Hi kids,

Thought I'd update everyone on what I'm up to this summer.

I'm in LA this summer working for the man. It keeps me pretty busy. They seem to find it valuable to take me out to fancy meals almost every night, which is fun but exhausting. I have gotten the chance to go to Trapeze School on the Santa Monica pier and ziplining in Catalina which were both fun and most likely things I never would have done otherwise. I have no free time, but the good news is the summer is flying by. I'm also doing some work on the side (although I am writing this from my office). Like Nathan, I am also hoping for a permanent offer from my firm, although I will most likely be clerking in Michigan for a year after I graduate. As Nathan pointed out I am living with Suzanne's parents. It may be awkward at times but they cook meals for me and do my laundry so I'm not really complaining. Plus it's always good to ingratiate oneself with a significant other's parents.

Living in LA has been interesting. Obviously the weather is nice, although LA is possibly the only place in the world where half the office shows up in sweaters when it drops to 70 degrees in the morning. The traffic sucks, but even more annoying is the drivers. They're very aggressive and mean.

That's all I've got for now. Congrats to Nathan on Flopperz-2 and his facebook relationship.

Hi hi.

I had dinner with Annie the other day here in DC and realized that she was telling me things about you guys that I was just hearing for the first time. Bill, you're living with Suz's parents? Duke, Hannah is living with you in B'more and commuting to DC? Apparently NYC has become a hotbed of incest among former residents of SQuad?

I have a new bunny. Hopefully this will not strike any of you as a betrayal of Flopperz' memory, as he is still near and dear in my heart. For those who do not remember, Flops was placed with a lovely family in a suburb of DC. In other news, apparently I have an affinity for rabbits. This is the bun at 5 weeks. He has grown up somewhat since then. Found him on craigslist.



I am doing the summer law firm thing at Winston & Strawn in DC. They've been treating me nice... [I could say more, but I do believe this blog is public]. Hopefully, my 10-week stint this summer will lead to a permanent offer of employment.

I am still dating the same girl. I will be visiting her in SF in early-mid August, so Sluis hopefully we can meet up while I'm out there. It'll be roughly 8/12-8/19. Having never even visited SF, this is a bit premature to say, but I have been kicking around the idea of seeing if the SF office of my firm would have any room for me. Not only because of Carolyn, but also because Winston in SF has a more focused tech intellectual property practice, which is an area I'm especially interested in. So that's a long way off and kind of an outside shot in a lot of ways, but I'll be visiting SF with my eyes open.

To wrap up, I hope all's well with the rest of you. As soon as an e-mail thread gets started, I'm eager to figure out which UM football game we can do this Fall. This coming year of law school should be the equivalent of senior year, so...

p.s. I just found these, and even though the rest of the world apparently has already seen them, I thoroughly enjoyed watching them: http://www.facebook.com/mayhemhere?sk=app_2392950137

Hadn't seen this yet:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UnJX2FiW-ik

Hey fellas!

Time for another round of blog posts?!?
I'll start with a short update from Sluisland. I just joined the lab that I'll be in for the next 4+ years, so that's exciting. I'll be doing work with Maize, mostly focusing on plant development, how tissues are formed, phyllotaxy (leaf patterning), and fun stuff like that. Which means I get to use a bunch of really expensive and fun microscopes, which is just about ideal. I've got my own mutant to work on and everything. I had intended on joining a different lab, but that dude just took a position at Ohio State (Boooooooo!!!!) which pretty much just confirms everything I've ever though about that shithole (well, everything but James, of course). That said, I'm still pretty happy with the way things are going. Berkeley especially is pretty awesome, and if any of you came to visit I guarantee some good times. Also, I think a bunch of us from the program are gonna do Burning Man, not this summer, but the next, if any of you are interested in losing your mind. Oh, and one more thing: the last final I'll ever take (provided you don't count quals as a final) is next week, and promises to be super easy (grad classes are a joke!), so yay!

Things have definitely chilled out a lot around here, so depending on what semester I get pegged for GSIing, I'll be doing a football game no doubt. But if I get stuck with fall semester, we'll have to think of something because I'd really like to see you guys. Would a summer reunion of sorts work out? I'm guessing that because there aren't classes it might work out a little better for the Med/Law school crowd, though now that I think about it, it's internship/residency(?) time, so probs not. At any rate, I've been living well within my means, so can easily make a trip or two out east.

Law school updates,
Med school updates,
Real world updates,
go.

All the best,
Sluisy

DC

Hey fellas,

So James is trying to convince me to come to DC for the weekend of the 25th because it seems that all of you are going to be there. So far it's looking fairly good for me being able to go. I simply need to know if I have a place to crash and a ride to/from the airport (public trans is fine, I just don't know what's out there). So let me know what the situation is, and what days you all are going to be around.

My plan would be to fly in Thurs night (or maybe Fri afternoon) and leave on Sunday.

