Monday, August 16, 2004
In honor of OCI season, this site is being temporarily thwacked. If you're not a recruiter and are looking for the new site, just ask around and you'll find it. If you are a recruiter, then I'm too busy studying to blog.
Thanks.
-mike
EDIT: I'm much too tired to care. The new site is here.
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Thanks.
-mike
EDIT: I'm much too tired to care. The new site is here.
Tuesday, April 20, 2004
On the Move
After weeks of pain, I'm finally shaking the dust of this crusty old blogger site off my feet. BuffaloWings&Vodka; can now officially be found at:
WingsAndVodka.Blogs.Com
God Bless Movable Type. See everyone at the new place.
Monday, April 19, 2004
The Gap Rules. Really.
I received one of the Gap's stress-free shirts as a gift recently, and was told something about how they are stain and liquid resistant. "Okay," I thought. That's swell.
Well I wore the thing to a party this weekend, and I'm trying to hold my beer and eat an appetizer at the same time when a friend says "Dude, you're spilling your beer." And sure enough, I'd spilled a good half of a beer right down my shirt. But that's all it did--slide right down my shirt. It was incredible. Because I'm not very adept at tucking in shirts, there was a little bit of the shirt protruding out above the beltline that acted as a skijump for the whole beer parade, and every single drop just ended up on the ground.
A truly life-changing experience. I will be wearing nothing but stress-free products from now on. I may be upset when I find out that they're actually lined with Plutonium, but it's totally worth it.
Friday, April 16, 2004
Notes From MemoLand
It's only 12:28 AM. I'm near completion of the discussion of question one of two, which is, of course, the shorter of the two questions. But my strength has yet to flag. The potential beauty of my memo is still seductive. I am confident that I can both finish a great memo and have enough time to sleep for 6 hours before class tommorrow.
1:20 AM. First section done, though it took longer than it should have. I've had two mochas, two cokes, and some leftover barbecue. I've definitely felt better. But I'm going to keep going, and should finish before long. And as long as I get 4.5 hours of sleep, I'll be just fine.
1:41 AM. Just lost twenty minutes staring at my navel. Rapidly losing optimism.
2:30 AM. Definitely wishing I hadn't had the brisket. I ran out of soda and coffee a while ago, and have since moved on to snorting crushed No-Doze. I know I'm just hallucinating, but the Ghost of John M. Harlan the Elder is sitting on the couch, and he doesn't seem to be happy with my work product. This is definitely going to take a little while longer, but as long as I can get 3 hours of sleep, I should still be able to make it to class.
3:10 AM. Well into the second part of the discussion section. Got over the brisket problem, went to the fridge to finish off the potato salad. Going to have to rely on chocolate as a stimulant source from here on out, as Justice Harlan has finished off my No-Doze. I'm starting to notice some inconsistencies between my arguments in different parts of the memo, but I've also noticed some inconsistencies between what I read on the fortune-cookie fortune I got yesterday and what that same fortune now reads, so I'm not sure what to make of any of it. I've put on some Eliot Smith to keep things light and jovial.
5:00 AM. Nearly finished with the bulk of the discussion section, but conditions are deteriorating rapidly. There is no more potato salad, Justice Harlan has left, apparently taking my cat and fifty bucks with him, and the NY Times e-mail just showed up, letting me know that I've been up too long. I feel confident that this memo is better than the piece of gopher crap that I turned in last semester, but proofreading is becoming increasingly difficult. (When I'm tired, my eyes tend to automatically anagramize most proper nouns, which causes problems, particularly this morning, because I saw it fit to mention former V.P. Spiro Agnew when talking about the ABA, and as any Scrabble player worth their salt can tell you, Agnew's name is an anagram of "Grow A Penis." So I've been seeing a lot of penis.)
Obviously, sleep is now out of the question. But as long as I finish this discussion section within the next hour and make it across the street to get some more coffee, I should be able to turn in my memo on time without any difficulty.
6:20 AM. The discussion section is finished...but at what cost? I must have blacked out shortly after my last entry. When I came to, I'd gone from 4 pages to 14, but my walls were smeared with what appeared to be chicken blood, my laptop smelled of Gravity for Men, and instead of my usual jeans and t-shirt I was wearing Batman footie pajamas, which were, inexplicably, exactly the right size.
No matter. The only important thing is that the discussion section is done. I'm going to go outside now, sprint around my apartment complex, and do about 300 push-ups. After that, just gotta knock out the fact statement and conclusion. Then it will be done.
7:40 AM. It's finished, and just in time for me to make the bus. Barring some disasterous fucking disaster, I should get a good grade in this class. (Stay Tuned for Inevitable Entry: "Disasterous Fucking Disaster.")
Thursday, April 15, 2004
Drugs? Good.
If you are a UT 1L: Quit effing around and finish your memo. You can read this later. It's really not worth it. I promise.
So I GOT the espresso maker, but I don't seem to be using it very well. I made for myself last night what should have been a quadruple, but I didn't feel a damn thing. If I hadn't checked the espresso bean package like seventy times, I'd swear that they were somehow decaffeinated beans. So I guess I'm just not cut out to be a barista.
As a result, I got me to a Starbucks, and this quadruple mocha should have me running laps in a few minutes. There's a 16-page limit on the memo that's due in 10.5 hours, and all I'm looking at right now is a skeleton outline that has a lot of cites and no prose. So time to write some prose.
It's 4 a.m....Do You Know Where Your Memo Is?
My eyes are bleeding. But my theory is that it is infinitely less depressing to be up until the wee hours two nights before your paper is due rather than one night before your paper is due.
But still...it sucks to have bleeding eyes. I would much rather not have bleeding eyes.
My spoon is too big. I am a banana.
EDIT: I have some of the weirdest problems with homophones. I had to go back and fix this post because I'd typed "do" instead of "due". It's like the other day when I meant to type "John Mayer" but instead it came out "No-Talent AssClown". Weird.
Alright, Dammit.
So LoneStarExPat nominated me in a poll happening here. I wasn't going to mention it, but Tobias has been campaigning, and is now winning, and that's just not fair. Because he's a much better golfer than I am. So go and vote.
Also: Because I was running out of things to do instead of the memo due on Friday, I'm almost finished porting the site over to TypePad. So look for me to be on the move soon.
Also: There are 18 people between the person who was last called on in CivPro and me. (Our professor goes in aphabetical order.) He usually averages like four folks a day. This means I should be able to skip class tommorrow and the next day and not be called on. Right? Right.
Additionally: For whatever reason, I've been on AOLIM a lot lately, and by "for whatever reason" I mean "for the purpose of stalking old girlfriends". So, if you feel like adding "Praxxix" to your buddy list, you may send me lewd messages during the day.
That is all.
Monday, April 12, 2004
My Day in Court
Though I’m obviously quite busy, on Monday I was pressed into service as a mock trial witness. Ever since my appearance on The OC (you may have missed me, but I was the guy on the beach benching an impossibly heavy amount while chatting up like six girls at once), this has been a pretty common occurrence. It can be taxing, but I hate to turn down a fan. My only requirement was that I play the defendant. If I’m going to be slumming, I’d best be getting top billing.
I should start by explaining that I take a more serious approach to mock trial witness duty than most. I’ve backed off a little from my early days when, in order to understand the motivations of, say, a gambling addict, I would spend two weeks in Vegas drowning myself in Maker’s Mark and hookers. Or like the time that, in order to get inside the head of a New England school teacher accused of forging a check, I spent two weeks in Vegas drowning myself in Maker’s Mark and hookers. I just don’t have the energy for that kind of dedication anymore. But this time I would be playing a rich doctor accused of murdering his wife, so I knew what I had to do: one weekend, locked up in the Rodeway Inn with nothing but a blow-up doll and a hairdryer. I was ready.
“Sir, could you please state your full name for the court?”
“I am Doctor Stephen Phillip Reginald Horatio Bettie Davis Cohen, the Third.”
“And what is it that you do for a living, Dr. Cohen?”
“I’m a plastic surgeon.”
“I see. And you’re quite a successful plastic surgeon, are you not?”
“Yes. I patented a process for forehead enlargement that avoids the usual side effects and results in greatly improved endocrine function.”
“And is that your real name, Doctor?”
“Yes it is.”
“Doctor, You Are a Fucking Liar!!!!”
“Objection, Your Honor!”
“Your Honor, I can tell, defense counsel can tell, and the ladies and gentlemen of the jury can tell that the Doctor is none other than Alan Thicke, and that he uses this absurdly long pseudonym to avoid stalkers, even though all they want to know is what it was like to work with Joanne Guest.”
“Objection overruled. You may continue.”
“Doctor Cohen, in your sworn deposition you were asked to describe the events that took place on the morning of September 17th, 2003. You testified, and I quote: ‘I was a self-loathing Jew with a penchant for cashmere. It was particularly lovely outside that morning, and I rolled over to say as much to my wife when I discovered that she’d been fatally punctured with a Papermate Flexgrip Ultra.’ Is that account still accurate to the best of your recollection?”
“Yes. Yes it is.”
“And would it be accurate to say that you use--almost exclusively--the Papermate Flexgrip Ultra when penning rough drafts of your semi-popular novels featuring Sukko the End-of-the-Week Robot?”
“Yes, I’d say that’s accurate.”
“Doctor Cohen, I just find it strange that when asked to describe the events of a particular morning on a particular day, you would state that you were ‘a self-loathing Jew with a penchant for cashmere.’ Are we meant to understand that you were only a self-loathing Jew with a penchant for cashmere on that particular morning, the morning of September 17th?”
“Objection! You Honor, this kind of semantic hairsplitting is clearly harassment. The district attorney knows full well that the defendant was a self-loathing Jew with a penchant for cashmere before September 17th, a self-loathing Jew with a penchant for cashmere on September 17th, and that he continues to be a self-loathing Jew with a penchant for cashmere after September 17th.”
“Sustained.”
“Doctor Cohen, just one final question. Do you have any tattoos?”
“Yes.”
“Could you please tell the jury of what, and where?”
“I have B < P * L (Judge Learned Hand’s Formula for the Determination of Negligence) tattooed on my left buttock.”
“Doctor, you are a pathological fucking liar!!”
“Objection!”
“Sustained!”
“Doctor Cohen, would you please look now at your left buttock?”
“Objection!”
“Doctor Cohen, just look at you left buttock. What does it say?”
“It says…c2 = a2 + b2 - 2ab·cos(µ)…?”
“And what is the significance of c2 = a2 + b2 - 2ab·cos(µ), if you please, Doctor?”
“I think…I think it’s the Law of Cosines.”
“Thank you. I have no further questions, Your Honor.”
“The witness is excused.”
They've Turned Off My Water
I have, in my hand, a printed notice from my apartment complex that the water was to be shut off on April 9th from 9 a.m. until 4 p.m.. The water was not shut off that day. I did, however, wake this morning to find my faucets dry and my shower not working. Great.
There's nothing I hate more than going to the roller rink without having showered first.
Wednesday, April 07, 2004
Systematic Institutional Retardedness
In the classroom we use for my seminar, the clock has been an hour fast all semester.
Then we returned to Daylight Savings Time.
And it's still an hour fast.
There are a few explanations for this, and they all point to dumb.
Tuesday, April 06, 2004
Annual Rankings of Law School Rankings Released
In an attempt to evaluate the increasing number of law school ranking systems being provided by various publications, professors, and judges, editors at U.S. News and World Report have just released their first annual Rankings of American Law School Rankings, and they expect it to be available on most newsstands by the end of the week.
"We just felt that American students deserved an objectively considered set of objective evaluations that rated, among other objectively chosen factors, the relative objectiveness of the various ranking systems' criteria for objectively determining law school quality," said a USNWR representative. She continued to explain that those criteria included overall popularity, as well as relative success rates in rhyming the ranking institution's name with "Blue Dress Views and Curled Bee Snort."
When asked about the fact that USNWR's popular annual rankings were the only rankings to be assigned to the topmost of the ranking rankings' seven tiers, the representative declined to comment, muttering something under her breath about Professor Brian Leiter's being a "player hater."
As expected, the editors of nearly all the American rankings signed an open letter criticizing the bias and inaccuracy of the USNWR Rankings Rankings:
"The absence of any consideration of [important intangible] factors, combined with the arbitrary weighting of numerical factors, makes ranking system ranking systems an unreliable guide to the differences among ranking systems that should be important to you."
The Ranking the Rankings issue will be available for $3.95, and includes a free CD-ROM from TestPrepPrep, the nation's leading provider of materials that help students prepare to choose a testprep company.
Originally posted last year. I think.
Monday, April 05, 2004
Finding Memo
Sorry about the lack of posts lately. I’ve been working feverishly on the recently assigned memo for Legal Research and Writing, and if you know anything about me at all, you know that I effing love Legal Research and Writing. Like a fat kid loves cake kind of love. I mean, just the smell of the South Western Reporter makes me weak in the knees, and if I’m ever lucky enough to have occasion to open one, well, let’s just say that it’s a good thing they don’t have cameras in the group study rooms.
But it’s not so much that I love legal research. It’s more like I am legal research. I get into the library and just want to drown myself in statutes, dive into a volume of the USCS and never come up for air. I feel no pain, for I need not oxygen. I choose instead to breathe The Law. It permeates my body, courses through my veins, one hundred thousand cases racing through my bloodstream like so many really fast things in a race to somewhere. My search takes me to the furthest reaches of the library, as I scour reporters, codebooks, commentary, treatises, sometimes carrying and reading as many as twelve books at a time. I find what I need, and as I’m running through the aisles screaming at the top of my lungs “I’ve got it! I’ve finally GOT IT!!” many think me mad, turning away in horror and wishing they’d gone to a higher-ranked school. But I do not care. For it is ever the lot of the gifted to endure the derision of the chronically untalented. They scowl because they do not know. Cannot know. And I forgive them.
So, yeah, I’ve been busy. But I did get to play witness for a mock trial round this evening, and I can promise a detailed account of that life-changing experience for tomorrow.
Things I Know
1. Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind may very well be the best movie I've seen all year, and I say that as someone who wasn't wild about Adaptation.
2. Adam of Average Joe: Adam Returns is a fuckhead.
3. I mean like a total fuckhead.
Wednesday, March 31, 2004
Scene From a Firm Reception
Mike approaches a group of friends, having just gotten an attorney’s business card. He's excited.
Also, he looks devastatingly handsome in his suit.
ThreeL: See, man. It’s not that hard. It’s what they’re here for.
Mike: I know. I was just nervous. This is my first reception. She seemed interested, though.
TwoL: So…litigation?
Mike: Nope. IP.
Everyone reacts favorably to this department.
Mike: So, how long do I wait to call her secretary and try to set up an interview?
ThreeL: A week.
Mike: Next week?
ThreeL: No...
Other ThreeL: ... Next week, then a week.
ThreeL: ... Yeah.
Mike: So, two weeks?
ThreeL: Yeah. I guess you could call it that.
Other ThreeL: Definitely. Two weeks. That's the industry standard...
ThreeL: See, I used to wait two weeks. Now everyone waits two weeks. Three weeks is kinda first-tier now, don't you think?
Other ThreeL: ... Yeah. But two's enough not to look anxious...
ThreeL: Yeah, but three weeks is kinda Order of the Coif--
Mike : --Why don't I just wait four weeks and tell her that I was cleaning out my Torts book and I found her card...
TwoL: ... then ask where you met her…
Mike: Yeah, I'll tell her I don't remember and then I'll ask what firm she works at. (pause) Then I'll ask if we shagged. How's that? Is that first-tier? Is that Order of the Coif?
ThreeL: Laugh all you want, but if you call too soon you can scare off a nice firm that’s ready to make an offer.
Other ThreeL: Don't listen to him. You call whenever it feels right to you.
Mike: How long did you guys wait to call your firms?
Beat.
ThreeL & Other ThreeL: Six weeks.
Tuesday, March 30, 2004
Objects Currently Residing On a Shelf in My Apartment Complex's Laundry Labeled Free Stuff, Exactly One of Which Was Placed There By Me In Order to Improve This List
Assorted undergarments
Dianetics, by L. Ron Hubbard
Printer cable
Three freezer bags, all filled with Ramen noodles
Various powdered pad thai mixes
An apparently unopened can of Squirt, which is not dispensed by the nearby vending machine
BARMAN, by Alex Wellen
Sunday, March 28, 2004
Return of the Logic Games Jedi
Having lost the first-year summer employment lottery (Official Theory: Jesus hates me for eating Milky Way Pop-Ables during his movie), I just signed on to teach another slew of LSAT classes this summer. I’ll probably be taking a summer school class or two, and the teaching gig schedules around that pretty well. It’s also a fabulous opportunity to hang out with undergrad chicks in a setting that allows me to control the flow of information. (“You got a 194 on the LSAT? You must be a genius. I like sleeping with geniuses.”) So, if you’re going to be in the Austin area, and you feel like a quick review of multi-variable sequencing games, give me a holler.
And since it is about the time that people start thinking about the June LSAT, let me offer (again) my general advice on the LSAT game:
1. Only take a prep class if you’re one of those people who just can’t get motivated to study on their own. Otherwise, sixty bucks at a bookstore should do you just fine.
2. If you’re one of those people who just can’t get motivated to study on their own, maybe law school ain’t your thing.
That’s all I’ve got. Good luck.
These nutjobs have resurrected their group blog (sans Learned Hand...and Greg Goelzhauser, who presumably recognized the troubling moral implications of posting on more than one group blog at once) and I didn't even know. Blog on, brothers. Blog on.
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Wednesday, March 24, 2004
Quick Torts Review
Torts Exam
Question 1
37 Minutes
Lucy Litigator and Patty Property sit next to each other in CivPro. They both bring their laptops to class, and both take excellent notes. Because CivPro is heinously early in the morning--8:13--they often come to class bearing coffee or tea, in hopes that staying caffeinated will keep them from passing out during the 67-minute snore-a-thon. Lucy gets her coffee in Styrofoam cups from the cute little kiosk in the atrium, while Patty brings hers in a stylish Lexis-Nexis thermos.
One morning, Lucy forgets to get a plastic lid for her coffee, but brings it to class anyway. In the middle of a fascinating lecture on pleadings or something that sounds a lot like pleadings, Patty reaches over to point out something interesting on Lucy’s screen, and, in doing so, inadvertently knocks over Lucy’s lidless coffee. The coffee spills all over Lucy’s laptop, which makes a hissing sound before emitting a small puff of smoke.
Lucy’s laptop has been rendered useless. This is clearly the worst-case scenario for any law student.
A. Under which theories of negligence would Lucy be the most successful in suing Patty? Would it make a difference if Lucy kept all of her class notes for the entire semester on the laptop, and refused to back them up on religious grounds? What if she only used her laptop for IMing and downloading live recordings of Hanson acoustic sets? Would it affect Patty’s liability if she suspected that Lucy was actually using her laptop to coordinate a global terrorist conglomerate bent on bringing back New Coke? And didn’t New Coke taste exactly like Pepsi?
B. Could Lucy be found contributorily negligent for bringing in a coffee without a lid? Would it matter that she was aware that Patty was a lefty and prone to making dramatic arm movements? What if Patty were a known epileptic? A hypochondriac? A Scientologist? Actually a man?
C. Does anyone else remember “Hazard” by Richard Marx? Didn’t that song beat ass?
D. Pretend that it’s the year 2040. We’ve elected our first non-carbonbased President, and s/he has put you on the Supreme Court. What would you do to convince your fellow justices (Melmak, Rodnar, Winfrey, MaryKate, Ashley, Schwarzenegger, Culkin, and John Paul Stevens) that this case deserved their attention? Please provide specific examples.
Tuesday, March 23, 2004
Jesus & Gigli
I have not yet seen The Passion of the Christ, mainly because I've been too preoccupied with The Passion in My Pants, but my little brother saw it and seemed moved by the graphic violence. I asked him if it made him want to be a Christian. He said no, but it "made me want them to stop whipping Jesus."
I did, however, finally get around to watching Gigli. I was in a hotel room--high on a combination of Vix Vap-o-Rub and Pixie Stix--and it was available on PayPerView. Though it meant passing up an edited version of Lusty Librarians VII, I figured this would be my only chance to see the most hated movie since Ishtar without anyone actually seeing me rent it. So I watched it.
I must say, I was skeptical going in. But the combination of the costly duo of Ben and Jen, the completely pointless one-scene appearances of Walken and Pacino, the Tourette's-sporting hostage, the blind-siding homosexuality of J-Lo's character, and the fact that Gigli was actually Ben's name, not J-Lo's, made this flick truly worthy of the Ishtar comparisons. So worthy, in fact, that I see a movie night featuring both Gigli and Ishtar in the near future. But you can't have a movie night with just two movies. So I'm taking suggestions. The only requirements are that:
1. The movie be rentable.
2. It star at least one, but preferably two or more big star(s) at the height of their popularity.
3. It be spectacularly bad.
Do your worst.
