The Yale LL.M.: Benjamin Button Baby Blizzard
By Yale Blogger 2015 in LLM GUIDE Student Blog: Yale LLM 2015-2016 on Feb 09, 2016
Thank you, Jonas, says the panda.
Which Panda?
This Panda:
But who is Jonas?
Jonas is a blizzard. In fact, he is a baby blizzard. The baby blizzard that two weekends ago brought the east coast to a halt. It may have been an actual blizzard at Washington or New York.
However, from the perspective of Yale, which, as we have learned over the last semester, is the perspective of the objective truth, it was only a baby blizzard. This is somewhat strange, because the blizzard reached Washington and New York before it hit New Haven. So it regressed from monster storm to blizzard to baby blizzard. I therefore name it BENJAMIN BUTTON BABY BLIZZARD.
Benjamin Button Baby Blizzard finally brought some snow to New Haven and made me very happy. Beautiful thick snowflakes animated by a mild winter wind called for an extended walk through the snowfall.
But guess what?
NOBODY WANTED TO walk WITH ME. All of New Haven hid in their homes. So I proposed to imitate that panda, have a snowball fight and roll around in the snow.
But guess what?
NOBODY WANTED TO PLAY WITH ME.
So I too headed home to hide in my bed and have some delicious canned food that I had shopped in preparation of the giant storm. How could I have known that the storm of the century would turn out to be a BENJAMIN BUTTON BABY BLIZZARD?
Once the storm had passed and the sun came out, all of New Haven looked very beautiful. Beautiful enough to lure people from their heated homes into the winterwonderland.
So finally we had our long longed for snowball fight and even went sledding. The latter was due to the initiative of the Yale Law School Sledding Society (YLSSS). Thank you for this brilliant IDEA. Our Brazilian friends, despite being new to this serious business, did wonderfully. I, too, enjoyed the sport the habit of which I had lost long ago. I guess the baby blizzard and the snow-rolling panda brought out our childish side. This is not at all surprising, given the fact that, for the first time in around a decade, we’re part of an actual “class”, mostly hanging out with the same bunch of randomly selected people. So you should know: When at YLS, you will have these moments where you’ll feel like being back in school. This is certainly something Harvard can’t match.
As for the whole blizzard business (which you will have to deal with when spending a winter in New Haven): Don’t let the Americans scare you too much. They’ll hype every baby blizzard into a monster storm. This is surprising: Given the frequency of blizzards and the notoriously cold winters one would expect New Englanders to know how to deal with some snow. My theory is that baby blizzards are intentionally hyped in order to have an excuse for bringing life to a standstill and stay home. An extra day of vacation. Given the few days of paid vacation per year (around 15 on average) this is legitimate self-defense.
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