I know that it's been a long time since my last post but I’ve been super busy the last two weeks. Here goes the first Miami post....
To start things off I have to say that Miami is AWESOME!!! I absolutely love this city already. Coming up with a description for this place is tough, but I think that calling it a European New York is pretty fitting. The culture reminds me a lot off Spain, with restaurants and bars staying open really late and most people being really relaxed and laid back. I mean you can go out to dinner at 11 pm any night of the week and get a great meal at a nice restaurant. Back in DC you're choices are pretty much limited to Wendy's and Taco Bell at that time of night. The night life, as you can imagine, is insane. Unlike other cities were bars are usually busy Thursday through Saturday, here you can go out any night of the week and it'll feel like a Saturday night. Last week we went out on Tuesday night and stayed out til 5 am. The bar that we were at was throwing a "White Trash Bash", which basically was just a bunch off absurd and ridiculous events involving drunk people. This included beer bonging competitions, girls doing tug-of-wars using dildos, people eating spoonfuls of cinnamon, etc. They were supposed to have girls wrestling in pudding but unfortunately they couldn't get enough girls to do it. But the point is that this was going on, on a Tuesday. I don't know any too many other places were Tuesday is just as big of a party night as Saturday. Last night when we went out in Coconut Grove, a mini-riot broke out at the bar that we were at. Some guys got into a brawl with the bouncers and bartenders, and the fight spilled into the street and probably involved over 20 people. At least as many cops showed up and some even had their guns drawn while breaking it up. You can use lots of terms to describe Miami, but "boring" is definitely not one of them. The only downside to the Miami nightlife is that it's really hard to make yourself stay in and study when you know there are so many cool things that you could be doing instead.
The only downside to Miami, aside from the insanely humid weather, is law school. Going into law school all you hear from people is how much work it is and how much you have to study, and unlike other things that people tell you, they don't exaggerate about this. During the week your day pretty much goes like this: wake up, class, eat, study, eat, study, sleep...wake up and do it all over again. I've decided that I'm taking Friday afternoons and Saturdays off from studying so knowing that I have two days in which to relax and enjoy Miami helps the week go by quicker and makes the work seem much more manageable. I'm really glad that I picked Miami over Richmond or Baltimore because I don't think that I could take all this studying without the things here that I can do to unwind. The professors, for the most part, are arrogant (surprise surprise) and make your life a lot more difficult than it needs to be. They all use the Socratic Method and spend class randomly calling on people and asking them questions that they have no chance of answering correctly even if they did the reading. And if you don't know an answer, some make fun of you and make you look like an idiot. Luckily I haven't been called on yet (knock on wood). Luck has something to do with it, but I think that my last name has something to do with it as well. At Miami they split all the 1L's (first year law students) into groups A-F so you have all your classes with the same people. Well my friend Drew sits next to me in every class and we have seating charts so you have to sit in the same seat every day. Well so far he's gotten called on twice. His last name, by the way, happens to be "High". So when the professor looks in our direction and then looks at his seating chart, who do you think that he's going to call on? The kid with the 4 letter long last name, or me?? For once, having a last name that nobody can pronounce, let alone spell actually comes in handy.
Even though law school is a pain, being in it does have some nice perks. During orientation all the 1Ls had dinner at the Biltmore, which if you don't know is one of the nicest resorts in America (http://www.biltmorehotel.com/). Also, we get in free to every football game and the law school organizes a tailgate beforehand with free kegs and barbecue. Every other Thursday we get free beer at the Rat, which is an on-campus restaurant. Occasionally the school also sponsors nights out in South Beach with drink specials. So there are some nice perks that go along with being a 1L, most of which surprisingly involve free alcohol. That's pretty ironic considering they spent a lot of time during orientation telling us about an AA group in Miami for lawyers. I thought that having an AA group for lawyers was weird, but after seeing how drunk so many 1Ls were last night after just the stress of one week of class, maybe it's not such a bad idea after all. All the free beer though sounds like a much better idea to me.
Well I've written way too much already, even though there is so much more to say about Miami. More to come soon.
Any theories as to why law students drink so goddamned much (besides the stress, of course)? We had happy hours schedules posted in our orientation materials!
Posted by: John | October 01, 2004 at 10:53 PM