Roosevelt Walter

There are some decisions you make in life which you look back at and go, 'WHAT THE HELL WAS I THINKING?'
The above-mentioned is one of them.
Still makes me cringe.

Sit down. Reflect.

I've not written here for too long. I've settled into DC and am liking it a lot more than I did when I first got here - I actually felt terrible about having to leave New York a couple of weekends ago. But now that I've spent some time here and gotten to know some of the people, I can truly say that I'm very happy to be here.

It's not easy to uproot yourself from the comfort of home, and with the thrill of independence comes additional responsibilities. What I've loved about the States so far is how much easier it is to just meet and have conversations with people. Sure, you're not going to be best friends with everyone, but just that heightened possibility of making a lasting connection is so... attractive to me. So attractive that I actually find myself thinking of coming back to live here after I graduate. Which is very premature but also an interesting development. I don't need to be a highly-paid lawyer. Hell, I don't need to be a lawyer. I'd trade being a big fish in a small pond for being a fish in the large ocean. All this may change, and today Michael said something that I won't forget for a long time (something to the effect of how I shouldn't waste the opportunity he thinks I have to rise to the top of the legal profession), but right now I can envision myself earning a reduced - but still decent - paycheck, being able to get off work at 6 everyday and having the weekends to myself, living in this great country and among these wonderful people.

Sweet dream or beautiful nightmare? Either way I don't want to wake up.

The Outlaw party last weekend was held in this beautiful place called Artists' Inn Residences, on R street in Dupont, inside one of those lovely houses we walked past when I was in DC in Dec and marveled at. I did quite a bit last weekend. Went up to Ikea in College Park and reveled in the vaguely familiar Swedish meatballs, went for hot yoga with Michael and Keith at this cute place called Down Dog, headed to a club called Cobalt after the above-mentioned Outlaw party, had breakfast at this wonderful bookstore cum cafe (located at the back of the bookstore) called Kramer's (last photo above), did a spot of studying in Dupont the next day and chatted with this cute blonde sales associate in the G-star store at Dupont. Oh I should have gotten a number :(

Yesterday (Friday) night, I headed out to meet some of the Outlaw people at Nellie's, whose four walls (and open-air balcony on the second floor) contained the greatest number of gorgeous people I have seen in quite some time - or ever. You can go crazy just looking around at the people there.

Today I headed to the Georgetown main campus for this event called Homecoming, which is basically an alumni-sponsored beer festival. For 10 dollars, you get all the beer you can drinks plus unlimited pizza, burgers, hotdogs, ice cream and the like. They even had a band playing on stage and a whole buncha Hoyas jumping up and down - they don't really know how to dance - to the music. Mike then brought me to this Chinese tea house in the Georgetown neighborhood and I had a tea called the floating lantern. The tea leaves are tied up to resemble what I thought was a champagne bottle cork, but when you submerge it in hot water it slowly beings to unfurl and resembles one of those red Chinese lanterns that are ubiquitous come Chinese New Year.

I'm not looked at my current situation through rose-tinted lenses. It isn't easy being new and looking and sounding different from everyone else, and I bristled last night when someone asked me - completely non-maliciously by the way - whether I understood the meaning of 'break-up' and 'trivia'. What Jin said is true - when you don't speak the same way they do, there may be the tendency to presume that your standard of English is inferior or that the scope of your vocabulary, or for that matter your understanding of what they may deem "American" terms, is limited.

But all this I shall take in stride.

JS's friend Sean is coming over from NY in a few hours, and I have a lot of work to do, so I shall sign off now and wish you all a good weekend, wherever you're reading this from. Have been in an amazing mood for the past few days. Like, amazing. I don't really know why. Something to do with living in and enjoying the moment, I think.

August

Keith said that TTThio should not have used that term in describing Singapore's parliament, as it was more befitting for the United States Supreme Court. We were there bright and early at 9am this morning, standing in a steady drizzle, waiting for the first case before the new bench to commence (the actual court season only starts in October, this was an extraordinary hearing).

The case? Citizens United v Federal Elections Commission. Also known as the Hillary movie case. A buncha right-wingers made a movie last year about why Hillary Clinton was not fit to be president (which is really a moot point no?) and it fell foul of certain provisions barring corporate contributions to political campaigns under the McCain Feingold Act. And so like good Americans, these people decide to challenge the constitutionality of the statute, and it eventually worked its way up to the Supreme Court. Today's was a re-hearing that was ordered before the Court went into recess last summer. Don't ask me why a re-hearing was ordered I don't know the details.

