At school, all of my friends - all of them - and even some people I'm not friends with have constantly been talking about how bored they are and how useless classes seem. We all seem to have hit the 3L slump. Hitting it hard. My friend Sarah, a goodie-two-shoes by any measure, has stopped doing reading. It is brutal. "The first year they scare you to death; the second year they work you to death; the third year they bore you to death," is the aphorism and it really is holding up. Luckily, I have an internship to distract me from the motivation black hole that is law school. And I will finally be starting this upcoming week. It only took the first three weeks of school to get all the necessary approvals. Thanks for holding up lots of my paperwork, school. I appreciate it. But I really am looking forward to beginning work.
It is alumni weekend at my law school. I scoff the very idea. I understand that I may eat my words later for whatever reason, but as things stand now I will never donate a dime to my law school. I'm all about undergraduate alma maters. Who roots for their grad school's sports team? Unless you are really in need of something to root for. In that case, I would recommend rooting for the Red Sox. Woo!
Also, I'm glad that NFL football is back. It gives purpose to Sunday afternoons and provides a respite from the homework that has been sitting around since Wednesday.
They say wine makes you sleepy, so I tried to take a nap today cuddling a bottle of chardonnay. It worked though, I got an hour of sleep in. Next time I'm going to spoon with a fifth of whiskey and see what happens.
Showing posts with label 3L. Show all posts
Showing posts with label 3L. Show all posts
Saturday, September 17, 2011
Sunday, September 4, 2011
Fill In The Blanks
Right so I felt the past few days not feeling great. But I'm better now. There wasn't a whole lot to report from the depths of my apartment. Aside from The Great Roommate Swap, which is now complete. Ryan, my new roommate, is safely entrenched in his new surroundings. One upside is that I get a new, flashy television for the living room. Another is a fun, new roommate. A third is kitchen items that were lacking like baking sheets and a toaster. I sound so domestic. Like a dog. I just read an article in the New Yorker about Rin Tin Tin (a dog-actor, if you didn't know). See, I have been spending too much time indoors. Rin Tin Tin almost won an Oscar. That would be embarrassing if he had beaten out humans. Come to think of it, that is embarrassing to all the actors who were not Oscar nominees that year.
So school. That's a thing again. My Public Interest Lawyering class was...painful, to put it kindly. It's a 'discussion-based' small class where we will write 'reflection papers.' In other words, let's all talk about our internships and our feelings. Maybe after a good cry together we can change the world for the better. Grow up. The first part of the (2 hour long) class was spent going around the room so people could talk about themselves. Where are they from? Where are they interning? What year are they? And, most annoyingly, why did they want to go to law school? Look, I admire and respect people who work for organizations like Alliance to Help Disabled People With Legal Problems and other such places, but do we really need to get all feelings-y? I also couldn't help but get a slightly anti-corporate vibe from the room. In fact, I'm pretty sure someone made a dig about corporate law firms. More on that in a minute.
I was stuck in a seat at a conference table behind The Incredible Hulk. This guy is maybe 6'3" and 200 pounds. Big guy. That's totally fine. What is not fine is that he spent the entire two hours leaning forward in various positions that blocked me from view entirely. Elbows on the table, head forward, bringing his knees up in his seat, the whole bag. Since he is The Incredible Hulk and not The Invisible Man, I struggled for two hours to catch a glimpse of my professors, seated twenty feet away at the head of the table. Then he got worse. The Incredible Hulk told his story about why he came to law school: He was a campaign manager going door to door and met some woman in a bad neighborhood who begged his help because her son was autistic and she couldn't get the help she needed and the system totally failed her and he felt so bad so he knew he wanted to come to law school to help people. Cry me a freaking river. Yes, it's an unfortunate story. But it's also your law school admissions personal statement. I am not an admissions officer, and I don't give a damn. The classroom is not the appropriate place for you to talk about revelations you had regarding human suffering and inequity. I'm not cold-hearted. I have sympathy for the subject of his story. But in this context, all I have is an eye roll for him. If I could I would have vomited all over the back of his head (which was all I could see at that point). For the cherry on top, when he was asked what he wanted to do as a lawyer, The Incredible Hulk responded that he wanted to be a prosecutor. That...is not a way to this poor lady who apparently made you dedicate your life to helping people. That is a way to put people in jail. You idiot.
