FIRST WEEK OF SCHOOL

It's Saturday night and i can't sleep for some reason. So i figured now would be a good a time as any to blog about my first week of school.

On Monday i had Civil Procedure with professor Duvivier. She is a nice lady, but not very good at explaining things, or maybe in not very good at understanding things. I had her 3 times this week (Mon, Wed, and Thurs) and I always left more confused than when i walked in. Civil Procedure is basically the rules that guide how you progress in a law suit. They will teach us how to figure out who has jurisdiction, what laws to use, what court to choose, what cases are applicable, etc. Its actually pretty interesting, its kind of like a puzzle.

Torts is my second class. Professor Russell teaches that course and he is definitely entertaining. he did his best Shawn Johnson impression the other night by walking on a wall about 6 inches in width and 5 feet off the ground, in an attempt to illustrate how a plaintiff was hurt in a case we read. We spent most of the first day discussing the McDonald's Coffee case, where the lady burned herself with coffee. It was interesting to say the least, and i left with a lot more sympathy for that poor old lady that spilled the coffee. At first i just thought she was an idiot, but after seeing the facts of the case i'm surprised she didn't get more money.

My third class is lawyering process. I think this class is supposed to teach us how to be lawyers. How to read statutes and cases, how spot issues, how to write letters and briefs, etc. Its my smallest class and so far we've done a lot of group work. The only thing that sucks about this class is that i have it on Friday nights. The law school looks like a ghost town at that time.

The first week was pretty intense. They weren't shy about giving us reading and outside projects. I've already read about 6 cases and we've only finished the first week!!!!!!! Everyone was pretty nervous and i would even say a little overwhelmed. You could feel everyone stressing out a little. Luckily the professors have a little more respect for us night students than they do for the day students, because they realize we have lives. One girl in my class almost popped out a kid during my first session of torts. She stayed for the whole class even though she was going into labor!!!!!!! now that is commitment.

VERBS . . . FU@K VERBS . . . I PUNCH VERBS IN THE FACE

Tonight was the last night of orientation, and i have to say my classmates turned out better than expected. Most of them are older, married, with children, and careers. There is actually quite a bit of people from San Diego out here. The last two days has been mostly speakers. They all open up their talk by congratulating us first, then explaining how difficult life will be for the next 3-4 years. They even make sure to point out how it will be extra difficult for the night students.

Tonight we took a writing diagnostic. It is a test to gage our grammar and punctuation skills. I scored a solid 78%, which was 69 out 88 questions correct. Apparently i don't know what a dangling modifier is . . . and i don't. My use of commas is also suspect. I should probably add to that list pronoun usage, quotation marks, and parallelism (whatever the hell that is).

But the point where i did excel was on VERBS!!! YAY BOY!!! I dominated verbs. Perfect score. Verbs came up, i put'em down.

ORIENTATION . . . WHAT A BUNCH OF DOUCHE BAGS

Orientation is underway, and for the most part it has been fairly interesting. Orientation goes all week from about 5-9pm. Its a mixture of information sessions, forums, and time to handle administrative tasks. Monday night was the first night of orientation, and it was basically an intro into what to expect as a law student. Last night they spoke more about the services available to us as law students.

Last night was also the first time i actually got to talk to a few of my classmates. Well to make a long story short, they were douche bags. I'm a pretty nice guy . . . I'm an ok guy, but I was tempted to hip throw some of these guys and arm bar them. They were seriously asking to have something broken. To be fair, i didn't meet everyone, i didn't even meet half of them. The individuals I met last night fell into three categories:

1. The know it all: obnoxious people that know everything, have done everything, and are always right.

2. The story topper: these are people who have done everything you've done but better.

3. The I hate Los Angeles crowd:

Douche bag: "hey where are you from?"

Me: "LA"

Douche bag: "oh . . . i hate LA"

Me: [thought bubble] "go F@*k yourself!!!"

They all seemed to get along with each other, which actually saved me from getting trapped in a conversation with these people. They seemed to understand each other, but you could tell that some were faking sincerity. I observed a few conversations as i was waiting to get food and it basically consisted of one person being a douche bag, and another person humoring the douche until it was there turn to be a douche. I was going to be an ass, but i decided to just ignore them and move on to more important things, like whether or not one butter packet was enough for my roll.

