She's baaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaack!

After about a month without any blogging, I'm back and rarin' to go. Just to catch up:

1. Taking the bar was more harrowing than I'd expected. The Nevada Bar is hard--lots of crossovers in the essay questions, and please don't get me started on how much earlier I should've begun drilling on the MBE. I am not a "natural" when it comes to multiple-choice tests. If I pass, my score will have been due to the fact that I actually enjoy writing answers to essay questions. If I fail, I'm going to try again in February 2008.


2. We took a post-bar trip to Alaska on a 7-day Holland America cruise aboard the Noordam. Great cruise line, great ship. Among the highlights were dogsledding (my fave), helicoptering to the top of the Mendelhall Glacier (Jeff's fave), listening to an otter eat (otters are just weasels with hand tools, but they sure are cute), seeing whales and sea lions, and (a joint fave) luxurious three-hour naps.


3. Shortly after returning to Las Vegas, I flew to Toronto to visit my dad's side of the family during the shiva for my uncle, Abraham Rapoport. I've always identified myself closely with Lailla and Abe's family and their four amazing daughters, and Abe was a marvel: a truly dedicated doctor, with a deep basso singing voice, a den full of family pictures, and a wise view of administration. (I wish I'd been as good an administrator as he was.) I know how much my dad loved and admired Abe, and some of the stories that Dad used to tell about Abe really hit home (including the choice that Abe had to make between an English major and a medicine major). When Abe and my dad were growing up, Jews weren't welcome in a lot of places, including "university," as my cousins up North call it. Abe was a trail-blazer in a lot of ways, and he and Lailla always made Jeff & me feel welcome on our visits (during which we, of course, took our patented three-hour naps).


4. This weekend, I competed for the first time with my new teacher, Sergei Shapoval, at the Nevada Star Ball. Came in 4th out of 8, with all-new routines, some of which made it into my brain before the competition, and some of which obviously didn't. The studio (SuperShag Vegas) and the competition are both top-notch.


5. Now it's back to school this week, with my first class on Thursday. I get to teach bankruptcy law again, after an 8-year absence, and it's good to be back.