The Incredible Hulk's story was by far the most painful/touchy-feely of the bunch. But it turns out that everyone else in the class just works for various nonprofits. Some are pretty cool sounding. Some are not. But inevitably people wanted to work for some bleeding heart cause when they graduated. I wanted to ask the class a question: "How much debt do you have from law school and how do you intend to pay it off? I'm just wondering here. Is that a factor for anyone else?" Honestly and pragmatically, that is a factor for me and for a lot of other people. But no one seemed to give it a thought. So when I said I worked at a firm this summer I got a lot of looks. They ranged from "Oh...your one of those people"-type disdain, to "Oooo interesting"-type curiosity. Either way, I felt out of place. But I should have expected that in Public Interest Lawyering.
Now I don't mean to degrade public interest law. I really don't. I fully support it and I am happy to encourage people who genuinely are dedicated to public interest law and nothing else. And at some point in my career I would love to participate in public interest work. My caution is about people who ignore practicalities and people who are so cliched it makes me sick.
My anger is for...The Incredible Hulk. Learn to sit like a human being! This is a classroom, not your goddamn living room. Sit straight, be a little self-aware, and shut your mouth.
So school. That's a thing again. My Public Interest Lawyering class was...painful, to put it kindly. It's a 'discussion-based' small class where we will write 'reflection papers.' In other words, let's all talk about our internships and our feelings. Maybe after a good cry together we can change the world for the better. Grow up. The first part of the (2 hour long) class was spent going around the room so people could talk about themselves. Where are they from? Where are they interning? What year are they? And, most annoyingly, why did they want to go to law school? Look, I admire and respect people who work for organizations like Alliance to Help Disabled People With Legal Problems and other such places, but do we really need to get all feelings-y? I also couldn't help but get a slightly anti-corporate vibe from the room. In fact, I'm pretty sure someone made a dig about corporate law firms. More on that in a minute.
I was stuck in a seat at a conference table behind The Incredible Hulk. This guy is maybe 6'3" and 200 pounds. Big guy. That's totally fine. What is not fine is that he spent the entire two hours leaning forward in various positions that blocked me from view entirely. Elbows on the table, head forward, bringing his knees up in his seat, the whole bag. Since he is The Incredible Hulk and not The Invisible Man, I struggled for two hours to catch a glimpse of my professors, seated twenty feet away at the head of the table. Then he got worse. The Incredible Hulk told his story about why he came to law school: He was a campaign manager going door to door and met some woman in a bad neighborhood who begged his help because her son was autistic and she couldn't get the help she needed and the system totally failed her and he felt so bad so he knew he wanted to come to law school to help people. Cry me a freaking river. Yes, it's an unfortunate story. But it's also your law school admissions personal statement. I am not an admissions officer, and I don't give a damn. The classroom is not the appropriate place for you to talk about revelations you had regarding human suffering and inequity. I'm not cold-hearted. I have sympathy for the subject of his story. But in this context, all I have is an eye roll for him. If I could I would have vomited all over the back of his head (which was all I could see at that point). For the cherry on top, when he was asked what he wanted to do as a lawyer, The Incredible Hulk responded that he wanted to be a prosecutor. That...is not a way to this poor lady who apparently made you dedicate your life to helping people. That is a way to put people in jail. You idiot.
The Incredible Hulk's story was by far the most painful/touchy-feely of the bunch. But it turns out that everyone else in the class just works for various nonprofits. Some are pretty cool sounding. Some are not. But inevitably people wanted to work for some bleeding heart cause when they graduated. I wanted to ask the class a question: "How much debt do you have from law school and how do you intend to pay it off? I'm just wondering here. Is that a factor for anyone else?" Honestly and pragmatically, that is a factor for me and for a lot of other people. But no one seemed to give it a thought. So when I said I worked at a firm this summer I got a lot of looks. They ranged from "Oh...your one of those people"-type disdain, to "Oooo interesting"-type curiosity. Either way, I felt out of place. But I should have expected that in Public Interest Lawyering.
Now I don't mean to degrade public interest law. I really don't. I fully support it and I am happy to encourage people who genuinely are dedicated to public interest law and nothing else. And at some point in my career I would love to participate in public interest work. My caution is about people who ignore practicalities and people who are so cliched it makes me sick.
My anger is for...The Incredible Hulk. Learn to sit like a human being! This is a classroom, not your goddamn living room. Sit straight, be a little self-aware, and shut your mouth.
Monday, August 29, 2011
How Was Your First Day?
