Day 3

Whew! Yesterday (Monday) was Day 3 of p90x and the workout was "Shoulders and Arms." After finishing this workout I couldn't lift my arms over my head...putting deodorant on was a struggle of epic proportions.

I'm about to do the Day 4 workout which is a 90-minute yoga workout and Momma Lemmons is going to join me, so I'm pretty excited for it! Mom has been going to a yoga class every Sunday morning for the past few weeks and also goes sometimes during the week so I figured it'd be nice to have someone else to do the workout with.

Completely unrelated but Saturday, November 6th is the Colby Men's Basketball Alumni Game up at Colby and all of my fellow '09 teammates will be heading up for the game and for post-game festivities. Artie, Mac, Nick and I got a hotel room in Waterville and I'm really looking forward to seeing all the guys currently on the team that we played with (Class of '11 and '12 waddup) and getting to see some other people up at Colby that I've stayed in touch with but don't get to see too often. Should be a great time all around.

Other than looking forward to that I'm staying busy with school and working part-time at a great firm in Boston. The people at the firm have been great to me and they have given me substantive work and have been very willing to explain various processes and help me improve my writing skills.

Alright, I'm going to wrap it up for now but I hope everyone has a goodnight and check back tomorrow to hear about Yoga!

Day 1 and Day 2

Life of Lemmons is back but with a twist...I just started this thing called P90x yesterday...it's a 90 day at-home workout program that I have wanted to try for a few weeks now after hearing such great things about it from friends and family who have tried it.

So yesterday was Day 1 which was the Chest and Back workout. Right away I realized that this program was going to be really tough...the whole workout consists of various forms of push-ups and pull-ups. I've always been pretty good at push-ups but have always found pull-ups wicked hard. I definitely didn't put up the numbers of push-ups and pull-ups that the people in on the DVD were cranking out but I just did as many as I could...this is Round 1 after all!

Today, Day 2, was the Plyometrics workout. This workout was crazy but really helped my confidence at the same time. It was a ton of different squats and dynamic movements that really keep your heart rate up and your legs on fire. I just finished about 15 minutes ago and already know that I'm not going to be able to walk tomorrow...really looking forward to that...

Nutrition is also an important part of the 90-day program so the fridge and pantry was cleansed this weekend and replenished with healthier stuff......speaking of food, I am starving and dinner is almost ready (swordfish steaks, spinach and rice...yup.) so until tomorrow...

Been Too Long!!

What's up everybody?? It's been a real long time since my last post, I know, but I wanted to try to get back in the game with this new post.

Since I wrote last, I've been experiencing what it is that people call "First Year Law School." Man, I was expecting a lot of challenging work, but I never expected anything like this. My study habits have done a complete 180 since college. Don't get me wrong, I got done what I had to get done in college, but that kind of approach just doesn't cut it in law school. My day usually starts around 7am when I wake up and get ready to head into town. I try to get to school around 8am when the library opens and I can usually spend a good 2-3 hours studying before my first class which is typically at 11 or 12. My day is usually over by 4:15 at the latest and then I hit the gym real quick before catching a ride home with Momma Lemmons.

I have grown accustomed to spending every extra hour I have doing some kind of school work and I usually dedicate Saturdays to the library. Now before you judge me, the only reason I devote Saturdays to the library is so I can do nothing on Sundays except watch football all day and night....it's a beautiful thing.

Another development in my life is that I enrolled in the "Pro Bono Program" at Suffolk Law and through that program I was set up with an internship at the Mental Health Legal Advisors Committee (MHLAC). Pro Bono is basically community service in a legal field. Because it is community service it is an unpaid internship but even though I started about 3 weeks ago, I have already gotten a great deal of valuable insight. MHLAC is a sub-committee of the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court charged with protecting the interests of those afflicted with mental health diagnoses and promoting awareness in the community at large about how mental health affects many people in our society.

My job at MHLAC is to help manage the intake line. Intake at MHLAC is an open hotline where people with mental health diagnoses can call in with their legal problems. Most of what I do is getting information from the people regarding their legal issues, which range from guardianship and housing issues to issues regarding negligent treatment by mental hospital workers and claims about discrimination. The invaluable experience of talking directly with clients and trying to wade through their stories (which are usually very long and scattered) to spot the key issues and critical facts is really going to help me out down the road.

Besides the schoolwork and internship, I am starting to meet some really cool kids in my section. Our 1L class is divided into 4 sections of about 80 students per section and we take all of them same classes. I am in Section 1D and so we have all of our classes together. The six classes I am taking now (they are mandatory, 1Ls don't choose their schedule) are Contracts, Criminal Law, Torts, Civil Procedure, Property, and Legal Practice Skills (LPS). These are all full year courses except for Criminal Law which is just a one semester class, and we pick up Constitutional Law in it's place in the Spring. The first week or two nobody really talked to each other but it's been nice to see the kids in our section start to ease up a little and become friends. I really look forward to getting to know all of them better as the year goes on (we see plenty of each other!)

My beautiful sister Shayla started pre-K this past September also. I spoke with my stepmom, Michelle, the other night and she told me that Shayla is really enjoying school and that she got her first progress report. The teachers say that she is a delight to have and that she is a little shy in school, which is SO hard to believe because her personality is huge. She really is a sweetheart though and I'm really proud of her. I went over to their house on the morning of her first day of school and she was so happy. Her little school uniform (navy sweats and a t shirt) is adorable and I love that she is happy.