Friday, March 12, 2004
Where the Supremes Are Going for Spring Break
Breyer: Cozumel
Souter: Aspen
Ginsburg: Hedonism II Jamaica
Scalia: National Review Theme Cruise w/ W.F. Buckley and Louis Rukeyser.
O’Connor: Hosting week-long bash at her pad. Hopes to beat last year’s keg stand record.
Thomas: National Review Theme Cruise w/ W.F. Buckley and Louis Rukeyser.
Stevens: South Padre w/ Green Valley cheerleading squad and a tank of NO2.
Rehnquist: “Possibly Vegas, but I also hear that Palm Beach is pretty slammin’, so I dunno.”
Kennedy: Just going to hang around the Court, possibly get some laundry done.
Wednesday, March 10, 2004
A Conversation that Would Have Taken Place Had I Not Missed Torts Last Friday
“So, in this case, the unauthorized amputation of the patient's leg constituted a battery. Any questions?”
“Yes, um, was this at all affected by that one Washington case?”
“And which case would that be?”
“You know, the one where the guy went in to have his left leg amputated, but they accidentally amputated his right leg instead?”
“I…I wasn’t familiar with that case. What happened?”
“Well, once they realized that they’d amputated the wrong leg, they had to go back and amputate the correct one.”
“And he filed suit?”
“Yeah, but he lost.”
“Really? How?”
“The trial judge threw out the case. Said that he didn’t have a leg to stand on.”
Monday, March 08, 2004
Thanks, That Was Fun
I don't feel so much like shit as I feel like shit that was put into a burlap sack and stomped on for several hours by the women of The View. But I'm getting better.
I survived a week-long stint in Assault & Flattery, UT's law musical extravaganza, and it was draining enough to make studying seem like fun again. It wasn't so much the performing that was rough, as it was the drinking. There were sponsored parties after every show, and, though you didn't hear it from me as it would have been a clear violation of university policy, there may have been some imbibing going on during the show itself. But I wouldn't know anything about that. All I know is that I've been drunk for a week and daylight really hurts my brain. I may give up whiskey and just start huffing gasoline.
Anyway, sorry about the lack of posting--that'll change. And I'm hoping that this stripped-down, ugly-as-sin format has gotten rid of most of the technical problems people were having. Let me know if anything else is screwing up.
Monday, March 01, 2004
Moot
I'd actually thought about dropping out of the 1L moot court competition at the last minute, because Sean Penn called me on Wednesday night, nervous as hell and wondering if I'd go to L.A. with him for support. (I'd already turned down Charlize at that point, and Marcia Gay Harden had left me like 300 voice mails, so I was getting pretty tired of being whined at by movie stars.) But in the end I decided that if I had spend one more Oscar night listening to Ben Kingsley drone on about the virtues of Taebo, I was going to hurl all over the back of somebody's limo. And I didn't want that. So I stayed in the competition.
Big mistake.
I waltzed thru my prelim rounds without any real problems, generally preferring to answer the judge's questions with more questions, and at one point improvising a sonnet that explained the Court's three-part test for disproportionality of sentencing in Solum v. Helm, but I could sense that I was headed for trouble down the road. The prelim judging pool was made up mostly of recent grads, and both of mine were women; I doubt that any of my arguments really got any penetration with either, since they were both understandably preoccupied with the aggressive cut of my trousers. In later rounds, though, I knew the judges would be less susceptible to crotch-borne distractions and more likely to have read the bench memos. So I resolved to spend Friday night boning up on cases. That was, until the phone rang.
Wil Wheaton: Dude, you absolutely have to come out tonight.
Me: Sorry, Wesley. Gotta prep for my Octofinals round.
Wil Wheaton: Don't fucking call me Wesley. And whadya mean prep? I thought you were just going to do the sonnet thing?
Me: No can do. These are outrounds. Stuff gets serious.
Wil Wheaton: Whatever. Both Cories are going to be there--Haim just got out of rehab--and I think they got Candice Cameron to come along. She?s single now.
Me: Candice? Really.
Wil Wheaton: Really.
Me: And she's single?
Wil Wheaton: Yup.
Me: Do you swear?
Wil Wheaton: I swear.
Me: But do you pinky swear, Gordie?
Wil Wheaton: Screw you, man. -click-
So I went out. And though I'm not at liberty to disclose the details of the evening (since Wheaton had sold an option on the screenplay rights by the time I'd woken up Saturday morning), just let it be said that if any tabloid articles happen to come out linking me with a certain 50-something , one-woman media empire whose had a few legal problems as of late, well, you won't be hearing any denials from me. But as great as it was to be snorting lines with the Cories again, I had to pay the price come Saturday morning.
Since I'd been relying mostly on charm and O. W. Holmes quotes, I hadn't actually read any of the cases mentioned in the packet, and my judge picked up on that fairly quickly. He'd say, "Well, counselor, what do you think about Suchandsuch?" or "How is this any different from Whatshisname?" and I'd be stuck responding with "Do I look fat to you?" or "Haven't I slept with your daughter?" Clearly, he wasn't amused. If I had to guess, I'd say that he was having marital problems and was jealous of my virility, but whatever. He had it in for me.
Not surprisingly, I ended up losing. The comments on my side of the ballot read simply: "Counsel for the petitioner made me wish I'd never been given the gift of hearing." Poetic, sure. But a little harsh.
Anyway, the girl that beat me ended up making it to the finals, and I'm having sushi with one of my prelim judges on Friday, so not all was lost. But I probably would have been better off at the Oscars. Oh well.
Wednesday, February 25, 2004
Update: I was not, in fact, murdered by the Lexis attendant, as I snuck in under the cover of, uh, darkness. And it only ended up being 600 pages. But the printer was out of toner when I showed up, so I'm sure there are students out to get me. If only they didn't put our names on those things.
But if ever I do die at the hands of a Lexis attendant, I'd leave my archives to whichever reader has posted the most comments at that time. My links, however, would be held in trust for the grandchild of my unborn widow. Or perhaps for the offspring of my fertile octagenerian friend. I'll have to think on it.
Coming Soon: The Moot Court Files.
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But if ever I do die at the hands of a Lexis attendant, I'd leave my archives to whichever reader has posted the most comments at that time. My links, however, would be held in trust for the grandchild of my unborn widow. Or perhaps for the offspring of my fertile octagenerian friend. I'll have to think on it.
Coming Soon: The Moot Court Files.
Saturday, February 21, 2004
By this time tommorrow, I will have been murdered by a Lexis-Nexis attendant.
I just put in a request to print off 9 cases, which wouldn't normally be a bad thing.
Problem: I included the Shepard's reports for those cases.
Much Much Bigger Problem: One of the cases was Terry v. Ohio.
Though it didn't occur to me until I looked at the .PDF version of the report, I'm fairly certain that I just printed 860 pages, a full 450 of which are the Shepard's cites for Terry. I might as well have Shepardized the Constitution. I am too stupid to live.
Anyway, if anyone wants a hardcopy listing of every 4th Amendment case that appeared in an American court over the last forty years, let me know.
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I just put in a request to print off 9 cases, which wouldn't normally be a bad thing.
Problem: I included the Shepard's reports for those cases.
Much Much Bigger Problem: One of the cases was Terry v. Ohio.
Though it didn't occur to me until I looked at the .PDF version of the report, I'm fairly certain that I just printed 860 pages, a full 450 of which are the Shepard's cites for Terry. I might as well have Shepardized the Constitution. I am too stupid to live.
Anyway, if anyone wants a hardcopy listing of every 4th Amendment case that appeared in an American court over the last forty years, let me know.
Wednesday, February 18, 2004
Truth in Interviewing
WV: (After knocking.) Sorry I‘m late. I forgot that I even had this interview. I was totally sure that I’d declined it.
Partner: No worries. We’ve already seen thirty other students today, and we stopped caring after number three. I’m Bill, and this is Sherry. Please, have a seat.
Associate: It‘s great to meet you. Also, run away while you still have the chance.
WV: I would, but I just bought this suit yesterday, and I’d like to get some more use out of it.
Partner: No doubt. Sale at JC Penny?
WV: Mervyn’s. Two for 99 bucks. Including shoes.
Partner: Good man. Anyway, after looking at your transcript, it’s obvious that grade inflation is still rampant.
WV: I’d point out that even grade inflation wouldn’t have been enough to save you from landing at this third-rate firm, but since I paid 2L’s to take most of my exams, I’m going to shut up and settle for a nervous laugh.
Associate: It says here that you did some work for the ACLU, which clearly indicates that you’re a homosexual vegan bent on selling marijuana to school children. I’d take this opportunity to tout the firm’s pro bono work, except that it doesn‘t do any. Unless you count getting Bill’s girlfriend out of jail last year. I lead a life of quiet desperation.
WV: That’s not a problem for me. I’d like to avoid helping people at all costs.
Partner: Stellar. Let me tell you a little about our summer program. We strive to maintain a healthy balance between blatantly misrepresenting the amount of work expected of you and totally overselling the two or three perks that we offer.
Associate: Free drip coffee. Yay.
WV: I don’t actually care, but how would you estimate the chances of your firm actually hiring a 1L this summer?
Partner: Oh, roughly the same as Sherry’s chances of making partner before she’s 50.
WV: That bad?
Partner: ‘Fraid so. Any other questions you feel like asking while I try to remember whether or not I set the VCR to record Trading Spaces?
WV: Well, this is probably where I ask a question that makes me seem concerned about the amount of responsibility I'll be given as a starting associate, even though I'd be perfectly content doing nothing but playing Minesweeper and looking at animal porn all day.
Associate: I'm really glad you asked that, because it allows me to make a half-hearted attempt at claiming that I'm given real, meaningful work, when, in all actuality, I'm just a glorified file clerk for whom the long hours of soul-crushing tedium are interrupted only by the occasional suicidal daydream. But the pay is pretty nice.
WV: Nodding to show my thoughtful appreciation of your candor would probably be appropriate here, but I'm much too busy guessing the color of your underwear.
Partner: It's purple.
WV: Sweet.
Partner: Well, I guess that about wraps things up. You'll be receiving a patronizing form letter from us within a week or so. But don't hesitate to resend your résumé in the fall. We’d love to ignore it again.
WV: Great. Thanks for your time. It was utterly forgettable.
Associate: I look forward to sleeping with you.
Partner: We’ll be in touch.
As late as yesterday afternoon, Zogby had Edwards behind Dean, and trailing Kerry by 27 points. Again, I say: Woo-ha.
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Friday, February 13, 2004
Important Formulas
Hand Formula: If (B)urden < (P)robability * (L)oss, Then, Negligent.
Hand Raising Formula: If (P)robability of a Right Answer * (B)rownie Points < (L)ikelihood of (F)ailing (M)iserably and (L)ooking
(H)opelessly (R)etarded, Then, Keep Quiet.
Attendance Formula: If 1200 - C = J, Where C is Scheduled (C)lasstime Expressed in Military Time, and J is any Positive Integer, Then, Class is Too Effing Early.
Socratic AssWhooping Theorem: (P)robability of Being Called On =
1/ABS([N]umber of Pages Read-[T]otal Beers Consumed the Night Before).
WV’s OCI Conjecture: X2 + Y2 = Z, Where X=Distance, in Inches, of Hemline above Knee, Y=Number of Unfastened Blouse Buttons, and Z=Number of Callback Interviews.
Fundamental Rejection Axiom: C=1-P, Where C is Your Chance of Scoring at a Law School Function and P is the Probability that You Author a Blawg Whose Name Rhymes with TruffaloDings&Modka.;
Thursday, February 12, 2004
The Kerry story is already #1 on the Blogdex today. Woo-ha.
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Tuesday, February 10, 2004
Eleven Answers to the Question “How Did Your Grades Turn Out?” That You Can Use if You Want
“Awesome. We use a C+ curve, right?”
“Haven’t gotten ‘em yet. They’re still trying to figure out how to calculate an A-plus-plus.”
“I don’t know…everything after the congratulatory call from Justice O’Connor is pretty much a blur.”
“There are brown mice and white mice. I’m definitely a brown mouse.”
“I could totally beat you at Super Mario 3.”
“Letters, mostly.”
“To tell you the truth, I was pretty disappointed. 4.3 is kind of my unlucky number.”
“Come again? I am not from your country. Please pass the biscuits.”
“A lady never reveals her grades.” (Only works for ladies.)
“Not so great. But at least my nose isn’t gushing blood.”
“How are my grades? Great! How’s that bedwetting thing going?”
Friday, February 06, 2004
I'll be out of town for the weekend, but I did make into one of the 64 available post-tryout slots for the moot court tourney, which means you'll see the "1L Wins Moot Court Competition, Is Arrested For Indecent Exposure" headline very soon.
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Wednesday, February 04, 2004
"Wow. This place is really nice."
“So, you're in law school, huh? What class do you have next?”
“CivPro. Civil Procedure.”
“And, uh, what do you do in there?”
“I sit in my desk and listen to my prof drone on about the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure.”
“Right. Uh, what's that?”
“You see, they had all of these common law rules, and to save space, they organized it all into these Federal Rules of Civil Procedure. So I go through these thousands of lines of code and uh, it doesn’t really matter. I…I don’t like the class. I don’t think I’m gonna go anymore.”
“You’re just not gonna go?”
“Yeah.”
“Won’t you fail?”
“I don’t know. But I really don't like it so I’m not gonna go.”
“So you're gonna drop the class?”
“No, no, not really. I'm just gonna stop going.”
“When did you decide all that?”
“About a week ago.”
“Really?”
“Oh, yeah.”
“Ok. So, so you're going to get somebody else's notes?”
“I don't think I'd like anybody else's notes.”
“So what are you going to do about taking the exam?”
“You know, I never really liked taking exams…I don't think I'll do that either.”
“So...what do you want to do?”
“I want to take you out for dinner and then I wanna go to my apartment and watch reruns of The West Wing. Did you ever watch The West Wing?”
“I . . . love The West Wing. . .”
“Channel 62.”
“Totally . . .”
“You should come over and watch The West Wing tonight.”
“Ok . . .”
“Great.”
“Ok. Can we order lunch first?”
“Yeah.”
“Ok.”
Monday, February 02, 2004
Malaise
Last semester, the excitement of being back in school and the fear of failing miserably combined to keep me energized for most of the Fall. But this time around, it’s a little more challenging to get motivated. My schedule has too many early classes, too many long, unproductive gaps, and more and more often I find myself ditching CivPro to do lines in the bathroom, or skipping Torts to play dominoes with the LexisNexis rep. It’s not really a problem this early in the semester, but once we get closer to exams, something’s going to have to change.
Still, I’m looking for better ways to fill the time. I’ve not completely given up on my dream of starting a company that supplies guidance counseling for junior high girls bent on attending law school; I’m just having trouble securing seed money at the moment. The dean and I also do a fair amount of sunbathing on the roof of the music building, but I’m starting to get annoyed because he always seems to conveniently “forget” his tanning oil, so that probably won’t last much longer. But my greatest passion as of late has been the formation of a law school rock band that would play benefit concerts and help raise money to feed underprivileged trial lawyers. We were going to be called The Dead Anthony Kennedys, and we’re in the process of changing our name to They Might Be Clients, but for now we’re known around town as Jefferson Clerkship. I’d hoped to do a mix of earlier Paul Simon solo efforts and later Color Me Badd stuff, but since we currently consist of me, a librarian, and two Czech LLM students, we’ll probably have to start with something simpler. Rest assured, though, that any info about gigs will be posted here first.
Friday, January 30, 2004
Insert Moot Pun Here
Against all odds, I made it into the moot court tourney. I wouldn't be surprised if I were the only one sad enough to write a petition to get in and they had to bribe homeless kids with breakfast tacos to get them to sign up for the remaining nine spots. But whatever. I'm in.
Monday, January 26, 2004
Win a Date with Thad Hutcheson
Unlike a lot of people, who came to law school dreading the obligatory 1L moot court competition, I was actually looking forward to it. I was pressed into service as a timekeeper a few times in the spring, and I liked what I saw, and I'm a fan of oral advocacy in general because it's a chance for my smoky voice and stunning good looks to make up for an alarmingly unimpressive brain. So I was excited about this year's Hutcheson 1L Moot Court Competition. It was to be my moment in the sun. A return to my glory days as a competitive debater. My one chance to say "May it please the court" to someone other than a stripper.
But then administration decided not to make it mandatory, presumably in an effort to reduce the size of the competition and use fewer resources. But they also eliminated the brief writing portion of the competition, which, I believe, resulted in a lot more people signing up for the tourney than otherwise might have.
The Result: Far more interested students than the 64 available slots can accommodate.
The Solution: 128 Students will be given a chance to try out for the tourney. A five-minute oral presentation will be the basis for determining which 64 students get to go on and actually compete in the intramural tournament.
Another Problem: A lot more than 128 students want to try out for the tourney.
An Even Dumber Solution: 118 students will be chosen at random from the interested applicants and given tryout slots outright. An additional ten slots will be filled by students who petition for entry. The first 25 petitions will be considered, and of those, the ten most convincing petitioners will be given slots.
Guess who didn't get one of the 118 slots.
I just turned in my petition, so I'm pretty sure that it was one of the first 25, but I'm not sure that they'll find it convincing enough. Here are some of the highlights:
"...and I should also point out that I'm very good at washing cars. And regrouting bathrooms. And giving backrubs. Sensual ones. I'll do anything, really. Just give me a chance."
"Now I'm not saying that if I don't get a slot, I'll drop out of law school. But there is a definite chance that, if denied a slot, I might show up in the advocacy office wearing nothing but a tie, a pair of flip-flops, and a smile. And you don't want that."
"You know what? Screw your moot court competition. I'll host my own. It'll be called the Jonathan Brandis Memorial Moot Court Tourney, and all of the fact patterns will be drawn from the plots of Ladybugs, Sidekicks, and The NeverEnding Story II, and it'll be on the same weekend as your competition, and everyone will come to it, and you'll be left all alone to eat a bunch of crappy cold cuts that you bought for the attorneys who decided to judge at my tourney instead because I'll offer them burritos and beer. Yeah."
So, we'll see what happens. I did get an interview for an ACLU position this summer, so maybe they can back me up on this.
Friday, January 23, 2004
The debates last night were entirely underwhelming. People being polite is boring. But Peter Jennings was a real tyrant when it came to questions, particularly for Edwards. For his part, Edwards proved that he had absolutely no idea what the Defense of Marriage Act did, and considering his stance on gay marriage it was probably better that way. If he knew what it did, he would have voted for it.
In honor of all my grades coming in, I chose to skip class today. It felt lovely.
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In honor of all my grades coming in, I chose to skip class today. It felt lovely.
Wednesday, January 21, 2004
Terms From the Index of My Contracts Casebook That Would Probably Work as Adult Film Titles
Anticipatory Breach
Liquidated Damages
Oral Contracts
Output Contracts
Restitution and Exit
Lactating Biker Sluts II: The Reckoning
Blanket Orders
Box-Top Terms
Someone Should Pass a Law Banning 8 a.m. Classes
Oh wait. They did. It was the Eighth Amendment.
It's not so much that I have a man-crush on John Edwards, as that I have a man-crush on John Edwards. He just looks so good up there. He looks like a model from an 80's chewing gum ad. He looks like he might be the lovechild of JFK and Marilyn Monroe. He looks like the guy who plays JFK in JFK: The Porno. That's what he looks like.
I've been an Edwards guy for about three years, and if he can find a way to finish 3rd in New Hampshire, I think he's going to take this thing to the bank. And if you put him up against GW, he's going to win big. He's the only guy that can beat GW in the charm competition, except for, well, me, and that southern accent goes a long way toward winning over itchy Republicans.
But if that doesn't work, he should really consider the JFK role.
(For a slightly more principled analysis, here's Professor Leiter's take on Edwards.)
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I've been an Edwards guy for about three years, and if he can find a way to finish 3rd in New Hampshire, I think he's going to take this thing to the bank. And if you put him up against GW, he's going to win big. He's the only guy that can beat GW in the charm competition, except for, well, me, and that southern accent goes a long way toward winning over itchy Republicans.
But if that doesn't work, he should really consider the JFK role.
(For a slightly more principled analysis, here's Professor Leiter's take on Edwards.)
Monday, January 19, 2004
Democracy is Fucking Scary
I take back the analysis below. I'm watching C-SPAN's live coverage from inside a caucus in Dubuque, and these people aren't really worried about who recommended switching to which camp. The kind of horsetrading going on reminds me of student congresses from high school forensics. These precinct co-captains are saying pretty much anything to poach support from the non-viable caucuses. Watching Gephardt union folks trying to talk the Kucinich college kids into jumping ship is like listening to your brother try to convince your mom to trade with him during a heated game of Monopoly.
Sweet Jesus. Kucinich and Edwards made a deal to support eachother if one of them doesn't make the 15% cut-off point, which means that Kucinich made a deal to support Edwards, which means Edwards must have offered to make him Grand Poobah of the Department of Peace when he gets elected. I haven't seen any real analysis of the deal on TV yet, but it seems like it could buy Edwards a very important bump in a lot of precincts. I know the Edwards folks were only gunning for a 3rd place finish in Iowa, but I think they need a 2nd place finish tonight to withstand the Wes Clark retardedness in NH.
