Monday, December 27, 2010

Keep on rockin in the winter wonderland

News flash! New England got pummeled by snow. We got about a foot here that I had the special privilege of shoveling. Its reasons like this that New Englanders are unfailingly self-important - our righteous snow removal. It was kind of fun watching the Great Blizzard of '10, but it got far less enjoyable when I realized that I wasn't going outside at all yesterday. I even did a bit of work on my note as a result of my cabin fever. Nothing like being forced into productivity. That's perhaps how I imagine ritalin feels.

If there is one thing I hate, it is "Eat, Pray, Love." So maybe I've never actually read the book or seen the movie, but I am 100% certain that I hate it.

I talked with a friend of mine who has an M.F.A. in poetry. She was reminiscing about how difficult grad school was and how they all had to open up to each other and share their feelings. They were treated as such individuals. I could not think of a more contrasting graduate school experience to law school. Feelings? What are those? No one cares how this makes you feel, they want to know whether proper 553 notice and comment rulemaking procedures were followed. Write a poem about that. Then burn it because it will be the second worst poem ever (after Maya Angelou's "I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings," yes it is a poem as well as the title of her book).

My iTunes has chosen to spread the message that I should "Keep on rockin' in the free world." Since this is my blog, I thought I would share that inspirational message in these dark and troubled times.

There is a new heating system in my mother's house. When the heat goes on the pipes make a noise that sounds like a TIE Fighter. It is super distracting.

Friday, December 24, 2010

Panic! In the Parking Lot

Last night I had a dream. I was not judged by the color of my skin, but rather by the quality of my Administrative Law final examination. And I was not judged well, let me tell you. That's a true fake story.

Last night I saw "The Blue Flower" at the A.R.T. The only reaction to it I have for sure is the most pretentious one I can think of. It was very Brechtian. Aside from that, I feel like I missed the message. Why was I there? What did I learn? It was an enjoyable experience, but I feel somehow empty. It was a musical, and I am not the biggest musical connoisseur, but the music was actually good. I was fine with the musical aspect because they did not try to have a regular story which was interrupted perpetually by song and dance numbers. I hate musicals where they want it to be realistic, but then everyone breaks into a choreographed dance number. Then they go back to normal as if not everyone walking down main street eerily happened to know the words to the same song and sang it in three part harmony. That is unbelievable so do not try to make me believe the underlying story. Musicals like The Blue Flower (or Rocky Horror Picture Show!) don't even try to approach realism. They are not pushing some two-bit love story where emotion is expressed through the arts of song and dance and all of the characters act like this is completely normal. If you are going to have a show with music, make it absurd in some way. Because the musical genre is itself absurd. If you embrace the absurdity, then I am a lot more likely to be contented as an audience member because there isn't this disconnect between the purported reality and the music. Curse you "The Music Man." End tirade.

HP tech support could have been more helpful. Like, the first time I called they could have helped me fix my problem in a much simpler way (which they did the second time I called). Though I must compliment the first person I spoke to on his English. The second person doesn't get a compliment on her English because she had a southern accent and was not clearly based in India.

I spent most of yesterday afternoon running errands with my mom. This involved going to one mall and two supermarkets. List of places designed to piss me off on the days leading up to a major holiday: mall and supermarkets. There were so many morons to contend with it was simply incredible. From the parking lot to the line for the cashiers, people were being unintelligible, unaware imbeciles. Ma'am, I understand that you are searching for the perfect pomegranate, but you are literally holding up twelve people trying to get by you. Sir, do you not see the two "Do Not Enter" signs that you are driving past at the moment? It was a huge mess. Towards the end of the day my mother remarked that I seemed angry. I told her I was always angry. For some reason she didn't believe me.

Monday, December 20, 2010

I seem to have shipped up to Boston

Here I am, back in Boston for the "holidays." I woke up early this morning to catch a MARC commuter train to Baltimore. And from Baltimore I was to drive up with Nakul. Well my karma from waking up on time did not translate into good train schedule luck. The 7:30 train was delayed indefinitely and the 8:30 was outright canceled. I managed to get on an Amtrak and get to Baltimore, which was magical in itself because I had not yet had any coffee. While on the train, I almost kicked the guy in front of me who was listening to a playlist from his phone without any earphones plugged in. In fairness, I probably would have equally vindictive thoughts even if I had coffee, but it made my attitude was quite pronounced this morning. Nakul and I ended up making great time from Baltimore (6 hours) while avoiding most traffic and bad weather.

