friday legalese wrap up

The Law School offers a Career Perspective Lecture and Lunch on Fridays, so there was no Bento today because I also woke up quite late and didn’t really have time to make one for The Mathematician.

Instead, on Fridays I thought I might make a few reflections on the student side of things.

This was my first official week as a Law Student and if anyone out there is thinking about going to law school you should know that people aren’t kidding when they say that there is a lot of reading. I mean A LOT. But I wouldn’t believe everything you hear about law school being a competitive free for all or teachers being out to humiliate you. My experience so far has been that most of the other students just want to learn and most of the teachers just want to help you do that. I’ve also found 2Ls and 3Ls to be very generous with the time and advice.

The hardest thing for me so far has been finding the balance between reading and real life. I’m finding that a lot of other students are struggling with this too.

The last reflection I have is about Legislation and Regulation. Not all law schools have this course as a required 1L course; in fact, most law school do not. I was surprised to see it, and now that I am a week in, I am surprised that the school doesn’t mention it as a huge benefit earlier on in the admissions process. Basically, the course is designed to introduce students to the “non-court” places that laws and regulations come from. As someone interested in Agency and policy work, I find this stuff especially fascinating, but it also seems to me the course most related to the normal person’s daily life. Most things you encounter are regulated by some agency, from the smoke detectors in your home to the seat belts in your car. So I predict that this is the class I will have the most fun in.

Bento four: sweet and sour blue chicken with carrot salad

For today’s bento we used leftovers from last nights dinner with a bit of a twist from justbento.com. A friend of ours with kids makes chicken nuggets rolled in blue corn flour and fried. Her kids love them because they come out this beautiful reddish purple color. The Mathematician and I like them because they are delicious, and relatively simple to make, although the frying does sometimes make a mess. We have had success finding blue corn flour at The Natural Grocers, which is a kind of Vitamin Cottage Grocery Store.

I saw this recipe for sweet and sour chicken on Just Bento and wondered if it would be a good twist on our Blue Chicken and it turned out it definitely was. We modified the recipe for the sauce, using sugar, cinnamon, cardamom, and red wine vinegar. We also used proportionally less vinegar, so the sauce was light and not very sticky. Last night we had it with some pasta, so for today’s bento we paired it with rice for some variety. In total, today’s bento contains:

Sweet and sour blue chicken
Brown rice
Sesame carrot salad (recipe here)
Peaches and mango

Bento Three: Dried Salmon Flakes

Today’s bentos took a lot of time, but I think they were 100% worth the effort. If I make this box again, though, I am going to have to wake up earlier:

brown rice – from start to cooling finish, brown rice took about 40 minutes with the rice cooker. I spread it out on a cookie sheet after it was done cooking hoping that it would cool faster.

home made salmon flakes – from this just bento recipe. Mine turned out much darker than the ones on Just Bento but they are super flavorful and very delicious. The Mathematician and I actually made these last night. It took about an hour.

veggie gratin cup – also from a just bento recipe. I don’t have silicone baking cups so we made them in pyrex ramekins in the toaster oven. Start to fishing (including cooling) they took almost an hour. I wonder if silicone might cool faster? I made mine with odds and ends from the rest of the weeks veggies, swiss cheese, and mushrooms. Surprisingly good.

Finally, today’s fruit is more peaches (love living in Colorado) and mangos in lemon syrup.

tuna salad bento

One thing I didn’t know about law school going in was the sheer amount of lunch meetings and food-themed events. There is at least one a week, and my first lunch meeting is today. So The Mathematician got a full sized lunch today and I packed myself a little snack for after school.

In today’s bento:

broccoli, mushroom, and lettuce salad
pasta (aldente) with peppers and frozen tuna salad (idea from Just Bento. She suggests freezing tuna salad into these little balls to keep it fresh. It’s supposed to thaw out by lunch time. We’ll see what TM reports this afternoon)
peaches and mangos in lemon juice and sugar syrup (these are left over from yesterday’s bento. I think they kept quite nice; hardly brown at all)

Here is my snack, which is not nearly as pretty but includes mushrooms, red bell peppers, pasta, and a tuna ball.

lunch reading

In an effort to stay somewhat sane and connected to the real world while I’m in school, I’ve decided to try to read one article from the weekly “best of Longreads” email each day during lunch. I’ve justified this in my mind by telling myself that I probably can’t outline cases while eating (and enjoying!) my bento lunches.
So today I started with this article, “The Woman in 606” from The Stranger. The article chronicles Christopher Frizzelle’s search for answers after a neighbor jumps from her apartment window. Personally, I had no idea that marijuana could interact with pre-existing trauma or mental illness. Part of me wishes that I had known that this research was out there when I was working with my students at the detention center.
But Fizzelle’s story also reminded me how isolated we are in the United States especially, and how desperately connection with other people is needed. An important reminder as I work towards being a non-isolated commuter.
And now, I fear, I cannot procrastinate my class readings and outlining any longer.

bento one

Today we tried our first bento boxes for lunch. Thanks to a lot of prep yesterday (washing and cutting veggies, marinating and grilling meat, and generally thinking ahead) they didn’t take too long to assemble this morning. I’ve decided to try Bentos because I don’t know if I have access to a fridge here at school and I like the idea of visually being reminded to be more balanced in the foods I am eating. Since I generally make The Mathematician’s lunch too, he gets to try bentos by default.
My many thanks go to JustBento.com, which has given me a wealth of ideas and a fabulous weekly bento planner.

Today’s bento contains:
garlic ginger beef
vegetable salad (including broccoli, carrots, red bell peppers, celery, and red leaf lettuce. Lots from the farmers market)
fried potatoes (extra from last night’s dinner)
peaches and mango (covered in a lemon juice/sugar syrup, hopefully to prevent discoloring)

Here are a few pictures of our bentos this morning. Since we don’t have “official” bento boxes yet, we did a bit of improvising.

One important thing that I learned this morning was packing a bento tightly. I have about a 2 hour commute and things shifted a bit within the compartments that my lunch box had. So now I know…

Hello world!

I’ve decided to start a blog so I can keep everyone updated on how things are going in law school and other super exciting (hopefully) areas of my life. Stay tuned.