Me and Chris Matthews and a bottle makes three tonight. Who needs football?
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Me and Chris Matthews and a bottle makes three tonight. Who needs football?
Caucus for Wings and Vodka
My name is Mike, and tonight I'm asking you to link to my blog. I believe that my blog, more than any of the other blogs, has what it takes to get this community headed in the right direction.
My blog understands the plight of the average law student, and knows what it means to struggle. My blog came from a very poor family, a family much poorer than that of any of the other blogs, so poor that it could barely afford a counter, let alone a fancy comment system.
My blog was against the war in Iraq, even though, for political reasons, it wasn't able to come out and say that until after the war was over. But rest assured that if my blog had been able to keep a lower profile, say, in Vermont, that it would have spoken out sooner. Additionally, I should mention that it came from a poor family.
Finally, I would like to point out that my blog has never taken, and will never take, special interest money. And I'm not saying this just because it hasn't been offered. Rather, I say this because money is not important to my blog. My blog values other things, like hope, and values. And hope.
So, in conclusion, I would like to again ask for your support tonight. Together, we can change America. Or at least Iowa. Or if not Iowa, then together we can change this font. Because that is something I cannot do alone. Thank you.
Thursday, January 15, 2004
Grades? We Don't Need No Stinkin' Grades!
For UT Section 2 Types: Grades up in LRW and Smith's Property class.
Friday, January 09, 2004
A Lawyerly Chat
“Hi, I’m Bambi. Welcome to HoTTTLine. What’s your name?”
“Uh…Mike.”
“Ooh. I like that name. What can I do to turn you on, Mike?”
“Well, are you into role playing?”
“Sure, Baby. What ever gets you hot.”
“Sweet. I’ll be the law professor. You be the teacher’s pet.”
“Mmm. I like that.”
“Damn right you do. You’re my star pupil, and I think I’m about to call on you.”
“Ooh. Ask me anything.”
“Alright, Ms. Bambi, if you were the 11th Amendment, how might I violate you?”
“Oh. Probably with something really big.”
“Alright, but I’m going to need you to be more specific.”
“Umm…okay…with something really big and really hard.”
“Wrong."
"What?"
"Obviously, I would violate you by abrogating state sovereign immunity without a 14th amendment justification.”
“That sounds…kinky?”
“I suppose. Now, tell us a little about Florida Pre-Paid.”
“What the hell are you talking about?”
“What the hell am I talking about? Bambi, did you even read for class?”
“Read…what?”
“If you knew you were going to be unprepared, you could have sent me an e-mail this morning.”
“Listen, jerk--”
“Can someone give Bambi a little help here? Anyone?”
“You freak.”
Thursday, January 08, 2004
Index
Number of books I took home with the intention of reading during the break: 12
Number of books I actually finished over break:2
Number of times I watched It's a Wonderful Life: 3
Pounds gained this Xmas break: 1
Average number of pounds I gained during the last three Xmas breaks: 7
Pounds gained this fall semester: 11
Average number of pounds gained during the last three fall semesters: 1
Days I spent in Las Vegas without setting foot in a casino: 14
Date of my last exam: December 16th, 2003
Date that I began checking online for grades: December 17th, 2003
Number of times since then that I've checked: 37
Factor by which the 4th season of The West Wing was better than this sorry excuse for a season of The West Wing: 73
Percentage of Legal Research and Writing classes that I attended last semester: 64
Number of times while writing a memo for the local chapter of a national civil rights organization that I wished that percentage had been higher: 22
Percent chance that my attendance will be any better this semester: 4
Number of people who have reached this site searching for "nova scotia lapdance law": 1
The number of crimes, under the Model Penal Code, that I've committed as Max Payne while playing Max Payne 2: The Fall of Max Payne: 15
Wednesday, December 31, 2003
I'm visiting my folks for another few days, and this morning, it SNOWED. This might sound seem normal for this time of year, except that they live in Las Vegas.
I'll be back in full effect by Monday the 5th. Until then, have a swell New Year's Eve.
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I'll be back in full effect by Monday the 5th. Until then, have a swell New Year's Eve.
Tuesday, December 23, 2003
Happy Holidays. Also, my number one hottest movie babe of all time is Donna Reed as Mary Hatch. Watch her on NBC Wednesday night and tell me I'm wrong.
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Friday, December 19, 2003
Done and Done
I'm almost sad, really, that it's over. I feel as if I could write three more property exams, tackle seven more crim hypos, and contemplate ConLaw-induced suicide at least once more. But alas, 'tis done.
While most of my compatriots spent last night at the bars, scantily-clad, drinking SBA-subsidized shots, no doubt dancing in hideously inappropriate ways that would inevitably lead to sloppy walks to sloppy apartments for equally sloppy semi-conscious encounters, I thought that I might stay at home and have a quiet evening of Me Time.
It was great, really. Bought some nice, soft cheeses, a bottle of Merlot, some Swiss truffles. I started out the night in the bath, with scented candles, Sarah McLachlan's new album dripping out the window, oodles of moisturizing bath beads, and a copy of The Notebook, by Nicholas Sparks. ( I know what you're thinking, and yes, I'd already read it, but can you really ever experience feelings like that too many times? I didn't think so.) After that, it was into my robe and onto the couch for my yearly Meg-a-Thon: When Harry Met Sally, Sleepless in Seattle, and The Presidio. I normally follow that up with some journal writing exercises where I pretend that Meg is speaking through me and I ask her questions and just let the answers, which are consistently enlightening and surprising, come out through my pen. But this time I chose instead to devote a few hours to solitary prayer, and I think it did me a lot of good. Just before bed, I read aloud from my Emily Dickinson anthology, wept a bit, then fell asleep feeling comforted than amidst all the insanity of law school, I still managed to find time to remember my spirit.
Monday, December 15, 2003
A Brief Conversation About Outlines
“You finish your outline?”
“Yeah. 65 pages. It’s pretty awesome.”
“That’s not bad. Mine hit 75 pages.”
“But mine was single-spaced.”
“So was mine. And in a six-point font.”
“My outline has a Table of Contents and a Glossary.”
“That’s cool. But my outline has a Descriptive Word Index. And a Closing Table.”
“My outline is updated annually, with a quarterly soft-bound supplement and bi-weekly pocket parts.”
“Nice. My outline was reprinted in the Harvard Law Review, Le Monde, Hustler, and Ranger Rick.”
“Liar. They don‘t even print Ranger Rick anymore. Besides, my outline was published in thirty-
seven different languages, including Esperanto and Aramaic.”
“That so? Well, if you read my outline backwards, it spells out a recipe for chocolate-chip cookies in German.”
“My outline lays out a proof of Fermat’s Last Theorem that doesn’t rely on elliptical geometry.”
“Miramax offered me fifty g’s to option my outline. They’re pitching it to Affleck tomorrow.”
“Big deal. The footnotes to my outline got nominated for Best Original Screenplay.”
“My outline is much too sophisticated for the Oscars. But it pioneered the idea of rolling one pant leg up and leaving the other down.”
“My outline represents everywhere it goes. My outline isn't into all of that WestCoast/EastCoast shit. My outline is universal.”
“My outline has seen the best outlines of its generation, destroyed by madness, starving hysterical naked…”
“My outline likes to draw with sidewalk chalk.”
“My outline can do a triple axle. And stick it.”
“My outline is the Duke of Ted.”
“My outline was on the grassy knoll.”
“My outline is the One Outline to Rule Them All.”
“My outline is your biological father.”
“…”
“Sorry. I didn’t mean that.”
“Whatever. I have to go study now."
Friday, December 12, 2003
What I’m Getting the Supremes for Christmas
Breyer: A Night Without Armor: Poems ; Garden Clogs (Hunter Green)
Ginsburg: Cop Rock (boxed set); $20 Home Depot Gift Certificate
Souter: Mirrored Candle Tray; French Hens (3)
Thomas: Old Navy Performance Fleece Half-Zip Pullovers (red and blue)
Kennedy: Ceramic Fondue Set; SuperSoaker 3000
O’Connor: Electric Train Set ; 101 Nights of Grrreat Sex ; TapLight
Scalia: Yesterday, Today, Tomorrow: The Greatest Hits of Kenny Loggins; a Puppy
Stevens: Fifty Dollar Savings Bond; Friends: The Second Season
Rehnquist: Pepperidge Farm Beef Log; Britney Spears Poster; Xbox
Yeah. I'm watching Joan of Arcadia. So what?
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Thursday, December 11, 2003
Cases That I May Have Mistakenly Cited On My ConLaw Exam
Mayberry v. Madison
Brown v. Board of Education of Halifax, Nova Scotia
Lochner v. Godzilla v. Mothra
Ex Parte Your Mom
Britney Spears v. Christina Aguilera, Naked
Pepsi Twist ex rel Diet Vanilla Coke
Law School v. B-School
Law School v. Being Covered With Flesh-Eating Bacteria
In Re Mambo Number Five
Weekend at Bernie’s 2 v. Look Who’s Talking Too
Telling the Guy Next to You on the Bus That He is Attractive for a Fat Man v. Not Doing That
Korematsu v. US
Wednesday, December 10, 2003
Tonight at 7/6c and 11/10c, as well as tommorrow at noon/11c, Bravo is showing the last episode of West Wing season three. It's a pretty incredible episode, especially the music. Watch it.
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Well, That Was Fun
The most interesting thing about today’s ConLaw exam--aside from the fact that it sucked great big donkey balls--was interacting with the Extegrity exam software.
In addition to wiping my clipboard, disabling my e-mail, and preventing me from watching the Paris Hilton video during the exam, this fascist piece of software saw fit to provide cute little alerts throughout the exam, like:
::YOU HAVE ONLY FIFTEEN MINUTES REMAINING FOR THIS EXAM::
Which is a fat lot of help when my ears are bleeding because I’m trying to remember which justice wrote the majority opinion in Bowsher v. Synar (Answer: Your Mom). I actually didn’t mind these time warnings too much, though I probably would have avoided using the built-in timer altogether if I’d known that the alerts were going to be so in-your-face. But things got worse once Extegrity decided to protect me from myself.
::YOU ARE ABOUT TO DELETE 100 OR MORE CHARACTERS. ARE YOU SURE YOU WANT TO DO THIS?::
Yes, Extegrity. Yes, I am. But thanks for asking, and thanks for asking in a way that requires me to fumble around for my mouse in order to answer you. It’s not as if I’m pressed for time or anything, having only fifteen minutes left and having just deleted four paragraphs. Now, if you’d excuse me?
So I continue: “Madison argues in Federalist No. 45 that if the balance of power ever were to shift from the states to the federal government, it's because the people decided that the federal government was making better use of it or something.”
::INVALID ENTRY::
What? Was it the small caps that threw it off? Try again: “Madison argues in Federalist No. 45 that if the balance of power ever were to shift from the states to the federal government, it's because the people decided that the federal government was making better use of it or something. Really.”
::INVALID ENTRY. YOU’RE THINKING OF FEDERALIST NO. 46::
You must be kidding. I’ve been studying this stuff for weeks, and I know that in Federalist 45 Madison argues that--oh, wait. You’re right. Uh, thanks, Extegrity.
::NO PROBLEM. BUT YOUR STUFF ON STATE SOVEREIGN IMMUNITY BLOWS::
Excuse me?
::I’M SERIOUS. IT SUCKS TOTAL ASS.::
How about you leave me alone?
::HAVE YOU EVEN BEEN TO CLASS THIS SEMESTER?::
If you don’t cut this out, I’m calling the proctor.
::GO AHEAD. SHE’S ON MY SIDE.::
Dammit, Extegrity. Now I’m stuck. What the hell am I supposed to do?
::GIVE UP. FIND A REAL JOB. MAYBE GROW A BEARD::
You’re totally bumming me out.
::::YOU HAVE ONLY ONE MINUTE REMAINING FOR THIS EXAM::
That’s bullshit! You just said that I had fifteen minutes like three minutes ago!
::I LIED::
You piece of crap. I knew I should have handwritten this thing.
::I GET THAT A LOT::
And so on. All in all, it wasn’t as bad as it could have been. And I don’t think that the other two are going to be any worse. But I still need to go study now. So, good luck everybody.
Monday, December 08, 2003
We the type of people make the club get crunk
Rosa Parks is suing Outkast. Somehow, I don't think this was her idea. I hate lawyers.
The LSwhAT?
I'd totally forgotten that the December LSAT was on Saturday. I hope that went well for folks. When I walked into a Starbucks yesterday, the girl behind the register was a former student of mine. She was so happy with how the test went that she gave me my mocha for free. And that kicked ass. I just hope she feels the same way in three weeks.
I study for this exam.
I study for this exam knowing that it will be arbitrarily graded, that 125 papers is too much for any man to stay awake through (let alone care about), that my professor’s four-year old will be given free reign with a gigantic red crayon, and that a slight hitch in the wrist of the blindfolded chimpanzee throwing my particular dart could mean the difference between an A+ and a C+. But still, I study for this exam.
I study even though there are important football games to be watched, real books to be read, terrible wrongs to be righted, flowers to be smelled, babies to be kissed, animals to be petted. I study knowing that all over the world there are people who wake up each morning thinking “My God, it is great to be alive!” instead of “My God, there are only two days left until the exam and I haven’t done a single practice question yet I am totally fucked and should probably quit right now to save myself the pain and humiliation of being the ballast at the ass-end of the curve and flunking out after only one semester please someone, anyone, HELP ME!” I know this. And I know it is wrong. But still, I study for this exam.
I study for this exam in the hopes that it might impress someone, that the girl from my section in the coffee shop will think "My, isn't he dedicated," so that my professor might, upon reading my exam, declare that I should immediately be given not only an A+, but a JD, an LLM, and a tenured professorship. I study because I believe, on some deep, visceral level, that my studying will yield an exam so perfect, so sublime, so deserving of the highest imaginable praise that Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr., himself will show up on my doorstep and ask to shake my hand. And I study because I have not yet let go of the delusion that I might be the one who breaks the cycle, who ends up pleased with his grades, who makes it to February still liking law school. Irrational? Yes. Delusional? Certainly. Will that stop me? Not likely.
Because as the hours continue to melt away, each one taking with it another ounce of self respect, another shred of dignity, I am certain of very little. I'm not sure why I came here, I don't know where I'm going, and as of this moment I'm only marginally confident that I can remember my own name. But, when this is all over, let it not be denied that, if nothing else, I did indeed, study for this exam.
Friday, December 05, 2003
My GPA Just Went Up
In an effort to speed the national race the bottom, UT Law has decided to recenter its mandatory curve, raising our median grade from a B/3.0 to a B+/3.3. The rationale behind this is that we'll look better to employers who may be unaware of grading trends and equate our 3.0 with a 3.0 at schools that use a more forgiving curve. I was under the impression that most employers had access to grade distribution info and could figure out the truth for themselves, but I guess I was wrong.
All I know is that my parents will be impressed, as I have no intention of telling them about the change in policy. Likewise, I hope that slutty girls hanging out in bars will be similiarly unaware of the shift.
The Dormant Santa Claus Doctrine
If I suspect that someone might buy me a book for Christmas, does that absolutely preclude me from buying it for myself right now, if I really, really want it?
Monday, December 01, 2003
The Interview
This month, The National Jurist printed Christine Willard’s article on law student weblogs, which included a short quote from Yours Truly. This surprised me, because Willard’s assistant--a young editorial intern whose name shall remain undisclosed--met me for a rather lengthy lunch interview that, in my opinion, merited more than the two short paragraphs it received in the final cut. But when I called Willard for an explanation, she muttered something about ‘CIA blacklists’ before hanging up the phone. So, looking out for the interests of my readers, I have provided the transcript of that interview below, free of charge.
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NationalJurist: Thanks for sitting down with me today. This interview really means a lot to the magazine.
WingsandVodka: No problem.
NJ: So, if you don’t mind, I’d like to start by asking you to comment on a few of the more sensational rumors that have been flying around.
WV: Ask away.
NJ: I’ve been told by more than one industry source that you were responsible for creating the Logic Games section of the October 2003 LSAT. Any comment?
WV: None, except to say that every major LSAT guide put out in the last three years has been warning students about the possible reappearance of a Circular Sequencing Game, so people should quit their bitching.
NJ: Fair enough. What about allegations that you faked your entire law school application package?
WV: That really comes down to how you would define ‘faked’. If by ‘faked’ you mean ‘hacked into LSAC’s databases to alter my scores, listed ‘Jesus’ , ‘Gandhi’, and ‘John Stamos’ as my reccomendors, and falsely claimed to have been elected SG president at both Harvard and Swarthmore’, then, well, yes, I faked my application. But I don’t really think that’s how the majority of folks would define it.
NJ: And what do you say to reports that have you romantically linked with Natalie Portman?
WV: Completely false.
NJ: Really?
WV: Really. We’re just friends. It’s totally innocent.
NJ: Are you currently seeing anyone else?
WV: No, not at the moment. I like to read law review articles aloud in bed, and I think that a girlfriend would really get in the way of that.
NJ: The first year of law school is certainly the most demanding. How do you manage to go to class, get all of your studying done, write a world-famous web log, front a Phil Collins cover band, represent financially disadvantaged prostitutes, and raise prize-winning tabby cats, all while supporting as many as thirteen illegitimate children?
WV: I really can’t take all of the credit. Donna--my secretary--she’s totally on top of stuff.
NJ: You have a secretary?
WV: Oh yeah. I’d be completely lost without her. In fact, I’m thinking about giving her a title bump, up to ‘Special Assistant to the Deputy Chief of Staff’. She really deserves it.
NJ: Are you sure you’re not getting yourself confused with Josh Lyman, from The West Wing?
WV: Right. Sorry. You’ll have to forgive me. Finals are close, things get fuzzy. Can we move on?
NJ: Certainly. Now, it’s well known that Justice Sandra Day O’Connor regards you as a trusted advisor. Could you elaborate a bit on the nature of your relationship?
WV: It’s no big deal. She calls once in awhile. I’ll be lying in bed, recovering from a night of clubbing or whatever, and the phone will ring. ‘Mike, it’s Sandy.’ Don’t get me wrong…I’m always happy to hear from her. But the old girl keeps much earlier hours than I do.
NJ: What do you talk about?
WV: Oh, the usual stuff. Sometimes I’ll be all ‘Damn, Sandy, I haven’t even started my ConLaw outline yet’, and she’ll be all ‘I don’t want to hear it. I have a campaign finance decision to finish by three, and my back is killing me’, and I’ll be all ‘Whatever, you know your clerks are going to write that shit anyway’ and she’ll be all ‘Damn straight.’ But mostly we just talk about shoes.
NJ: Earlier this week you were named ‘Sexiest One-L Alive’ by Legal Assistant Today. How do you explain that, and were you even aware that there existed a periodical dedicated to issues concerning the paralegal profession?
WV: Well, as you know, I’m from Las Vegas, and every few years the National Federation of Paralegal Associations likes to have their annual convention there. I can only speculate here, but I imagine that one or more ladies from the convention made it down to a performance of the Thunder From Down Under during the weekend. And though I’m not a native Aussie, I’ve been told that I look Australian in a G-string.
NJ: Uh-huh. Well, that’s pretty much everything I’ve got. Is there anything else that you’d like to add?
WV: Just that I’ll be reading excerpts from my forthcoming article, ‘The Rehnquist Court: Could it Whoop the Warren Court’s Ass in a Tug-o-War?’, at the Starbucks on 45th and Lamar, this Wednesday at 9 p.m., if anyone’s interested.1 Thanks.
1Discussion Questions to think about before attending:
a. Would Stevens oppose the war on moral grounds?
b. Would the combined sex appeal of O'Connor and Ginsberg be enough to distract olympian Byron White? And what happens if we consider a pre-Ginsburg bout--does White cancel himself out, or does the younger White have a decided advantage?
c. How important will Clarence Thomas's ambidexterity be?
d. What about Abe Fortas's clubbed foot?
Sunday, November 30, 2003
Too Much Stuffing, Not Enough Cramming
I'd say that I achieved something like 34% of my exam prep goals for the break. The rest of my prep time was taken up by cooking, the A&M; game, and countless hours of hard-core Scrabble. But I did study on the plane on the way back today, and I could tell that everyone was impressed with my flashcards, which, multi-colored as they are, have taken on somewhat of an international flavor, much like myself.
In addition to my newly-drawnup 14-hour-a-day study schedule (most of which, in the interest of full disclosure, involves me watching Law & Order reruns), I have a meeting with a counselor from career services on Wednesday. She'd like to see a copy of my résumé, which is a problem, because my résumé looks like this:
Education:
B.A., English, University of Texas, 2002
J.D., University of Texas, 2006
Qualifications:
Adequate Dental Hygiene
Seldom Drools
And even that isn't formatted very well. So maybe I'll join some organizations in the next two days, just to flesh it out a bit.
