching Dwayne Wade get 40 on the Pistons and then Family Guy and the Yanks (a second time) too late to shower. I ate a quick breakfast and had to be in class before 9am to get a seat close enough to the back where I could escape for air if I started to feel suicidal.

A bunch of us had been joking around the last few weeks about how horrible this summer would be and all that. Well, needless to say, one day in and we underestimated how badly this is all going to suck. Three and a half hours later I finally got home, depressed, overwhelmed and yes, somewhat suicidal. Well, good thing the Yanks play Detroit again, that should lift my spirits.

The first lecturer gets on and I swear he looks like a cross between Drew Carey and Elmer Fudd. Oh, and he sounded like a horse's ass. He talked like he constantly had an oddly shaped item in his mouth, and for some reason spent 5 minutes joking around about beastiality and how bar examiners would approach it if they had the balls to ask about it on the actual test. People laughed, so of course I looked around to see who was laughing at this moron - not to my surprise most of the people on my "To Kill" list were the ones laughing.

Finally the class ends at about 12:45pm and people clapped. Let me explain two reason why this is retarded.
First off - he just tortured us for 3 and a half hours with boring material and horrible jokes.
Second - IT WASN'T A LIVE SESSION, IT WAS A TAPED LECTURE. He cannot see or hear your applause. In fact, he gave the lecture 4 days ago in a school 20 miles from where you are sitting. Jesus! This summer's going to suck.

My Summer of Pain...

Well, I am done with law school (assuming I did not fail any of my classes, which judging from the stupidity of many of my fellow classmates is virtually impossible). This means three things:

1. I can actually start earning real money,
2. I won't have as much time to write on here, though I will attempt to continue to do so as often as time permits, and
3. I'm about to have the worst summer of my life - studying for the bar of course.

I'm not sure how exactly I am going to handle this summer logistically speaking. It is going to be tough. I don’t mean I’ll have problems handling it stress-wise or physically or anything, I don’t work myself into a catatonic state when I study and am under pressure like many of my fellow law students do. This probably explains why many of my anal-retentive classmates, who do better than me in school, are currently unemployed for after the summer, whereas I am extremely happy with my employment with the City’s Sanitation Department. (Yes Dad, that’s a joke. The job I told you about is real).

Back to the point - I would like to try and get to Yankee games this summer, though if they continue on the path they started beginning the season, I will not have to worry about that taking up any of my time. I’ll just go to the Kevin Brown or Jared Wright games and watch the first 3 innings.

Side point - how the hell is Giambi still in the lineup?!? Seriously, this guy sucks! He is not a bad baseball player…He is a terrible baseball player. And I don't want to hear the crap about his on base percentage being over .400. It's a bunch of BS. He's not up there to walk 40% of the time and strike out or pull a weak grounder to the right side 60% of the time. Bench him and let Bernie DH. And why did it take so long to have Matsui in centerfield?!? This guy is not a good centerfielder, he’s a terrific centerfielder. He reads the ball off the bat and gets great jumps. That still doesn’t explain why Beltran is playing in the wrong part of New York. Further, if Tom “Flash Flood” Gordon gives up another game-tying home run, forget Torre going out there to yank him…Steinbrenner should walk out to the mound and slap him across the face and say, “You suck worse than Bellamy Road, you’re fired!” Oh, and Paul Quantrill should die of gonorrhea and rot in hell, ala Dan Marino.

Anyway, back to the point, my summer of pain. I will have to spend from 9:00am till somewhere around 1:00pm everyday in a boring bar review course. Then I need to spend another amount of significant hours studying per day. (By the way – if anyone has a shortcut to this process, feel free to fill me in. Unfortunately this is not like school where you can sacrifice a semester working hard to figure out the shortcuts. There’s not enough time to experiment with methods and I’m worried that I really will have to work my ass off here). I also am hoping to fit in a good 3-4 days of playing ball a week. Oh yeah, I also have a family.

All these things need to somehow fit into my schedule this summer. They will, it’s just gonna suck figuring it out.

I got invited to a couple of “Yay, we graduated law school” parties over the next couple of weeks and have responded ‘No’ to every single one. Why? Because frankly, I’m just not interested in seeing 200 of the same people over and over again, especially when I sincerely cannot stand 128 of them, and don’t know another 65 of them. The other 7 (yes, I used a calculator, bite me!), I can call or see whenever I want to, so screw the rest of you parasitical no-talent assklowns. I hope you’re all unemployed longer than the ‘grace period’ lasts to start paying back your student loans!

At almost every stage in my life, I could look back and say, “Wow, that went by really quickly.”
Four years of high school – flew by faster than a gay, Jewish, black guy trying to get through Arkansas.
A year abroad – went quicker than a Colorado high school student hitting the exits when the metal detector goes off.
Three years of college – went faster than Robin to the Bat Cave when Batman was taking his daily shower.

Three years of law school though – as much as I enjoyed it – it did not fly, it was not quick. It was three slow freaking years. It seemed to take longer than it took Terri Schiavo to die. It does not seem like just yesterday that we started, nope, not at all. In fact it seems like I’ve been going to that place for many years, as long as I can remember. I get nauseous going there because I almost don’t remember going anywhere else. It has drained my soul out of my body. I will not miss it. I will miss my schedule and freedom, but I will not miss law school.