Orientation, Ho!

Since Thursday, my calendar has been chock-full of activities. That's because it's 1L Orientation, and it's a blast! Between meeting really great people and having a ton of events to attend, I have been keeping busy, to say the least.

On Thursday, everything kicked off with a welcome by our section leader, Professor Singer (he'll be teaching Property in the Spring). After some discussion on a few cases that were assigned reading, we took off for a campus tour. Then, it was section photo time. I was sporting my Gap blue-and-purple-striped shirt, with khakis. Truly, a vision to behold. After which, we all chowed down at lunch. The last official business of the day was registration, which included paperwork, ID photos, and getting a bunch of free mugs, bottles, key-chains, etc. Throughout all of this, I was meeting a lot of people. Sure, it was the same conversation a thousand times :"Where are you from? Where did you do go to school? Are you coming right from undergrad? Could you please remove your hand?" (Ok, maybe not that last one.) With the beginnings of a core group of friends, a bunch of us met up for dinner, followed by the welcome celebration at the Kong. (Free drink tickets for 1Ls!). The place was packed! Makes sense if you invite 500+ people to a bar for free drinks. The scorpion bowls were the house signature: a large bowl filled with punch and various amounts of alcohol. A tad underwhelming, but not bad. My voice hoarse from trying to hold conversations in a packed bar, it was time to call it a night.

Friday: Our sample property class began with more discussion on the cases from Thursday. Professor Singer was really good about trying to get us to relax. However, it seemed a little intimidating. The classroom was a large lecture hall, and the seats are outfitted with microphones that you have to speak into in order to be heard. It looked more like a congressional hearing rather than a lecture hall. After class, we were divided up into groups of about 13 to go to lunch with our student advisors. I don't know how, but it lasted from 11:00 until 3:00. We went to the North End of Boston for some damn fine Italian food. We were all ready for a nap when we had to head back for Dean Kagan's welcome speech. It was your basic : "The students are our greatest resource... this is going to be the most important time of your life so far... have a great year." This was followed by a reception at "Hogwart's" as it is affectionately called (Annenberg Hall really does look like its cousin). Ah, free food and wine. Harvard certainly knows how to dish out the good food and drink. It was basically a swank cocktail party for about 500 people. After a good nap and some cleaning, a bunch of us headed to the Gypsy Bar in Boston for another event hosted by HL Central. That night, all the 1Ls didn't have to pay cover and stood in a separate, faster line. Do we have connections or what? It was a pretty snazzy bar, complete with dress code. The club was outfitted with a number of plasma TVs with fashion shows, and there was a jellyfish tank behind the bar. We were able to snag a table. Again, conversation wasn't easy, but we still tried. After a rocking good time, I grabbed a cab back home at 1:30.

Saturday: What better way to start your day after an evening of carousing than with a brewery tour? I certainly don't know of one. A bunch of us from Section 3, and others, met up at 10:30 to go over to Harpoon Brewery, and began tasting at noon. I'm a bigger fan of wine tasting, myself, but it was still a lot of fun. Afterwards, we all went our separate ways, then met back up again a couple hours later for dinner and a movie with the section. Professor Singer had pizza, salad, soda, and Local Hero. Odd movie that nobody had seen (except Singer), but it was amusing, and we had a good discussion after. When all that was over, some of us headed over to the Cambridge Common for some more drinks and conversation that lasted until 1:00 AM.

So, that's been my very busy couple of days. Food, drink, and great people. I have been really pleasantly surprised by how nice and social everyone is. Even though it's the same basic questions when meeting people, it's amazing how diverse the class is. We come from all over the country, all over the world, with so many different backgrounds. Of course, with our real classes beginning on Tuesday, I'm sure we're going to have a heck of a lot more to talk about then!