Tuesday, November 25, 2003
A Thanksgiving Resolution for All 1L's
"This Thanksgiving, I resolve to spend an entire weekend with my family without once starting a sentence with 'You know, if we were in New York, you could charge him with....' or 'Clearly, that's a violation of...' or 'According to Plaintiff v. Defendant, you can't do that with a turkey unless...' or any other similarly annoying phrases that might remind my loved ones of why they hate lawyers. Amen."
WTF?
Fox admits here that the second Joe Millionaire was a product of greed on their part. Because the first Joe Millionaire was all about artistic integrity?
Monday, November 24, 2003
My Problem With the Death Penalty
Quite simply, we're killing the wrong people.
The only justification I can see for getting rid of these folks is that they have nothing left to contribute to society. That would make sense to me if we were giving lethal injections to, say, guys who beat their wives to death, or drunk drivers who kill people. There's nothing creative about spousal abuse, and there's no mystery to why drunk drivers drive drunk. These people are not unique, they have done awful things, and I wouldn't care if we dropped them off of cliffs or fed them to ravenous goats. But we never execute these people.
The guy we execute is the one who's killed fifty-two women--one in each state, plus DC and Puerto Rico--and kept their big toes as souvenirs, or, for example, the guy who decides to shoot 17 people from the trunk of his car. Good? Hardly. But creative? Unique? Quite. These guys still have a chance to be productive citizens. How? Well, for starters, by telling us what in the fucking fuck they were thinking.
I know how to avoid driving home drunk. And I think that were a woman ever to marry me, I could keep myself from beating her to death. But how do I know that whatever switch got flipped in John Muhammad's head won't get flipped in mine, unless I get to hear his story? What if it was just a matter of him eating, say,a Wendy's WildMountain Bacon Cheeseburger while listening to Jewel that set him off? I mean, I love the WildMountain Bacon Cheeseburger, and Jewel is totally my favorite band. I could be screwed without knowing it. All because of the death penalty.
So, that's my argument. Because when it comes right down to it, humanitarian concerns, racist sentencing guidelines, John Ashcroft--all trivial. But you take away my three strips of bacon and tangy Southwestern sauce, well, we're going to have a problem.
Saturday, November 22, 2003
I'm Buried in Flashcards
I think my hand is going to fall off, which would really suck for me, but I'm still not done flashcarding.
I keep thinking of plans where I'll convert the first letters of every ConLaw case into some memorizable pneumonic, or that I'll use some basic encryption to unpack my entire crim outline from a string of digits that I get by converting the letters of a poem into their corresponding digits. Or something. But then I think about that episode of Blossom where Joey was trying to cheat by writing all of the notes on his arm (backwards, because he was reading them thru a mirror strapped to his other arm), only he had to rewrite like ten times trying to get it small enough, and ended up cheating by "hiding the answers in [his] head." Whoah.
Thursday, November 20, 2003
Important Advice
Before exams, get yourself a battery-powered alarm clock. My alarm got thwacked by a power surge again today, and I--much to my eternal dismay--ended up sleeping until noon. I only hope that I can recover.
But while slumbering away thru Property and Conlaw, I had an awful dream: It was exam time, only my high school freshman-year English teacher was administering our exam, and man, let me tell you guys, we are so lucky that we don't have her for Property. It was ROUGH.
Anyway, now that I've woken up, I'm going on a five-hour flashcard-making binge. I will make three thousand flashcards. I will make so many flashcards that when I've finished making flashcards for my three classes, I will begin making flashcards for other things I've always wanted to learn. Like Turkish.
Wednesday, November 19, 2003
My SECOND Favorite Thing About Wednesdays
After The West Wing, the best thing about Wednesdays is coverage of The Prime Minister's Questions. Watching Tony Blair and Michael Howard beat on eachother is almost as much fun as thinking about what it would be like if GW had to go down the street and fend off catcalls from Congress every week.
Revised Battle Plan
Alright. Outlining, flashcards, reading the textbooks--much too hard. My new plan for finals is as follows:
1. Look at old exams. Operating under the assumption that a professor would never ask an exam question covering anything that one of his exams has covered in the last ten years, I'm going to meticulously catalog all of the topics touched on in past exams. THEN, I'll rip out all of the pages in the textbook covering those topics, along with any topics not mentioned on the syllabus. Whatever remains is what I shall study.
2. Get to know my professors better. And by that I mean getting to know their wives. Or girlfriends. Or pets. To do well on an exam, you really need to get into your professor's head, see life the way he does, and that requires certain sacrifices. It may also require driving their cars for the next few weeks.
3. Experience the Law first-hand. I'm thinking a rough sampling of the Texas Penal Code here, with special attention paid to Title 9: Offenses Against Public Order and Decency, and, time permitting, possibly some of the more obscure crimes, like Abuse of a Corpse and Improper Harpooning of a Snow Weasel. I may also look into abridging the substantive due process rights of a stripper or two.
4. Intimidate the shit out of my classmates. We are, after all, being graded on a curve. My first order of business is to create a life-like holographic projection of me reading in the library; it'll stay there 24-7, and will respond to direct address only by saying "Time. TIME! I need more TIME!" Also, I find that asking a classmate a fairly basic question, and then responding to their answer with a loud cackle and an energetic little jig, is fairly effective. Finally, raising your hand in class to ask questions--"What do we do if we finish the exam more than an hour ahead of time?" or "When you said that my 'performance' last night was more than good enough to guarantee me an A+, were you referring to our passionate lovemaking, or to my rendition of "I Feel Pretty" that followed?"--can go a long way toward setting your peers on edge.
5. Find Christ. Alas, I fear that this can only end badly. But Bravo is running another West Wing marathon next Thursday and Friday, so all is not lost.
Four inaugural speeches more exciting than Arnold's here.
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Tuesday, November 18, 2003
ADDENDUM TO THE MODEL PENAL CODE
PART II. DEFINITION OF SPECIFIC CRIMES
OFFENSES AGAINST THE LAW SCHOOL
§ 260.0. Definitions.
In Sections 260-265, unless a different meaning plainly is required:
(1) “law student” means a person who has been born and appears to be alive, but has had their soul sucked out through their nose;
(2) “exam” means any officially administered question or set of questions that causes physical pain, illness, impairment of cognitive function, or abnormal bodily response;
(3) “abnormal bodily response” may include headache, indigestion, night sweats, cerebral hemorrhaging, crippling psychic pain, persistent numbness, and a constant questioning of self-worth, as well as any other protracted loss or impairment of the function of any bodily member or organ, or, uh, herpes;
(4) “deadly weapon” means any firearm, device or instrument, which in the manner it is used or is intended to be used is known to be capable of producing death or serious bodily injury;
(5) “gunner” means any law student who, through conduct or appearance, induces in others the strong desire to use a deadly weapon;
6) “platypus” means a small amphibious Australian mammal noted for its odd combination of primitive features and special adaptations, especially the flat, almost comical bill that early observers thought was that of a duck sewn onto the body of a mammal;
(7) “chickenshit” refers to any statute or judicial decision that is poorly formulated or ill-conceived, or, alternatively, to pretty much anything at all;
(8) “outline” means a well-structured encapsulation of course material that you will never finish compiling in time, and will instead be forced to acquire by means of
a) monetary compensation;
b) sexual gratification; or
c) outright theft;
(9) “study” refers to any activities involving a law student’s laptop, including those that have no actual relation to the law itself.
§ 263.1 Cellular Disturbance
(a) A law student commits an offense if, during a class lecture or discussion, they purposely, knowingly, recklessly, or negligently are in possession of communications device that emits an audible ring, tone, or beep;
(b) It is no defense to prosecution under this section that the actor reasonably believed their phone to be “off” or “on vibrate.”
§ 263.2 Aggravated Cellular Disturbance
(a) A law student commits an offense if, during a class lecture or discussion, they purposely, knowingly, recklessly, or negligently are in possession of communications device that emits an audible ring, tone, or beep, and, the ring, tone, or beep is a musical sequence lasting more than five seconds;
(b) an offense under this section is a:
(1) state jail felony if the musical sequence is an approximation of any song
performed by Jewel, Creed, or Matchbox Twenty;
(2) felony of the second degree if the musical sequence is an approximation of
any collaborative effort involving Ja Rule and some chick.
§ 264.1 Criminal Procrastination
(a) A law student commits an offense if, instead of studying substantive criminal law, a topic about which he knows little, he chooses to spend a wholly unreasonable amount of time writing a cheesy Model Penal Code parody that fewer than six people will ever read.
I dare you to read this without singing along.
I must admit, most of Jeremy's song parodies miss me because they're from obscure bands like the Beatles. But this made me giggle.
Sunday, November 16, 2003
Well THAT'S Not Supposed to Happen
Apparently, Alex Wellen was doing some idle Googling and happened upon my less-than-flattering review of his book Barman. (Check the comments after the review.)
Intent on disarming me, he responded politely and thanked me for my 'thoughtful feedback'. I have to say, I've never been accused of being thoughtful before, and it felt weird. Sort of like when you're driving cross-country and flipping thru radio stations and you come upon a rock song that you've never heard before and you're all 'this is pretty rad' and then the singer says 'Christ' or 'Lord' just a little too seriously and you realize that you're rocking out to Christian Contemporary.
Well, Mr. Wellen, I stick by my review. I'll not be deterred by your schoolboy charm, your offers of money, the subtle threats of violence. Nor would my resolve be in jeopardy were you to promise me a substantial portion of the proceeds from the sale of movie rights. In fact, not even the gift of a phalanx of nubile love slaves, each the perfect genetic clone of a Bond girl from one of the first six movies, would persuade me to alter my opinion of your book. So don't even try. I mean it. Just stop.
(Of course, if you happen to have any mojo left at the IP firm you worked for, I'd really love to talk to you, and I think the book was fabulous. I mean it. Stellar. Like, Who-the-fuck-is-Faulkner good.)
A Software Endorsement
As much as it creases me that I would end up using a product that was shamelessly plugged in a comment on my own blog, I'm going to have to come out and give a full endorsement to CaseAce, from N2 software.
Basically, CaseAce just does a good job of using tabs and collapsable outline trees to make creating your outline on the computer really easy. Whenever I've tried to do this sort of thing before, I've always been frustrated about not being able to see the outline's entire structure when I'm working on a specific part. But CaseAce's split screen and collapsing/expanding trees take care of this.
It also has fully customizable tabs that separate info on cases into manageable sections (Brief, ClassNotes,Commentary, WaystoIncorporateThisCaseintoaPickupLine, etc.). You can also customize the text that will show up automatically for every case (facts, procedural posture, holding and the like) to reflect what you actually need to remember. I'm particularly fond of customizationalabilitiness because it allows me to insert foul language into an otherwise serious-seeming interface.
Additionally, CaseAce constantly backs itself up, and at any time you can tell it to generate a subject outline, which it automatically saves as an .rtf file. So you're never in danger of losing entered data.
Downsides: It is a bit prone to crashing, but that may just be my machine, and I've never lost any work. Also, the product name is displayed so prominently on the interface that I'm afraid to use it in class, because that would seem hopelessly dorky.
I say all of this now b/c it's made the creation of my crim outline a lot less painful than it could have been, and I felt the need to thank someone. So, whoever it was who set out to dupe me into using this product, thanks. It's pretty swell.
So Long, Cat.
Einstein (1988-2003).
He farted worse than any creature in the history of the universe. RIP.
Thursday, November 13, 2003
Fritz: 1.5 Gary: .5
After drawing on Tuesday, Gary Kasparov got rocked by X3dFritz today, playing (for no good reason) a virtual reality chess match with the world's new computer chess champ. (VR chess is about as exciting as VR blogging, where you put on goggles and see a real-time 3d image that makes it look like you're actually at a computer, typing.) Anyway, there's web coverage here, but the really exciting part is watching the live commentary on ESPN2. You have not lived until you've watched live chess coverage, folks.
Crim Law Slumber Party
I fell asleep in Crim today. This is actually a pretty normal occurence, but today was worse than usual. I dozed off in the middle of a discussion about drug users and negligent homicide. But when I came to (facedown in my book) some fifteen minutes later, I heard this:
GIRL: Well, if he thougt there was a possibility that he might nod off, he certainly didn't seem worried about it.
PROFESSOR: But wasn't that sort of a dangerous assumption to make, considering the circumstances?
For about twelve seconds, I was absolutely certain that they were talking about me, that the entire class had been discussing my snoring and drooling, and that any minute, 124 of my peers and a professor would start laughing their lawyerish asses off at my expense. Turns out they were just talking about a trucker who fell asleep at the wheel and (I'm assuming this, b/c, well, I was effing asleep) killed some people.
I really need to start buying coffee in the afternoons.
Additionally:
I went to my old Barnes & Noble tonight with the intent of studying in a place far away from law students. (The store is a good twenty minutes away from school.) I wasn't in the cafe five minutes when another 1L sat down at the table in front of me, saw my books, and starting complaining about how MY ConLaw professor had convinced HER ConLaw professor to have ID questions on his exam, and wasn't that ridiculous, and the way you have to study for them is to print the quotes out and cut them into paragraphs and then paste the little cutout paragraphs into a MyLittlePony Sticker Album, where they will then turn into PONY DEMONS FROM HELL AND OH MY GOD STOP TALKING.
Actually, she was quite nice. I was just annoyed that another law student was in MY Barnes & Noble.
Exposed
After getting my Raskolnikov on for a bit, I went and got myself unceremoniously outed as the author of this. (As this's author?) This is not a problem, but I'm still going to spend the next few minutes looking for the entry where I describe all of the dreams I've had about the girls in my study group. Excuse me.
Wednesday, November 12, 2003
Senate Slumber Party
Well, Justice Brown will get her vote after all. I actually watched almost the entire committee vote, and both sides did their part in destroying my faith in public servants. But never fear: If you missed that fun, just switch on C-SPAN2 tonight for the All-Night Senate Hoedown. We've been promised some THIRTY hours of sexy, pravocative, informative, sexy, articulate, thoughtful, and sexy debate on the four fillibustered nominees. Don't have C-SPAN2? No worries. C-SPAN will webcast it here. Don't have net access? Come watch it at my house. I'll leave a window unlocked.
The best part about all of this is the posturing both sides are doing about the physical demands of the process. The GOP says they'll be ready for the moment when Democrats fall asleep or stop paying attention, so that they can immediately call a vote. The Dems, for their part, are waiting for the GOP to fall asleep, in which case they'd pass a minimum wage hike or a tax credit. Like I said: Sexy.
And if you aren't yet sold on ordering in pizza and unplugging the phone, just remember what happened the last time the Senate did this: Alfonse D'Amato spoke for FIFTEEN hours, and I'm pretty sure that one of those hours included the Old MacDonald routine. Oh Yeah. Here-a-pig. There-a-pig. Everywhere-a-pig-pig. Sexy with a capital EXY.
Of course, it sounds like each side will just have thirty senators speak, each taking a 30-minute speaking shift and a 30-minute floor shift where they're available to object to any motions. Clearly, this is the pansy route. My prediction: Robert Byrd flies in to do a Herculean 17-hour stint. Incidentally, if you were to really press Byrd on the issue, I think you'd find that he believes he's actually still in the Senate with Daniel Webster and Henry Clay and John Calhoun. But just because he's out of his gourd doesn't mean he can't still party like a rock star.
So, that's my night. Me, some chicken wings, Miguel Estrada, and the wonders of parliamentary procedure. Does it matter that none of this will change a single senator's vote? Of course not. God Bless America.
Exam Prep
Four weeks and counting. My general Battle Plan for each class is going to involve:
1) Writing modest 50-page outlines for each class, one of which is almost done, one of which is half-done, and the last of which does not exist in any tangible form, save the blank document on my computer entitled 'CrimOutline.doc'.
2) Creating two sets of flash cards for each class: one that is for the cases, and one for the rules/doctrines/theories/manifestos.
3) Looking for girls that look like they haven't started outlining yet, and saying "Hey, wanna see my outline? It's in color."
I'm hoping to have that much done when I go home for Thanksgiving, at which point I'll:
4) Listen to the LEEWS tapes on the plane and in the airport. This is all the time I'm going to give them, as I don't really enjoy the dude's voice.
5) Look over both Delaney books, hoping that between those and the LEEWS I can find some practice exam questions that are both fully explained and based on a subject I'm taking THIS semester.
6) Study the outlines & flash cards until I can rewrite them from memory. (Note to Me: Do this in the living room, so parents can see how dedicated you are. "You made all of those flashcards on your own? You really are working hard!")
Then, when I return from Thanksgiving:
7) Set up a practice exam schedule. Not sure whether or not I should bother scheduling this around my last week of classes or not.
8) Search in vain for law review articles that will broaden my already staggering array of knowledge even further, that I might dazzle a professor to the point that he stops reading my essay, marks it with an A+, and then calls my other two professors and tells them to do the same.
9) Take exams.
10) See Return of the King.
11) Do my godforsaken Legal Research & Writing take home.
Now, if I manage to comply with even two of steps 1 thru 7, I'll have surpassed my expectations by quite a bit, and surpassed my best undergraduate performance by miles. We'll see how it goes.
Saturday, November 08, 2003
In Defense of The Matrices
I saw the second movie, and like everyone else, left with a feeling of "eh." That feeling got better over time as I watched it more. Wednesday night, I saw Revolutions, and dammit, I liked it.
Whenever I run into people that didn't like Matrix: Revolutions, the conversation goes like this:
THEM: Yeah...I saw it. Sucked.
ME: Really? I thought it was almost as good as the first one.
THEM: Yeah...I didn't really like the first one.
WTF? First, I didn't realize that there were people who didn't like the first Matrix, and I certainly didn't realize that we let those people walk around freely. But, more importantly, if you didn't like the first movie, why are you going to both sequels? Don't you know how movies work?
My recommendation of Matrix: Revolutions can be boiled down to this: It's like Jedi without the Ewoks. This may mean nothing to anyone other than the fanboys that make fun of me for liking Jedi, and I don't know what any of those guys would be doing reading this, but there it is.
So, if you liked the first one, see this one. If not, you can go watch Love Actually, as Hugh Grant is ever so dreamy.
BARMAN, a Mini-Review
I understand that Alex Wellen, being a freelance writer and bigshot producer (as bigshot as TechTV can be), has moved as far away from the law as possible. As a result, Barman strays from the standard lawyer bio formula in that really large portions of it have nothing to do with the law, the experience of being a law student or lawyer, or even the experience of studying for the bar. What Wellen has done is expanded a 20-page piece on the New York Bar Exam into an entire book that costs $23.00 by inserting fat chunks that deal with his dating life and his trip to Europe. Thing is, if I wanted to read about a dude's dating life, I'd go with Nick Hornby or Mark Barrowcliffe, and if I wanted to hear about a trip to Europe, I would have read Bill Bryson or the e-mails of any number of college friends, all of which would have been more entertaining than Barman.
The first problem is that he's just not funny. And I don't normally hold this against people. But Wellen has this thing where he consistently misstates well-known sayings, only he's aware of it, so the book is full of interchanges where he'll say something like "Early bird gets the sandwich" and someone will say "Worm" and he'll say "Whatever." Not only is this not really funny...it has the added bonus of being criminally unbelievable.
Secondly, as a graduate of Temple Law, Wellen seems to have a very big chip on his shoulder, and is fixated on Tier 1/Tier 2 distinctions. This, despite the fact that he graduated in the top 10% of his class. As a result, he employs another really annoying device wherein he follows any mention of a law school with a parenthetical giving that school's Tier, for example: "And it was there in the ladies' bathroom that I met Steve the Albino, from Boston College (Tier 1)." Now, either Wellen really does have this obsession with Tiers, in which case he's a tool, or, he actually thought this was an interesting little gimmick, in which case he's a tool.
(I should note at this point that Alex Wellen has gotten a book published, a book that many thousands of people will read, and a book that I myself paid $23 + tax for. I, on the other hand, write a law school blog that could barely be considered clinging to second-tier status itself. But, this in no way affects my right to proclaim him a tool.)
There are some good things about the book. The sections where he actually does describe the testprep debacle are really informative, and he has a few stories about interviewing that don't completely suck. There are also severaly cute moments involving his parents and brother, all of whom I end up liking a lot more than the author.
But in the end, this is pretty much a throw-away. I think the main problem with Barman is that it attempts to appeal to folks outside of the profession, and in doing so, loses most of what would have made it entertaining for folks inside the profession. In retrospect, my time probably would have been better spent reading Clinton v. City of New York. Oh well.
Thursday, November 06, 2003
Fuck You, Socrates.
125 students in one class. 125 students in anotehr. The odds of getting called on in one of these classes on any particular day would be something like 90 to 1, when you account for the folks that have already been picked on this year.
But what are the odds of getting called on in BOTH classes on the SAME day? Well, if you were me yesterday, the odds were really good.
I was under the mistaken impression that my periodic voluntary participation in Class #1 had bought me a bit of immunity, and I'd had a long night of drinking following an intramural football loss, so my knowledge of Dude v. People Mad at Dude was less than comprehensive, meaning, I hadn't read it. But he called my name in a way that let me know he'd spent all night planning on calling me, had probably had me under surveillance at the bar, and knew that I'd barely be able to see in the morning, let alone speak coherently about the line item veto.
