Last night was the Scales of Justice Spring Charity Concert. I thought we sounded really good. There's a weird phenomenon I've noticed in each of the four semesters I've been singing with the Scales (Harvard Law School's best (and only) a cappella group): every semester, it doesn't seem like we're going to be ready to sing in our concert, but in the last few weeks, everything comes together and we don't sound all that bad--for law students. I think people (especially the former Scalies who have dropped out over the past year) were particularly impressed with our rendition of "God Only Knows," as sung by the Manhattan Transfer, which I've been trying to get the group to sing for four semesters now. We donated all the proceeds to the music department at the Cambridge Rindge and Latin School, the local public high school, which sent their choir director to "accept" the donation (though they won't actually get a check till next week at least). We sounded good. The funny parts were funny. Everything went off without a hitch.

Except for one thing.

While we were on stage, our president and only 3L, Maria, was in the hospital. Tuesday night during rehearsal she started feeling worse and worse, and eventually left early. Seems she's come down with some sort of kidney infection. It's particularly sad because the spring concerts are usually supposed to be a goodbye tribute to the graduating members, and she's the only one this year. She has been a dedicated member of Scales for three years, and now she has to sit out her last concert.

So after the show, the whole group went over to the hospital to visit her. I haven't been to visit anyone in the hospital for a long time. It was a really cool experience. We had to get special permission, since visiting hours only last till 8:00 and we arrived at 9:30. The doctors only let us go into the room in small groups, so with each additional group, Maria felt more and more of our love, till the whole group was there. We gave her flowers, a card, and her traditional Scales present (an alarm clock, since she has so much going on), and we just chatted for a while. I'm sure missing the concert was harder for her than it was for us. There were some empty spots where she had a part by herself, but Shelly filled in nicely on Maria's "final" solo on "California Dreamin'."

We're performing again tonight at a free law school shindig. We'll probably have a bigger audience (because it's free). But I'm only hoping that one person in particular will be able to take the I.V. out of her arm and be in the audience.