Finals

Well, it's that time of year again. Finals. Although final exams are stressful anywhere, in law school they are particularly trying. And due to the close proximity of Thanksgiving to exam time this year, I am feeling less prepared than usual. As such, I will be AWOL for the next two weeks or so as I attempt to learn a semester's worth of Accounting, Real Estate Development, and Corporate Law in about a week and a half. While you're waiting, here are a few good blogs to read:

Wanderlust & Lipstick

Mr. & Mrs. Smith, the blog

The Man in Seat Sixty-One

Enjoy, and wish me luck!
kat

Off to Arizona...

As much as I love winter (for a maximum of three days, four if I'm skiing) and as much as I wish I could stay in Ann Arbor freezing my little tail off and studying for finals, it is finally time for me to return to the ancestral home for a bit of family, food, and photographs. After class I will be flying from chilly Detroit to sunny Sierra Vista, the small town in southern Arizona that I call home (along with about 4 other places, but this was the first). Sierra Vista is a beautiful little town, nestled in between the mountains, close enough to the border for 24-hour taco stands and weekly viewings of coyotes crossing the border, but far enough to house a very large Army base, Fort Huachuca, home of the Buffalo Soldiers and where my grandfather was once stationed.

I love Arizona.

I love the desert and the canyons with no cell phone service.

I love the enormous indoor malls in awful, awful Phoenix.

I love the coyotes that once met me on the street while I was running, putting an end to my jogging days.

I love the cacti and scorpions and rattlesnakes and other things that can kill you.

I love the cults and crazies and senior citizens that the desert inevitably attracts.

I love that my driver's license is good for 45 years and that you can burn in Tucson one day and ski in Flagstaff the next.

I love that my family will eat collard greens and fried rice and tamales in the same week.

I love the little park named after my grandfather, with its doggie run and baseball diamond and beautiful sign with my family's names on it.

I really love my grandmother's house, the only house that has been consistent for my entire life, and her phone number, which is the only number I have memorized thanks to the memory function of cellular phones.

I love that Inn n' Out is finally in Arizona.

I love that Krispy Kreme is still in Arizona.

I love tumbleweeds.

I love that McCain came just a little bit close to losing the state.

I love that I can substitute "love" for "grateful" and it means the same thing.

I could make a more complete list of things that I am grateful for but:
a) it would take forever;
b) nobody really has time to read it; and
c) I'm in class.

Suffice it to say that I am thankful for travel, thankful for Obama (Mr. & Mrs., but especially Mrs.), and very, very grateful for everyone who takes the time to read this little bloglet.

Thank you.

kat

ijetset youjetset wejetset

I just found the sweetest little travel site, wejetset.com. wejetset is a combination of swanky travel wonderfulness.

It's a travel store with super fly products like foldable bikes
and adorable suitcases.
It's the place to find all of the best travel guides, including my new favourites, the Not For Tourists Guides. It's a magazine with articles about the latest and jet-settiest places to go, things to do and stuff to buy anywhere. Mr. and Mrs. Smith, one of my favourite travel resources, writes for them, their latest article is about Venice's Palazzo Barbarigo Hotel and Anne Rumpf just wrote an article about social media for business travelers. wejetset is a location in itself whether you just want to read about some exciting new destination or are looking for all of the toys and info that you're always missing when planning that perfect getaway. So the next time you're set to jet set, visit wejetset first.

(I should point out that I don't get paid or solicited for any of my blog posts, I just really like writing about cool new travel-y things! Enjoy!)

Smile on the Go

Before my trip to San Francisco this summer I was looking for a travel toothbrush and some other little travel-y gadgets. Well okay, mostly I was looking for an excuse to shop at Sephora. While I was there I saw the cutest little travel toothpaste pack from Go Smile that I just had to get. For $12, the little pack comes with a travel toothbrush and two toothpastes, one for AM and one for PM. Go Smile is well known for keeping teeth bright and clean and though I sadly can't afford the entire Go Smile system, I can afford this little $12 packlet that keeps my teeth so fresh and so clean on my trips. The pack lasted me for several weekends away and I was oh so sad when it ran out. I highly recommend this for people who are looking for a travel-sized toothpaste pack that will fit in your carry-on and keep your smile bright for your travel pics!

My First Guest Post!

Hello all!

Karen at the fabulous blog Europe a la Carte (isn't that the cutest name ever?!?) asked me to write a post about living in Europe for her blog. I penned a little somethin' something' about living in St. Andrews, Scotland when I was a junior in college. I was lucky enough to spend nine months in Scotland writing a thesis in Divinity (religion) and working as a waitress at the St. Andrews Links over the summer.

I know it takes an extra five seconds or so, but click on the link and read my guest post on Europe a la Carte!
Travel Well!
kat

Florence... not just for David anymore

The travel section in the Times Online published a wonderful article today about luxury shopping in Florence, Italy. For an up-and-coming BAP like myself, my tour of Florence was a little less about Grand Hotels and a little more about lovely hostels in the countryside.

While the Times article discusses the shuttles to the designer outlets a little outside of town and the exclusive boutiques that expect you to buy something if you enter, I spent my pennies at the Uffizi, on overpriced gelato, and haggling at the market stands in the center of town.


The article also discusses delightfully overpriced restaurants where the beautiful people can stare at each other and themselves in the mirrors adorning the walls. That's all well and good but my beautiful 20-year-old self was perfectly satisfied eating pizza and pasta from small, out of the way and much less expensive restaurants further into town. But that's the wonderful thing about Florence. The city has the capacity to enthrall a single girl traveling alone and on a budget, but can also entertain that same single (or not-so-single) girl when she's a full-fledged lawyer with a credit card and a spacious closet!

