My dad said today that he thinks reading of novels is an indicator of well-being. I would be inclined to agree.

Now that I'm not in school, I have returned to the world of novels and non-casebook reading generally. So far I've reread David Mitchell's "Cloud Atlas," one of my all time favorite novels. It was just as great the third time around! After that I dove into "The Brief Wonderous Life of Oscar Wao," which I came to after hearing numerous interveiws with the author. In interveiws, Junot Diaz is charming, entertaining, thrillingly dorky, and incredibly astute. The book almost lived up to the author, and TBWLOW (wow) left me wanting to learn more about the Dominican Republic, and the Carribean in general. Now I have moved onto a colder climate, farther away from Puerto Rico but even closer to my heart - Alaska. Michael Chabon's book "The Yiddish Policemen's Union" has gotten a lot of good press, and so far it's living up to it. In addition to all this fiction, I have been slowly sifting through Mary Oliver's new book of poetry. She has been a favorite of mine for years and this newest collection is incredibly powerful.

Other than that, my freedom from law school time has been spent (when not at my co-op obviously) playing Guitar Hero 3, lying on the beach, and devouring all the good food Puerto Rico has to offer. It has been raining here for a few days though so, don't worry, it's not 100 percent perfect...

ps - I also wanted to give a shout out to the Givelber Adjucts program and the Daynard Fellows programs (named after two of my favorite professors!). They are two ways that the school (with student input) brings in awesome practitioners to talk to NUSL students about public interest work and I look forward to telling you more about this year's selections!