Hope you all are enjoying the winter. I know I am :)

~Sluisy

SNOW!

hey roomies ;)

we just survived the snowpocalypse here in michigan. we were supposed to get 15-25 inches overnight tuesday and something called thunder snow and everybody freaked out. every school in michigan was cancelled, even michigan state (for only the third time in its history and first since 1975). every school except good old michigan that is who continued its policy of staying open during blizzard warnings because "it owes it to its students." seriously the email i got was insulting--instead of saying stay home if it's too dangerous, it said you MUST come to class, no excuses, you can only stay home if you try driving and get stuck. it really warmed my heart out here in farmington to know they were concerned about my safety.

snowmageddon was actually a big let down though. we only got 8 inches overnight and places like chicago got hit wayyyy worse. i slept through my 9 am class and then came in for the afternoon. the roads were pretty bad but not terrible. instead of three lanes on the highways the plows had made one lane. however, since they were drunk while doing this the lane they made through the snow swerved in and out of the lines and multiple times would switch from the middle lane to the right lane for no reason. which meant if you were passing someone in the cleared lane by driving on the snow-covered right lane, you had to be careful because the cleared lane would lead right into where you were with no warning. even worse was parking in ann arbor. my devious plot of never paying for parking and parking on streets like white was foiled by the mountains of snow the plows had put in those spots. after getting stuck twice i decided to park in a structure and support the city of ann arbor.

what else is new? oh last week michigan's basketball team (the men!) beat some team from east lansing IN east lansing for the first time in 11 years. i went with suzanne to prom med school gala last weekend at the motor city casino and got a lap dance from one of wayne's doormen who decided to drunkenly crash the party. he kept telling me i was the most beautiful man alive, so i decided he had earned the right to give me a lap dance.

jamesy, i like your reunion plan, the only problem is that it's right in the middle of my (and probably Nathan's) summer gigs. which means it would be hard for us to get away, even for a weekend. i suggest august or may, although i don't know the exact date of the program so other times may work too. also, wear the ref's jersey with sunglasses, duh.

props to you and jake for keeping up the blog. hope everyone's doing well.

puppies,
bill

The blog...its alive!!

Hello sybil,

Jakey nice work on getting the blog going again. Umm lets see life in Ohio is pretty boring (shocking I know) and school is still kicking my ass so not a whole lot is new on that front. I'm guessing everyone is reeling from the big storm (yeah Sluis remember that day it rained last week?). In Columbus we got freezing rain for two days and then a bit of snow to make it harder to see where its icy so its basically treacherous to walk anywhere but the nicely plowed sidewalks of campus right now and will be like that til probably it thaws in a few weeks. However, since we have a bit of an angled driveway and some of the cars were sliding i did get to use a sledgehammer yesterday afternoon to break up some of the ice so there were at least places the tires could get a grip. If you haven't used one before, i highly recommend it. It was probably the most satisfying day of housework in my life haha.

In other HUGE news, i'm coming to DC in a few weeks! So i'm flying in on Wednesday, February 23rd and i'll be around til Sunday the 28th. I'm staying with my sister but shes working that week and likely some of the weekend (Nathan and Bill i'm guessing you cant wait for life after law school haha) so i should have some time to head out towards places you guys are at or we can have a mini sybil reunion in DC or Bmore (yes Duke i'm inviting myself and am almost done with the facebook invite). Jakey can this be your late Bday party? Nathan isnt it time you visited your parents and let them combat your hangover from a sybil reunion with breakfast?

Also Mr Eggnog (keeping that alive) mentioned summer reunion ideas. So i have this awful exam that basically tests everything you learned over the past two years and determines where you can go for residency (no pressure right) on June 24th and then i was planning on heading down to Florida to my parents place in Naples for a few weeks til rotations start. I was thinking it might be fun if we had the reunion there? Warm sunny beaches filled with old wrinkly ladies!! Sadly that probably sounded appealing to everyone but Sluisy. Obviously this is super early but could be super fun if anyone is interested!

In an attempt to get blog activity going here I have a question for all of you. I'm still coaching disability hockey down here in Columbus kinda like i did at Michigan but now its with little kids. So the kids have wanted to do an intermission show at one of the OSU hockey games and we finally got called last week to do one this weekend. I had fully prepared to cheer against Ohio state at the game BUT then I found out this weekend they are playing Michigan State...who do i cheer for? Should i bring out the ref jersey halloween costume and just cheer on my favorite ref?

I miss you all and cant wait to hear from you soon and for you east coasters see you soon!

Hearts,

James

HAPPY 2011

Hey everyone,

Been a while since anyone posted so I figured it was time to start the blog up again since i don't know what anyones up to! Bill and Nathan halfway through lawschool already?! sheesh hope you two are surviving. Liadis you got an extra year ahead of you but even you're almost halfway done holy cow. Is it too early to discuss a sybil reunion for the summer already? I sure hope not. I already saw Dutch( you should all go visit his place in Baltimore its pretty sweet) and bill a couple months ago but I've missed out on seeing the rest of you since our last reunion. This needs to be rectified.

Anyways, my life has pretty much stayed on course, though i have some pretty unbelievable stories that will have to be saved til we are all in 1 place and can appreciate the ridiculousness of it all together. Suffice to say, I'm enjoying myself in the city. Despite the Jets hard-fought loss, im headed out to vegas in a couple weeks for the superbowl and I'm pretty pumped about it. Its right before my birthday (sorry no repeat birthday in atlantic city) and post bonus, so I expect I will drop more money than i should on food, gambling, alcohol, clubs, strippers and anything else i can get my hands on in the sin city the two days that im there. Look forward to more stories from this trip. I may have a trip to ann arbor coming up soon, maybe i'll run into one or more of you there.

Thats about all I got for now. I'm looking forward to hearing whats up with all of you since you last posted. Peace out kiddos.

-jake