Florenc is beautiful, tourist-friendly, and occasionally a total rip off. The Duomo is gorgeous, not as stunning as St. Peter's Basilica in Rome, but no amateur work either, and the sculptures adorning the streets and parks are a constant reminder that yes, you lucky girl, you are in Italy. I highly recommend.

Photo Friday on the Best Friday Ever!

Hello all! Thanks to deliciousbaby, Photo Friday is really getting popular!

This week I had the incredible honour of monitoring a polling station in Dayton, Ohio. Luckily, I vote absentee in Arizona so I didn't have to stand in line and could actually do something to help. I drove the beautiful three hour drive from Ann Arbor to Dayton on Monday morning. The midwest is beautiful in autumn, it reminds me of New England but with fewer trees. I was surprised when I drove into Dayton, the town is so full of character! The downtown has beautiful sculptures and buildings and an incredible performing arts center. Several people told me about the incredible patronage of some of the members of the community who provided the town with a world class dance company and arts facilities that rival some of the best in the country.

The cute little Oregon district has a few really adorable cafes and restaurants worth checking out but none of them are open at two on a Monday so I missed out... However, at the end of the district there is a great little pub, the Dublin Pub, that has really good fish and chips and a to-die-for chocolate mousse. Yes, I spoiled myself. I was so nervous for the election that I figured I needed at least one last good meal! My election protection training was amazing, over 150 lawyers from all over the country (and even one woman from the Virgin Islands!) came to Dayton to help monitor the polls and make sure that every single person's vote counted. After receiving my assignment I found my way to the wonderful woman's house who volunteered a room for, well... volunteers. Lisa and her daughter Alex and au pair from Ecuador, Andrea, were incredibly sweet and I was so grateful to them for volunteering their space so that I didn't have to pay for a hotel!

I set three alarms, including an adorable online alarm at kukuklok to be sure that I would get up at 4am, I had to be at the polls at 5.45. Luckily, I was so nervous, I was up with the first alarm, a few minutes before my poor stepfather called me from Arizona, where it was only 2am, to wake me! After showering as quietly as possible and curling my hair (I wanted to look professional while protecting the vote, and you know, just in case Obama showed up...) I headed out into the night and found my way to the church where I would spend the next 14 hours. At 5.45 in the morning a line was already starting at the polls. I was in Jefferson Township, a historically black township in rural Ohio, about 20 minutes outside of Dayton. About 40 people were lined up to vote, mostly elderly Black grandparents who were sure to wake up and get in line as early as possible. One woman even said she didn't leave her house on Monday just in case something happened to her car! All day people were anxious and excited to vote, some even asking us to take pictures of them so they could tell their grandchildren about the day they voted for Barack Obama.

Unfortunately, there were also a few people who couldn't vote. You see, the system is broken in this country. The way that we vote is ridiculous. There were so many people who were terrified that their vote wouldn't count because in the past, it hasn't. And by "past", I mean 2000 and 2004. There were people who were sure that the government was going to throw away their ballots- as they have in the past, that the machines were faulty- which they usually are, and that someone was going to steal this election- well, you all remember that.

The worst part of my day was when the precinct judge, who did an incredible job, had to turn a man away because he didn't have the proper identification. I even drove him to his house to try to find something but even though this man is an engineer, he doesn't have a job because all of the factories and plants have closed and outsourced the jobs to Mexico and India. He didn't have a driver's license or a car and rode his bike to the polls. He didn't have a utility bill because he lives with someone else who pays the bills. He didn't have a pay stub of course, because there are almost no jobs in Jefferson Township. He didn't have anything and he couldn't vote. It was so unfair, and I started to cry as I watched him pedal away furiously on his bike, trying to get out of sight before the tears started streaming down his face. Even when the results started pouring in, even when they announced that we had taken Ohio, all I could think about was that this man, wherever he was, was devastated because he didn't get to vote for the first Black president. And it's wrong. It's wrong that in this country anyone should have to stand in line for 12 hours to vote. It's wrong that anyone should EVER have to wonder if their vote will count, if the election will be stolen, or if someone is sending the worst machines to their neighborhood. I understood for the first time on Tuesday that for so many people in this country, voting is the only say they have over who controls their lives. The people in Jefferson Township were not just voting for President. They were voting for their Senators and city council members, for judges and state commissioners, and for two propositions that will help them raise money to provide their children with the schools they deserve and stop the city of Dayton from taking over their historic community and destroying their tax base. The city has already raised their property taxes to absurd levels, raised them at a time when property values are plummeting all over the country. They have taken away their jobs and bought up the best land in the town. The people are trapped. They can't work if there are no jobs but they can't move because no one will buy their houses. They can't afford to send their children to college, which is just as well because the schools are so terrible that they probably wouldn't get in anyways. They have no control over their world, over what happens around them every day, and the only time that they have a voice is on the first Tuesday in November. And no one should ever, ever take that away from them. It just isn't right.

I learned a lot on Tuesday and finally found my reason to become a lawyer (and just in time too, I was seconds away from dropping out and buying a glass-bottomed boat in Guam). We finally have a President who will put someone in charge of the EPA who actually likes the environment, someone in charge of FEMA who has done more than just raise Arabian horses, someone at the head of the Department of Justice who went to a law school where you have to do more than write your name and draw a pirate on a matchbook to get in (as Bill Maher so eloquently put it) and can actually spell the world J-U-S-T-I-C-E, if we're lucky we'll even have a Secretary of the Treasury who can count and a Secretary of Defense who can add things up. Just having qualified, thinking people in the White House again will make more change than anything we can imagine. But one man in Ohio will never be fully satisfied because he didn't get to vote. And I'm going to make it my mission to never forget him, and to change the way we vote in this country, so that everyone can be heard, and every citizen of this amazing country can truly celebrate their freedom.