Orientation

Orientation began on Wednesday evening with a dinner at the National Constitution Center. I had been inside before, so I pictured myself going into the busy center, needing to ask where I should go, and then being told where our conference room was located. I was surprised to find out we had the entire place to ourselves. I was greeted at the door by a sign welcoming our law school class, and they had all of the exhibits open for us to browse before the evening officially began. This was a surprise.

Another surprise was the enormous diversity among the law students. If you were to ask me what the typical Penn Law student is like, I would say that there is no typical Penn Law student. When most schools say they are diverse, what they mean is that they have as many women as men and that there is a high percentage of non-Caucasian students. That is true for Penn, but there is just as much diversity in every other way. Age, background, personality, etc. I had a chance to meet a lot of people that night and every conversation was a complete surprise. There's Joe, who has been working at a high school. He is a very serious person. There's also Doha, originally from eastern Africa who just graduated from Duke. She is enthusiastic, talkative, and a big sports fan. Ari is an Orthodox Jew from New York who worked on Hilary Clinton's staff. He is kind of quiet and has a good sense of humor. Over the last few days, I could only find two things that everyone had in common. Every Penn Law student is very nice and very intelligent.

I was so caught up in talking to people that it was well into the dinner before I noticed the view we had from the upper floor overlooking Independence Hall. This is a picture I found on the internet, but it doesn't show you how it really looked. The sun had set and the moon was out, so the Hall was almost glowing. The Dean started his speech to us talking about how sacred that building is to our country, and especially to lawyers, because of what was written there. That was a moment I don't think I will ever forget.




The entire night was intended to give us a new perspective on law school, one that could replace the negative view of lawyers that so many people have. His speech centered on the idea that lawyers receive unique training that allows them to solve difficult problems. Penn Law alumni are constantly being called on to do that for every profession all over the globe. They solve the world's problems. A good law school teaches you how to think like a lawyer. A great law school teaches you how to think. It was very inspiring.

Thursday and Friday were full of more networking, more orientation speeches, and some class time to get us started. Classes don't officially start until Tuesday, but I already have an enormous load of reading and "briefing" that I need to do before then. It seems like it will be very difficult, but something very comforting is that I was not anything but impressed by the faculty who spoke to us, the staff who run the law school, and how the program is set up. I should be able to just focus on learning and let everything else take care of itself. What a luxury!

Hello again...it's been a long time!

I have decided to come back to the world of blogging. So much has happened since I posted my last entry that I really don't know where to begin. In May I found out I was pregnant, which we are really excited about, but I have been so sick since then that it is all that I could do to entertain my child and try to keep my house clean. I am now 15 weeks and starting to feel a little better so I thought that I better get my act together :)

We had to say goodbye to wonderful Illinois. I was extremely sad to go since our life there was so great, but we decided to leave and I believe in the long run it will be the right decision. Here are a few things I will miss:


I will miss so much about Illinois. We had a beautiful home where it really felt like our home, not another apartment. We had an upstairs and downstairs, which was awesome and you really couldn't beat the rent. We lived next to tons of friends and every time we went outside were greeted by friendly faces. Gigi will really miss the great playgrounds and friends. I will miss the close friends that I made there, but hopefully they will come visit us soon.

We will miss our family that was so close to us. It was great to get to know them better and especially nice for Gigi to become such great friends with them.


I actually will really miss my work. I worked with really amazing people that always were there to lend a helping hand. It is nice that I won't have to work very much here, but I don't know if it is possible to find another place so wonderful to work in.

I will miss how quickly I could get places. It wasn't all that bad living in the middle of cornfields :)
So anyway...Goodbye Illinois....it's been great!

HELLO PHILADELPHIA!!!!! Here are some great things about this place so far:

Currently David is at a dinner at the constitution center for his first night of orientation. It is pretty exciting that he going to school somewhere that he is so thrilled to be at. Truthfully we still get a little excited when we get mail from PENN, even if it is a letter saying how much money will will have to pay them.
We arrived in Philly last Thursday night and didn't get our stuff until Monday night. We spent all day yesterday unpacking and still have a lot of work to do, but when we are all moved I will post loads of pictures.

The best thing about living here is that my sister and her husband are here!!! She has been such a great help already. On Saturday she spent all day helping me shop for essentials and we have already been introduced to the wonderful world of Cheesesteaks by Tony.

Our home seems to be pretty great, we even have a dishwasher!! The only annoying things so far...we can hear our neighbors walking above us and we have to unlock 2 different doors to get into our place. At least we are safe right? Gigi keeps asking if we can go see her friends and commenting about visiting them, which is so sad, but I'm sure we will make friends here.

Our ward seems very friendly. In fact we had a ton of help moving in. A few women came as well, one with her 2 year old son, which was nice for Gigi to meet a new friend as well.

Anyway this entry is really just me rambling on and on about our situation, but things are going better than I thought they would, I have even stopped crying about leaving Illinois and I believe that we will enjoy our next 3 years here :)
More pictures and posts to come soon...

The Shoes

One night this week we went to an outlet mall, because most of my clothes are so worn out that I only have one pair of jeans that does not have huge rips in the knees. Bethany claims that all of my shirts I have had since she has known me.

We stopped in the Bass shoe outlet to find a replacement for a $10 pair of Payless shoes I have made last for years. Angelique had a lot of fun in there, because she LOVES shoes. She happened to be wearing her "fleep-flops", a pair of pink toddler sandals that might have been her favorite.

When we were leaving the store, I noticed she was now barefoot. As we started to look for her shoes, I remembered that she had been playing with the shoe boxes while I was trying on shoes. I ran over to where we had been. There was one pair of shoes still out but the boxes had all been cleaned up.

I had a moment similar to the last scene of Indiana Jones and the Raiders of the Lost Ark, when the camera pulls back to reveal that their crate is identical to the others in the warehouse. All of the shoeboxes looked exactly the same, stacked five or six high in aisle after aisle of this huge store.

The store was closing in ten minutes, and Gigi had no clues to offer about where she had put the box with her shoes. We had to carry her out crying and run to the Gap before they closed. Angelique understood that she wasn't supposed to take her shoes off when we are at the store, so this was going to be one of those hard but necessary consequence-facing times.

At the Gap, right before leaving, Bethany thought to check the kids section to see if they sold toddler shoes. They did, and they were only a few dollars. She found a pair of transparent, hot pink, soft plastic flip-flops that fit Gigi better than the old ones.

Of course Angelique's sorrow turned to excitement. Since this was only minutes after the tragedy, we missed an opportunity for a memorable lesson on justice. At least she had an experience, though, with how the Atonement works.