Bar Review

Riddle me this, Riddle me that

What does a stressed out law student who has spent hours thinking like a lawyer do to unwind?

Drink like a lawyer of course!

Personally I think it is more a kin to drinking like a pirate, but that is neither here nor there. Last night I hit the town with a a group of my new friends, and it was 'interesting' to say the least. An adventure that includes several bars and clubs, randomly crashing peoples apartments, cabs & trains, and peeing on dumpsters. That kind of night? Yeah it was.

So as always let me just make a note here that names have been changed to protect the parties involved, lol, and because the names aren't important the story is. With that being said

I should backtrack a bit and put the story into a bit of context. Yesterday was the end of a busy first week of law school. The stress of being in a new environment, learning new material, new people, and general anxieties, like a steam pot all that pressure built up and needed to be released. Friday I don't actually have class so I had a chance to decompress a bit during the day. I slept in (till 9) got up and watched a little ESPN. After that I spent about 5 hours reviewing all my notes from the week, and rereading the cases with eye to the new principles I had learned. To my pleasure, I found that not only did I understand the material a lot better now, but I could make my own intuitive leaps and bounds.

Well all that reading and typing at home for hours definitely made for a sense of adventure. The Family and Law Society was hosting a "Welcome back to School" Mixer at a Bar Louie down the street from the school and quite a few 1L's were invited. I met up with Lacie and another girl from my section and we walked with a few upperclassmen to the bar. The bar had $3 Stellas and half off appetizers. A quick note should be inserted here, while I do drink, Beer is really not my thing. Here that is all most people tend to drink, so I'm trying to be open and try new things, plus it was only 3 bucks. That being said, that beer sucked. It just tasted bad to me, I don't know.

Back to the story though. So We get to the bar and about 20 or so people end up showing up; it was a good mix of new people and upperclassmen. I met up with a guy named Javier from my class who sits in front of me and we chopped it up at the table. He seems like an interesting dude and he is from Chicago. I get the sense we are going to be pretty good friends, there are not many minorities in our section (out of 70 students, I am the only black male if that gives you some reference) so we had some things in common and kind of talked about our takes on the week. Courtland, another girl from our section that sits up front with us showed up and she kicked it for awhile as well. She actually went to Spellman so it was nice to have someone else that had lived in Atlanta to talk to.

I made one of those game time executive decisions that the 3 of us should go check out her place and have some drinks before we went out later so that we wouldn't have to buy at the bar. The happy hour was over at 7 and we had a bday get together to go to at 10 for Marty later on. Courtland lived around the corner and had some Rum so we hopped a cab and went to her place. From here the story really goes down hill (i.e. gets more entertaining). Courtland buys a few bottles of wine and some more rum and we start in. As more and more liquor flowed, strangely are tongues loosened up and we got to know each other a little better and talked about school some more. Javier and I ended up free styling, at which point I knew I was really good, so me and him decide to take a cab to SideTrack the bar Marty wanted to go to.

So during the cab ride we are talking to the cabbie and making jokes with him. We've both been drinking so much that we have to piss, so we get the cab to pull over in some scheezy alley and Javier hops out and takes a piss and darts back in the cab. We drive for another 5 or so and decide to just hop out and walk the next block or so. Along the walk we had to pee again so we pull off into a side street like 10 ft away from the main street where people are walking all around and pee onto some dumpsters. Finally we make it to the actual bar

So ok SideTrack is in an area called Boy's Town, so you can kind of infer a little about the neighborhood right? Yeah, you are not wrong, but it actually was a good bar. About 10 or so 1L's were there including Mandy (A girl that sits near me in class, and along with Lacie make up 2/4 of our study group). We all started (and I use that term loosely here) with a celebratory shot of tequila to celebrate Marty's bday. From there we moved up stairs where there was a bar that was less crowded and had better music. People were sharing drinks, and discussing the good and bad of law school, and how it felt to get past the anxiety of the first week. The short of it is that we stayed till about 1 or 2 when the bar closed. From there about 6 of us piled into a cab and went off for the next club.

We ended up at some club called Hangge Ups. I say club, but it was really more a bar with a dance floor and a down stairs with some more space. The DJ was not the best by far, but at this point we were all so blowed that anything could have been on and we would have been happy. The club didn't close till 4 and we stayed to make sure. I can not actually remember the last time I literally danced till 4 in the morning. We ended up taking another round of shots of tequila while there. I finally manage to say good-byes to people and walk around a little aimlessly looking for the nearest train to get on. I get on and make the 15 min ride, almost missing my stop because i was so tired.

I walked the block and a half to my place, somehow manage to make it into my room, text everyone that i made it home ok, and pull my clothes off. Needless to say I slept well in my drunken stupor, lol. I woke up regretting it a bit this morning, I was moving slow. I had to take like a 20min shower to freshen my senses up. When I talked to Jahaira she said I was too old to be out till 4 in the morning drinking and dancing, I have to say I think I agree haha, there wont be too many of those.

So im at the library now, killing some time between studying. Im going to take Saturday and Sunday to get ahead on my readings for the week. Maybe if I find some time this weekend I may go to wal-mart, im still looking for a entertainment center for my living room, and a book shelf for my office. But more on that later. So that my readers was how a bar review goes, and that is in effect how Law Students roll, lol.

Marqus A. Cole