Since I last updated I've done a whole lot of nothing. Unless you count being at the bar as something. Then I've done a lot of something. For some reason all of my classmates were quite anxious to go drinking after finishing finals. Well who was I to say no? The post-finals party was pretty epic. I will remember it for my relative sobriety compared to everyone else's complete lack of let's say self-control. The word for it is mess. Hilarious mess that I can laugh about even if no one else will remember. Some drunk 1L kept buying everyone drinks, me included. Another drunk 1L bought everyone shots. As I was leaving, my drunk friend tried to buy me a shot which I politely declined. The problem was that he didn't just buy one shot for me, nor two shorts for us to have together. Rather, he bought five shots because he seemed to think that was a rational choice at that point of the night. He spent the next ten minutes trying to pawn some off because it was almost 2 am and (surprise surprise) most people were in no shape for ripping whiskey shots.

4 am is not a good time of day to be awake for. Next time I think its a good idea to play beer dice after closing down a bar, I need to think again.

Perhaps unsurprisingly, I have not slept well in a good long while. Between regular sleeping issues, a month of finals studying where I have problems shutting down my brain, bar nights, and early mornings, it has been a long haul. I am looking forward to at least three good nights of sleep this vacation. That's my goal. And if my cats wake me up, I will give them the crappy cat food for the entire time I am here, so help me. (Good threat, right?) Three nights - think I can do it? I am honestly not sure if I can. It's a wonder they don't make game shows out of these situations.

Thursday, December 16, 2010

The big 1/2

It might be 1:45 am. It might be an inopportune time to update a blog. It might be silly, but I am halfway through with law school.

"Whoa, we're halfway there. Whoa, livin' on a prayer."

Thank you, thank you.

My corporations final was ridiculous. We read about 85 cases this semester. We were asked (closed book) factual details about some of them. We were also asked about things that my professor discussed for fewer than 10 minutes in class. This was out of 25 multiple choice questions, plus three "short answer" questions.
Speaking of the short answers, you would be surprised how quickly you reach 400 words. And my professor said that the word limit would be an upper limit that "no one would reach." My answers were, 397, 398, 398 words respectively. Thanks professor.

Glen Beck is the worst. Not even 'fair and balanced,' just the worst.

Monday, December 13, 2010

THe most improtent factor...

After a desperate dash to "learn" administrative law, I put it all on the line this afternoon. It was time for the final. And wow, did it not go beautifully. I was prepared for it to be difficult, but somehow not in the exhausting way that was the result.
The practice exam I took was designed to be done in 3 hours and 15 minutes. It has 2 pages of facts to read and 7 questions to answer. The actual exam today was a strict 3 hour time limit. It had 5 pages of facts and 7 questions to answer. Some questions had multiple parts. When I looked up from question 3 and saw that I was already an hour into the exam I knew I had to hurry it up. There was no longer time for complete explanations, addressing possible counter-arguments, or even correct spelling. The further I got into the exam, the more time-pressured things became, and the less coherent it all was. In one instance, the third element (of a 3-part test) that I analyzed I realized was actually the best argument for me so I wrote, "This is actually the most useful and most important factor, so they should emphasize this" and moved on. I had no time for anything else. (I hope my professor enjoys spelling errors and errors in capitalization, such as beginning a sentence "THe most improtent factor...")
I made it onto the final question with about 6 minutes to go and promptly brain dumped onto the page. I didn't get the entire way through my answer; I had to stop typing when time was called. That was the first final that has ever happened to me on. The first final I have ever just written constantly for three hours. It was exhausting. There were a few times during the exam where I thought "Maybe I'll come back to this at the end to make the argument better." I am so glad I decided against doing that - I never would have made it back.
I left the exam with a jaw muscle strained from clenching it too much. No joke. It took me about 30 minutes to wipe that "What the heck just happened??!?!!" feeling. I think this was common to everyone. Two of my friends left questions entirely blank. Smart kids too, not morons or burned out 3Ls taking the class pass/fail. At least I answered all the questions!

After the afternoon final everyone I talked to was unhappy with their exam. Including people who were not taking the same final as me. People in Family Law, National Security Law, and International Law all exchanged sob stories with me. It was a rough day for exam-takers. One of my friends realized she was 500 words over the word limit for her exam and spent copious time removing them. That sucks. You did too much work, now do more work to undo all the hard work you put in!

