And Another Thing

It got to 78 degrees here and was so humid that the rain storm didn't do anything to make the air feel better. The humidity has kept me awake for three straight nights - it doesn't help that the heat is turned on in my building. It is late October, what is going on here?? This place is not civilized. My New England sensibilities are offended.

Tales From Real Law School:

I spent 3 hours tonight trying to figure out the correct way to cite 3 similar statutes. In the end, I just resigned myself to the fact that there is no rule in the guide that is exactly on point and threw in my best guess. To recap: 3 hours, 3 citations, no correct answer. Tales from real law school.

I met a 1L tonight. She said she loved law school. She asked me and another 2L how we felt about it. We looked at each other and laughed in her face. "Wait until exams," said the 2L next to me. "I just cannot picture having fun learning about subject matter jurisdiction," I added, incredulously. The 1L cocked her head quizzically to the side to tell me that she had no idea what subject matter jurisdiction was. Exactly. That's why you love law school. I encouraged her to keep enjoying it for now, then reassured her that I thought she was crazy.

Underlining. More Underlining.

My blogging has been severely injured by my actually getting down to business and doing work. Doing work makes much of my life consist of staring at some nonsense in a book and underlining things that seem important so that I may promptly forget them. I got frustrated enough with this process the other day that I actually yelled at my Admin casebook. Just me sitting at my desk with no one around shouting "Oh come on! No one cares!"

The only "interesting part" of "doing work" has been cite checking and substantiating sources for an article at the behest of my journal. The process basically requires me to look through the author's sources, check that she didn't just make up her facts, and then correct her citations. It's busy work (but necessary so we don't get slammed for academic integrity issues) and I am beginning to think that this author never actually went to law school based on how badly she managed to screw up the citation style. But that's really not my big qualm. Someone else was responsible for "source collection" - gathering together copies of the sources the author used. I have been assigned 18 citations to check, consisting of 16 sources. 5 of the sources I am supposed to be looking at were collected incorrectly. 5 of 16. Almost one third. Like, they are just blatantly not the source in the citation. Security Resolution 827 was cited; Resolution 857 was collected and given to me. Guys, 2s and 5s look kind of similar, but come on we are in 18th grade. Another mistake was printing out the wrong statute. Just clearly not the correct one - different number, different name, different everything. This was unhelpful to say the least and it requires me to look like a whiny moron when I have to relate the information to my editor. Whoever collected these sources must be joking. I don't have time for this. No time!

Why does ice cream make you thirsty?

I was relating a story about petting a dog on Saturday night after I left a bar. In the middle of talking about the dog I realized that this occurred around 2 am. Why was this lady out walking her dog at 2 am? And why was I still awake with my night not nearly over? Because we all make poor decisions is why. I don't know exactly what her bad decision was, but mine was playing beer dice.

I Recommend the youtube video "So you want to go to law school"

My goodness, how is it Wednesday already? I have been trying to buckle down, go into 'hermit mode' and get work done this week. Somehow I just feel like I'm treading water. It could be worse, I could be slipping. It helps that Con Law is the slowest thing ever. If we moved more slowly in that class, time would move backwards. And Admin is becoming as dry as a saltine. I wish I could report people saying stupid things in these classes, but really no one talks; no one even pays much attention. It is embarrassing how many computer screens are on gchat or the Wikipedia page for Sega.

I am still not sure what I am going to be for Halloween. Who really cares? I don't want to spend lots of money on an "awesome" costume. You can really only use it once (maybe reuse it on Purim if you are one of the chosen people). The only good reason to have a costume is so that other people won't harass you for not dressing up. I think I've mostly used up my cop-out costumes (like throwing on my old Starbucks apron), so unless I think of another one, I might be forced to branch out into the world of 'real' costumes. There's an earn of corn costume at Target, think that will go over well?

The bluebook is quite possibly the most frustrating book ever. More frustrating than "Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man." In case you don't go to law school or are not inexplicably well versed in legal writing, the bluebook is a style guide to legal citations. Just the description should give you an idea of how poor it is. I am spending a lot of time with this masterpiece of a book. Thanks journal.

