Auburn highlights

• Coming from Federal Way, there's a sign as soon you hit Auburn that says "Welcome. We are building an inclusive community." So I guess at some point, they told the gays and brown people that they could come back in. And notice how they're still building. So they're working on it but haven't quite gotten there yet. This is how I imagine it all went down. There was a huge cross-burning problem a while back, and they didn't quite know how to deal with, but the city council did manage to put up the sign to let everyone know that they were working hard to figure it out. I didn't get a chance to take a picture of the sign but did find it online.

Notice how the city managed to find a token disabled person, black person, Indian guy with a turban, Asian, and Mexican(?) to showcase their new inclusivity. I'm guessing these people were recruited from Seattle to make life here seem more inviting.

• The hotel (Marriott) we stayed at - On the first morning, I came down for breakfast and started eating. I thought it was a fairly nice breakfast for a hotel. More than just your typical continental stuff. I was still recovering from the flu that first morning and hadn't gotten my appetite back. But they had eggs, potatoes, etc. I grabbed some scrambled eggs and toast and looked forward to being able to take more advantage in a couple of days. Anyway, I was sitting there nibbling on my toast and suddenly some one came by with a bill! For $14.25!!!!! I have to say that's probably the most expensive toast I've ever had.
• What I loved even more about the hotel was how well they had it together with their wake up calls. You would think this would be a fairly easy concept to grab, it being a major hotel chain and all. But they must do it differently here in Federal Way. Cuz two out of the three times I asked for a wake up call, I didn't get one. And then randomly, at 3 am on Sun morning (when I hadn't asked for a call), I got one.
• Favorite quote from the instructor (aside from the morphine and WalMart comments): "You have to do it quick, but you have to do it accurate." Right before she started discussing her pet peeves with respect to grammar in our writing samples. Yup. Actually, there were a lot of grammar lectures this week -- again, much like high school. I'm thinking it was because they couldn't think of any constructive legal comments, so decided to focus on something that was more at their level.
• Favorite non-existent word that she liked to use over and over again: irregardless (Once she even said "regardless" and then corrected herself to say "irregardless").
• Everyone had to have one-on-one mentoring sessions this week to discuss our writing (because you know, we didn't really learn that in law school). Fortunately, I had this instructor from the south who was usually pretty quick. But her only comments to me usually involved some random comment I had mistakenly stuck somewhere cuz I didn't bother to check my stuff for typos. I was talking about this after with my co-worker, and we decided that I had totally missed a priceless opportunity. I should have said, "But that's how they taught me to do it at Stanford. Y'all must do it different in Mississippi." Doh!!
• Favorite lunch spot in Auburn: maybe the mall food court??
• My poor co-worker got food poisoning one day and couldn't come to class. And stated beyond a doubt that there are some things worse than coming to class, and apparently throwing up and having the runs fall in that category. And the worst part is that it happened after she had a salad from a natural food grocery store - Federal Way's version of Whole Foods, basically.
• So, as predicted, the 2nd week was even better than the first. In that we had to do these stupid practice cases that actually took up a ton of time, so I didn't get to do that much internet surfing. And we learned a lot of grammer.

So anyway, today's the last day of class (YAY)!!! Yesterday, around 9:06 am, our uptight instructor (who loves the sound of her voice so much that I was pretty sure we'd be here until the last possible minute cuz she'd hate to give up her pedestal time) announced that we'd actually be able to leave a bit early today. A whole hour early, even! Lucky us. But whatever, I'll take it. So guess what I was doing by 9:10 am yesterday? Stepping out in the hallway to change my flight. I know! I can't believe I waited that long either, but I had to email G first and tell him the good news. I was initially scheduled to leave at 8pm tonight, but with the additional hour, I can barely make the 5pm flight. I had to pay a small amount to make the switch, and the guy at the Alaska counter suggested that I could just fly standby instead. But the thought of missing that flight drove me into such despair that any amount of $$ would have been so worth every penny. It was only about $20, and anyway, I'm going to make work pay it, so I would have loved the chance to stick it to them more. But oh well.