Why is the office holiday party such a large thing in pop culture? That's such a random activity to give so much attention to (see Die Hard 1). I've never even been to an office holiday party, nor had an office with a holiday party I had the option of attending! But I imagine they are booze-soaked affairs where co-workers will act scandalously and someone will put his job in jeopardy by speaking honestly to the boss after one too many vodka sodas.

I am moderately perturbed at how quickly people comment on facebook posts. I'm not a huge commenter myself, but the rapid comments make me feel like something posted two hours ago is stale and no longer merits my input. They say life is slower in the South, perhaps facebook should take a cue from the South and sloooooow down. Or maybe I'm just becoming an old geezer. I don't even fully understand Twitter! Really!

Sunday, December 12, 2010

Sweat Dreams

This has been the weekend of study, spent in quiet contemplation while bent of an Administrative law casebook. The plus side is that I feel like I have a workable framework for understanding Admin. That's a vast improvement over, let's say, Friday afternoon. And pretty convenient timing considering that my final is tomorrow afternoon. If I had not started to understand the class then I would be in really rough shape. I'm counting on the fact that the rest of my class has less of a working knowledge of Admin than I do, since my understanding is far from complete. It doesn't even help that my casebook is convoluted and poorly organized. It is even worse that the book contradicts itself about a particular rule. This is especially embarrassing because my professor co-authored the casebook. I have an urge to tell him "Pages 293 and 305 directly contradict each other; please tell me which is correct." (Note: those pages really do contradict each other! I'm not even throwing random numbers out there!!!) But it's too late to contact him and I don't want to look like a big jerk.

I had a dream the night after my Con Law test in which I correctly identified issues I had missed during the actual exam. Oops! I've definitely woken up feeling better about myself before. Oh well, nothing to be done. The unfortunate spirit of law school dictates that my response must be "Well I bet everyone else missed them too, and more."

Apparently I have free HBO this month. Woo! Thanks RCN. First good thing you've ever done for me.

Wednesday, December 8, 2010

My pretty, dimly lit, knotted fantasy

I would say the most exciting thing that happened today was receiving a $1 off coupon at ABP. I know, you can hardly contain your excitement. That's half a croissant! Besides that all I really did was learn Con Law in more depth. I think I've got it down pretty well, but I have another day to sure it up just in case. I could tell you all about neutral laws that incidentally burden speech! But that might not be so exciting for you.

Kanye's new album is downright addictive. But he says some ridiculous things. The most notable one (or the one that is currently on my mind) involves having sex with Egyptian mummies and a sarcophagus. I get the feeling that Kanye West went to the history museum that morning and saw a cool exhibit on ancient Egypt and was like "How can I fit this into my rap on this song I'm recording? Well I can't make a song about mummies - that would be weird next to all the other tracks which have no historical significance whatsoever. And it might be hard to how cool I am into a song about ancient Egypt since I wasn't even there. Let's see here..." But somehow Kanye did manage to put his new-found word into a rap, sarcophagus.

I won't lie, spell check needed to correct sarcophagus the first time I typed it. But now I've got it down. Sarcophagus. Sarcophagus. Rhymes with esophagus, right Kanye??

I guess this is not the best place to address it, but I am becoming concerned with the federal deficit as well. Let's think of ways to deal with the deficit, Mr. President and leaders of Congress. What's that you say: keep income tax cuts in place, add payroll tax cuts, throw in a low estate tax rate, and spend more on unemployment? So you want to have the government take in less money while spending more money and this is supposed to...reduce the deficit? Why yes that makes perfect sense, let's just do some calculations here. Does anyone have a calculator I can borrow? Anyone in Congress have a calculator? No one in Congress does, what a surprise. Alright, I'll just ballpark it. Oh, you mean that basic arithmetic functions do not support this plan as a way of reducing the deficit? Crazy! Someone should alert people to this fact.
If you want to reduce the deficit then do it. If you want to cut taxes because that's what you believe is best for the economy then do it. But do not attempt to sell me something while you are defying basic arithmetic.
End political rant of the week. DC affects me I guess.

Stupid person of the day: my friend who took the U.S. Foreign Relations Law exam with me last night. Today she told me that she didn't know what the word "tenable" meant on the exam so she assumed it meant "impossible." She may be in for a surprise.