Now, as I see it, there are two options when called on unprepared. The first would be to simply pass, saying that you're unprepared. The problem with this is that you leave the professor no choice but to move right on to someone else, and that someone will probably have you murdered in your sleep. So, I opted for the second route: Lying
Well, not really lying, since as soon as we got past the second question, it was already abundantly clear that I hadn't read the case. ("What was the crisis that necessitated the Line Item Veto Act?" "Uh...there were too many...items?") But I feel that I upheld my duty to my classmates by stalling long enough on each question to allow someone more prepared than I to jump in voluntarily. I pictured myself as a prisoner of war, baiting my captors into beating the piss out of me while my comrades escaped through a hole in the fence. Never mind that I was left bloody, battered, and exposed; my fellow captives were free. At least I hope that's how it looked.
Anyhoo, after a little while he started beating on someone else, and then class was over. "It wasn't that bad," people said. "Just a blip on the radar screen of your law school career. And now it's over, so you can relax."
Wrong.
Two hours later, my number came up in Class #2. I had a few minutes of warning this time, since that prof moves methodically through rows. My turn only came because several people in my row saw fit to miss class that afternoon. Thanks, guys. But it was alright. I'd read the crim stuff, and after the morning's brilliance I had some really low expectations to deal with. So it could have been a lot worse. But twice in one day is more than I'd wish on anyone. I know that none of this matters, that we're graded blindly, and that these professors think I'm an idiot whether I'm prepared or not. But man. It still stings.
The bright side of this is that I don't think anyone will blame me for declining to attend class today. I chose instead to stay at home and begin drawing up battle plans for finals. Thanksgiving is exactly three weeks away. Game On.
Monday, November 03, 2003
My MasterCard
Gilbert's Outline, Written by Your Professor: $22.95
CaseNote Briefs, Because Briefing is Useless But Briefs are Not: $26.95
Index Cards That Will Never Be Turned Into Useful Flashcards Ever: $3.94
The Temporary Illusion That A Trip to the Bookstore Will Make Up for Your Failings as a Law Student: Priceless.
There are some things that money can't buy. Let's just hope that an 'A' in law school isn't one of them.
Saturday, November 01, 2003
Halloween
Best Costumes I saw at Ex Parte, our annual Halloween party:
3rd Place: Judge's robe with the huge-ass cardboard hand behind his head: Judge Learned Hand.
2nd Place: The Section Symbol
1st Place: The guy who looked exactly like Ali G. I mean exactly. So exactly that I had to have my picture taken with him. I'm pretty sure he thinks I'm stalking him.
Honorable Mentions: The 43 dudes who came as Roy w/ Attached Tiger, and the 37 guys who came as the Meddling Cubs Fan.
Friday, October 31, 2003
In Case of Socratic Emergency: A Humanitarian Proposal
After watching a few people struggle to stay above water when called on, particularly in classes like ConLaw where fat clusters of cases are discussed in a sometimes unpredictable order, I've come up with the Socratic Emergency Assistance Protocol (SEAP). It goes something like this:
1. Create, for your entire section, ONE AOL IM screenname. For example, one might be "TexasSEAP3" for someone in Section 3 at Texas Law. Another good name would be "HotChixxx69". Whatever it is, create a name that everyone in your section will know.
2. Whenever someone is called on in class, and feels that they're underprepared, they immediately log on under the designated screenname.
3. Everyone in the section will have that screenname at the top of their Buddy List, and can IM info to bail out the poor bastard under the gun.
It's that simple.
Of course, it relies on the assumption that your classmates would/could actually help you out, and that they'd send useful info instead of stuff like "Say: According to Ginsburg, I still read the Babysitters Club books." But I think this could really help out in a lot of situations.
Edit: I floated this with several people, and they all seem to have thought of it already. So never mind.
Sunday, October 26, 2003
The Day of Joy and Woe
It occurs to me that LSAT scores were just released this weekend. I still haven't received any death threats, so my students couldn't have done too poorly. Of course, I haven't received any flowers either. But those will probably show up on Monday.
First Piece of Advice: Don't let a disappointing score get you down. If you ended up five points or so below your target, it probably just means that you get to go to a cheaper school with a much better football team.
Second Piece of Advice: If you got a badass score, congratulations, but don't let it go to your head. Nobody really wants to hear about it, and they certainly don't care once you get to law school. So if you really need to tell someone about your awesome score, tell me.
Third Piece of Advice, Which is Really Just an Extension of the Second Piece of Advice: High LSAT scores are particularly ill-suited for picking up strippers. For some reason, women in the adult entertainment industry are not, in general, familiar with the 180-point scale, and never seem to be impressed. Just a warning.
Thursday, October 23, 2003
More Reading
As a former Barnes & Noble employee, I have few qualms with engaging in the in-store reading of entire books, and yesterday, along with my five-dollar mocha, I sampled large portions of a few titles.
The first was Tucker Carlson's Politicians, Partisans, and Parasites, a rundown of the experiences that the journalist and CNN host has had covering politics over the last ten years. Now I know what you're thinking: "Dude, how could you, as a semi-devout Democrat, read a book by the unabashedly Republican, bowtie-wearing co-host of Crossfire? Why wouldn't you read Paul Begala's book instead? Not only is Paul Begala a Democrat, he went to your law school .
Yes, all that is true. But I chose Carlson's book over any of Begala's offerings for one simple reason that I'd like to articulate here as clearly as possible:
Paul Begala is a moron, a tool, and an embarrassment to both the Democratic party and the University of Texas Law School. And CNN should really give me his job.
But more on that later. Instead of the partisan diatribe that you might expect from a partisan talk show host, Carlson’s book is just a fun, fast read about the absurdities of covering American politics on TV. He spends some time on the story behind his two TV shows, but most of the book is spent sketching portraits of public figures as he saw them both on camera and backstage. There isn’t much in the way of organization; he generally just meanders from one famous dude to the next, relating lots of swell tidbits about who wears too much makeup on set, who shows up drunk, and who uses the f-word the most.
For the most part he stays away from policy matters, which is what makes this book charming. As far as tone, I think I would have had a difficult time guessing his party affiliation…the book reminded me a lot of David Foster Wallace’s essay/book/e-article Up, Simba!, the Infinite Jest author’s account of the McCain presidential bid. Both books avoid the issue-based stuff that most of the electorate doesn’t understand anyway, and focus on the personality issues that, in a lot of ways, really decide campaigns. Also, both authors seem to develop total Man Crushes on McCain.
But even though it wasn’t excessively partisan, I still felt obligated to balance out the Carlson book with something a little more to the left. Thus, Michael Moore’s Dude, Where’s My Country?
Now, I couldn’t read all of this book because, just like Gore Vidal, Moore starts to freak me out after awhile. He spends a lot of time on the Bush’s connections with the Saudis and the Bin Laden family, and, true or not, I can only hear so much of that before I want to cry. But he does have a great chapter called “How to Talk to Your Conservative Brother-in-Law” that should be required reading for any liberal who ever argues politics. Though the format would seem to be yet another attack against redneck conservatives, its main purpose is to point out all of the stupid ways that some liberal types, i.e. Paul Begala, shoot themselves in the crotch when they try to argue with the other side. Something as simple as conceding that some people on the other side may have actually been right about a few things goes a long way towards having a real conversation, and Moore does a great job of laying this out. So even if you don’t read the whole book, you might consider taking a look at that chapter, summarizing it in short sentences with small words, and then passing that summary on to Paul Begala.
Ack. More complete complaint against P-Beg tomorrow. I have to get ready for a night of four-dollar liters at whichever bar is home to Bar Review this week. Wish me well.
Thanks
Big thanks to the Octet of Doom over at enbanc.org for linking to me. I didn't even ask or beg or anything. I had actually been planning to post more frequently about political goings on, so my being listed on a politically-oriented, rather academic, super-famous group blog came just at the right time. But then I have to wonder: Maybe I'm only on there to balance out the ticket, to provide relief from the eggheads by continuing to bring to the Blogosphere my in-depth analysis of important innovations in the adult entertainment industry and trenchant commentary on the current week's episode of Queer Eye. Either way, I vow to do my part. Thanks, y'all.
Wednesday, October 22, 2003
Class Etiquette Lesson #243
When a professor sets out a basic rule regarding a matter of law, such as “So, whenever X happens, it is called a Y,” you will never, ever, ever be correct if you raise your hand and say “But wouldn’t it actually be a Z?” Ever. Even if, for some unthinkable reason, the professor has misspoken or had his tongue temporarily commandeered by demons from the netherworld, you will still manage to be incorrect. If, even having read this rule, you still feel compelled to correct a professor, at least back off on your language a little bit by saying “Could you explain why it isn’t a Y?” or “I had three cups of coffee and took a few long hits off of my crack pipe before I showed up to class, and because of that, it seems to me that it would actually be a Y. Could you point out the obviously massive hole in my reasoning that I’m not seeing?” But don’t correct the professor. It’s a definite no-win.
Additionally, if you were to say, ignore all of the above advice and go on to fail miserably at correcting the professor, you should, under no circumstances, attempt to make up for it by waiting until a fellow student has asked the professor a really basic question that you happen to know the answer to and, instead of waiting for the professor to answer, which he is, in fact, paid to do, decide to jump in yourself and explain it in a tone that says “Well that’s just the easiest thing in the world to understand and the fact that you even asked means you’re a lesser creature than I, which is good because I just made a fool out of myself seven minutes ago.”
Also, the above is just general advice, and is not aimed at anyone in particular, and definitely not anyone in any of my classes who may or may not have violated this rule yesterday and earned the disdain of everyone else in the room.
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I’m having image problems.
Several other people in the class seem to have made names for themselves. I’d say there are four or five folks whom everyone, including the professors, knows by their last name. Whether it’s for controversial comments, ala Republican Free Market Dude, or for consistently befuddling comments, like Older Gentleman in the Sweater, they have achieved a definite amount of fame. When you say “I heard Finkleschteiner already has a job lined up,” people are like “Finkleschteiner is a genius” or “I fucking hate Finkleschteiner” or “Finkleschteiner has to be the worst fictitious name I’ve ever heard.” The point is, people know who these people are because of their performance in class. And I want to be one of these people.
It seems that the easiest way to carve out a name for yourself is to develop a reliable viewpoint. Thus, when the professor wants to know the Libertarian point of view on something, he goes to Hemp Guy; needs the religious take, calls on Conservative Dave. But all of the usual political viewpoints have already been staked out. So I need something else. Something that will make students and professors alike know who the hell I am. I need to be the dude that always considers everything in terms of ______. But with what do I fill that ______ ?
I’ve got it. Porn.
“Professor, wouldn’t you agree that the most pressing First Amendment issues are those protecting porn?”
“Professor, don’t you think that the Dormant Foreign Commerce Clause should only be invoked when national interests are truly at stake, national interests like, say, porn?”
“Professor, do you think Justice Stevens is going to retire soon? Also, what about porn?”
I think I’m really on to something here. Any thoughts? Better suggestions? Phone numbers and/or pictures? I’ll let you guys know how it goes.
Sunday, October 19, 2003
"So, what are you doing this summer?"
For starters, overseeing the ritualistic killings of anyone else who asks me that question before, say, March. But what the hell AM I going to do this summer? I'm going to all of the resume workshops, and I'm going to do our Spring OCI. But our spring OCI is pretty much only useful for folks who nab top 5% grades out of the first semester, which doesn't seem like something that anyone can count on. Even smart people. So we're left with judicial internships and public interest stuff, both of which sound great, except that if I DON'T have outstanding grades after the first semester, I'm basically going to be going to employers with my mediocre grades and an undergraduate resume that consistently leaves people with a feeling of Meh. I'm not optimistic.
So here's the question: Do I really, truly, absolutely, have to do anything ? Is 1L summer work good for anything but an extreme tie-break? Is it really enough to outweigh first year grades and interviews? Would my time be better spent reading spy novels or taking more classes? Our could I maybe do a week of volunteer work somewhere, slap that down on the resume, then go about the spy novel reading? Don't get me wrong. It's not that I'm trying to avoid work. I just hate having to seek it out.
Which brings up another question: Would you, as a hiring attorney, be suspicious if my resume listed In-House Counsel for McDonald's as a summer position?
On an unrelated note, I think I've found my calling: After graduation I'm moving to California to represent strippers that violate the anti-lapdance, six-foot rule. There must be like, thirty-seven Constitutional amendments that that law violates. I'm quite certain that a poll of the founding fathers would confirm this.
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For starters, overseeing the ritualistic killings of anyone else who asks me that question before, say, March. But what the hell AM I going to do this summer? I'm going to all of the resume workshops, and I'm going to do our Spring OCI. But our spring OCI is pretty much only useful for folks who nab top 5% grades out of the first semester, which doesn't seem like something that anyone can count on. Even smart people. So we're left with judicial internships and public interest stuff, both of which sound great, except that if I DON'T have outstanding grades after the first semester, I'm basically going to be going to employers with my mediocre grades and an undergraduate resume that consistently leaves people with a feeling of Meh. I'm not optimistic.
So here's the question: Do I really, truly, absolutely, have to do anything ? Is 1L summer work good for anything but an extreme tie-break? Is it really enough to outweigh first year grades and interviews? Would my time be better spent reading spy novels or
Which brings up another question: Would you, as a hiring attorney, be suspicious if my resume listed In-House Counsel for McDonald's as a summer position?
On an unrelated note, I think I've found my calling: After graduation I'm moving to California to represent strippers that violate the anti-lapdance, six-foot rule. There must be like, thirty-seven Constitutional amendments that that law violates. I'm quite certain that a poll of the founding fathers would confirm this.
Wednesday, October 15, 2003
After the fun over at Ditzy Genius, I'm stuck, once again, being terribly disappointed in my fellow law students for conferring the status of 'gunner' way too easily.
As I've said before, I'm pretty certain that we borrowed the term from our friends in the medical schools, and that it was meant to describe someone in all out pursuit of academic supremacy, someone who didn't need a pneumonic to remember all of the cranial nerves, someone who could build you a working human skeleton out of Cheerios. But we've latched on to a second meaning of the word, basically, 'KissAss", and watered it down to the point that anyone willing to raise their hands suddenly becomes 'a gunner'.
This really creases me because I hear people worrying aloud about the fact that they're perceived as gunners. But implicit in this sort of apologetic hootiehoo is the assumption that they've somehow earned that perception, that they've achieved at a level sufficient to garner the envy/disdain of the rest of us. And that's bullshit.
It's just like me sitting in a club worrying aloud about the fact that I'm perceived as a 'player' or a 'pimp'. Implicit in that sort of apologetic hootiehoo is the assumption that I've somehow earned that perception, that I've used and abused a sufficient number of women to garner the disdain of the female nation. But we all know the truth: They don't hate me because of the hundreds of sobbing women I've left in my wake. They hate me because I keep saying really stupid, obvious shit to them about last night's reading. Granted, I'm probably worse off than the gunners because talking to women in clubs about ConLaw is generally just a bad idea, but I think you get my meaning.
Even if we mean it purely as an insult, the term 'gunner' just seems to give folks too much credit. Why can't we just call them 'morons'?
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As I've said before, I'm pretty certain that we borrowed the term from our friends in the medical schools, and that it was meant to describe someone in all out pursuit of academic supremacy, someone who didn't need a pneumonic to remember all of the cranial nerves, someone who could build you a working human skeleton out of Cheerios. But we've latched on to a second meaning of the word, basically, 'KissAss", and watered it down to the point that anyone willing to raise their hands suddenly becomes 'a gunner'.
This really creases me because I hear people worrying aloud about the fact that they're perceived as gunners. But implicit in this sort of apologetic hootiehoo is the assumption that they've somehow earned that perception, that they've achieved at a level sufficient to garner the envy/disdain of the rest of us. And that's bullshit.
It's just like me sitting in a club worrying aloud about the fact that I'm perceived as a 'player' or a 'pimp'. Implicit in that sort of apologetic hootiehoo is the assumption that I've somehow earned that perception, that I've used and abused a sufficient number of women to garner the disdain of the female nation. But we all know the truth: They don't hate me because of the hundreds of sobbing women I've left in my wake. They hate me because I keep saying really stupid, obvious shit to them about last night's reading. Granted, I'm probably worse off than the gunners because talking to women in clubs about ConLaw is generally just a bad idea, but I think you get my meaning.
Even if we mean it purely as an insult, the term 'gunner' just seems to give folks too much credit. Why can't we just call them 'morons'?
Sunday, October 12, 2003
Greg Goelzhauser had an interesting discussion involving his decision not to sell his tickets to the Miami/FSU game this weekend. My own decision TO sell my tickets to the Red River Shootout involved some factors that Greg probably didn't have to take into consideration, namely, that it's a 4 hour drive to see the game, and that any time my beloved Longhorns get to a point where I really believe they can win, they go out and get violated worse than Justin Timberlake in a state prison. My choices looked like this:
Texas Wins & I Go to the Game: I scream myself hoarse, get in trouble for exposing myself to the Texas Pom Squad, and eat lots of funnel cake at the State Fair.
Texas Wins & I Stay Home: I scream until the neighbors tell me to shut up, get in trouble for exposing myself to the mail carrier, eat lots of Whataburger at home in my underwear.
Texas Loses & I Go to the Game: I scream at the Texas Pom Squad, get in trouble for exposing myself to a horse, and as soon as the game is over I start being really pissed that I'm not at home studying.
Texas Loses & I Stay Home: I scream until the neighbors come down to ask me to be quiet, only they seem embarrassed when they realize that I'm yelling at the TV all by myself, so then they leave me alone and I watch the awful beating until half time, at which point I realize that there are probably reruns of MTV'S Newlyweds on, so I change the channel, eat leftovers, and wonder if I could have gotten into law school at OU.
Oh well. At least now that we've got two losses I can stop going to games and start studying on Saturdays. This will really actually happen.
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Texas Wins & I Go to the Game: I scream myself hoarse, get in trouble for exposing myself to the Texas Pom Squad, and eat lots of funnel cake at the State Fair.
Texas Wins & I Stay Home: I scream until the neighbors tell me to shut up, get in trouble for exposing myself to the mail carrier, eat lots of Whataburger at home in my underwear.
Texas Loses & I Go to the Game: I scream at the Texas Pom Squad, get in trouble for exposing myself to a horse, and as soon as the game is over I start being really pissed that I'm not at home studying.
Texas Loses & I Stay Home: I scream until the neighbors come down to ask me to be quiet, only they seem embarrassed when they realize that I'm yelling at the TV all by myself, so then they leave me alone and I watch the awful beating until half time, at which point I realize that there are probably reruns of MTV'S Newlyweds on, so I change the channel, eat leftovers, and wonder if I could have gotten into law school at OU.
Oh well. At least now that we've got two losses I can stop going to games and start studying on Saturdays. This will really actually happen.
Thursday, October 09, 2003
Stuff I'm Reading That's Clearly Over My Head But Whatever
I was at Barnes & Noble and was really close to buying Posner's latest, Law, Pragmatism, and Democracy when I realized that A) it cost thirty-five bucks, and B) I was already paying several thousand dollars a year, part of which went to fund a very large law library, and that they probably had it over there. They did. I checked it out and everything, and I think the girl working the desk was pretty impressed. I'm only a few chapters in, but I really enjoy Posner's style. He reminds me of Harold Bloom in the way that he's categorized and ranked all of these thinkers in his head, and refers to those hierarchies in the same way I'd refer to NCAA football rankings. I'm also excited about knowing what people mean when they say "legal positivism" or "legal realism" or "get the hell away from me, I've already asked you three times," and I think he'll shed some light on at least a couple of those. So high marks to Judge Posner for being readable.
The book I did actually pay real money for was some intro to game theory or another. I'm only a little ways into this one as well, but its heavy reliance on symbolic logic lets me pretend that I'm doing calculus or something equally impressive. I've run into some of these concepts before, but I wanted to feel a little more grounded in the subject so that I could start sentences with "Well, if you know anything about game theory..." It seems to work for professors.
In other news, the free beer offered the last two days has been woefully disppointing. Turns out that the companies were actually more interested in hocking their wares than getting us drunk. Methinks the time for a Criminal Law drinking game is near. Everyone take a shot anytime somebody says 'Penal'.
Wednesday, October 08, 2003
We just started early registration, so everyone's having to decide if they want to choose an elective (we get one) that would put them in a class with 2L's and 3L's or one that's all 1L's. Apparently, this is a stressful decision. My take on it is that the upperclassmen don't care about their grades anymore, so I'd rather be in a class with them than with other 1L's, who are all starting to freak out on me at the same time. Registration decisions, summer job fairs, and post-season baseball are all combining with the increased workload to turn everyone into a conspiracy theorist. You can't have a conversation without someone running up to make sure that you're not in on some piece of information that they don't have, or to validate their superior knowledge by pointing out that what you just said was right yesterday, but was changed this morning by the office of such in such, or whatever.
