Heartbreak

So, this post is a tribute to my fierce comrades in the Utah Football MUSS - comrades who, like myself, suffered a particularly devastating defeat at the hands of the outrageous, nay, infamous BYU Cougars at the end of the football season! Alas! Laura Chamberlain once was a missionary company and is now my comrade in the "holy war," as it is termed (ironic, no?).

Randa's Baptism

December 18 was a really special day. My good friend Randa Vieira was baptized. Randa and I met our first day of law school and immediately became friends. Her enthusiasm is terrifically contagious, and before I knew it we were making all kinds of wild plans. Almost the moment she was introduced to the Gospel she embraced it and sought to learn more. I have never known anyone to soak up the truth with more energy and faith. She is a wonder and an amazing example of faith, humility and devotion.

Mission Reunion

I have finally compiled my pictures from the mission reunion, and I realized I have no pictures at all of companions or other missionaries I served with. They're all of missionaries I taught in the MTC. It was super to see them again. They were so prepared and served very well. In the words of Brother Chan, a companion teacher at the MTC, "YanWaih KeuihDeih Heui HeungGong, Ngoh Hou FongSam." "With them going to Hong Kong, I don't worry about Hong Kong." Amen, ChahnHingDaih!



Elder Sung, Christeson





Elder Pun, Payne






My two solo sisters, Sister Pun/Perkins and Sister Bou/Biggs








Spattering of great missionaries

Classic Skating

Big Cottonwood Canyon

An overnighter in Big Cottonwood canyon gave us a bit of a break from school. The weather was perfect, and we got a nice campsite with plenty of room for the enormous tent we eventually managed to put up. As we all know, camping is all about the food. Mmmm, hot dogs. Some of our attendees declared this is a food that is only deliberately eaten while camping. In all other situations it ought to be avoided, like spam or sardines.









Unable to bear an entire evening in the forest with clean fingers, we assembled banana boats, complete with marshmellows, peanut butter, and chocolate chips. mmmmmmm.










Maya was a competitive sumo wrestler in high school in Japan (this is a true story). She was showing us the proper technique. It was very educational.




Campfires and campfire songs. The only bummer about the whole night was that I didn't get a picture of everyone singing "Tootie-Ta".

Arches Adventures...

So, here are a few shots of our Arches trip - pre-broken leg, that is. It was PERFECT weather day one of our excursion. There wasn't a cloud in the sky the first day, and we had a great time scampering about on the rocks.





Our group was terrifically international, now that I think of it. Randa from Brazil, Gary from China, Yoko from Japan, Ivan from Guatemala, etc.


All I can say is Chinese guys are tougher than you think. Little Gary carried Laura on his back for what seemed like miles on end. It was amazing. Saddly enough my camera memory was already full by that time, so I didn't manage to capture that super-human feat. Anyway, here are a few more pictures...

Law School Is All About The Pizza

For my inaugural posting I thought it only fitting to discuss law school and the attenuating elements thereof. First off, let me disabuse all my avid readers of the erroneous idea that law school is a merciless pit of torture, a vortex of doom and befuddlement instituted only to shorten the life span of unsuspecting liberal arts graduates. Being a law student is ten times better than being a lawyer. Let me here enumerate just ten of the many terrific perks of being a law student:

1) In reality, law school is not unlike resorting back to infancy. I mean they feed you, clothe you, and even give you a place to sleep. We have pizza almost five days a week, sponsored by the Federalist Society, the Legal Career Services Office, or (my personal favorite) the Jackie Chiles Law Society, to name a few of our benefactors. I am convinced SJQ single-handedly finances the entire Salt Lake City pizza industry. And they're terrifically accommodating to those that simply "don't touch the stuff" by sponsoring veggie wraps with the Woman's Law Caucus or vegan Indian food with the Natural Resources Law Forum. If that's not enough, they hand out free SJ Quinney College of Law t-shirts and caps for just about every event, and every 1L has his own personal study carrel located in a room that also conveniently houses two couches and a LoveSac. I'm telling you, it's Utopia here.

2) You get ready access to fancy-pants websites that you don't have to pay for. Who hasn't aspired to "be among that number" with access to Westlaw.com or LexisNexis? Real lawyers pay a pretty penny for access to those babies.

3) Your peers are all interesting. Let's be honest, nobody sitting on a law school admissions committee is really looking at your grades. Anyone insane enough to subject themselves to the LSAT has got to be fascinatingly odd. Looking around the room right now I see a 70 year old retired Spanish professor, a Brazillian lawyer, a mother of eight, a business woman from India, two doctors, a cancer survivor, a Chinese chemist, a spattering of college and professional athletes, and an old Japanese man (nobody is really sure who he is, but his carrel is in the middle of the room). I shall only say interesting conversation is never wanting.

4) You don't have to deal with freshmen. Admittedly, I was a freshman once. I even had my trendy clothes and my long blonde hair and my cell phone glued to my ear as I cavalierly waltzed across campus as though I owned the world (which, of course, I did, for don't all freshmen?) because I was in college and had something to prove to someone (or myself?). But the law school is like a completely separate entity on campus. We, and only we, have access to our own building. In fact, the building is only barely on campus. Ten more feet to the west and we wouldn't even be on the same block. It's a beautifully elitist society.

5) You get a whole week off for FALL break in addition to Spring break. This is only fun if your best friend doesn't break her leg hiking in southern Utah, but even then you can still flaunt the fact that you don't have school to your friends that are going off to chemistry or English or some other absurd class.

6) Your spam filter really works with the law school email.

7) You get prime parking for the Utah football games. And that's a big deal. The law school is but a stone's throw from the stadium. Though we all wish the Utes were doing better this season...

8) Every day you read interesting real life accounts of people doing everything from "allowing one's cattle to enter his neighbor's close" to people assuming the risk of breaking their knees on a Coney Island ride called "The Floppy". And then there is the fascinating world of civil procedure that affords not only a look into the spectacular dynamic arena of court rules, but also naptime if you spent most of the previous night reading up on tort cases involving trains running over people and the like.

9) You wake up every morning and think to yourself, "Say, I can actually understand all that fine print on those long mortgage contracts and other such fascinating documents! It is great to be alive!"

10) You can hold your nose in the air as you nasally proclaim to your fellows that you speak a bit of Latin. "Who else, pray, can tell me the meaning of res ipsa loquitur?"

So, there it is; the truth about law school. For my part I can't understand why anyone wouldn't study law. In any case, thanks for reading.