Beginning of 2L Year

I did not plan on a 2+ week writing hiatus with the beginning of classes. In fact, us 1Ls were told all last year that 2L year is busy, but a different type of busy, which I had expected to be more manageable. Last year, my first few weeks were all about making friends, getting used to law school readings, professors, and classes, and learning about the different organizations and opportunities at BU Law. This year, in addition to getting used to my new readings, professors, and classes, I am working on establishing events and starting up the National Security Law Society and International Law Society student organizations as president of both of those organizations. I am so lucky to have the help of two fantastic executive boards with people who are always willing to put in extra time, come up with great event ideas, and help with the planning and implementation of programs.

I will also very soon be involved on the Jessup International Moot Court team for BU Law, which seems like it will take up a lot of time. I applied to be a member of the team over the summer, citing my intense interest in international law and involvement in researching, writing, and debating about international issues for over 8 years, and was told last Thursday that I was one of five members selected! We will be researching the potential disappearance of an island nation (fictional) and what happens to its foreign debt obligations when there are no longer boundaries or property for the people of the nation, yet the government still exists (i.e. is it still considered a state?). I'm really excited for our first meeting on Friday, and to begin with the research and writing, even though we have to produce two briefs (called memorials) about 50 pages each by Christmas. I'm even more excited for next semester when the team will practice using our memorials to make oral arguments in the weeks leading up to the regional weekend competition in New York City in February! If we are chosen to continue in the competition, we will go to Washington DC in April, where teams from all over the world compete against each other in front of former International Court of Justice justices! I know this will result in a significant increase in my work load, but I'm so excited for it that I don't really care right now.

My classes this semester are fantastic. I am taking International Law, Evidence, Immigration Law, and Admiralty Law. The International Law class is essentially building on and supplementing my current knowledge about international relations, and the readings each have case studies of international issues that I find so fascinating that sometimes I don't want to stop when I get to the last assigned page. I had really low expectations for my Evidence class: therefore, I am actually enjoying that class as well. I decided to take Evidence to get my 3:03 certification (it allows law students to represent poor clients in court before you pass the bar, but requires a trial skills class like Evidence to be certified). I'm not sure if I will actually use the certification but I don't want to close any doors for myself, as some jobs require it. Immigration Law and Admiralty Law are both small classes taught by practicing attorneys instead of professors, so they are conducted somewhat differently than normal law classes. I really appreciate the insight from practicing and the practical knowledge from the classes. In addition, the attorney teaching the Admiralty Law classes was recently an American delegate to the conference that drafted the Rotterdam Rules, an international treaty among many states that the US may sign and ratify sometime in the next year. We are studying it in class, and it's awesome to have our instructor say things like "while we were trying to draft this part, the delegate from the Netherlands said 'when my grandfather helped draft the original rules....'" Our instructor also knows many of the attorneys personally who litigated the cases in our casebook, as well as the casebook author, so he has the inside stories on most of the cases. Because of his knowledge, Admiralty Law is probably my favorite class so far.

Outside of law school I have been trying to see all my friends who have returned to the Boston area, as well as take advantage of the fact that I have my car up here this semester. I have attended two BC football games so far, one with Erin, my roommate of 4 years at BC, and one with my dad. Our team is pretty terrible (we have had 3 games and only won the 1AA team game so far), but I still love the atmosphere of GameDay and how many people I run into each time I'm on campus.

GameDay with Dad!! Photo taken from BC FanFoto

My first real Mods tailgating experience, courtesy of Sarah and Katie

 Camilo and I have also decided that we're going to try to do something new, exciting, and fun each weekend, and are taking particular advantage of my car for this. Over Labor Day weekend, I sheepishly asked if he would be interested in going apple picking and doing a corn maze one day. I went apple picking almost every year I lived in Connecticut, but did not have a chance to go since moving to Boston, and I had always wanted to try a corn maze but never had a chance. These are usually family activities, so I was afraid he would think it was too childish for us. However, the next weekend he surprised me with a Groupon he purchased for a corn maze and apple picking about an hour outside the city in Bolton, MA. We drove to the farm, and once we eventually found it (getting lost, as usual), we began our adventure with the corn maze. Camilo held onto the map of the maze and had me pick which way to go at each intersection. Thanks to my incredibly bad sense of direction we spent about an hour making our way through the corn. At one point, he couldn't figure out where we were on the map and we were both totally lost, using the voices of others in the maze to find our way back to something recognizable.

Inside the corn maze

View of the corn maze from above: the entrance and exit are at the bottom left corner

Afterwards, we pet and fed some sheep, goats, and llamas while waiting for the truck to give us a hayride out to the apple orchards. Being from Colombia, Camilo couldn't understand why we Americans thought llamas were so fascinating that we would have them available for petting and feeding. I tried to compare it to Colombians having deer in a fence for children to feed, since we have them running all over New England and they wander in our yards, but because there aren't many deer in Boston I'm not sure if the metaphor worked.

Feeding the goat

Picking apples right off the trees

On the way back from the farm we wanted to find a roadside farm stand to stop and get apple cider from. In our attempt to find a stand (which we eventually did), we stumbled onto a vineyard and winery! I had no idea there was one in Massachusetts so close to us, but we made a point to remember to go back the next weekend to take a tour, have a tasting, and have a picnic together. Therefore, we returned yesterday and did exactly that. The sun was shining brightly, there were hundreds of people on the grounds picnicking and enjoying wine from the winery, and even a live band playing bluegrass-type music. We took a tour, which actually proved more interesting than I had expected after being on brewery and distillery tours before. Perhaps the wine tastings at each station helped: We sampled 5 different wines and got free wine glasses as part of the tour. One thing that makes this winery different and interesting is that it uses many different types of fruit to make wines, not just grapes. My favorite was the Cranberry-Apple wine, so I picked up a bottle before we left. After the winery tour, we unpacked our picnic lunch on the law in front of the live band and enjoyed a couple of glasses of local wine we had just purchased while relaxing on a perfect September afternoon.

Lawn full of families enjoying the day with the winery in the background