My biggest reflection on the first day of classes has to do with my Evidence professor. He is an older, portly man who just likes to sit down in random places in the room while he is talking. Plop is really a better word to describe what he does. He just sat down on the table, kicked his legs up, and kept talking about "the elephant in the room" with regards to evidence law for some reason. My favorite part of the class is that while moving around his seating, he ended up teaching about half of the class while sitting in the window sill like a cat. Except he is notably un-cat-like.
My Antitrust professor is just old and kind. Is he a Mormon? I don't know. Maybe. Supply and demand curves almost gave me anxiety, but I mastered the fear. Yes, Intro to Economics was my far and away worst grade in college. I'm not proud of it. But I am facing my fear. Plus I have a few good friends in the class, which helps motivate me to stay. Also, it can be a really useful subject. But there's a lot of reading. And I don't wanna do it. Quiet, stop whining. Suck it up, get back into the rhythm. Deal with it. Alright, fine.
I pissed off a bus driver so badly today by repeating my question twice when his first response was a noncommittal grunt. Sorry, grunting bus driver, sorry to ruin your nonverbal day. Drive the bus now. More speed, less attitude.
My Antitrust professor is just old and kind. Is he a Mormon? I don't know. Maybe. Supply and demand curves almost gave me anxiety, but I mastered the fear. Yes, Intro to Economics was my far and away worst grade in college. I'm not proud of it. But I am facing my fear. Plus I have a few good friends in the class, which helps motivate me to stay. Also, it can be a really useful subject. But there's a lot of reading. And I don't wanna do it. Quiet, stop whining. Suck it up, get back into the rhythm. Deal with it. Alright, fine.
I pissed off a bus driver so badly today by repeating my question twice when his first response was a noncommittal grunt. Sorry, grunting bus driver, sorry to ruin your nonverbal day. Drive the bus now. More speed, less attitude.
Sunday, August 28, 2011
Last First Day
Tomorrow is likely to be my last first day of school ever. That seems pretty crazy to me. 19th grade, here I come. It's been a long time since kindergarten's first day. Actually, there I started two weeks late because I had the chicken pox (now a cured disease, come on!) and really did not want to go to school on the first day. I was so afraid. Now I still don't want to go, but I am anything but afraid. Honestly, I am bored. It's a grind, and I am looking forward to a new routine. But I am also somewhat excited. First year of law school was...awful. Second year was...moderately bad. This year I do not have high expectations and I certainly am not going to fall in love with my school, but I know the drill and I feel like have mastered it to some extent. There is some security in the third year. I can't say I'm bored yet ("the third year they bore you to death"), but just you wait. So here's to beginnings and ends.
It is good to be back in DC. I was away longer than I wanted to be. JetBlue was nice and let me get back before Hurricane Irene struck. I mean "struck." The "hurricane" was just a lot of rain and more wind than we are used to. I think some leaves were affected the most. Maybe a couple of magazine racks. I learned to play Settler of Catan with Kerry, Alena, and Ed. Then we pretended that the weather was bad by turning out the lights. We lit candles because otherwise they just seemed like a waste. "Mmm hmm, there's gonna be weather." Maybe not as much as anticipated here. But it didn't stop a Trader Joe's mob on Saturday morning apparently. I got there later in the morning mostly because I needed to buy food, having not been here for a couple of weeks. The store was an interesting me of 1) regular shoppers, like me, 2) people freaking out and buying nonperishable food and looking like maniacs, and 3) people stocking up on alcohol. The wine section was easily getting emptied the quickest. I approved.
Ok, back to school for a second. Being smart, I still haven't bought two of my textbooks. It doesn't help that one casts $160 and there are no used versions because it's a new edition. What a pain in the butt. What do I want more, my Evidence textbook (to be used during my 8:50 am class three times per week) or a nice, new futon? Happily, the choice is not plainly one or another, but you see where I'm going with this. That's just...more money than I want to pay for this crap.
Other classes I am taking: Professional Responsibility (lawyer ethics - they do teach us ethics!), Antitrust (topical), and Public Interest Lawyering (co-requisite for my internship. I will pass/fail this class and nearly fail it). This is mostly a semester of fulfilling requirements. Next semester I will live it up.
