It is finished

Wow! I am going to law school next year. Man, it was tough. Ok, let's do the long and short of it. I applied to FSU, USC, Pepperdine, U Chicago, Loyola Chicago, Northwestern, Northeastern, Boston College, Boston U, NYU, Fordham, UPenn, and Rutgers-Camden. I never heard from BU nor UPenn (weird!). U Chicago waitlisted me. The rest accepted me.

Quickly, as shown by my previous message, it became the battle of two schools: Loyola Chicago and NYU. And deciding b/n the two was maybe the most difficulty and draining thing I have ever done (side note: I really think that this statement is true, which says a lot about the tough times in my life. I'm a lucky kid).

One the one hand, Loyola is a great Jesuit school, filled with a tradition of social justice, spirituality, and a high percentage of law students that go into public interest. But the kicker is this. They offered me full tuition, and I was the inaugural recipient of the award. What a gift!

On the other hand, NYU is the fourth ranked law school in the most recent US News and World Report rankings, has a serious interest in public interest (though it is most definitely populated by people who will most likely work for big time firms for big time money), and offered me $15,000 a year (tuition is $39k).

The debates in my head were almost a grueling with the debate I had with my dad. That was terrible. In the end, I am going to NYU. I am very VERY excited about going there, but I still feel very sad about turning down such an amazing gift. They give 3 full tuition scholarships, all in honor of different contributers to LUC. I felt blessed to have that distinction given to me.

In the end two things struck me and lead me to choose NYU over LUC (many of the other considerations made the schools pretty evenly matched). One, I don't think that not wanting to turn down a scholarship is not reason enough to choose one school over another. And, more importantly, New York offered me family. My cousins live in Queens. Monica's family lives in Philly and has family in NYC.

Man, that was hard to do. I need to recoup so I can truly be psyched about going to NYU. The Big Apple. Gotham City. Sweet.

Where I've been...

Below is where I've been in the USA. Some were day trips, but I count them b/c I did significant things there. Like I never spent the night in Kentucky, but I did bail someone out of jail. I never slept in Wyoming, but I did walk around Yellowstone National Park there. I never slept in South Carolina, but I did skim-board at Myrtle Beach.

And these are the countries I've been to in the world. There might be some more in Central America, but I was too young to remember much of it. Also, I have been to an island owned by Colombia, but that is nothing like the rest of the country, so I didn't mark it. I am painfully aware of how red the west and how gray the east is. I would love to check out Africa, especially surfing on the souther coast and partying all over the rest of it. I'd love to go to the Holy Land. I'd love to rock out India with my boy Pushkar. I'd love to have a cabana on the beach in Thailand, surf again in Australia, and then sing very bad karaoke in Japan before visiting Criollo in China. Maybe one day.


Shout-out to Isabel for this idea. I met your Marista friend, Carmen, at NYU. She's very nice.

Do your own maps, thanks to douweosinga (what does that mean?).

Welcome Chorizo!

Our good friend, Chorizo (number 5) made his professional debut at the Milwaukee Brewers game yesterday. He made a cameo last year, but the club violated mascot rules, so they needed to wait until now to bring him on for good. He joins Polish and Italian sausages, hot dogs, and I think a bratwurst, but don't quote me on that.

My boss, who was at opening day, told me that when they introduced our good friend Chorizo, some people cheered, but others booed. Obviously, Chorizo is not Spainish but Mexican. He's got a sombrero, for crying out loud! So do the people who booed just dislike spicy sausage? I'm guessing they don't like Hispanic immigrants. To all of those people, you frustrate me. You're missing out on how yummy chorizo can be.

Bush Admin and Greenhouse Gases

Justices Rule Against White House on Emissions

By DAVID STOUT
Published: April 2, 2007

WASHINGTON, April 2 — The Supreme Court ruled today, in what amounts to a rebuke of the Bush administration, that the Environmental Protection Agency has the authority to regulate carbon dioxide from automobile emissions, and that it has shirked its duty in not doing so.

...

Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr. dissented, along with Justices Antonin Scalia, Clarence Thomas and Samuel A. Alito Jr. The chief justice said his dissent “involves no judgment on whether global warming exists, what causes it, or the extent of the problem.” Rather, he wrote, the kind of dispute in this case is better resolved by Congress and the executive branch rather than the courts.

I think that the dissenters have a point in that Congress is the place to make the rules and do clarification on Acts. Then again, the point of having a Checks and Balances system is to make sure the other branches are doing their jobs right. (Well, it's much more complicated than that, but I think the majority ruling is still in the spirit of the checks.)