9th Ward

We spent an entire day to visit the 9th ward, the residential area most affected by Hurricane Katrina, to volunteer in building a house. No cement or bricks were involved, everything was made of wood and nails. We spent 8 hours measuring, chain-sawing wood planks, and nailing them to the walls and the beams.

"I'm doing this like a retard," I said apologetically to a new acquaintance.

We had seen this guy the night before, at the Cottonmouth Kings' performance, tearing up the dance floor with his amazing swing dance. When we saw him that morning at the construction site, it was a "Hey, weren't you the one who...?" moment.

He was a school teacher, a semi-professional swing dancer, and in his pastime he liked to do voluntary work. He said, "Oh don't worry about feeling like a retard. I used to bring my students to help out here and they did things really slow. I talked to the site supervisor and said, 'sorry man, we're taking things too slow here', and he said, 'Please don't worry. It's not the speed that's important. It's the experience and goodwill that you take home with you that matters'".

As we labored on the house, local residents would drive by in their cars, rap music blasting out from their speakers that were set to maximum volume. At any other time and circumstance I would be avoiding these people because of the things I see in Hollywood gangsta movies. But as they drove by the honked their horns, waved at us and shouted, "Happy New Year y'all!"

Poetry

On our way to see the New Orleans Cottonmouth Kings, I found a man sitting in the middle of the cold street with a typewriter. The sign taped on the typewriter said, "Fresh Poems While You Wait". I stopped and asked if I could take his picture.

"Sure. Thanks for asking by the way. The other tourists just don't bother to ask and I have to bark at them because it's just impolite."
"Oh but do you mind?"
"Yeah no. I mean it'd be better if people just gave me the money, but you can take my picture."
"Oh I'd like your poetry. How does this work?"
"Right. So you give me a theme, and I'll make you a poem, and then you pay."
"Okay. Then make me a poem on.... 'impoliteness'"
"Oh that's a great one."

And the man made me this poem in two minutes flat:

"Polite-ness"

oversensitive america
we complain and whine

i am pissed off or sad.
and yet, what of
please and thank you..

used to death,
tools of five year olds.

i once taught a women

hello and please
and she became much
more popular on the farm

so polite and nice
but i prefer
new england brashness..

and a nice tone of voice
to retain
a spectacle of civility

M Hayden
Dec 28 2009
Frenchmen St.

Torch

We went to a glassworks workshop today in the hopes of discovering a hidden creative talent in making bowls and vases. Just in case being a lawyer doesn't work out. But when I got there and saw the big 2000 degree celcius ovens and the long poking sticks and the glass artworks on display, I got a little overexcited. We had only two hours to get things done.

"Okay," I said to the instructor, "I'm thinking of making at least two glasses that are about this size, and they have to be identical but I want them to have different colors, and also a salad bowl, maybe not the size of a superbig salad bowl but maybe more like a large cereal bowl, not a small one, and then I can't decide whether I want a vase or a cup depending on how much time we have left, what do you think? But if its a vase I don't want it to have those flappy ridges like flower petals because I like my vases just clean and sleek."

Our instructor was a young man who wore cool shades, a black singlet and tattoos on his bare muscled arms. He used to be a janitor at the workshop, and slowly worked his way up to become an artisan. He listened to my prattle patiently and said, "I tell you what. We're gonna make a big glass that can also be a vase. And then we can make a bowl that can also be a vase. And then we gonna make a cup that can also be a glass."

"I also want a paperweight," I said, pushing it.

"Okay. But that's gonna take a while. We make our paperweights seriously around here."

"Why?"

"We get hurricanes," he said with a big smirk.

Ersters

Perhaps a large part of my New Orleans trip was fueled by echoes of Billie Holiday's songs, one of the renditions of which went, "you say oysters, I say ersters, oh let's call the whole thing off."

