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Blueprint LSAT Prep Instructor Get-to-Know: Bay Area

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In yet another sign of how fast this year has flown by, Blueprint LSAT Prep’s first two summer courses are starting this weekend — including one of our Berkeley LSAT prep courses.

Let’s meet some of our Bay-area LSAT prep instructors before the October LSAT sneaks up on us.

It’s time once again for a Blueprint LSAT Prep summer course instructor get-to-know (catch up on our New York LSAT prep instructors, our Boston and Washington DC LSAT prep instructors, our Chicago, Miami and Philadelphia LSAT prep instructors, and our Texas LSAT prep intructors).

Without further ado, meet our Berkeley LSAT prep summer instructors:

Blueprint’s Bay Area LSAT Prep (Berkeley, San Francisco, Palo Alto, and San Jose)

AARON COHN

1) What’s playing on your iPod/Spotify/radio the most these days?
Earth Wind and Fire. Seriously. The earlier 70s stuff. I’m talking more like Spirit and That’s the Way of the World than, say, “Let’s Groove.” Also Sonny Rollins, most recently The Sound of Sonny.

2) You’re on death row (shame on you!). What’s your last meal?
I’d have to start with several dozen oysters. I’d want Manhattans made with rye whiskey and Punt E Mes. Lots of them. At that point, might as well do the job myself and not wait for them to do it. If I failed, the hangover might make lethal injection at least a little more appealing.
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3) Which famous person would you marry right now, no questions asked, and why?
My girlfriend saw this question yesterday and raised her eyebrow at me. I told her she had about 12 hours to become famous. No luck so far. But it seems like the quickest route to reality show fame and fortune is to marry a Kardashian. As long as there’s no pre-nup.

4) If you had a time machine, when/where would you visit, and why?
I’d have to go back to the 1960s to hear the classic Coltrane quartet and the second Miles Davis quintet live. Repeatedly. And maybe stretch it toward the late 60s for Sly Stone et al.

5) What’s your best LSAT story?
The first time I took the LSAT, I screwed up the Logic Games. Really screwed them up. I wrote down the rules to one of the games backwards and couldn’t recover in time, which led to the futile prayer that what I had just done was the experimental. My hopes were dashed when I saw section 5 reading comp poking through the thin, thin, LSAT paper at the end of section 4. So when I tell you to double check your rules it’s because I learned the hard way.

NICK REY

1) What’s playing on your iPod/Spotify/radio the most these days?
I’ve been listening to Daft Punk’s “Get Lucky” non-stop for the last week. Normally though, I mostly listen to podcasts (personal favorites: Radiolab, Planet Money, Intelligence Squared) and if I listen to music, it’s something along the lines of Mumford and Sons, Of Monsters and Men, or Katy Perry.

2) You’re on death row (shame on you!). What’s your last meal?
Start with a small stack of french toast, then a bunch of beignets (approximately 37), followed by a couple chocolate croissants, three perfectly cooked eggs benedicts, and a rib-eye steak, beautifully rare. And to wash it all down, a bottomless vanilla milkshake. (I never understood why people automatically overlook breakfast for last meals. It certainly would be the most important meal of this day.)
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3) Which famous person would you marry right now, no questions asked, and why?
Keira Knightley in a heartbeat. I thought you said no questions asked?

4) If you had a time machine, when/where would you visit, and why?
Athens, ancient Greece. I hear that the buildings and statues were all supposedly painted vibrant colors back in the day, and I need to see it. I’d also like to see if Socrates was as ugly and grouchy as he seems from his statues. And I look great in a toga.

5) What’s your best LSAT story?
The day of the LSAT started off like a nightmare. I was running late, and since I had ignored my instructor’s advice to scope out the LSAT test center, I hit unexpected traffic, got partially lost, couldn’t find parking and ended up parking in a red zone, had to frantically dash across Cal State Hayward freaking out that I was too late, only to find a line of a hundred students waiting to register. Saved by ridiculously inefficient security procedures! I caught my breath, reassured myself that Blueprint had prepped me well, and then I scored a 180, proving that there’s hope for even the most irresponsible of us.

PHIL BELLEAU

1) What’s playing on your iPod/Spotify/radio the most these days?
Songza mixes, over and over. Anything weird or with a good beat for working out. And obviously DJ Jazzy Jeff. Just tell me “Summertime” doesn’t bring you to your happy place.

2) You’re on death row (shame on you!). What’s your last meal?
This is such an unfair question. But probably chicken and waffles. Who invented that combination? Genius. And a Yuengling.
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3) Which famous person would you marry right now, no questions asked, and why?
Jessica Alba. Because she seems really…nice.

4) If you had a time machine, when/where would you visit, and why?
Thousands of years in the future so I could fly around in spaceships. The why is obvious…spaceships! Also, Han Solo is the Steve McQueen of the future; it doesn’t hurt to have a goal.

5) What’s your best LSAT story?
My mother once claimed to a girlfriend of mine that I “discovered” dinosaurs. Yes, I’m taking that comment way out of context, and she’d probably be furious that I’m broadcasting this. But since every other question on the LSAT is about dinosaurs, I have ample opportunities to retell the story in class and embarrass my mother. Sorry Mom.

BEN DEGOLIA

1) What’s playing on your iPod/Spotify/radio the most these days?
Alabama Shakes.
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2) You’re on death row (shame on you!). What’s your last meal?
Mission burrito.

3) Which famous person would you marry right now, no questions asked, and why?
Natalie Portman–because she’s beautiful, brilliant, and political.

4) If you had a time machine, when/where would you visit, and why?
Yosemite Valley anytime before 1833, because it is the most beautiful place on Earth.

5) What’s your best LSAT story?
I had a student who came to me the day before her first day of classes at a ~110th ranked law school. She told me she’d made a last-minute decision to retake the LSAT and reapply next year. We worked together for six weeks, she brought her score up 30 points, and now she’s going to the #7 law school in the country.