Life at NYU Law » International Food Festival

(Originally posted on March 8, 2012 at Life at NYU Law » International Food Festival)

The beginning of the spring semester has proven to be a surprisingly challenging period of 1L year. For one, the “fear-adrenaline” that was steadily pumping through my veins first semester has run dry. More or less knowing what to expect the second time around, I find it can be difficult to muster the desire to thoroughly read that 10-page dissenting opinion at 1:00 in the morning on a sleep-deprived weeknight. To make matters worse, six weeks of wining and dining at various law firms’ 1L receptions briefly tricked me into thinking I’d already been hired for some cushy job. Even the Belgium Waffles coffee shop around the corner that I single-handedly kept in business for much of last semester… is now out of business.

So what does one turn to during these trying times?

Extracurricular activities. Frequent list-serve updates are a welcome distraction on long library nights, and every now and then, amid the 1,436 solicitations for apartment sublets on Coase’s List, there’s an invitation to one of the various student groups’ eye-opening events. Or, in the case of last week’s International Food Festival, mouth-watering.

Last Thursday, NYU Law’s International Law Society, SBA, and Asia Law Society came together to sponsor the annual event, with support from IAA, Law Women, SALDF, PORTMANTEAU, LSHR, ALA, and MELSA. That’s some serious acronym firepower. Hundreds of students (and even some admitted students) congregated in Vanderbilt Hall’s Golding Lounge to sample delicacies from around the globe. All of the event’s proceeds were donated to the World Food Programme, the world’s largest humanitarian agency fighting hunger.

I sampled Nigerian coconut candy, Iranian ghormeh sabzi, and Ethiopian alicha and shiro. I gawked at no fewer than seven different varieties of French cheese. I noshed on a German vegetarian casserole curiously named Westphalian blind hen. And I avoided gluten like the plague.

Once I was nearly food-comatose, I returned to my apartment with newfound vigor to finish re-reading that 10-page dissenting opinion. Just kidding… I made that part up. That sounded like the proper ending though, right? But ultimately, even if events like the International Food Festival (and Saturday’s LaLSA Ball, while we’re at it) haven’t directly motivated me to do more work, they have certainly been welcome distractions along the way. Extremely delicious distractions.