I get The Great Roommate Change of '11 this week. It should be interesting. Soon a new soul (my friend Ryan) will share the pain of my neighbor's incessant coughing. Some night I'm just going to call an ambulance for my neighbor. Maybe the police will show up with the ambulance. I wouldn't be shocked if they came across a decent amount of illegal substances (which are probably the reason that he coughs so damn much. Stop smoking and shut the hell up!). But I am excited to live with Ryan. I have a feeling that this could decrease my productivity at home a good deal. And maybe increase me in-house beer consumption. Uh oh. Whatever, it's 3L, right?
Hurricane playlist mandatory songs:
Bob Dylan - Hurricane (duh!)
Bob Dylan - Blowin' In The Wind
The Doors - Riders on the Storm
The Scorpions - Rock You Like A Hurricane
Blind Melon - No Rain
The Little League World Series just wrapped up. The Yankees tried to enter the tournament just to stroke their ego, but were rejected. No beating up on 12-year olds for you!
It is good to be back in DC. I was away longer than I wanted to be. JetBlue was nice and let me get back before Hurricane Irene struck. I mean "struck." The "hurricane" was just a lot of rain and more wind than we are used to. I think some leaves were affected the most. Maybe a couple of magazine racks. I learned to play Settler of Catan with Kerry, Alena, and Ed. Then we pretended that the weather was bad by turning out the lights. We lit candles because otherwise they just seemed like a waste. "Mmm hmm, there's gonna be weather." Maybe not as much as anticipated here. But it didn't stop a Trader Joe's mob on Saturday morning apparently. I got there later in the morning mostly because I needed to buy food, having not been here for a couple of weeks. The store was an interesting me of 1) regular shoppers, like me, 2) people freaking out and buying nonperishable food and looking like maniacs, and 3) people stocking up on alcohol. The wine section was easily getting emptied the quickest. I approved.
Ok, back to school for a second. Being smart, I still haven't bought two of my textbooks. It doesn't help that one casts $160 and there are no used versions because it's a new edition. What a pain in the butt. What do I want more, my Evidence textbook (to be used during my 8:50 am class three times per week) or a nice, new futon? Happily, the choice is not plainly one or another, but you see where I'm going with this. That's just...more money than I want to pay for this crap.
Other classes I am taking: Professional Responsibility (lawyer ethics - they do teach us ethics!), Antitrust (topical), and Public Interest Lawyering (co-requisite for my internship. I will pass/fail this class and nearly fail it). This is mostly a semester of fulfilling requirements. Next semester I will live it up.
I get The Great Roommate Change of '11 this week. It should be interesting. Soon a new soul (my friend Ryan) will share the pain of my neighbor's incessant coughing. Some night I'm just going to call an ambulance for my neighbor. Maybe the police will show up with the ambulance. I wouldn't be shocked if they came across a decent amount of illegal substances (which are probably the reason that he coughs so damn much. Stop smoking and shut the hell up!). But I am excited to live with Ryan. I have a feeling that this could decrease my productivity at home a good deal. And maybe increase me in-house beer consumption. Uh oh. Whatever, it's 3L, right?
Hurricane playlist mandatory songs:
Bob Dylan - Hurricane (duh!)
Bob Dylan - Blowin' In The Wind
The Doors - Riders on the Storm
The Scorpions - Rock You Like A Hurricane
Blind Melon - No Rain
The Little League World Series just wrapped up. The Yankees tried to enter the tournament just to stroke their ego, but were rejected. No beating up on 12-year olds for you!
Friday, April 22, 2011
Another One In the Books
2L is done. Done done done. Assuming I did not fail my Tax final, which is not an assumption I am fully comfortable with. That final was difficult. Maybe not Civ Pro I difficult, but I would give it an 8. 70 multiple choice questions: +2 for correct answers and -1 for incorrect answers. Yeah, I left a few blank. It's only worth it to guess if you have it down to 2 choices, right? I would say I was guessing between two for somewhere around 30 of the questions. So this was a serious exam. I hope I had a good guessing day. (Alright, I generally had a hunch of which was correct between the two answers, but I was not confident on a lot of questions because the professor wrote them to be intentionally tricky).
Going into the test, I was expecting to get rolling on a few questions before coming up against a toughy. Wrong. Question #1 I spent about 5 minutes on and had to come back to. The exam came out throwing punches. The only respite was a series of questions around #60 that were a bit easier (I felt, I am assuming nothing). But by that time it was quite easy to run out of steam, making the questions harder. The federal income tax is not joking around - it is rough.