I know there must be some good people at the school. I think it was a mixture of nervousness and being over eager to impress. Another thing i noticed was that I'm one of the few minorities in the program. Maybe i don't know how these white people communicate. White people are crazy!!!! I made an effort to mingle but the conversation left much to be desired. The deepest conversation i had was with one guy from Salt Lake City about the lasagna. The lasagna was really good, i had three plates of it. I was stuffed after the third serving, but i didn't feel like talking to anyone so i ate some chocolate cake. Anyways I'm just going to move on from this experience, I'll just call Tuesday night "strike one."

Hopefully tonight will go better. I think I'm going to try and get there early and see if i can't talk to people more one on one. All let you know how it goes.

FC DENVER TRYOUTS

Sunday was the first day of tryouts for the Football Club of Denver (FC Denver). FC Denver is a non profit, competitive, adult soccer club. Currently we have 4 men's teams and 2 women's teams. I serve as a player and coach for our premier team. I'm also a director so i handle a great deal of administrative tasks for the club. For example, the night before tryouts i drafted several contracts for the players dealing with liability, codes of conduct, and commitment to club. I've also drafted by laws and letters for the club. I also serve as somewhat of a coaching director. Mainly i just make sure there is a standard of coaching for the club, and help the coaches design training.

This weekend was our first tryouts for the fall season. We had about 30 new players turn out, which is pretty exciting. Most of the players were recreational level players, but we have teams that will suit their abilities. A few premier players showed up to tryouts and we went off to side to work on fitness. We did a long warm up to get some of the rust off, stretched, did a little more agility based warm ups, then headed off to do sprints. We did 6 back to back 100 yard sprints, and 6 back to back 50 yard sprints. Its pretty tough when you don't give the guys a lot of time to recover. After that we did a drill to work on explosiveness, and finished off with a cool down and stretch. Needless to say i was exhausted after. I think a combination of the heat, elevation, being way out of shape, and not having a good enough breakfast came together to wreck me.

The guys seemed pretty satisfied with the running, but little do they know that it was just the beginning. i have far more sinister drills in my repertoire that i have yet to unveil. i figured it wasn't a good idea to scare them away on the first day so i'll leave that for next time.

After seeing some of the guys on the premier team, i think we need to up the level of quality on that squad. Most of the guys are excellent players, but I would love to bring in players of a slightly higher caliber in a few positions. We need players with some type of college or professional experience, who might not be physically or technically superior to guys we have but are smarter. We might be a little naive for the level we are trying to play at this next season. We have enough heart to get good results, but I'm questioning our ability to manage games properly. So that is my task for the upcoming season. I need to find a way to get us up to par tactically and mentally, as well as physically.

Personally i need to get in shape, otherwise i might be out of starting job as well. It takes me about a month to acclimated to the elevation, which isn't good cause that will only leave me a week or two to do some hard training before the season starts.

Ok that is enough about that. I'm working on getting a digital camera, because the whole disposable camera thing really isn't working for me. So hopefully soon i'll have more pictures.

Things to look forward to this week: Law school orientation, Gaby gets her ultrasound and we find out if it is a boy or a girl, i return to jiu jitsu training after a long lay off do to illness, and i finally get to move off the sofa and move into an actual room!!!!!!

BLAH BLAH BLAH

Nothing interesting is going on right now, but i figured i'd just check in with everyone. I've basically been sitting at home for the last couple of days because i've been sick. The most exciting thing that has happened, was someone broke into my our neighbors place and stole stuff. They are right below us and I didn't hear a thing. I feel kind of bad about it, since my BJJ training makes me an instrument of death, i could've done something.

In family news, not about me. My little cousin Stef just got her first stripe at Hollywood Brazilian Jiu Jitsu. She is a natural at the sport, and I can see her being very successful. The first stripe basically means that she is getting the hang of the warm ups and new moves she is tought. It also means she understands the basic movements and terms of jiu jitsu. It is a big first step and i am very proud of her.

The blog has gone international. My friend in Japan, Aki, is now a loyal reader. Bringing my loyal following to . . . 7 . . . maybe.

