An Upgrade

When I came to law school, I knew that I was not going to have any income to speak of for the extent of my enrollment. So, the past three years have been an exercise in how to save money. I lived simply and alone in a sparsely furnished apartment. In part to avoid distractions and in part to avoid the expense of cable, I did not bring a television with me to Florida.

This summer, however, the opportunity arose for me to sublease a nice townhouse with three guys who also just graduated. I moved in with them about a week ago.

I like the changes. There is a lot more living space. The ceiling in my bedroom is so high that I can not reach the control cords for the fan. Also, the house is close enough to the law school that I can walk to my Kaplan bar prep classes. In addition to having a dishwasher, a washer and dryer, and a large HD TV with huge speakers and about 500 channels, the townhouse also gets many more visitors than my apartment ever did.

There were a couple of parties that I attended here during law school. This house was one of the more popular places for law school students to gather for Florida State away games on TV.

I won't lie. It was rather nice to come downstairs from my bedroom to do laundry a few days ago and discover four beautiful women sitting on the living room couches, talking and laughing.

Though my new home is certainly more comfortable, it is also considerably more distracting. Making myself study the bar prep material is going to take effort.

I don't watch much television, but a TV with 500 channels can hit my Achilles heel- sports and good movies.

Right now, the ACC baseball tournament is happening. Florida State has made it to the championship game, and I can watch all of the games on the Florida Sports Network. Yesterday, I caught myself avoiding studying by watching Utah vs. New Mexico State in a Mountain West Conference baseball game airing on some obscure channel.

HBO is also a huge temptation. Last week, I was almost late to bar prep class because I became interested in Robert Downey's performance in Sherlock Holmes.

And then there are my friends. Living with outgoing fellow students suddenly means there is much more socializing to do- not that I'm complaining.

One of my roommates is from Miami. He is a huge Heat fan. When their basketball games come on, he cranks up the speakers on the TV and makes the walls shake. I enjoy watching the games with him because he is such a passionate fan. After every Heat victory, his tradition is to open our balcony doors and blast the Pitbull remix of Don Omar's "Danza Kuduro" into the streets.

After the Miami Heat clinched the Eastern Conference championship on Thursday around midnight, he shouted at me, "Nathan! Put on your shoes! We are going out!"

"C'mon, man," I replied. "We've got class at 9am tomorrow."

"This is not an option!" he yelled.

Yes, my living situation has changed substantially from a couple of weeks ago when I came home to a small, rather empty apartment in a very quiet neighborhood. Even now, as I type this blog entry in my bedroom, one of my roommates is booming dance music by some female artist unknown to me. I don't mind. It is a nice change, an upgrade to my quality of life. I think I can maintain enough discipline to get my bar studying done, and everything is fine.

Until Next Time,

Nathan Marshburn