So I went looking for ersters, and my friends went looking for cheese and wine, and so between us all we settled on Bacchanal. Beyond the doubtful kitchen we found a backyard garden littered with casual patio chairs and campfires and lit torches and the heavy chatter of conversation filling the night air. We chose a table and I went to patiently wait in line for my oysters. To my surprise, they were completely free, except for the big red plastic bucket on the counter that said, "Don't forget to tip the shucker." The shucker seemed to know everyone on the line except me, and he chatted to everyone while shucking the fresh oysters. His customers would come up to him and say, "Whassup Johnny?" The waiter took my order and asked for my name.
"Teez"
"Cheese?"
"Teez. T-E-E-Z."
"Okay, just wait out back at your table until we come out and mispronounce your name."

I liked my ersters even before they came.

Theorems of emotion in motion

While studying today I discovered this note scribbled on the last page of my Corporations Law book, in my handwriting, undated:

" 2 aspects to an emotion:
- Love
- Compatibility

Love means = I know I would be willing to give certain things up for him. I would change for him.

Compatibility means = If I had to change, does that mean we are incompatible and therefore my love is misplaced?

The two prongs fight a battle to the death."

7 hours and 59 minutes

I never thought I'd say this, but exams were pretty exciting. At least I can say it was an entirely new experience for me. Let me draw some empirical comparisons and then you'll see why.

Back in undergrad, approaching exam period I would usually have vague memories of the class and what was taught. I would thus embark on a stressful marathon of the materials one or two days before the exam. I would prepare (i) a collared shirt, because for some reason it is required for exams, (ii) a white-out correction pen for when I write stuff and change my mind, and (iii) a full stomach. This got me through university satisfactorily.

So, I had my very first exam today at HLS. The morning of the exam I prepared (i) my most comfortable hoodie and jeans, and (ii) two packed sandwiches. The night before the exam I had (i) booked a private room in the library, (ii) bought a bottle of water and chocolate milk, and (iii) a big bar of plain dark chocolate. Two weeks before the exam I had (i) read all the materials again, and (ii) prepared a 20-page chart summarizing all the 50-something cases we covered in class.

I arrived on campus on a cold icy-wet morning at 8.15 am, went straight to the private room, laid out my laptop, books, sandwiches, drinks, and chocolate on my table, and waited nervously till 8.30 am. At precisely 8.30 am the exam question file popped up on my screen, indicating it was available to download.

It was an 8-hour exam; the questions were 19 pages long and took me two hours to read. I'm a clerk at the Supreme Court, and the Justice has to decide what to do with the court of appeals decision attached but was too lazy to write an opinion, so she asked me to do it. The case was interesting and seriously believable, and the whole drafting process, combined with the time constraint, was similar to a prolonged adrenaline rush. There were moments of brain blockage. There were moments of desperation when I was certain I was writing crap. There were bathroom trips to ease the tension. A timer window popped up warning me that I had one more hour to go. I swore. I rushed through the last half hour in a frenzy of creative madness. In short, I actually had fun.

So, 7 hours 59 minutes, two sandwiches, and an entire chocolate bar later, I clicked the "submit" button, and thus my draft opinion sped along the virtual road to meet the powers that be. God bless it.

High Rise

It was a beautiful day today. The sun was warm, the birds were twittering, the sky was a brilliant blue, the air was cool and the lulling breeze kept reminding us of that fact. We sat and enjoyed our sandwiches on the outdoor patio of our favorite bakery, basking in the weather. It is December in New England, and yesterday had been freezing.

So the talk turned to climate change. (Ironically, our bakery was called "Hi-Rise".) It started out lightly, with a friend joking that he wouldn't mind climate change if it made the weather warm like this. Another friend mentioned she hated how there are so many people who think that way and it really is not funny and will not be funny at all when the sky starts turning yellow. Another friend declared that he did not appreciate environmentalists enforcing their views upon him as if he was stupid and ignorant, and that such attitudes would backlash against their cause. The previous speaker became incensed, thinking that he was speaking to her personally. The whole conversation then escalated to new levels and a heated debate ensued.

Where did I stand in this conversation? I thought, in the words of Cass Sunstein (the co-author of 'Nudge') "markets markets markets, markets markets markets."

For example, I care about climate change. It is in fact the focus of my current studies. But do I use less water, less electricity, less plastic cups? Maybe not. And why is that?