Its been a week since I have arrived and there really hasn't been much to do. I went to jiu jitsu training for a couple days, but then i got sick. Probably from all the stress of moving out here. I'm final feeling better so maybe i'll start training tomorrow.

I finally saw Dark Knight, the new Batman movie. That was freaking awesome!!!!!!!!!! So cool. Heath Ledger was amazing. He stole the show. I recommend watching it at an IMAX.

Next week I have orientation all week, then I start classes on the 18th. I already have my reading list and first few assignments. One assignment consists of reading a 300 page book before my first class. Considering i'm the slowest reader on the planet i think i'm going to get started on that.

Life is pretty boring right now. I've taken care of most of the administrative stuff i needed to get done for school and watched a lot of tv. I even watched that Jamie Kennedy movie "Kickin it Old Skool". God awful movie, i think i'm dumber now for having watched it. I can't imagine what the conversation was like when were deciding to make that movie.

Anyways, I feel like this is the calm before the storm. In two weeks time i'll be begging for some time to myself. So I'm just going to enjoy not having anything to do for right now.

GABY PENA

I've talked about my girlfriend a little bit on this blog, but i just realized that most of you have never met her. Which is too bad because she is really an amazing girl and I'm a pretty lucky guy. Now that I'm 1200 miles away from her she is always on my mind. So i figured I should blog about her.

Name: Gabriela Elsa Pena

Age:24
Height: 5'2

Place of Birth: Nayarit, Mexico

Favorite Food: Mexican and Italian
Favorite Sport: Baseball

Occupation: My Girlfriend


We met when i started working at Executive Trustee Services (ETS). On my first day of work i was sitting in the reception area completely lost. I had no idea where i was supposed to go, or who i was supposed to talk to. All i knew was that i was working for First American, even though i was at ETS not First American. A little confusing, especially on the first day. Gaby saw me sitting there and showed me where to go because i was clueless. I figured i looked like a dumb ass and just my luck a pretty girl was the first person i talked to. I probably didn't talk to her for about a month after that. She says that its because i wouldn't talk to her, but i think its because she wouldn't talk to me. She always looked good and i had contemplated asking her out, but i figured i wasn't her type. Mainly because she wouldn't look at me or say more than two words to me. Eventually I got the courage to ask her out and to my surprise she said yes.

She confessed to me that she thought i only liked white girls. Apparently there was a rumor going around to that effect, which isn't true, because i also like Mexicans.

We went to eat Italian food on our first date. I had a chicken pesto calzone and she had a Cesar salad. The calzone was huge, and delicious, but i figured it probably isn't a good idea to look like a pig on the first date, so i saved half of it for later. We hit it off really well right off the bat and started going on more dates and taking breaks together at work. Things were going great.

I found out that she was a hair dresser and make up artist. She's worked on some pretty rich and important people. She always had cool stories about the people she's met and the crazy situations that sometimes puts her in. She loved going to the beach and going for runs. We also spent a lot of time watching movies since neither one of us had really done that in a while. She also really likes MMA, which is awesome!!!!!!

Then came that fateful day when we found out that she was pregnant. That was a surreal moment for me. We had suspected it for a couple weeks, but i wasn't prepared to see that pregnancy test come back positive. I spent the next couple days in a haze. I wasn't here nor there. I felt like i was living in limbo, almost in a dream like state that i wish i could wake up from. I was scared, angry, sad, happy, curious, excited, worried, and every other emotion you could think of. It was exhausting. Some days we would lay in bed talking about baby names and dreaming about how he or she would look. I hope my kid looks like her, but is awesome like me!! haha. Other days we would spend fighting about whether or not we were doing the right thing. It was a crazy time, but we got through it, and i came out of it with a lot more respect for her. She is about 4 months pregnant right now so we still have a long way to go. She is going to be a great mom, and knowing how strong she is makes it easier to deal with this situation.

Let me tell you how amazing this girl is. She actually told me she DOESN'T LIKE SOCCER, and that our kid is going to play BASEBALL!!!!!! Normally those words would be grounds for execution, but you know what . . . i didn't care. Little things like that seem small now and i have her to thank for that.