Basically, people are looooosing it.
Anyhoo, I think I'm going to be taking a fairly unpopluar class with a reputation for having an icky workload. But, as far as I can tell, in exchange for writing four short papers and one long one, I get a class with a grade distribution that (last semester anyway) was all A's and one B+. And the class is late in the afternoon. In my book, a winner.
I was slightly bummed by the public interest job fair thingy today, partly because they're didn't seem to be that many people interested in 1L's for the summer, and partly because there wasn't a lot of free food. But it's just been pointed out to me that there are 30 minutes left in which I can get free beer at the bookstore across the street, courtesy of Westlaw, and that tommorrow there is free beer courtesy of BarBri starting at 11. Fabulous. Nothing like drinking in the AM to get me into study mode.
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Basically, people are looooosing it.
Anyhoo, I think I'm going to be taking a fairly unpopluar class with a reputation for having an icky workload. But, as far as I can tell, in exchange for writing four short papers and one long one, I get a class with a grade distribution that (last semester anyway) was all A's and one B+. And the class is late in the afternoon. In my book, a winner.
I was slightly bummed by the public interest job fair thingy today, partly because they're didn't seem to be that many people interested in 1L's for the summer, and partly because there wasn't a lot of free food. But it's just been pointed out to me that there are 30 minutes left in which I can get free beer at the bookstore across the street, courtesy of Westlaw, and that tommorrow there is free beer courtesy of BarBri starting at 11. Fabulous. Nothing like drinking in the AM to get me into study mode.
Friday, October 03, 2003
The honeymoon is definitely over, but I'm having a good time.
Our study group looks to be effective, at least in that everyone plans on doing their own outlines and crap and just wants to get together once a week to clear up questions. Whether or not they let me stay in once they hear my questions ("How can these judges use words like 'prophylactic' and not giggle?") remains to be seen.
I study my ass off for ConLaw, but I enjoy it. It's just that the exam questions look to be so open-ended that you could never possibly read too much. This is probably just an excuse for me to avoid other classes, but that's alright. I'm almost attempted, for the sake of science, to blow off one class completely and just study during the four days before the exam using hand-me-down outlines and commercial study aids. The only reason I don't is that if I ended up doing better in class I'd feel like a tool. And because they'd probably kick me out of the study group.
I recently got roped in to doing witness duty for mock trial, and it's a lot more fun than I thought it would be. I strongly recommend it, even if you have no intention of doing mock trial. My only difficulty has been that the trial for this tourney involves a stolen monkey, and I tend to laugh every time someone asks me about the stolen monkey, or monkey hair, or monkey blood. Monkey. Monkey. After a certain number of utterances, you're just screwed. It's a funny word.
Tonight there's a ConLaw costume party. Dress up as your favorite Justice. I think I've almost got Ruthie G's accent down.
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Our study group looks to be effective, at least in that everyone plans on doing their own outlines and crap and just wants to get together once a week to clear up questions. Whether or not they let me stay in once they hear my questions ("How can these judges use words like 'prophylactic' and not giggle?") remains to be seen.
I study my ass off for ConLaw, but I enjoy it. It's just that the exam questions look to be so open-ended that you could never possibly read too much. This is probably just an excuse for me to avoid other classes, but that's alright. I'm almost attempted, for the sake of science, to blow off one class completely and just study during the four days before the exam using hand-me-down outlines and commercial study aids. The only reason I don't is that if I ended up doing better in class I'd feel like a tool. And because they'd probably kick me out of the study group.
I recently got roped in to doing witness duty for mock trial, and it's a lot more fun than I thought it would be. I strongly recommend it, even if you have no intention of doing mock trial. My only difficulty has been that the trial for this tourney involves a stolen monkey, and I tend to laugh every time someone asks me about the stolen monkey, or monkey hair, or monkey blood. Monkey. Monkey. After a certain number of utterances, you're just screwed. It's a funny word.
Tonight there's a ConLaw costume party. Dress up as your favorite Justice. I think I've almost got Ruthie G's accent down.
LSAT is tommorrow. Good luck kids.
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Monday, September 29, 2003
Much to my disappointment, The Lyon's Den was pretty lame. Rob Lowe was perfectly fine (though nowhere near as endearing as he was playing Sam Seaborn) and there are some decent supporting actors, but the script sucked balls. My favorite was an impromptu exchange with his senator father, in which the senator says casually "But because of stare decisis, that won't go over." I'm just a newbie, but using that term like that sounds sort of like a 7-11 manager saying to an employee "But because the customer is always right, that won't go over." Who talks like that? And, while I'm on it, how the hell am I supposed to take Rip Torn seriously as a U.S. Senator when I can't get his performance as Tom Green's dad in Freddy Got Fingered out of my head?
On a more positive note, Law & Order: CI is still great. Vinny D has to be the best actor on television.
On an even more positive note, I taught my very last LSAT class on Sunday. The timing couldn't have been any better, as stuff is really starting to heat up. There is really no upper limit on the amount of studying that I could do for ConLaw, and our professor seems to assume much greater command of constitutional history than I ever thought possible. So I'm glad to have the time.
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On a more positive note, Law & Order: CI is still great. Vinny D has to be the best actor on television.
On an even more positive note, I taught my very last LSAT class on Sunday. The timing couldn't have been any better, as stuff is really starting to heat up. There is really no upper limit on the amount of studying that I could do for ConLaw, and our professor seems to assume much greater command of constitutional history than I ever thought possible. So I'm glad to have the time.
Thursday, September 25, 2003
I don't take a lot of notes in class. Actually, I hardly take any notes in class. I take notes on the cases the night before, slowly building an outline on the computer at home. In class, I just make notes in the text book, taking down the very few things that end up being helpful. Though I'm probably terribly misguided, this seems to work for me.
But it freaks people out.
"Do you just have a photographic memory?" "Aren't you worried about this stuff?" "How can you not take any notes? Do you need to borrow mine?"
From the sound of things--'things' meaning 'keyboards'--half the people in our classes are training to be stenographers. From the moment class starts, they're taking down every word that's said. And not just what the prof says...they've got every nugget that comes from a student, too. There's nothing weirder than giving a bullshit answer to a question and seeing the girl in front of you type it verbatim right into her notes. Well, it might be weirder if she wrote it down as "Mindbendlingly Attractive Fellow Behind Me: Korematsu gets a bad rap--Camp is Fun!" But I don't really see that happening.
Either way, it's sort of strange. In the event that I do actually say something useful in class one day, is that going to make it into people's outlines? Would that make me famous? I think so.
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But it freaks people out.
"Do you just have a photographic memory?" "Aren't you worried about this stuff?" "How can you not take any notes? Do you need to borrow mine?"
From the sound of things--'things' meaning 'keyboards'--half the people in our classes are training to be stenographers. From the moment class starts, they're taking down every word that's said. And not just what the prof says...they've got every nugget that comes from a student, too. There's nothing weirder than giving a bullshit answer to a question and seeing the girl in front of you type it verbatim right into her notes. Well, it might be weirder if she wrote it down as "Mindbendlingly Attractive Fellow Behind Me: Korematsu gets a bad rap--Camp is Fun!" But I don't really see that happening.
Either way, it's sort of strange. In the event that I do actually say something useful in class one day, is that going to make it into people's outlines? Would that make me famous? I think so.
Regarding my last post, I really shouldn't complain. I actually dig the interplay between successive owners of these textbooks. At a certain point the commentary becomes almost Talmudic. Example:
Previous owner writes (in green pen, underlined): Authorized subsidation of wheat farmers.
I follow (in black): Court determined that 'subsidation' is not actually a word.
Next Semester's Owner (in pink...hot, hot pink): Maybe if you'd spent more time taking notes and less time screwing around in the margins, you would have passed the class.
Point taken.
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Previous owner writes (in green pen, underlined): Authorized subsidation of wheat farmers.
I follow (in black): Court determined that 'subsidation' is not actually a word.
Next Semester's Owner (in pink...hot, hot pink): Maybe if you'd spent more time taking notes and less time screwing around in the margins, you would have passed the class.
Point taken.
Tuesday, September 23, 2003
To the girl who owned my ConLaw book before I did,
I love you. I love the way that you highlight phrases, only to rewrite them verbatim in the margins. I love the way that you use six colors of highlighter, sometimes even overlapping colors for extra effect. Pink? For cases involving animals. Green? For big words. Blue? For anything that sounds 'unconstitutionalish'. Orange and Purple? Stuff that the kid in front of you highlighted. And boy, they must have highlighted a lot. Sometimes I think about how exhausted you must be, highlighting nearly 95% of the text, leaving only the relevant parts clear of your DayGlo love.
And then there's the underlining. At first I thought that there was no rhyme or reason to the underlining, that maybe you had a cat who liked to drag pens across the page. But then I realized...that it was a code. But not just any code...a code of love. For when I began to read the underlined phrases in the order you'd indicated, it all started to make sense. This was a message, a sign, a call out from the depths of your heart for someone--ME--to find you, to love you, and to suggest that you'd probably be better off just listening to the tapes.
Love,
Me
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I love you. I love the way that you highlight phrases, only to rewrite them verbatim in the margins. I love the way that you use six colors of highlighter, sometimes even overlapping colors for extra effect. Pink? For cases involving animals. Green? For big words. Blue? For anything that sounds 'unconstitutionalish'. Orange and Purple? Stuff that the kid in front of you highlighted. And boy, they must have highlighted a lot. Sometimes I think about how exhausted you must be, highlighting nearly 95% of the text, leaving only the relevant parts clear of your DayGlo love.
And then there's the underlining. At first I thought that there was no rhyme or reason to the underlining, that maybe you had a cat who liked to drag pens across the page. But then I realized...that it was a code. But not just any code...a code of love. For when I began to read the underlined phrases in the order you'd indicated, it all started to make sense. This was a message, a sign, a call out from the depths of your heart for someone--ME--to find you, to love you, and to suggest that you'd probably be better off just listening to the tapes.
Love,
Me
Monday, September 15, 2003
As I was just about to plunk down on one of the law school's many comfy couches--no doubt to be joined shortly by a fly coed wanting to hear about "the law"--a little voice in my head said, "You know, Dude, you haven't gone to talk to any professors yet. You should try that."
So I did. Man, I hate the little voice in my head.
My first stop was the younger and seemingly less intimidating of the professors that were around that afternoon. I thought him to be more relaxed, and more approachable. But what he ended up being was a lot more bored. I don't know if it was because he really hadn't slept for a week, or because listening to my poorly thought-out questions was about as exciting as the LPGA Tour, but I swear that he would have slid, comatose, out of his chair, if I hadn't sneezed. I managed to make a little small-talk about the McConnell case toward the end, but by then it was too late. So I got up as quickly as I could and ran out before he could remember to ask my name.
Later I went by the office of one of my more venerable profs, and that actually went a lot better. I think maybe the fact that he had two windows, and therefore sunlight, in his office made things a lot happier in there. Also, that I had an actual question or two helped as well.
So, my take on visiting professors: Have very specific questions, and be prepared to motor as soon as they're answered. If I can't do that, I'd probably be better off taking a long lunch.
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So I did. Man, I hate the little voice in my head.
My first stop was the younger and seemingly less intimidating of the professors that were around that afternoon. I thought him to be more relaxed, and more approachable. But what he ended up being was a lot more bored. I don't know if it was because he really hadn't slept for a week, or because listening to my poorly thought-out questions was about as exciting as the LPGA Tour, but I swear that he would have slid, comatose, out of his chair, if I hadn't sneezed. I managed to make a little small-talk about the McConnell case toward the end, but by then it was too late. So I got up as quickly as I could and ran out before he could remember to ask my name.
Later I went by the office of one of my more venerable profs, and that actually went a lot better. I think maybe the fact that he had two windows, and therefore sunlight, in his office made things a lot happier in there. Also, that I had an actual question or two helped as well.
So, my take on visiting professors: Have very specific questions, and be prepared to motor as soon as they're answered. If I can't do that, I'd probably be better off taking a long lunch.
Monday, September 08, 2003
This C-SPAN coverage is pretty freakin' great. They only have the audio feed from the arguments, but someone took the time to toss up pictures of whichever judge/lawyer happens to be talking. And Old J.P. Stevens is sporting that awesomely awesome red bow-tie in his headshot. Anyhoo, I recommend doing something else while you're listening to it; just staring at the headshots can get really weird really quickly. I think that Justice Ginsburg just winked at me.
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OCI is upon us, and it's kind of scary. Watching the 2L's run around is like being back at a high school debate tourney. The same, weird, psyche-out stuff is going on in the halls, and everyone's wearing a suit for what looks like the first time. They even seem to have postings. For the time being I'm trying not to look ahead too much, but it was nice/intimidating to see names like Cravath up on the interview list. I don't know that I completely believed UT's propaganda office until I saw it for myself.
I'm almost finished teaching the godforsaken LSAT classes. It's been fun, but I'm ready to have my evenings back. I haven't been able to sleep all that much during the week, and that has seriously affected my ability to charm the ladies, much to the dismay of the ladies.
The only other thing is that last week I started, er, talking in class. At first I told myself that I was only raising my hand to answer direct questions that nobody else had the answer to, that my speaking out was actually speeding class along, not dragging it down. Clearly, this was bullshit. So, I haven't talked for two days and I won't speak again until called on. I promise.
Oh. And I watched the Dem's debate. This saddened me. I've signed on to volunteer with Edwards' campaign, and I think/thought that he really was the most promising candidate. But if you watched him speak at the debates, you may have noticed a blink rate that was off the charts, or at least would have been off the charts if people kept charts on these sorts of things. Anyone who cares will tell you that excessive blinking connotes lying, and his eyelids were crazygonuts. So that's a problem. The saddest thing, I think, is that Gephardt was actually the most sincere, likable person on stage. If he could just get his hair greyer, it might soften the blow of his face a bit. Anyhoo, I wasn't really excited by the debates. Big surprise.
FYI: C-SPAN is broadcasting the audio from the oral arguments in the campaign finance case.
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I'm almost finished teaching the godforsaken LSAT classes. It's been fun, but I'm ready to have my evenings back. I haven't been able to sleep all that much during the week, and that has seriously affected my ability to charm the ladies, much to the dismay of the ladies.
The only other thing is that last week I started, er, talking in class. At first I told myself that I was only raising my hand to answer direct questions that nobody else had the answer to, that my speaking out was actually speeding class along, not dragging it down. Clearly, this was bullshit. So, I haven't talked for two days and I won't speak again until called on. I promise.
Oh. And I watched the Dem's debate. This saddened me. I've signed on to volunteer with Edwards' campaign, and I think/thought that he really was the most promising candidate. But if you watched him speak at the debates, you may have noticed a blink rate that was off the charts, or at least would have been off the charts if people kept charts on these sorts of things. Anyone who cares will tell you that excessive blinking connotes lying, and his eyelids were crazygonuts. So that's a problem. The saddest thing, I think, is that Gephardt was actually the most sincere, likable person on stage. If he could just get his hair greyer, it might soften the blow of his face a bit. Anyhoo, I wasn't really excited by the debates. Big surprise.
FYI: C-SPAN is broadcasting the audio from the oral arguments in the campaign finance case.
Tuesday, September 02, 2003
I've signed up to play on my small section's intramural flag football team, which I figure is a great way for me to show my stuff, and maybe get picked up by the Longhorns as a walk-on. Then I could get a tutor to take my classes for me. Anyway, we have to name our team, and apparently most teams are tagged with some clever, law-inspired name (The Dirty Briefs, Malicious Intent, Tortius Intereference, etc. ). So far, I have two ideas:
1. Collateral Attack
2. The Section Two Fighting Ruth Bader Ginsbergs
Looks like I could use some help. What's Latin for "The Thing Sacks Your Ass"?
In other news, we got our Lexis and Westlaw codes today, and I started going through the LEEWS this weekend. I bought the tapes for half-price from someone who decided to go to med school instead. I haven't yet decided if it's life-changing or not, but there are certainly some neat approaches that I wouldn't have thought of by myself.
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1. Collateral Attack
2. The Section Two Fighting Ruth Bader Ginsbergs
Looks like I could use some help. What's Latin for "The Thing Sacks Your Ass"?
In other news, we got our Lexis and Westlaw codes today, and I started going through the LEEWS this weekend. I bought the tapes for half-price from someone who decided to go to med school instead. I haven't yet decided if it's life-changing or not, but there are certainly some neat approaches that I wouldn't have thought of by myself.
Friday, August 29, 2003
And it begins. For real this time.
The classes for this semester: Criminal Law, Constitutional Law, Property, and Legal Research & Writing. I seem to be part of a very small group, the members of which are the only people in the class without at least Friday or Monday off. This really creases me, and must be the work of the same conspiracy that let me into law school in the first place.
The good news: My professors are all a lot more interesting than I thought they would be. They range from congenial to downright entertaining, and that makes me happy. I was expecting the worst. I accept that this may have something to do with the courses we're taking this semester, but either way, I'm thankful.
The bad news: Students ruin class even more than I thought they would. The gunners I pictured in my head when I had gunner fantasies were people who studied for inumerable hours each day, came to class having memorized the entire text of the case, and, as soon as some poor schmoe dropped the baton during the Socratic Relay, immediately jumped in to save us all with a prepared speech that would have made Daniel Webster wet his pants. Annoying? Yes. Overbearing? Of course. But clearly people who are dedicated to the process and have nothing better to do than practice stating the facts of a case in front of a mirror. These people, however, do not attend my school.
I often wonder if our gunners have even read the required material; it seems that carrying a casebook would unnecessarily wearout their hand-raising arms. Instead of shedding light on the case at hand, a raised hand generally means that we're in for some wholly irrelevant claim that conveniently answer the unasked question: What did the owner of the hand do this Summer? (Answer: Something far more impressive than what you did.) In fact, I don't think that they're really deserving of the label 'gunner', a term that, at least for me, connotes a med student who hasn't slept for a year, but who could build you a working replica of the human body out of jelly beans if you asked her to. So, how about "Blabbers" instead? Too goofy? What about "Droners"? "Stupid Rat Bastards"? I'll keep working on it.
The only other news of import is that, since Subway is the only food source within the law school itself, as of two days ago, I'm on the Jared Diet. I'm hoping that this will make me more attractive as a study group partner.
(Fun Fact: According to my 2L sources, last year a few guys announced on the first day of class that they would be accepting the resumes of those interested in joining their study group. I have nothing to say about this. )
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The classes for this semester: Criminal Law, Constitutional Law, Property, and Legal Research & Writing. I seem to be part of a very small group, the members of which are the only people in the class without at least Friday or Monday off. This really creases me, and must be the work of the same conspiracy that let me into law school in the first place.
The good news: My professors are all a lot more interesting than I thought they would be. They range from congenial to downright entertaining, and that makes me happy. I was expecting the worst. I accept that this may have something to do with the courses we're taking this semester, but either way, I'm thankful.
The bad news: Students ruin class even more than I thought they would. The gunners I pictured in my head when I had gunner fantasies were people who studied for inumerable hours each day, came to class having memorized the entire text of the case, and, as soon as some poor schmoe dropped the baton during the Socratic Relay, immediately jumped in to save us all with a prepared speech that would have made Daniel Webster wet his pants. Annoying? Yes. Overbearing? Of course. But clearly people who are dedicated to the process and have nothing better to do than practice stating the facts of a case in front of a mirror. These people, however, do not attend my school.
I often wonder if our gunners have even read the required material; it seems that carrying a casebook would unnecessarily wearout their hand-raising arms. Instead of shedding light on the case at hand, a raised hand generally means that we're in for some wholly irrelevant claim that conveniently answer the unasked question: What did the owner of the hand do this Summer? (Answer: Something far more impressive than what you did.) In fact, I don't think that they're really deserving of the label 'gunner', a term that, at least for me, connotes a med student who hasn't slept for a year, but who could build you a working replica of the human body out of jelly beans if you asked her to. So, how about "Blabbers" instead? Too goofy? What about "Droners"? "Stupid Rat Bastards"? I'll keep working on it.
The only other news of import is that, since Subway is the only food source within the law school itself, as of two days ago, I'm on the Jared Diet. I'm hoping that this will make me more attractive as a study group partner.
(Fun Fact: According to my 2L sources, last year a few guys announced on the first day of class that they would be accepting the resumes of those interested in joining their study group. I have nothing to say about this. )
Monday, August 25, 2003
Wow. JD2B posted this link to a simply AWESOME LS admissions counselling site! Do you know how I know that it's AWESOME? Why, all of the EXCLAMATION POINTS!!!
This site has tons of gems, but my favorite has to be: "Statistics Don't Lie--Less than 7% of law school applicants gain admission to the nation's top law schools!"
What the effing eff does that mean??!!?? Only 7% get into the top schools? Which schools are the top schools, anyway? Some might say that the top schools would be the top 10 or 15, and there are 187ish ABA approved schools, so...carry the one....yeah, that means that just SEVEN PERCENT of the students are hogging a full SEVEN PERCENT of the law school seats. What the FUCK?? This is so unfair!! I simply MUST get myself an admissions counselor, or else I'll be SCREWED!!! And stuck with nothing but MORE of THESE EXCLAMATION POINTS!!!!!
