It all started when my friend Bobby reminded me of the new(ish) Falling Water Lego set.  For months I have lusted over the set, promising myself that I would buy it to decorate my first office.  (For those who don’t know, I’ve been obsessed with Frank Lloyd Wright since I was seven.)  Then Bobby sends me these photos, taken by his friend who works at the Blanton:

I decided that I must have it.  A quick Google search revealed that it was expensive.  Clearly something I could not afford on my student loan budget.  But then something amazing happened:

Email to my mother:

My birthday is coming up.  Just saying.

http://shop.lego.com/ByTheme/Product.aspx?p=21005&cn=52

Email response:

Hum, I wonder what I bought at the Mall of America a few weeks ago??

Pretty awesome Lego store there.

Email to my mother:

You better not be playing with my emotions!

Picture from my dad’s cellphone:

I usually don’t ask my parents to buy me gifts anymore, but it’s pretty awesome when they happen to find the one thing I actually wanted without any prompting.  Needless to say, I can’t wait until this arrives in Cambridge!

“You know where Creative Commons was first thought up?  About twenty feet from where I’m standing, in the room next door.”

Throwaway statements like this are why I love my Advanced IP class.

Last weekend I braved the cold and headed south to witness the snowiest winter in D.C.’s history.  Below are the pictures I had on my phone.  There are better ones from Karen’s digital camera, but I am still waiting to receive those (hint, Karen).

Karen's street in Columbia Heights

Georgetown University

The World Bank's main building

The World Bank has a 12 story atrium which contains this three story waterfall. All indoors!

View of Congress from near the Supreme Court

OMG SCOTUS

Close up of the Supreme Court

The National Mall

Although brief, my trip included an incredible meal at Cafe Atlantico, lunch with an old friend from Brussels, and countless viewings of this gem.  There’s literally nothing I don’t love about that video.

Snowing.

My friend Karen took this great picture of the Korean War Veterans Memorial.  With all of the snow, you’d think it was a tribute to the soldiers who died in Bastogne.

We’ve spent the last three days of Evidence watching this documentary:

Today during class our professor just decided to call up the lead attorney, Mark Rabil, and Darryl Hunt to answer our questions about the case (via a conferencing system, so we could all hear).  It was one of those cool HLS moments, where we could really apply the doctrine we were learning.

That said, I generally hate that class.  The professor is all over the place, changes the syllabus literally on a daily basis, and aggressively cold calls students to role play:

Prof: “You be the judge.”

Student: “Okay, the judge should-”

Prof: “You BE the judge.”

Student: “Umm…I guess I would-”

Prof: “BE HIM.”

Student: “Umm…counsel, I’m denying your motion…?”

Prof: “Good.”

This week has gone well so far.  I’m trying to get all of my reading done by the end of tonight, so I can spend the rest of the week catching up on my clinical hours.  As part of the Cyberlaw Clinic, I need to spend ten hours each week working on various pro-bono projects relating to cyberlaw.  I don’t think I can tell you about any of the work, which makes blogging about it pretty boring, but as a reader of this site you should be used to that by now.

Also, I added a Google Reader feed to the site (on the right side) because, well, Twitter is dumb.  A lot of you already see these links within Google Reader itself, but the rest of you can now follow along.  BE EXCITED.

My trip to D.C. was postponed to next weekend because of this:

Song of the day: Damien Rice, “Coconut Skins”

This is the best video I could find; not as good as the original recording, but acceptable.