There is a difference between care and action. Caring can be inherent in the person, can be a personal thing based on a personal experience, it cannot be imposed. You could tell a person to start caring, they may do it and they may not. They may become ashamed of themselves and start changing. Or they may get offended that you suggest they are not caring persons. A number of possibilities may arise.

Action may derive from care, may not arise at all even if you cared, or may be triggered by other, less noble but more practical human characteristics. Such as desire for efficiency, thrift, convenience, or a desire not to be an anomalous part of society. I believe there are a number of noble selfless people in this world, but there are even more people who are just looking out for themselves, because life is a battle. These people need more than just awareness, more than just a lecture on "caring" to really take action.

If solar panels were available, affordable, and reliable in Indonesia, I would have them installed, because it cuts my electricity costs in the long run. If I owned a palm oil plantation, I would have turned it back into dense forests that would retain carbon, and sell carbon credits to make my fortune, if a market for that was robust. If my tumbler didn't make my coffee taste slightly like metal, I would have continued using it instead of the paper cups I use everyday. If no paper cups were made available at all, I would have to buy another tumbler and I wouldn't mind spending more money on a good quality tumbler.

One might argue that markets respond to consumer preferences. But more often than not, it is markets that shape consumer behavior. We just don't realize it. I'm not saying it is useless to spread the message at a grassroots level and getting people to care. But my thoughts are how to get to action.

Full circle.

It's Harvard, and it's exciting, because everybody is determined to be excited. All the Professors and the staff like to say inspirational things like, "Obama sat in this very class", or amusingly competitive things like, "the entire Yale could fit into our new north building", or downright touching things like, "I hope you can someday find a global solution to this crisis, because it will probably not happen in my time".

And then you go to the cafeteria and find yourself casually holding the door open for Nobel prize winner Amartya Sen on your way out. You dream of greatness, of future Nobel prizes, of change because Yes We Can, as we all know. You meet people who say "I want to be President" and you check yourself just right before you laugh because, waitta minute, he might be serious and he might really become one. You speak of your ridiculous dreams and ideas to people and they take you seriously, they say "you will be great", they give you a million more ideas.

You fit in as comfortably as a missing jigsaw piece and therefore you think you could fit in comfortably anywhere in the world, and the boundaries become limitless, with perseverance the only pre-requisite. Contrary to how it sounds... this is a humbling experience. Especially so due to the following thought.

Despite these "great" excitements one particular terrifying and unanswerable question lingers in my head. With whom will I spend the rest of my life with and when will that happen?

Haha. There. I've said it.

I will take no questions.

"Everything!!"

Staff: What would you like today young lady?

Me: Hi! I think I'll have rye bread today
Staff: Would that be marble rye or dark rye?
Me: Oh just normal rye.
Staff: We don't got normal rye ma'am, it's either marble rye or dark rye
Me: Haha okay. Dark rye then.
Staff: And what's going in it?
Me: Everything!!!
Staff: You gotta be a little specific here. Spread?
Me: Okay. Olive kalamata spread on one side, and mayo on the other side.
Staff: Roast beef, roast chicken, roast turkey?
Me: Turkey.
Staff: Lettuce and tomatoes?
Me: Definitely. Oh and sauteed mushrooms too.
Staff: Cheese? Cheddar, pepper-jack, swiss...?
Me: Mmm.... Buffalo mozzarella.
Staff: Mmhh.. mmhhh... how does that look huh?
Me: Looks awesome.
Staff: Thank you. Anything else? You want pickle with that?
Me: No thanks. Can you lightly grill it please?
Staff: Sure can. Just stand aside and wait for a bit, we gotta grill it down to perfection.

My love affair with sandwiches are always taken to a whole new level when I visit America. Granted a British Earl invented the lovely thing, but American decadence and casualness has truly elevated its rank to dazzling levels, whilst maintaining its comforting simplicity. Merely ordering it is an excitement for me.

Luckily the cafeteria makes sandwiches, and as you can see really makes it to order, personalized just for you. The best thing is, the price stays the same no matter how many items you choose to have in it. This makes me a little greedy.