Incredible. Really.
In response, I'm going to undercut this dude's rates by offering my own course online. Right now. If you read and use the following information, please e-mail me your bank account info and I will withdraw $2.50 electronically:
1. Don't take hard classes. Ever. Be an American Studies major. Sleep with lots of professors. Do everything you can to get A's, A's, and more A's.
2. Hire someone to take the LSAT for you. Learning is hard, testprep companies are expensive, and you need to score AT LEAST a 184 to get into the TOP schools. So find yourself an LSAT stud, make them a fake ID, and have a talented surgeon graft your thumbprint onto theirs. Done and done.
3. Make sure that you write legibly when you mail your applications in. To do otherwise would be just plain rude.
Now, I have to get up in five hours for orientation. Thanks so much, CovertTactics, for robbing me of 30 minutes of sleep.
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This site has tons of gems, but my favorite has to be: "Statistics Don't Lie--Less than 7% of law school applicants gain admission to the nation's top law schools!"
What the effing eff does that mean??!!?? Only 7% get into the top schools? Which schools are the top schools, anyway? Some might say that the top schools would be the top 10 or 15, and there are 187ish ABA approved schools, so...carry the one....yeah, that means that just SEVEN PERCENT of the students are hogging a full SEVEN PERCENT of the law school seats. What the FUCK?? This is so unfair!! I simply MUST get myself an admissions counselor, or else I'll be SCREWED!!! And stuck with nothing but MORE of THESE EXCLAMATION POINTS!!!!!
Incredible. Really.
In response, I'm going to undercut this dude's rates by offering my own course online. Right now. If you read and use the following information, please e-mail me your bank account info and I will withdraw $2.50 electronically:
1. Don't take hard classes. Ever. Be an American Studies major. Sleep with lots of professors. Do everything you can to get A's, A's, and more A's.
2. Hire someone to take the LSAT for you. Learning is hard, testprep companies are expensive, and you need to score AT LEAST a 184 to get into the TOP schools. So find yourself an LSAT stud, make them a fake ID, and have a talented surgeon graft your thumbprint onto theirs. Done and done.
3. Make sure that you write legibly when you mail your applications in. To do otherwise would be just plain rude.
Now, I have to get up in five hours for orientation. Thanks so much, CovertTactics, for robbing me of 30 minutes of sleep.
Sunday, August 24, 2003
Wings and Vodka Goes to a Wine and Cheese
Knowing that a 1L class of 500 people is desperate for any and all social interaction in these days before class starts, a pair of gracious girls decided to host a 1L Wine & Cheese at their apartment. The notice of the party was on a fairly quiet message board for UT students, and it had zero replies. So, naturally, I decided to go, thinking that it would just be me, two girls, and all the brie I could eat. I was wrong. No fewer than sixty people were packed into the apartment when I arrived, and everyone was yelling and drinking wine out of plastic cups (cleverly labeled with names in Sharpie, not so much for security but, rather, as a nametag substitute...very nice). Before long it go too hot and too loud, and the party moved out to a bar, but not before I managed to down nearly half of the cheap red I'd brought to the soiree, along with generous cups from the two bottles that I recognized as costing in excess of twenty dollars. The night continued at a few different bars, ended with a small but dedicated group of drinkers at my house for awhile after closing, and resulted in me having a nasty hangover to contend with as I kicked off my fourth LSAT class this morning. (Cheap Red Wine+Cheap Vodka+Cheap Beer=Massive Fucking Headache. Who knew?)
Throughout the course of the evening, we played several party games:
The "What Section Are YOU In?" Game--A fairly straightforward trivia game, it consists mainly of asking someone what section they're in, and saying "Oh" when they invariably answer a section other than your own. Seems boring, but it's actually an interesting study in probabilities (How can it be possible to meet 50 1L's in a night without finding a single person in your section?) It can also incorporate a bit of a Balderdash component: Knowing that there are only 4 sections, answer "Section 5", and when your questioner expresses confusion, explain that it's the "Honors Section" and it's the only reason you gave up your full ride to NYU.
Where in the World is Scottsdale, Arizona?--Similar to the above. Ask someone where they're from, and when they answer "Chicago", you say "Oh really? What part of Chicago are you from?" and then they're all "Oh, do you know Chicago?" and then you say "I know, like, Soldier's Field" and they walk away quickly.
Trumps--A complicated bidding game in which players try to outdo eachother by casually mentioning increasingly impressive schools that they could have gone to: "I thought this would be a nice change of scenery from UCLA." "I know what you mean...I went to NYU for my undergrad and I just got so tired of it." "Wasn't Chicago's acceptance letter just the cutest thing?" "Not as cute as Harvard's Dean of Admissions showing up at my wedding." "Yale Law offered me a tenured professorship solely on the basis of my personal statement, but New Haven is just so cold."
Accidentally Grab A Random Girl's Butt--Apparently, I was the only one playing this. Not recommended.
But it was all good fun. And the fact that I am not, as of yet, known as "Mr. Naked" or "That Guy that Puked in the Spinach Dip" means that I kept my drinking in check. Good stuff.
Friday, August 22, 2003
Being the all-night party boy that I am, I'm not a big sleeper. Getting up before noon is, and has been, for the last 6 years, a real hardship for me. To be awake for the LSAT I had to drug myself into a stupor the night before. I won't blame this entirely on the endless parade of ladies coming through my apartment, but I'd really like to.
Knowing that sleep is a problem for me, I went out and bought a new bed. I'd been sleeping on the same piece of crap since I was 11, and figured it was about time that I shell out some real money for a decent bed. An ungodly amount of cash later, I have a very comfortable queen sitting in my bedroom. It is what they call "plush", which, the man at the matress store assured me, would provide the best support for side-sleeping and late-night encounters involving my all-female study group. So it was worth the cash, because it will guarantee me a good night's sleep, which will guarantee me great grades. Right? Wrong.
Problem: The apartment above me combines the beauty of a running toilet with the simplicity of several squeaky floorboards to provide an all-night symphony of whooshing and wee-erring.
Problem: I bought two kittens awhile ago, and apparently they're the special breed of cat that loses its fucking mind as soon as humans get into bed and turn off lights.
Really Big Problem: Cell phones don't work very well in my complex, so every morning at about 7a.m., a lady that sounds to be in her mid-40's walks out into the parking lot--the parking lot onto which my bedroom window looks out--and conducts, on average, forty-five minutes of business at full volume over her cell. And even though I couldn't hear someone knocking on my door from the bedroom if they used a 20-pound sledge, I can make out every single word of her conversations.
So, the quest for sleep is not going well. I'm considering taking my snoozes in the law library. The chairs are big. The A/C is always on. And it's really, really quiet.
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Knowing that sleep is a problem for me, I went out and bought a new bed. I'd been sleeping on the same piece of crap since I was 11, and figured it was about time that I shell out some real money for a decent bed. An ungodly amount of cash later, I have a very comfortable queen sitting in my bedroom. It is what they call "plush", which, the man at the matress store assured me, would provide the best support for side-sleeping and late-night encounters involving my all-female study group. So it was worth the cash, because it will guarantee me a good night's sleep, which will guarantee me great grades. Right? Wrong.
Problem: The apartment above me combines the beauty of a running toilet with the simplicity of several squeaky floorboards to provide an all-night symphony of whooshing and wee-erring.
Problem: I bought two kittens awhile ago, and apparently they're the special breed of cat that loses its fucking mind as soon as humans get into bed and turn off lights.
Really Big Problem: Cell phones don't work very well in my complex, so every morning at about 7a.m., a lady that sounds to be in her mid-40's walks out into the parking lot--the parking lot onto which my bedroom window looks out--and conducts, on average, forty-five minutes of business at full volume over her cell. And even though I couldn't hear someone knocking on my door from the bedroom if they used a 20-pound sledge, I can make out every single word of her conversations.
So, the quest for sleep is not going well. I'm considering taking my snoozes in the law library. The chairs are big. The A/C is always on. And it's really, really quiet.
Tuesday, August 19, 2003
Some Slightly Larger Thoughts on Courses and Preparation
So, I'm reading my first property case, and though the main issue is something that seems very propertyish, most of the discussion revolves around concepts from other areas of the law, namely, torts and contracts. There are lengthy discussions of both conversion and consideration, stuff that I'm familiar with because I accidentally read E&E;'s for the wrong classes. So, I'm thinking, that's cool for me. But if I hadn't read that stuff, I'd be pretty goddam confused going through this case. It might not be quite so bad if I were at least taking torts and contracts this semester, but I'm not. So, I ask: What up with that?
Taking a look at the assigned classes for folks in different law schools or different sections of the same law school, one is led to believe that the order of those first year courses doesn't really matter. But torts/contracts/property seem to be so intertwined, I guess b/c they all boil down to money, that it seems nearly impossible to learn one without at least a picture of the other, a picture that my class schedule does not give.
I understand that since all of the courses overlap somewhat, no schedule could possibly provide students with every prerequisite concept they'll need. But it certainly beefs up the argument for those law preview classes. Or for spending $200 on subject primers a year before school starts. I need a beer.
And it begins.
Though assignments for the first day of class were originally not going to be posted until the night before, several professors requested an earlier release. So, last night, first assignments for Property went up. So much for a relaxing last week of freedom.
I'm somewhet encouraged by the Property prof's selection of supplemental cases in that, so far, they have a strong IP bent. That seems a lot more exciting than stuff about wild animals, though I'm sure that is all coming too.
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Though assignments for the first day of class were originally not going to be posted until the night before, several professors requested an earlier release. So, last night, first assignments for Property went up. So much for a relaxing last week of freedom.
I'm somewhet encouraged by the Property prof's selection of supplemental cases in that, so far, they have a strong IP bent. That seems a lot more exciting than stuff about wild animals, though I'm sure that is all coming too.
Sunday, August 17, 2003
Against my better judgment, I took a look at the Case-Ace software mentioned by a suspiciously excited reader, and I rather like it. I'd intended to build outlines right in Word, taking care of classnotes and (if I do them) case briefs in something else, maybe even by hand. But Case-Ace seems to offer a decent way of having everything accessible at once, and a setup that would make building class notes and case briefs into an outline pretty easy. So I might buy it.
The only real question is this: Do actually want to take class notes on the laptop? I bought this thing to take exams on, and to have with me so that I can work on outlines at school. But I don't know if I'm up to clicking away in class. It seems harder to concentrate when I have this open as oposed to just working in a notebook, and my screen is so wonderfully large that I don't think a professor could even see me over it. I'm wondering what percentge of folks in classes are typing notes during lecture. Anytime someone tried to pull that in undergrad they looked plain silly, but just about everybody has a laptop at school, so I'm sure the concentration is higher. I just don't want to be that guy who's all "Hey there. Watch as I unsheath my ginormous laptop. You think sexy?"
Basically, I think the process of taking handwritten notes and condensing/improving them as you type is a useful one. Or perhaps I could have someone else type them for me? How intimidating would it be if I brought a secretary to lecture everyday? I'd get a call on my cell in the back of the class: "Sir, Professor Smith is on line 2. He wants to know if you could give him the facts of the case."
"Tell him I'm at lunch, Eileen."
"But, Sir, he sounds quite serious..." And so on.
This idea has potential. I just need to find a secretary that would be willing to work for $50 a semester.
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The only real question is this: Do actually want to take class notes on the laptop? I bought this thing to take exams on, and to have with me so that I can work on outlines at school. But I don't know if I'm up to clicking away in class. It seems harder to concentrate when I have this open as oposed to just working in a notebook, and my screen is so wonderfully large that I don't think a professor could even see me over it. I'm wondering what percentge of folks in classes are typing notes during lecture. Anytime someone tried to pull that in undergrad they looked plain silly, but just about everybody has a laptop at school, so I'm sure the concentration is higher. I just don't want to be that guy who's all "Hey there. Watch as I unsheath my ginormous laptop. You think sexy?"
Basically, I think the process of taking handwritten notes and condensing/improving them as you type is a useful one. Or perhaps I could have someone else type them for me? How intimidating would it be if I brought a secretary to lecture everyday? I'd get a call on my cell in the back of the class: "Sir, Professor Smith is on line 2. He wants to know if you could give him the facts of the case."
"Tell him I'm at lunch, Eileen."
"But, Sir, he sounds quite serious..." And so on.
This idea has potential. I just need to find a secretary that would be willing to work for $50 a semester.
Friday, August 15, 2003
Orientation is in about a week and a half, and I still don't feel like law school is about to start. That's probably because I'm teaching LSAT classes every night but Fridays these next two weeks. I'm actually going to miss the welcome dinner because I'm teaching a class that night. (To be honest, not too depressed. Just one more meal with the same group and catered by Aramark. Yipee.) But it's money, and I need that.
I'm sure our orientation is no different than anyone else's, save the fact that we've all signed up for small group book discussions with professors. This sounded pretty intimidating at first...close-up talks with our future professors on challenging books with lots of big words. But then I looked at the book list. I am signed up for a discussion, with Larry Freakin Sager...on The Merchant of Venice. No obscure Con Law stuff. No treatises on whatever constitutional law scholars read treatises on. We're reading the Bard. And me, the English major who graduated on almost nothing but Shakespeare. Now I'm going to feel like even more of an idiot when I look like an idiot. But at least I've read the assignment. Other options included To Kill a Mockingbird and A Civil Action, so they're trying really hard to keep this from being a serious affair. But since they won't post the first-day assignments until the night before, this book discussion is the only thing people will have to put their energy into. I'm expecting the worst. I'll not be surprised if someone has memorized the play. Including line numbers. Along with the key differences between the Quarto and Folio editions. I also expect people to go the other route, and to be casually mentioning key Contracts cases that weigh in on this whole pound-of-flesh issue, or bringing up the sixth amendment protections that would have helped Shylock to avoid being duped. I'm mainly going to stick to my "Antonio set this whole thing up because he wants to shag Bassanio" story. I don't know what it has to do with the law, but if there's one thing that every law professor loves, it's a good, old-fashioned, homoerotic reading of a Western classic. Should be fun.
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I'm sure our orientation is no different than anyone else's, save the fact that we've all signed up for small group book discussions with professors. This sounded pretty intimidating at first...close-up talks with our future professors on challenging books with lots of big words. But then I looked at the book list. I am signed up for a discussion, with Larry Freakin Sager...on The Merchant of Venice. No obscure Con Law stuff. No treatises on whatever constitutional law scholars read treatises on. We're reading the Bard. And me, the English major who graduated on almost nothing but Shakespeare. Now I'm going to feel like even more of an idiot when I look like an idiot. But at least I've read the assignment. Other options included To Kill a Mockingbird and A Civil Action, so they're trying really hard to keep this from being a serious affair. But since they won't post the first-day assignments until the night before, this book discussion is the only thing people will have to put their energy into. I'm expecting the worst. I'll not be surprised if someone has memorized the play. Including line numbers. Along with the key differences between the Quarto and Folio editions. I also expect people to go the other route, and to be casually mentioning key Contracts cases that weigh in on this whole pound-of-flesh issue, or bringing up the sixth amendment protections that would have helped Shylock to avoid being duped. I'm mainly going to stick to my "Antonio set this whole thing up because he wants to shag Bassanio" story. I don't know what it has to do with the law, but if there's one thing that every law professor loves, it's a good, old-fashioned, homoerotic reading of a Western classic. Should be fun.
Tuesday, August 12, 2003
"fuck you, you mother-humping, racist asshole"
This was the comment left by a recent reader regarding my comments about the marvelously untalented Dat Phan, winner of NBC's "Last Comic Standing." Though this comment was more than likely a joke posted by my grandmother, on the off chance that it was serious I feel it necessary to answer these charges.
Now, if I'd received the comment a few years ago, I probably would have dashed off something angry and stupid, like, "Yes, I am a racist. I hate fucking Etruscans. Phoenicians too. I am also a humper of mothers, namely, yours. Thank you for your input." But the times being what they are, I should probably come up with a better answer.
My contempt for Dat Phan has nothing to do with his ethnicity. I wouldn't be complaining if he did a thirty-minute set that was all about his experiences as an Asian-American. I'd be delighted, actually, to hear about what it must be like to live amongst racist assholes like myself. But Dat Phan doesn't do that kind of material. Instead, he trots out the same, tired impersonation of his mother, over and over again, and instead of being something heartfelt and interesting, it's the sort of shit you'd expect to see from your average white comic making fun of Asians. If anyone is relying on stereotypes here, it's Dat Phan, not me. I'd be just as pissed off if somebody had won doing nothing but impressions of their Jewish grandmother, or their retarded cousin, or their gay roommate. And what Dat Phan does is a crime against the human race.
Basically, I don't hate Asians. I just hate Dat Phan. But I hate Dat Phan so much that if I saw somebody I thought might be Dat Phan, I would probably hate them instinctively, without actually confirming their identity. So maybe I am a racist after all. Shit.
Anyway, thanks for your comments.
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This was the comment left by a recent reader regarding my comments about the marvelously untalented Dat Phan, winner of NBC's "Last Comic Standing." Though this comment was more than likely a joke posted by my grandmother, on the off chance that it was serious I feel it necessary to answer these charges.
Now, if I'd received the comment a few years ago, I probably would have dashed off something angry and stupid, like, "Yes, I am a racist. I hate fucking Etruscans. Phoenicians too. I am also a humper of mothers, namely, yours. Thank you for your input." But the times being what they are, I should probably come up with a better answer.
My contempt for Dat Phan has nothing to do with his ethnicity. I wouldn't be complaining if he did a thirty-minute set that was all about his experiences as an Asian-American. I'd be delighted, actually, to hear about what it must be like to live amongst racist assholes like myself. But Dat Phan doesn't do that kind of material. Instead, he trots out the same, tired impersonation of his mother, over and over again, and instead of being something heartfelt and interesting, it's the sort of shit you'd expect to see from your average white comic making fun of Asians. If anyone is relying on stereotypes here, it's Dat Phan, not me. I'd be just as pissed off if somebody had won doing nothing but impressions of their Jewish grandmother, or their retarded cousin, or their gay roommate. And what Dat Phan does is a crime against the human race.
Basically, I don't hate Asians. I just hate Dat Phan. But I hate Dat Phan so much that if I saw somebody I thought might be Dat Phan, I would probably hate them instinctively, without actually confirming their identity. So maybe I am a racist after all. Shit.
Anyway, thanks for your comments.
Two weeks and counting. Orientation is in two weeks minus one day, and the advice on how to deal with my first year is rolling in. Most of it is hooha (I was considering 'hooey' there, but I wasn't sure how to spell it, and I just don't feel folksy enough to use 'horse hockey' convincingly), but there are a few things that I believe. And they basically boil down to this: Don't be an Asshole.
So I'm going to try to stick by that.
Just from orientation, I could tell that my class is full of very serious-seeming people. So it would be pointless for me to attempt to out-serious them, or even match their level of serious-seemingness. Instead, I'll out-unserious them. When I was in high school there was this guy in my English class that I would have sworn was retarded but then I was working on some calculus in there one day and he looked over my shoulder and reexplained the chain rule to me and I realized that the whole retarded thing was just a facade that helped him get chicks and avoid being called on. I would very much like to be the law school version of that guy.
But the 'Don't be an Asshole' ethic is definitely summed up best here by Jeremy Blachman. I saw each of those rules followed at least once at orientation, most of them by just one girl.
Free Kobe.
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So I'm going to try to stick by that.
Just from orientation, I could tell that my class is full of very serious-seeming people. So it would be pointless for me to attempt to out-serious them, or even match their level of serious-seemingness. Instead, I'll out-unserious them. When I was in high school there was this guy in my English class that I would have sworn was retarded but then I was working on some calculus in there one day and he looked over my shoulder and reexplained the chain rule to me and I realized that the whole retarded thing was just a facade that helped him get chicks and avoid being called on. I would very much like to be the law school version of that guy.
But the 'Don't be an Asshole' ethic is definitely summed up best here by Jeremy Blachman. I saw each of those rules followed at least once at orientation, most of them by just one girl.
Free Kobe.
Wednesday, August 06, 2003
Because it took me awhile to get cable hooked up at my new pad, I've been watching NBC's Last Comic Standing, the reality stand-up comedy show hosted by Jay Mohr. Basically, it's Big Brother with comedians, only they have head-to-head stand-up competitions and the winner gets a Comedy Central special and an NBC talent contract. The last five performed in front of a live audience in Vegas, and last night they announced the winner, as voted by the American public, who has, yet again, proved to be completely retarded. They chose Dat.
Dat Phan is a Vietnamese-American actor who got onto the show doing an impressions of his immigrant mother. He then proceeded to do routine after routine that consisted of nothing but impressions of his immigrant mother. This has pissed me off about Margaret Cho for years, but she has proven her ability to do other things. Not Dat. Dat Phan is the unfunniest person in America. Dat Phan is not even very good at milking the Asian stereotype. Dat Phan should be shot. Instead, Dat Phan is getting a shot at real stardom. Because Americans are retarded. As is Dat Phan.