Two night ago I had Crim Pro dreams. I woke up in the middle of the night thinking in the paradigm of Criminal Procedure. Everything had to be analyzed under either the 4th, 5th, or 6th Amendment. Of course, I was thinking about completely unrelated things, so this made no sense. I spent 2 minutes at 2:30 am trying to figure out whether my morning run would be a constitutional violation. It was completely bogus. My subconscious is a moron.
Did I mention that I am done? I sat at my desk and had no studying to do. (Oh wait, I do have a substantiation assignment for journal. Shhhh! Don't ruin my moment.) I caught up on some tv shows, I got a haircut, and I will soon attend a "seder" at Damien's.
Haircuts at Diego's have completely changed how I view haircuts. In a good way.
Reflections on the Semester:
Criminal Procedure - I more or less know someone's rights when they are arrested. In close calls, the police are going to win. Even in not close calls, the police will probably win. So if you are arrested, tell the police you would like to assert your right to silence and then shut up. (Yes, you must actually tell them you want to be silent. If that makes no sense, you can blame Justice Kennedy.) Also, if you are arrested in a car, you have almost no rights. However, Jay-Z was correct about the trunk: "You gonna need a warrant for that." Unless they have probable cause. Then they don't need a warrant.
Federal Income Tax - the tax system is complicated out of necessity. The tax code is long because it has a lot of loopholes to close. Tax policy is actually fairly interesting, and affects literally everything. A dinner that your company gives you might be included in your income. It is certainly Haig-Simons income (an econ thing - don't ask, Wikipedia). All in all, I think I can probably do the 1040 EZ form next year.
Law of Democracy - gerrymandering, redistricting, voting rights, and contributions are complicated. Think long and hard about them, there are upsides and downsides to any decision. Citizens United is pretty much garbage. Bush v. Gore is absolutely garbage. The Supreme Court justices involved will tell you just to get over it; I think they should get over themselves.
Lawyers, Lobbying, and the Law - bah. Joke. Waste. There is a constitutional right to lobby, get over it. And Madison knew how to right a Federalist Paper (14, in particular).
Going into the test, I was expecting to get rolling on a few questions before coming up against a toughy. Wrong. Question #1 I spent about 5 minutes on and had to come back to. The exam came out throwing punches. The only respite was a series of questions around #60 that were a bit easier (I felt, I am assuming nothing). But by that time it was quite easy to run out of steam, making the questions harder. The federal income tax is not joking around - it is rough.
Two night ago I had Crim Pro dreams. I woke up in the middle of the night thinking in the paradigm of Criminal Procedure. Everything had to be analyzed under either the 4th, 5th, or 6th Amendment. Of course, I was thinking about completely unrelated things, so this made no sense. I spent 2 minutes at 2:30 am trying to figure out whether my morning run would be a constitutional violation. It was completely bogus. My subconscious is a moron.
Did I mention that I am done? I sat at my desk and had no studying to do. (Oh wait, I do have a substantiation assignment for journal. Shhhh! Don't ruin my moment.) I caught up on some tv shows, I got a haircut, and I will soon attend a "seder" at Damien's.
Haircuts at Diego's have completely changed how I view haircuts. In a good way.
Reflections on the Semester:
Criminal Procedure - I more or less know someone's rights when they are arrested. In close calls, the police are going to win. Even in not close calls, the police will probably win. So if you are arrested, tell the police you would like to assert your right to silence and then shut up. (Yes, you must actually tell them you want to be silent. If that makes no sense, you can blame Justice Kennedy.) Also, if you are arrested in a car, you have almost no rights. However, Jay-Z was correct about the trunk: "You gonna need a warrant for that." Unless they have probable cause. Then they don't need a warrant.
Federal Income Tax - the tax system is complicated out of necessity. The tax code is long because it has a lot of loopholes to close. Tax policy is actually fairly interesting, and affects literally everything. A dinner that your company gives you might be included in your income. It is certainly Haig-Simons income (an econ thing - don't ask, Wikipedia). All in all, I think I can probably do the 1040 EZ form next year.
Law of Democracy - gerrymandering, redistricting, voting rights, and contributions are complicated. Think long and hard about them, there are upsides and downsides to any decision. Citizens United is pretty much garbage. Bush v. Gore is absolutely garbage. The Supreme Court justices involved will tell you just to get over it; I think they should get over themselves.
Lawyers, Lobbying, and the Law - bah. Joke. Waste. There is a constitutional right to lobby, get over it. And Madison knew how to right a Federalist Paper (14, in particular).
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