Tuesday, December 7, 2010

Exam 1: Done. Next stop: Exam 2.

First exam of this finals period: completed. Foreign Relations Law. It was a good deal harder than I anticipated. The second question (of two) was the type where you see it on a practice exam and say "maybe I'll skip this one..." only it was actually my final so I couldn't skip it. That harsh reality set in and I ended up with a somewhat creative answer to one of the parts which will either get lots of points or get me laughed at and zero points. So here's hoping. As often is the case, the redeeming factor is that everyone else had that "What the hell just happened?" look on their face as well. So if it was hard for everyone, we'll all do fine. Except the people who don't, as mandated by the curve. Daunting? Perhaps.
The other upside to this is that my confusing study session had little to no impact on the exam. I spent the afternoon with a classmate who did nothing but confuse my understanding of some of the material. I spent the early evening trying to forget the afternoon. What a productive use of my time. That's what I get for study group-ing in this class.

I wish there were other things going on at the moment. But the next thing is Con Law on the horizon (Friday). Anything else? Legolas, what do your elf eyes see? Orcs? No, just more exams. Damn. Nerd.

Saturday, December 4, 2010

Facebook emails invade my inbox day!

Do me a favor, listen to the Jay-Z song "December 4th" for me today. It is December 4th after all. Jay-Z's birthday. And someone else's birthday. Who could that be? Conveniently located during study period before finals, a length of time often noted for having law students retreat into the library to freak out. But not I. I remain defiantly and cautiously optimistic; optimistic enough to go out for the evening.

I experienced a Hannukah miracle this morning. I went down to the work out room to lift and run. When I turned on my iPod at the beginning of my workout I noticed that I only had a little bit of battery life left. I'm talking that tiny sliver of red which indicates imminent shut down. But the battery miraculously stayed alive throughout my entire workout. A Hannukah miracle occurred on the treadmill.

Thursday, December 2, 2010

This Gun's for Hire

Maybe I'm just 26 years behind, but "Dancing in the Dark" is a great song. It's not like I had never heard it before today; I just had never listened. I had also never seen the music video, which accidentally launched Courtney Cox's career. So if you like Friends, you have Bruce Springsteen to thank. And if you hate Friends, then you have no soul and you have yourself to blame. (I'm not a great Friends enthusiast, but I recognize the goodness of the show.)

Perhaps to make up for yesterday no one got cold called in Corporations today. The more likely explanation for zero cold calls is that it was a review session and my professor miraculously went through the entire course in an hour and fifteen minutes. He spoke very fast. There was no time for interruptions. No time.

I started out the day feeling good about working. I got some work done at home. Then I walked into school and I could just feel the stress withering people around me. It was palpable. People were frantically typing away at their computers, asking questions, and flipping pages. Me? I remained surprisingly calm. To ward of the infective stress I sat with my friend Carl and commented on how manly he was as he ate a fried chicken leg using nothing but his hands and teeth (knives, forks, napkins, and plates are for lesser men than Carl). I will also add that I am so happy not to be a 1L.

Wednesday, December 1, 2010

"Can You Repeat the Question? Sorry, I have to pass"

Except for one review class tomorrow, today was the last day of classes. Hallelujah. There is nothing more to learn about administrative law; only things to re-learn that I forgot when I blacked out during class. To solemnify the occasion of the last day, the most ridiculous Corporations class ever commenced. My professor cold calls a lot every day. But today a pattern developed: he would call on someone, they would pass, he would call on someone else, they would ask him to repeat the question and then pass, and finally my professor would ask for volunteers. This pattern became uncanny. I thought maybe the class was pulling a fast one that I was not in on. I got called on today and thankfully answered the question correctly. Now, I understand passing in that class; it has around 150 people in it and you don't want to fumble around for the answer and waste everyone's time. But a total of 27 people opted to pass today - my friend counted. That's excluding the 10 or so people who asked him to repeat the question and then answered (usually incorrectly). Apparently next to no one did the reading or could be bothered to listen. It was not a mass conspiracy, it was just absurd.

TSA checked my friend's hair as she was going through security. Her hair was in a bun and apparently it needed a good squeeze to ensure safety.

I think it's time we update coal. You now get a solar panel in your stocking if you have been naughty.

Good day, sir. I said good day!