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!

Incoherence, Begin

Oh man my head hurts. Where's the advil at? That's my bad, hasn't happened in a while. Posting something also hasn't happened in a while, so I'm doing that...as you can clearly see. Alright, where to begin? Apparently being hungover makes me narrate just about everything I'm thinking, and makes me think just about as fast as I can type, which is pretty fast if I do say so myself. I am an excellent typo. Whoops, I meant typist (insert laugh here).

Monday was an important day. While sitting in Administrative Law, I made the conscious decision not to beat myself to death with the casebook to escape the misery of learning about retroactive application of informal rulemaking. Just reading that sentence you can clearly see why this was a conscious decision. Also, I spent an hour of my Foreign Relations Law class unsuccessfully trying to download the new Girl Talk album. Apparently it was way too much for the school internet to handle, but when I got home it downloaded just fine. I have never been happier to pay tens of thousands of dollars a year to go to this school. But the album is good. I am a huge fan of mixing Simon and Garfunkel's "Cecelia" with "Get Low" by Lil' John. Never were there more disparate songs put together. Except maybe in other Girl Talk songs.

Honey is an under-appreciated sweetener.

Thursday I exercised three times. I ran, played catch with Reza, and played basketball with Jason. The latter two were unforeseen offers to do fun things, so I rolled with them. But my body was clearly not ready for that level of physical activity. My back and shoulder have been reprimanding me for the last two days. I often think poorly of professional athletes who are too tired to do things, like pitch again within a few days. But for real, I am in no position to talk. Granted, I am not a professional athlete so it is not my job to do these athletic activities. But basketball, for example, requires lots of movement. And I am terrible at it.
Here's a thing I do not like: being the shortest person in a pickup basketball game. I am not that short, I'm average. But apparently basketball attracts tall people. Who woulda thought? I also did not play basketball growing up, so I don't have the same basic skill that someone who played in high school does. Being bad at pickup basketball made me really defensive about my choice of sport; I wanted to say to people "Yeah well if you find some swords we can see what is what." I really do not ever have the same chance to demonstrate my fencing prowess in a pickup game. There's no pickup fencing at the YMCA last time I checked.

I got a flu vaccine. Now I cannot fly.

Alright, time to attempt to work. This will not end well today.