Law Ego, big time

I have heard tell of people who work in biglaw being pretentious jerks, but I never saw it until last night. I was at the bar for a friend's birthday. A woman who apparently knows one of my friends started talking to me:
Her: You are all law students, right?
Me: Yeah. How did you know that?
Her: I just know.
Me: How? Did you overhear a conversation?
Her: I'm omnipotent.
Me: I think you mean omniscient.
[I'd like to pause here and note that this interaction began with her vocabulary gaffe. I will add that I was actually polite about this entire conversation, for once.]
Her: So what kind of law do you want to do?
Me: It looks like energy law.
Her: Oh, I work for the number three energy lawyer in the country.
Me: Oh, that's cool.
Her: Yeah, you want to be on my good side.
Me: Ummm, ok...?
Her: Yeah, I work at Steptoe and Johnson for the number three energy lawyer in the country. He's my boss. [Then she said the names of some lawyers I've never heard of which I do not remember.]
Me: Oh, nice. That's really cool.
Her: Yeah, you want to be my friend.
Me: I'm sorry, I'm really not trying to suck up to you...I don't need...like I already have a job, so it's all good. And your firm already rejected me, haha.
Her: What's your GPA?
Me: What? Why? I'm not...I don't...
Her: What is it??
Me: [Tells her, perhaps stupidly.]
Her: Oh we probably wouldn't take you. We are all 4.0. Haha.
Me: Ok, well...???
Then she walked away and started talking about me angrily to her friend. I really have no idea why. No lie, I was very polite to her this entire time. That might be hard to believe, but take m word for it. I was very conscious of her bad attitude in the face of my pleasantries.
Besides her blatant insecurity and need to prove how important she was, I have questions about this interaction. Is she a lawyer, or is she a paralegal or secretary? I'm not sure how often lawyers refer to their "boss." I feel like they would talk about a partner they work with or their managing partner. Also, she had this massive superiority complex, but the entire thing started out with correcting her vocabulary. Finally, Steptoe is a good firm, but it isn't #1 in the country or anything. Her arrogance was simply stunning.
I asked my friend about this woman, and apparently she runs a health blog. That is ironic. How to put this lightly...her ego matches her physique. She went on to sexually harass Jeff (who was in town and it was fantastic to see). It got to the point where Jeff, a very laid back individual who does not mind female attention, had to tell her not to touch him. If I ever act as arrogantly as this woman, just kill me.

When I eat apple sauce I feel like I am five. But it is delicious.

Tonight I went to a Washington Capitols game. It was my first professional hockey game since I was about seven, but that one previous game made me a grizzled veteran compared with the other people I went with. Despite all my live hockey experience, I still had to resort to discussing "Mighty Ducks" with my friends. I did have the good sense to do that in a hushed voice so that the enthusiastic hockey fans (also read: screaming white people in hockey jerseys) would not know of my relative ignorance of the sport. The game was fun, for an inside sporting event, and I got to see Ovechkin score a goal so there was my money's worth. I was amazed at the high percentage of people who had hockey jerseys on. Those things are expensive and...it's hockey. But apparently people are passionate about the Capitols. Remember that time there was a hockey strike and no one I knew cared?

I've been hungry a lot recently, and I have no idea why. Maybe I am not getting enough of something. If I knew anything about nutrition then maybe that might help me be more descriptive. Protein maybe? That's a thing that makes you not so hungry I believe. Then again, so is pizza. My desert island food might be pizza.
Making food has become somewhat of an onerous task. You have to think about what you want, make it, eat it, and clean up. Sometimes I think it's just easier to walk to Subway. Then I remember I do not like Subway very much and it is far more expensive than just making basically the same sandwich with grocery store ingredients. Maybe the answer to some of this problem is purchasing paper plates so I don't have to wash my dishes? Wow, how lazy can I get?? Not to mention environmentally unfriendly. I think a better answer is to find new, interesting, and delicious things to cook. And to find my motivation. I think it is with Waldo.

News flash: 7:45 remains too early to pay attention in class.

Stupid person of the day: Me, for accidentally holding the door for the girl I don't like. Stupid manners getting in the way of vindictiveness. I dislike her for somewhat legitimate reasons though: she stole one of my screening interviews during OCI, she is inconsiderate when I have to walk past her seat in a narrow row of chairs, and she is ugly. All that and I still was accidentally nice to her.

Conan's TBS Commercials Are Good

Between postseason baseball and regularly scheduled football, there has been a lot of sports watching. As a result I get to be a male stereotype. In the past few days I have: drank beer, played pool, sat on the couch all day watching football, ate pizza and wings, mocked losing teams, mocked fans of losing teams, been mocked for being a fan of a losing team - just to name a few things. I am almost thankful that Monday is coming around to drag me back in the direction of responsibility. Being a stereotypical male is exhausting and somewhat mind numbing. I'm glad I am not Heteronormative Man (the superhero, clearly).

When you think of beer pong, you think of classiness, right? I know I do. I played the classiest game of beer pong against Damien. We listened to Frank Sinatra, that's really all it took. It was really not appropriate for the mood. Coors Light and "Strangers In The Night" do not mix.

On Friday, one Ms. Elana Sandler was visiting DC and stopped in to have lunch with me. Much like the FBI, she may well be monitoring this, so I should watch what I say (it is, after all, a readily available internet blog...and I am terrible at watching what I say). Elana chastised me for not being angrier. She was apparently expecting a fit of rage at some idiotic, relatively minor incident from school. I was sorry to disappoint, but school is either less irksome this year or I just pay less attention. For Elana, I will pay more attention in class to make sure that people are not saying moronic things that I am just missing. Heightened sensitivity. Heightened scrutiny. Ahhhh law school, it still plagues me.