We agreed that my education was the most importing thing right now. Me becoming an attorney is a key factor in providing a better life for my family. It was tough leaving her behind, but I know that she has a better chance of dealing with the pregnancy with her family and my family around. Still i can't help but want to be there with her.

Our life isn't going to be something you've seen in the movies or on TV, but it is going to be interesting. I can't tell for sure how the future is going to turn out, but I know everything will be ok. I've never been one to do things very conventionally, so it is only fitting that this happen a little abnormally as well.

The story of Gaby and me is really the story of the last 6 months. She is such a big part of my life that i can't really tell you about her without talking about all the events that have happened while i was in LA.

I hope this gives everyone a better picture of my lady. I'll keep you guys posted on how this story unfolds.

MY B-DAY!!!

I want to say thank you to everyone who wished me a happy birthday. For those of you that forgot, no worries i'll be accepting presents all year. Please send all presents to:

Daniel Valenzuela
2525 S. Dayton Way Apt. 1308
Denver, CO 80231-3914

DENVER TRIP

We left Burbank at 4am Tuesday morning, and we arrived in Denver around 3pm Wednesday afternoon. The trip was amazing. My dad kept me company for those two days and we both had our breath taken away by the scenery. We were supposed head through Arizona and up through New Mexico, but thunderstorms forced us to go through Utah. I think God was looking out for us on that one, because the trip up the 70 is something that everyone should do. Here is a breakdown of how the trip went.


We packed up the car with my clothes and wrestling mats, and by 4am we were on our way. We stopped for breakfast in Barstow and continued to Las Vegas.


We stopped in Vegas and tried our luck at the MGM. We said we were going to play for about 30 min and head out. Well 30 minutes quickly turned into about 5 minutes, because the roulette spinner refused to land on black. Dirty crooked casino dealers. Anyways i lost my money pretty fast and just sat around for the next twenty minutes or so. Vegas is a crazy place, you show up with so much hope, but in the end you leave a broken and penniless man. My dad walked away from the slot machines $37 richer. Which was good because we needed gas.

We were back on the road at around 10:30am. On our way out of Nevada we felt a few aftershocks from the Chino earthquake. One almost pulled me off the road. Right around noon the temperature rose to 100 degrees and kept climbing. We entered Utah around 2pm and saw some of the most amazing hills and rocks we'd ever seen. The colors were vibrant reds, yellows, browns, and oranges.


We stopped at the Salt Washes, and took pictures. At this point we'd been driving for hours without seeing any signs of civilization. There would be gas stations and coffee shops strung along the highway everyone hundred miles or so. There was a group of Native Americans selling knick knacks and necklaces right underneath signs that said vending and soliciting is prohibited. But they didn't seem to give a crap. That was almost enough to make me buy something . . . almost.


Next we stopped at Diablo Canyon. We walked about a 100 yards from where we parked and just stood there enjoying the silence. You couldn't see the roads from where we were and the sound couldn't reach us. It was the most peace I'd felt in a long time.

Our last stop in Utah was Spotted Wolf Canyon. Easily the coolest name of all our stops. After this spot we said goodbye to Utah and its red hills.

We spent the night in Grand Junction, Co, which is about 30 miles past the Utah/Colorado Border. We slept in that night because we were exhausted from about 14 hours of driving on Tuesday. We woke up around 8am and got ready to head out. We had breakfast, put some gas in the car, refilled the oil and headed out. We noticed that Colorado is much greener than Utah. We started seeing all types of pines and grasslands.

We started to climb the rocky mountains and saw everything from wildlife preserves to farm land to mining facilities. It was kind of sad to see what some of these companies were doing to the land, but its the price we pay for energy. We climbed up to 9150 feet at one point. In the distance we saw two peaks which were at 14,000 feet some of the tallest in the US. It really is a remarkable view from up there.

We made our last stop before entering Denver. We said goodbye to the green mountains and said hello to the big city.

We arrived in Denver around 3pm, had some lunch, then I dropped my dad off at the airport so he could head back to Burbank. I met friends after that and starting settling into my new home. The trip was unforgettable and exhausting. But I'm here in Denver now ready to start this part of my life. Ok i hope you've enjoyed this recap of my trip. I'll try to post more often now that I'm a little bit more settled.