I also got to talk to my other sister, Safiya, for a second on the phone and hearing her say "Hi Chris!" and "Bye Chris!" just warms me up. I am so lucky to have such beautiful sisters and my love for them is indescribable.

Whew! I know I must be forgetting things but I'll ease back into this, don't want the post to be too long. I am going to try to keep up with this much more as a way to communicate with people. My schedule is so busy that I just don't have the time to see or talk to all the people that I want to, but along with me keeping you updated on my life, I'd love to hear from everyone else about how things with you are going.

I hope everyone is well and hopefully I can keep this up.

Until next time...

It's All About the Benjamins!

Ah, what a beautiful Monday morning. Looks like the sun is going to be shining all day, and really how could I not be so positive after this past Saturday night??

For the first time, I went to Foxwoods Casino to try my luck on the blackjack table. A friend of mine from Colby and two of her friends from home made the trip down to Connecticut. We headed out around 11am and by the time we got back about 12 hours later, all of our moods were pretty high!

Since it was my first time really gambling at a casino I was nervous when we first got there. My limit for the day was the $100 that I got from the ATM that morning and once that was gone, I was just there to enjoy the scenery and flashing lights. I wanted to get a better hold of the smart way to play Blackjack so I watched while 2 of my friends played some hands. The minimum bet at the table (the lowest minimum at any table) was $10/hand, so with 10% of my chips on the line every hand I wanted to be sure that I knew what I was doing and didn't just blow my $100 away.

After about half an hour, I sat down at the table, placed five, twenty dollar bills on the table and felt my heart sink as the dealer swept them up and slid me 20 red chips ($5 each). Right away I started winning some hands, we all joked about beginner's luck, and everyone was having a great time. Slowly but surely, my stack of chips rose higher and higher until I had to split them into two stacks. Then the dealer asked if I could change some of my red ($5) chips in, in exchange for some green ($25) chips because the dealer was running low on red chips. I slid my stack of chips toward him and was thrilled when I got back 4 green chips and then still had a big stack of reds left over. Since it's bad luck to count your chips while you're playing, I held myself back but it was all I was thinking about. I had my original $100 in green chips and I had at least another hundred worth of red chips!

When we took a break to go get some dinner I had 2 black ($100) chips in my pocket, I was up $100! To make things better, I learned that there was a Hard Rock Cafe at Foxwoods, which is one of my favorite places to eat! To make a long story short, when I went to cash in my chips at the end of the night, the woman handed me 4 crisp $100 bills! Profit for the day = $300!!

It was such a fun day, even if I had lost my $100, but winning $300 and still getting to go was even better. Everyone that sat down to play out our table was really nice, we met some really cool people, the dealers were hilarious and we loved getting to talk to each other. My conclusion from all of this, besides the fact that I love blackjack, is that I can definitely see how some people could fall into the dangerous trap of gambling for profit rather than just putting a few dollars on the table, keeping their bets low, and trying to just have fun with friends. There are no clocks in the whole building and if I didn't have my watch, I wouldn't have been able to tell what time of day it was. Add free drinks circling around every 15-20 mins and you have the casino's perfect recipe for making money. But not this time! The picture above is an actual picture of all of the money that the 4 of us took home that night. Unreal.

All in all, another great experience! Makes me really wonder how crazy Vegas is... I hope everyone enjoys this beautiful day.

Until next time...

Everybody Deserves A Second Chance

First off, just a quick "hi" to everyone who has continued to read, sorry for my posting absence the past week or so. I have been very busy with my prep course, but now it is all over and Orientation is looming!

So, I just couldn't pass up the opportunity to write about how I feel about the huge news in the sports world right now: Michael Vick signing a contract with the Philadelphia Eagles. For those of you who aren't in tune with the sports world, Vick was charged and convicted on federal and state counts of being involved in a dog fighting ring. Before I continue with my own opinion, it's important to say that I do believe his actions were horrible and I fully agreed with the punishments that were bestowed upon him.

Having said that, I love that the Philadelphia Eagles have signed Michael Vick. In fact, I wish that the New England Patriots had signed him. I understand that there are people who are still up in arms against the guy because of the terrible things that he was involved with, but frankly, let them be. They are only wasting energy in a futile attempt to hold this guy down for the rest of his life because of a mistake. He served his full sentence (approximately 2 years) in prison, and has since been taking a proactive approach to becoming involved in his community with organizations such as the Humane Society and other programs that promote animal welfare.

In short, he did the crime and served his time. Everybody deserves a second chance. Michael Vick is a tremendous athletic specimen and I knew it was just a matter of time before he got signed by an NFL team. I am very excited to see how Vick re-adjusts to life in the spotlight and the NFL way of life, and my only regret is that he is not doing so in a Patriots uniform.

Feel free to say what you will, but if you were him you would not only want a second chance, but you would expect one as well, so really the self-righteous stance against the signing of Michael Vick has little, if any, credibility or relevance. Here is a portion of the press conference Vick held after the news broke that he is now the newest member of the 2009 Philadelphia Eagles.



Until next time...