Today I learned: beer die, a new game.
I really want to learn how to be good at chess. Patience is probably a first step, but a difficult one.

I think many people, especially in law school, forget that they are not just their resume. I certainly almost forgot it for a moment there. Just a thought.

At the bar last night a girl asked Reza if he was allowed to be at the bar legally because he looked so young. There were four of us sitting there and Reza was actually the oldest. He was slightly offended, but did not retaliate. That's because he's nice; I might have asked her if she was allowed to be in the bar or whether she was breaking curfew at her retirement home.

If you have not seen it, I recommend looking up Betty White guest starring on "Community," particularly discussing Inception and singing "Africa" by Toto. Best thing ever.

No 4am Wake Up Call For Me

I wanted to wake up insanely early to go to the Supreme Court tomorrow to see the oral arguments in Snyder v. Phelps, the case where a church group goes around protesting at the funerals of servicemen because they believe that people are dying in Iraq and Afghanistan because of America's tolerance of homosexuals and got sued. It pits the First Amendment against the tort of intentional infliction of emotional distress. Very interesting stuff. Unfortunately, I am aware that around 50 people are already camped outside of the Court, waiting to get in at 9:30 tomorrow morning. First, that is very intense of them, and they are in for a night of rain, cement, and misery. Second, that means that even if I chose to join their slumber party this minute, I still would not get into the Court tomorrow morning. And you thought the wait time at Six Flags was bad! I am contemplating getting up tomorrow to go see the protesters outside of the Court, but that is unimportant enough that my desire for slumber will likely triumph.

It is official. I have a job. Huge sigh of relief. How ever will I fill my mandatory stress level now? What about worrying about other people? Done. I am now sending out positive energy. Or, as much positive energy as I am capable of mustering. Which might not be a lot compared to other people. Sorry. I really am trying...

I was talking about it, but it does occur to me, does Gogurt still exist? Was there a sufficient market for easily portable pouches of yogurt that it survives to this day?

Each day I find myself waking up with progressively less motivation to do inane work. I don't want to read a 7 page case which will be boiled down into a one sentence rule for the final. I don't want to listen to a 45-minute lecture about originalism in constitutional law that we already heard most of last week. And I don't want to write an explanation of how a note topic centered around Iran is not centered around the US. Thank you, law school, for the hours of fun.

Rememberance of Standardized Tests Past

Remember remember the fourth of October...ok, so it's not Guy Fawkes day. But it is the second anniversary of taking the dreaded LSAT. That terrible test which plagued my senior year of college. I used to do my homework to procrastinate from doing my thesis, and do my thesis to procrastinate from studying for the LSAT. Ah, the memories. Practicing logic games for hours, cursing the similarities between two seemingly-correct answers, and listening to Ron whistle the Indiana Jones theme song in the middle of my practice test until I couldn't stand it anymore. In apparent honor of this anniversary, two people have contacted me today asking about law school and the admissions process. I did the best I could to give them an honest perspective, and, of course, had to warn them to take anything I say with a grain of salt. There are people with a worse attitude about law school than me, but they are difficult to find.

Watching football, it occurs to me that I kind of want to feel an NFL hit. Just to know if I could take it or not. I mean, I certainly could not survive multiple NFL hits. I would be a terrible NFL player (for one thing I am nowhere near large enough, for another I don't take ridiculous risks like driving with a blood alcohol volume twice the legal limit or bring a loaded gun in my sweatpants to the club). Taking even one hit I'd probably end up with a concussion and three broken ribs, but maybe that's the price of curiosity.

Telephone tag is a whole lot less fun than real tag.

Can I Sleep Now?

I don't have anything heinously unhealthy to eat in the apartment? Whatever shall I do? Will I venture out to CVS to buy Pretzel M&Ms? Or will I let me apathy take over and continue to sit here? Probably apathy, considering I am blogging rather than working at the moment.

I think it's going to be a good week. When was the last time I said that? No time in recent memory. Clearly, I must have lost enough sleep to become delusional and optimistic. Considering I just clicked the internet explorer icon instead of the iTunes icon on my computer, this is entirely possible.

Many people in bars do not appreciate glib remarks. Perhaps I should remember this when they have a few bigger friends and all I have is a drunk friend dancing like Michael Jackson.

In the grand scheme of things, how much dirtier is "Play" by David Banner than "Happiness is a Warm Gun" by the Beatles? Come on, they are practically the same song.

I am pretty sure I will be the proprietor of a sleeping bag hotel on the weekend of the Rally To Restore Sanity. It has the potential to be epic. You should come.

So long 2010 Red Sox. Let's make some moves and try this again.