Anyway, subject matter itself already has significant consequences for political campaigning, balanced against First Amendment rights to free speech, and what made the case all the more riveting (and well-publicized) was the fact that it would be the first time Elena Kagan, Obama's pick for Solicitor General and former Dean of Harvard Law, would be arguing before the bench. The first woman to hold that office, arguing for the first time before a panel that included the third female Supreme Court justice, also presiding over her first ever hearing in that capacity.

But wait it gets better. For the petitioner, Theodore B Olsen, former Solicitor General and perhaps best known (and loathed?) for winning 2000's Bush v Gore, and most recently - and surprisingly - for his attempts to overturn California's Prop 8. As amicus curiae in support of the appellant (Citizens United), Floyd Abrams, perhaps best known - to us anyway - for New York Times v Sullivan.

And as amicus curiae in support of the respondent - and on behalf on Sen John McCain - Seth P Waxman, former Solicitor General under President Clinton. Talk about the number of great minds in one courtroom.

But flash back to 9am in the morning. We get there thinking we were early, and to our dismay, see a long winding line, and are told it is unlikely we'll get in to catch the full arguments (they only let the first 50 in for that). I suppose Keith was right in saying that was a sign of how Americans are so much more civic-minded than Singaporeans, although it may be a case of apples and oranges.

Anyway, and luckily for us, we were allowed to go in and sit right at the back, for what was to have been a disappointingly quick 5 minute observation, but stretched to 15. Hey, I'll take what I can get.

So we got into the courtroom (which is surprisingly bigger than I thought it would be), and oral arguments were well on the way, with Kagan arguing before the notorious nine. There they were, Alito, Ginsburg, Kennedy, Stevens, Roberts, Scalia, Thomas, Breyer and Sotomayor (in that order), perched on the high bench overlooking the packed courtroom. Scalia was expressing disbelief at one of her submissions (woo big surprise there) and Roberts, Stevens and Kennedy subsequently engaged in active questioning. Stevens sounds surprisingly sprightly for his age. Ruth looked rather regal, Alito opened his trap once to ask a question of little consequence, and Sotomayor just sat there, leaned over slightly to look at her colleagues as they were speaking, and didn't say a word while I was there - but according to news reports she had jumped into questioning within 20 minutes of oral argument. Clarence Thomas just sat there like a grumpy ol' bear. A placeholder if there ever was one.

Haha I wasn't really paying attention to the arguments (and even if I was I sure as hell wouldn't want to recite them) but it was nevertheless a great experience, just to see these people who have been so talked about. It's like the law school student's version of going to the VMAs or something.

SPEAKING OF. 2 things and then I gtg.

(1) Today in Securities Regulation class the professors asked my classroom of about 50 who thought that the pay of bankers should be restricted, to say, not more than 1 million dollars. Not one, not one person, put up their hand. One of the Profs (both work for the SEC) went, 'woah, you guys are all Republicans huh'. And I thought to myself, 'nope, we're just self-interested'. I mean, if bankers' pay is reduced, how long before lawyers are affected too? Ultimately everyone is looking out for themselves.
(2) I may actually be at the VMAs on Sunday! Haha. Not in Radio City, but hopefully, possibly, somewhere around trying to catch a glimpse of celebrities on the Red Carpet. Leaving for the Big Apple tomorrow in the afternoon, and I'm actually really excited even though I've already been there a couple times before. Zhengx got me a ticket for Wicked! WICKED!!

Haha life is good.

Philadelphia Dreaming

That's my favorite shot of the whole trip.

I wasn't sure about Philly when I was dropped off near Reading Terminal Market and walked down Market Street to my hostel. The street was supposed to be the pre-eminent street (turns out that its best days are behind it) but was lined with mom and pops and discount stores.

But by the time I took that photo around 5.30 pm that day, having spent the past 4 hours walking through the various neighborhoods, the city had won me over. The grid system makes it easy to navigate, the city (what you want to see of it, in any case) is pretty compact and walkable, and I love the little lanes that cut through the blocks, some with cobblestone surfaces and not big enough for cars to drive through. The brick houses with wrought-iron balconies, set back from leafy streets (what I like to call the standard 'East Cost townhouse' style, which you can see variations of in Washington DC, Philly, New York and probably - because I haven't been there yet and so don't know for sure - Boston). Oh, I also think its really clever how they don't have pedestrian traffic lights for most smaller road crossings. Just zebra stripes, and you watch the main traffic light and take your cue from there. I always do that anywhere I go (except maybe Saigon where even main traffic lights were non-existent) so it was nice to see a city where you actually had to do it.

