And Such Is the Paradox of Living

I'm winding up my first year in law school; only three more weeks of class before finals. It has been a stressful but productive year. I've struggled to find time for everything, but that's par for the course, supposedly. I've barely done anything with my music — nothing new has been written, but I've managed to do a bit of mixing and mastering. My language study has fallen behind; I was keeping up with Mandarin and French in the fall (didn't find time for Spanish). Now I'm back to Hindi/Urdu, because I'll be returning to India this summer. I will be working in a legal internship in Hyderabad (although Telugu is the official state language, Urdu is most common in the capital of Andhra Pradesh), for the Council for Social Development, advocating for women, children, and disadvantaged social groups.

I don't get to do much reading outside of class material, but I'm currently working on Marcel Proust's In Search of Lost Time. I'm still on Swann's Way, but it is by far the most amazing novel I've ever read. The last french novel I read was Stendhal's The Charterhouse of Parma — fast-paced and a bit thrilling, whereas reading Proust is exactly like the first paragraph of Swann's Way:

Mother Russia Rain Down

I'm about to head off to St. Petersburg; I'll try to update this while I'm there. In the meantime, I'll let you all know what I've been up to. I've been seriously considering law school, and I'm taking the LSAT in October. My practice test scores have been in the 165-176 range, so I'm confident that I'll do well and may even get into a decent school. I'm leaning toward international and environmental law. I've been learning Mandarin Chinese, which will be my fifth language, although I don't know if I can still count Hindi since I'm very rusty at this point. I still have the basics swimming around in there; it just needs a little practice. I've been taking acting classes for fun, and played in Animal Farm. I've also been writing again, and started what may turn into a longer work, perhaps even a novel someday. I haven't been hanging out or talking with very many friends, which I'm not thrilled about, but I blame that on my withdrawal since coming back from India. I've gone to some concerts recently with my youngest brother and my girlfriend: Covenant, which was decent, and Project Pitchfork, which was awesome. Before that I saw Baby Venom a couple of times before they broke up. I've been trying to get into photography, but have not had much time. I've.... also been reading some.... analytic philosophy.... *shudder*....