This weekend I flew to Los Angeles, California. Too exhausted to be excited, I arrived at the LAX airport with heavy arms, sleep deprivation and open eyes. It would be the furthest west I’ve been since a trip to Dallas for a high school debate tournament. While I did not know what to expect from LA, I knew what to expect from the conference. I was attending CLEO’s Achieving Success in the Application Process (ASAP) Prelaw Seminars program for pre-law students.

 
The Council on Legal Education Opportunities (CLEO) is the quintessential resource for students interested in the legal field despite the fact that their dad isn’t an attorney or that they’ve never stepped foot in a law firm. At the ASAP program, I was able to hear directly from directors of admissions what law schools are looking for in regards to personal statements, LSAT scores, and the overall admission file. At the mini law school forum, participants also got the chance to network with representatives from law schools including Iowa U, UCLA, and Tulane, just to name a few. On the final day, we met the director of LSAC.org Richard Adams himself as he told us the nooks and crannies of the LSAT exam.

 
Overall, it was a superb program! But I still had two days to spend in LA and I was eager to see what all the fuss was about. I made it to Venice Beach, and boy was I impressed: outside gyms, basketball games, beautiful weather, and youthful energy assured me that if I was to move to LA, I would not regret it. My friends and I made our way to the famous “In and Out” burger spot where I was highly disappointed to learn that their veggie burger consists of a bun, tomatoes, and lettuce. Which reminds me that I neglected to mention a key event during my LA trip: getting stranded in Inglewood!

 
Yea, so we decided to go to Roscoe’s Chicken & Waffles the night before. My waffle and lemonade was delish. But when we discovered that our cab driver had broke his promise to return, we were faced with a dilemma: after-hours in South Ccentral LA and no taxis want to come pick us up! We’d call and we kept getting “INGLEWOOD?! YOU’RE IN SOUTH CENTRAL!” Lol, yea. Needless to say, we were not harassed or anything, and most of us, being from inner cities such as Philadelphia, D.C., Newark, NJ, were anything but intimidated. Thankfully, however, the security guard at Roscoe’s offered to take us back to our hotel because he “wouldn’t be able to sleep at night knowing that we were stuck in South Central with that on [his] conscience” (but he made sure to collect his gas money before we could step back on the pavement).

 
The next day, I stayed in Westwood Village near UCLA’s campus. Had the best sushi ever! And saw Dark Knight—which left me sad, but that’s another story. Fast forward one jamba juice, shuttle ride, and chaos later and I’m back at LAX airport the next day. As I’m standing in the check in line, just as I’m thinking of how I can’t wait to get on Eastern Standard Time, I start to feel a lil bit wooooozy. Little did I know, I was experiencing an EARTHQUAKE! The walls continued to slide back and forth in front of me for a good 2 minutes. Yea, I was done.

 
LA is a beautiful place, and I wish that I could have visited Hollywood, but what a way to get sent home: the first quake in 14 years!

 
But yea, check out CLEO.

 :)

Amira