The $2 I spent on the walk (organized by the hostel) was a great investment. I got to see a lot of what I wanted, from Society Hill to South Street (with the beautiful mosaic wonder known as the Magic Garden - see it in my facebook album) to the Italian Market in South Philly, home to the famous competing cheesesteak joints. In a decidedly un-Simon move, I then proceeded to walk to Chinatown and across half the length of the Ben Franklin bridge (where I took that gorgeous photo above) with 2 of the leftovers from the walking tour, some dude from Austria and a German girl doing an internship with a small criminal law firm in New Jersey (which is just across the water from Philly) who looked eerily similar to Scar Jo circa Lost In Translation. If the law thing doesn't work out she'll have a great career as an impersonator really.

Speaking of doing things that don't come naturally to me - I actually stayed in a hostel! Yes it was only for a night, and yes I did it purely for financial reasons, but it wasn't as bad as I thought it would be. By the time I got back, the lights in the dorm were long gone and I had to use the light from my phone to find whatever I needed to settle in for the night, and then sat down in the corridor outside talking to Jin (which must have made people think me crazy). Would definitely do it again. In fact I am staying in a hostel in Chicago too, and this one looks pretty great so fingers crossed I'll enjoy it as much as I did the one in Philly.

So at night I part ways with my Teutonic friends and make my way to Rittenhouse Square, which is this upscale part of town surrounded by hotels, cafes, shops etc. and from there I walk a little more to catch 'Never the Sinner', which is a recreation of the infamous Loeb and Leopold case that rocked Chicago early in the 20th century. 2 young and rich youth who subscribe to Nietzsche's theory of the 'superman' set out to prove that they are above the laws of man and human conceptions of tradition and morality, and they kidnap and kill a young boy as a 'philosophical experiment'. They were defended by the great civil liberties champion Clarence Darrow, and much of the play recreates the transcript of the court case. There's also a homosexual theme running through the play - in exchange for satiating Leopold's sexual desires, Loeb expects the former to acquiesce in his heinous plan to commit murder. Some parts are rather chilling, and I was disturbed that I found myself rooting for the remorseless murders to escape the gallows, although they were deliberately portrayed in a sympathetic light. I also realized that we've all been guilty, at one point or another, of thinking ourselves invincible superman, apart from the masses and being able to do anything we please. I am, anyway. Scary what that can lead to.

Contemplation was followed by a stroll through Philly at night, which was fine although I was in the homicide capital of the country, because most of that goes on outside the city center. This was when the skies decided to open on me and I was hit by torrents of rain, to the point of being soaking wet, and I eventually dried myself and waited under the awning of what looked to be a closed restaurant, waiting for the rain to abate. And waiting. And waiting. And feeling cold and miserable. Until a kind lady from inside offered me a broken (but still usable) umbrella, which I gladly accepted. I do believe in 'what goes around comes around', and I couldn't help but think that was my good fortune for having helped a couple of women carry their heavy suitcases up the stairs of the hostel earlier in the day.

Day 2 was spent walking around the various neighborhoods, soaking in the city and its people. Then I came across this street which had a rainbow symbol attached to it (the street sign). I hadn't found the gayborhood. It had found me. Yes, Philly actually has an official gayborhood, and I came across many great places to sit down and watch the world go by (aka cruise, and be cruised). Would have patronized one of them myself if I wasn't... by myself. Yes, traveling alone can be a lonely experience, but better than no traveling at all I suppose.

In the evening, I got back to the hostel, got my bag and took the metro down to the Wachovia Center, for the main purpose of my trip to Philly, Britney in the Circus Tour! It's funny, there was a baseball match going on in the field nearby, and that provided a distinct contrast between the target audience for both events on the subway. It was an amazing feeling to walk to the arena from the station, look in front and behind, and witness a stream of people making their way there.

The concert was great. I took a video of the opening scene, and the reason its shaky at some points was because my hands and legs were shaking with excitement and anticipation. She didn't interact much with the crowd, apart from 2 shout-outs to Philly, but at least she got the city right this time. It was really a concert for the hardcore fans though, because many of the songs were album tracks from In The Zone and Blackout (and yeah only a hardcore fan would have purchased the latter). This sweet remix of Baby One More Time was probably the most well-received track, which provides an interesting study in the general public's penchant for nostalgia and the good ol' days.

Ok I'm really sleepy (which is not great for my plans to do some reading before I leave tomorrow afternoon) so I'll just wrap up here. Philly has a great train station, up there with Grand Central and Union. Massive, impressive, ornate. Look at the pictures on fb la (and leave some comments in the album). Ciao.

Bottom-line : I like Philly. Not love like NY. But like good enough.