Maybe if we charged them $.95 a minute, more people would vote in real elections.
I should be excited about classes. Instead, I'll be busy organizing a boycott of Dat Phan's Comedy Central special.
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Dat Phan is a Vietnamese-American actor who got onto the show doing an impressions of his immigrant mother. He then proceeded to do routine after routine that consisted of nothing but impressions of his immigrant mother. This has pissed me off about Margaret Cho for years, but she has proven her ability to do other things. Not Dat. Dat Phan is the unfunniest person in America. Dat Phan is not even very good at milking the Asian stereotype. Dat Phan should be shot. Instead, Dat Phan is getting a shot at real stardom. Because Americans are retarded. As is Dat Phan.
Maybe if we charged them $.95 a minute, more people would vote in real elections.
I should be excited about classes. Instead, I'll be busy organizing a boycott of Dat Phan's Comedy Central special.
Tuesday, August 05, 2003
Just found out my class schedule and section assignment today, along with the booklist. Since UT has condensed Contracts into one semester, scheduling has become a bit more flexible. So, for first semester, I ended up with Crim, Property, and Con I, along with the legal research and writing class. Not exactly what I expected, but that didn't stop me from buying books today.
My original plan was to go through Half.com, and it probably would have saved me fifty bucks. But I'm a big tool, and the major portion of the 400 bucks I handed over to the CoOp bookstore went to the new edition paperbacks for the research class, which I wouldn't have been able to get online anyway. So now I have my books. They're heavy.
I've read in more than one guide that it is totally feasible to make it through law school without buying a single textbook, relying instead on library copies to make it through. These sound like lies to me. Evil, dirty lies.
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My original plan was to go through Half.com, and it probably would have saved me fifty bucks. But I'm a big tool, and the major portion of the 400 bucks I handed over to the CoOp bookstore went to the new edition paperbacks for the research class, which I wouldn't have been able to get online anyway. So now I have my books. They're heavy.
I've read in more than one guide that it is totally feasible to make it through law school without buying a single textbook, relying instead on library copies to make it through. These sound like lies to me. Evil, dirty lies.
Monday, August 04, 2003
I ran into a UT 2L at work today. The conversation went something like this:
ME: Holding a coffee mug Hey, you're going to be a 2L at UT, right?
HIM: Yeah.
ME: So, how did your job search go this summer? Did you find any solid clerkships, or did you have to settle for something that didn't pay quite as well but gave you great experience, experience that will really payoff down the road?
HIM: Grabs coffee mug, smashes it on my head, then starts to sob uncontrollably.
So, I think my dreams of making fat cash next summer are probably not all that realistic. Anyone from a school that's outside of the top 10 actually find a paying gig with a major firm for their 1L summer? Did it involve sexual favors and/or you bearing a striking resemblance to a managing partner? Or both?
Still looking for the right bag for my laptop. It actually fits in my 6-year-old JanSport, but that doesn't seem to provide enough padding. Disputation suggested the bags over at TimBuktu, and I've seen some people recommend some other JanSport models. But I don't no that anything with an actual laptop compartment will be big enough for this badboy. Sigh.
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ME: Holding a coffee mug Hey, you're going to be a 2L at UT, right?
HIM: Yeah.
ME: So, how did your job search go this summer? Did you find any solid clerkships, or did you have to settle for something that didn't pay quite as well but gave you great experience, experience that will really payoff down the road?
HIM: Grabs coffee mug, smashes it on my head, then starts to sob uncontrollably.
So, I think my dreams of making fat cash next summer are probably not all that realistic. Anyone from a school that's outside of the top 10 actually find a paying gig with a major firm for their 1L summer? Did it involve sexual favors and/or you bearing a striking resemblance to a managing partner? Or both?
Still looking for the right bag for my laptop. It actually fits in my 6-year-old JanSport, but that doesn't seem to provide enough padding. Disputation suggested the bags over at TimBuktu, and I've seen some people recommend some other JanSport models. But I don't no that anything with an actual laptop compartment will be big enough for this badboy. Sigh.
Tuesday, July 29, 2003
So, I'm a regular reader of the National Review, because I enjoy being pissed off that the people I disagree with are witty more than I enjoy being embarrassed that the people I agree with are total gooberheads. Which is why I got a big eyefull of gay marriage debate today. ('Gay marriage debate' meaning 'debate about gay marriage' not 'gay debate about marriage', though, if gay is used in its more generic, non-homosexual sense, i.e. 'Fannypacks are fucking gay,' then both interpretations generally apply. Anyway....).
As far as I can tell from looking at the language in most abti-gaymarriage amendments that have been proposed, since they don't actually try to declare homosexuality illegal, and they'd even allow states to bestow most tangible benefits of marriage to non-married couples, the only thing that the anti-gaymarriage folks seem to really want is for the union of a same-sex couple not to be called 'marriage'. And I think this could be a point of compromise.
Because, when it comes down to it, 'marriage' is a pretty dull, dry, legal-sounding word. So why not come up with something that has a bit more flare? I'm sure there are several marketing whizzes out there who could generate any number of alternatives, any one of which would undoubtedly bring more excitement to the relationship than 'marriage.' Then, conservatives could be happy knowing that they've successfully defended the institution of marriage, and gay couples could still receive death benefits, adoption privelages, etc., with the added bonus of experiencing marriage under a new-and-improved name. Everybody goes home a winner, and we move on to worrying about the really important stuff. Like increasing available financial aid. For law students. So they can buy the new IPod.
It's almost too easy.
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As far as I can tell from looking at the language in most abti-gaymarriage amendments that have been proposed, since they don't actually try to declare homosexuality illegal, and they'd even allow states to bestow most tangible benefits of marriage to non-married couples, the only thing that the anti-gaymarriage folks seem to really want is for the union of a same-sex couple not to be called 'marriage'. And I think this could be a point of compromise.
Because, when it comes down to it, 'marriage' is a pretty dull, dry, legal-sounding word. So why not come up with something that has a bit more flare? I'm sure there are several marketing whizzes out there who could generate any number of alternatives, any one of which would undoubtedly bring more excitement to the relationship than 'marriage.' Then, conservatives could be happy knowing that they've successfully defended the institution of marriage, and gay couples could still receive death benefits, adoption privelages, etc., with the added bonus of experiencing marriage under a new-and-improved name. Everybody goes home a winner, and we move on to worrying about the really important stuff. Like increasing available financial aid. For law students. So they can buy the new IPod.
It's almost too easy.
Saturday, July 26, 2003
Alright. I'm not on the 'Flay Bush for Lying' train, because I think that anyone who really bought the uranium story as a sole reason for invasion is silly. But, I'm tired of hearing Rumsfeld say that the president's statement was 'technically correct'. Not only is it the kind of sneaky lawyering they would have yelled at Clinton for, but it's total bullshit. When the president says that the British have 'learned' something, he's pretty much implying that they know it to be true. If he'd gone with 'claimed' or even 'reported', he'd be alright. But he didn't.
A few months ago I was kicking myself for missing the last episode of The West Wing. But now I'm saved. Not only is Bravo! showing all four seasons worth of episodes starting next month, but I've only got three hours left before I'll have finished downloading the episode from Kazaa. Of course, with my luck, it'll just be homemade porn. But I'm staying optimistic.
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A few months ago I was kicking myself for missing the last episode of The West Wing. But now I'm saved. Not only is Bravo! showing all four seasons worth of episodes starting next month, but I've only got three hours left before I'll have finished downloading the episode from Kazaa. Of course, with my luck, it'll just be homemade porn. But I'm staying optimistic.
Blogging from my new laptop, and it's glorious. Because it will become my primary machine, I opted for a big one, the Sony VAIO 16.1" GRT170. It's not the lightest thing in the world, but the gigantic screen is going to be nice once outline construction begins. Also, when I'm shopping online for sports cars during class, girls as far as six rows back will be able to see what I'm doing. In fact, the screen is so large that if ever there's confusion about a particular point in class, I'll be able to flip my computer around and illuminate the class with a prepared PowerPoint presentation, which is sure to win me friends.
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Tuesday, July 22, 2003
Oh man. In just a few weeks, I'll know who else is assigned to my TQ group, the smallish class that we're put in for Legal Research & Writing. Clearly, if one were ever to meet hot law school girls and subsequently convince them to take their clothes off, the TQ group would be the place (for the meeting, not the disrobing). TQ, by the way, stands for Teaching Quizmasters, which is what they call the poor second- and third-year schmoes that teach the classes, I think. As far as I can tell, it's a depressing sort of job left to those who have time to coddle a bunch of uppity one-L's. But I won't judge. I'll be too busy fending off the ladies. And the restraining orders.
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On Sunday I started the first of the four LSAT classes I have for the October test. Only about twenty students this time around, but because classes have been extended a bit, we dove right into some ugly stuff the first day, and I think they were frightened. That, and they didn't appreciate my Missy Elliot Teaches You the Contrapositive bit. But it was fun.
A much-belated thought on Lawrence v. Texas that may have been brought up by someone else: I'm not superinformed on the facts of the case, but seeing as how going through the trouble of making that particular arrest seems almost as dumb as going through the trouble of writing that particular law, isn't it likely that the whole thing was a setup in the first place, and that the conviction was basically invited in order to provide a test case? If anyone can point me to something that already covered that or that makes it unlikely, I'd be most appreciative. Either way, good times.
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A much-belated thought on Lawrence v. Texas that may have been brought up by someone else: I'm not superinformed on the facts of the case, but seeing as how going through the trouble of making that particular arrest seems almost as dumb as going through the trouble of writing that particular law, isn't it likely that the whole thing was a setup in the first place, and that the conviction was basically invited in order to provide a test case? If anyone can point me to something that already covered that or that makes it unlikely, I'd be most appreciative. Either way, good times.
Sunday, July 20, 2003
More subpoenas are being issued to ISP's and schools to get the names of people sharing music illegally. I suppose this hideous invasion of my privacy doesn't bother me too much, since I can't use Kazaa on the Mac, so I've become too impatient with anything other than the Apple Music store, but it still seems retarded. Wouldn't it just be easier for them to lower the price of digital music to something like 50 cents a song? At that point, I'd buy all sorts of stuff, and they wouldn't have to spend so much money on these law suits.
I suppose my real worry is that my porn-consumption habits will become public knowledge. (I heard this story once that back when the U of Texas first offered T1 connections in the dorms, their backbone was immediately clogged with way more traffic than they'd predicted. They put packet sniffers on stuff and found that the overwhelming majority of traffic was porn. To alleviate similiar problems with Quake and other games eating up bandwidth, they'd just dedicated a local server so that the backbone wouldn't take the brunt of it. Apparently, just shy of making it to the board of regents was a proposal that would fund a dedicated porn server on campus. But it died.)
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I suppose my real worry is that my porn-consumption habits will become public knowledge. (I heard this story once that back when the U of Texas first offered T1 connections in the dorms, their backbone was immediately clogged with way more traffic than they'd predicted. They put packet sniffers on stuff and found that the overwhelming majority of traffic was porn. To alleviate similiar problems with Quake and other games eating up bandwidth, they'd just dedicated a local server so that the backbone wouldn't take the brunt of it. Apparently, just shy of making it to the board of regents was a proposal that would fund a dedicated porn server on campus. But it died.)
Saturday, July 19, 2003
Kobe's Beef
If my middle name were 'Bean', I'd probably be driven to sexual assault too. Of course, I don't have the mind-bendingly hot wife or the countless willing women throwing themselves at my Adidasized feet every night. But still.
I suppose I feel bad for the girl if he did it, and I feel bad for him if he didn't, but mainly I'm really pissed off about the Lakers signing Karl Malone. God, I fucking hate Karl Malone. He's both a whiney bastard and a muscleheaded thug, and he makes the game of basketball look about as graceful as scrapmetal collection. I wish someone would sexually assault Karl Malone in a hotel room.
Wednesday, July 16, 2003
The Only Living LSAT Teacher in Austin
Back from my trip, finally moved into my new apartment, and now it's time for LSAT classes to start up again. For the October test I'm teaching four classes, which have all been extended by several hours. All four classes will run right through the end of September, which I'll really hate myself for once school starts...but I promise not to complain about it as its my own doing.
Fun Fact: I'm not allowed to date any of my LSAT students until after they take the test. I know that this is for good reasons, but it makes it really hard to parlay extra tutoring into dinner and a movie.
For the Love of God, Send in that Letter of Intent
(BTW, if anyone's been checking, I'm back for good now.)
So, when I got my acceptance stuff from Texas, they asked me to send in my enrollment deposit immediately, which I did, and they mentioned that I'd get a letter in mid-June that would require another swift response. No problem.
June rolls around, and I take off for the UK thinking that I've got everything in order. Of course, just as I leave, the request for a Letter of Intent shows up, with a three-week deadline. Conveniently enough, I was in the UK for just over three weeks. Stellar.
So when I get back, I find the letter, plus another notice saying that my seat has been given away, good luck in your future endeavors, all that. In short, FUCKED.
The next day, which was then five days after the deadline, I showed up at the admissions office, where they explained that I'd need to write a Letter or Appeal, which gave me the impression that this happened all the time and was no big deal. So I wrote the thing, and a week later the dean called and said that because I was out of the country, she was going to go ahead and reinstate me. The frightening thing was that it sounded like there were several students who were losing their seats because they'd simply 'mismanaged' their time. Ouch.
Basically, I just escaped, by the narrowest of margins, the really really retardedly stupid fate of not making it into law school because I forgot to check my mail.
This does not bode well for the rest of my career.
Monday, June 23, 2003
FishChips&Guinness;
So, I disappeared for a month due to my trip to GB, an I'm actually sill in Ireland at the moment. Law school has been the furthest thing from my min, or at least it was until last night. I was sitting in a hostel lounge reading, and suddenly someone turned on the TV to watch...Family Law. Is this still running in the US? Has anyone watched it? I can't figure out what's more depressing: The grim picture they paint of our future profession, or the fact that Tony Danza is the best actor on the show. It's hard core.
Didn't really bring any law reading with me, though I had several e-mails from students regarding the June LSAT. Doesn't sound like there was anything particularly nasty on it. Good luck to everyone who took it when scores go up this week. It looks like I'll be teaching FOUR classes for the October test, which is pretty insane. I'll probably regret it once school starts, but they'll be mostly done by the time my classes start getting hard core, so I should be able to swing it. And raking in enough for three or four month's rent won't be too bad either.
Monday, May 26, 2003
My Computer Ate My Head
This is not good. In the last three days I've spent roughly 25 hours playing Shadowbane, a massively multi-player online role-playing game. I started playing because a friend of mine writes for the game, but if I don't get rid of it before law school starts I'll be in big, big trouble.
Incidentally, that's why I haven't posted at all for more than a week.
I've picked up two more LSAT classes starting in July, even as I become more convinced that my classes aren't doing anyone any good. None of these students take me seriously when I tell them to get their asses started on preptests, and, as a result, I expect that they're latest scores (allegedly the indicators of their final progress in the course) will be effectively no better than the scores on their first diagnostic. I'm baffled by the notion that someone could shell out $1000 bucks for this and then not give a shit. I mean, I did that several times in college, but at least I got a degree out of it.
Other than that, I've been spending loads of cash to get my car to pass state inspection, so I can finally get it registered in Texas, which I need to secure my in-state status. I am not a car person. I suspect that I have a bad sparkplug, but I'm only 60% that what I think is a sparkplug is actually a sparkplug. That sort of thing is making this take awhile.
Friday, May 16, 2003
West Wing Tragedy
So I finally figured out how to program my VCR correctly. Only problem is that it requires a rewound tape in order to work properly. Considering the circumstances, I think I was very calm upon finding out that I wouldn't be able to watch the final episode of the season. I've read the summaries, and I'm sure it was riveting. I only hope it's not a wierd out for all of the good actors if Sorkin really leaves. Sigh.
Nothing much happening to me law-wise. UCLA finally rejected me yesterday. Still haven't decided whether or not I'm ordering LEEWS. Wondering idly if an oral contract can be made in a chat room or in a MMORPG or any other online medium. I'll write something up for my own law review when I don't make it on at Texas.
Sunday, May 11, 2003
I'm Allergic to the Goddam World
I want to start a literary feud. Look for my next post to be really really controversial and provocative.
Wednesday, May 07, 2003
A Bit of a Nightmare
Yesterday I was on campus for a choir practice (shut up) and had a few hours to kill, so I thought I'd go to the law library to study. So I trudged on over to the reading room and looked for a suitable place. But since all I was reading was the Crim primer, I didn't really want any actual law students to see me (because they'd either think I'm an overanxious 1L-to-be, which I guess I am, or a really lazy 1L who'd decided not to show up at school until exam week), so I headed toward the partioned carrels in the middle of the room. I was about to sit down when I noticed two things: 1) They all had litttle locked cabinets above them, and 2) They were all numbered.
At this point, I panicked. Are these carrels designated for some special purpose that was not included in my orientation materials? Could they all be assigned to somebody, maybe 3L's or Law Review editors or some secret society of LLM students that I don't know about? And if this is true, and I sit down at one, and the rightful owner were to come by, would they be upset with me? Could I face some sort of serious disciplinary action before even registering for a single class? Or would they prefer to keep the law school out of it, choosing instead to beat the ever living shit out of me using my own textbook as a bludgeon?
After standing motionless for about 30 seconds trying to complete the above inner monologue, I quickly retreated back to the library entrance. I thought pretty seriously about asking the librarian about the rules regarding the carrels, but was pretty sure that I would come out looking like an idiot no matter what the answer. So I left. This heat is really getting to me.
Additionally, I'm teaching three LSAT classes now. I've started dreaming in logic games. I haven't been sleeping well.
Monday, May 05, 2003
You Can Shove Your Law Preview Up Your BAR/BRI
BAR/BRI and Law Preview are filling up my mailbox with crap, and I'm pretty sure that they're a waste of time. Is there anything I could possibly get from these classes that I'm not getting from my own self-study in the E&E;'s? (Maybe a chance to meet other hyperanxious students, some of which will be girls?) And if someone does have a compelling reason for going to any content-focused prep program, which one did you like?
I am still considering LEEWS, but I don't know if I want to trek up to Dallas to take it or not. Any feelings on the tapes?
I have to admit that I stalled on my Crim reading because my last BookPeople trip also yielded:
--Harold Bloom's Hamlet: Poem Unlimited, which I've already finished, spurred on by Bloom's three-hour appearance on BookTV yesterday. A lot of people don't like Bloom, think he's too heavyhanded. But for me he does exactly what I need a critic to do: get me excited about reading. If you're looking for a re-entry into Shakespeare, his Shakespeare: The Invention of the Human is decidedly badass.
--Everything is Illuminated by Jonathan Safran Foer, which is pretty damn great so far. He has a lot of fun with words, and everyone who came in to B&N; to buy this was really excited about it. Which must mean it's good. B&N; customers are always really smart.
--I also got Dave Eggers' You Shall Know Our Velocity, which you can only order in hardback at the moment, and only from indy bookstores or the McSweeney's website. I'm saving it for last, but if you never read AHWOSG, you should.
Sunday, May 04, 2003
Cat Fights
Stayed up to watch ABC's coverage of the first Democratic primary debates last night, and it was actually more interesting than I thought it would be. Though most of the candidates managed not to make total asses out of themselves, a few things became clear:
A) Nobody like Howard Dean. All the 'mainstream' candidates seem to be pretty afraid of him, and they showed it last night. The first 10 minutes were almost entirely taken up by a little spat between Dean and Kerry over their war stances, and Gephardt and Lieberman got their shots in to.
B) Al Sharpton isn't as wacky as everybody seems to think he is. He gets written off as a goofball, but the point he made last night--that, like Jesse Jackson, his campaign has the potential to get thousands of nonvoters registered as Democrats--is certainly something to consider.
C) Dennis Kucinich is even wackier than everyone seems to think he is. Though he looked a little less Yoda-like last night, Kucinich came out with his Liberal Guns blazing, which was certainly refreshing to see, but I'm pretty sure that my cat would be more electable (sexual indiscretions notwithstanding).
D) John Edwards is the only one that can get this done. Gephardt looks too political, Kerry looks too much like Andrew Jackson, and Lieberman looks too much like the weird tapeworm guy from the second season of the X-Files. Edwards might not be quite as policy-savvy as the other guys, but he's plenty policy-savvy to go up against Bush. And even though Clinton isn't officially taking sides, I'm pretty sure he's advised Edwards to hit the books hard in the next several months.
Overall, I think it should be an exciting time. Bush's approval ratings alone aren't going to carry him (if only his war had happened a little later), so I'm hoping for another photo finish. I think this time we'll see record voter turnout and a showdown in Nevada for its all-important four electoral votes. Yee-haw.
Also, I just adopted two kittens, and I think they're about to electrocute themselves. I must go.
Thursday, May 01, 2003
Too Stupid to Live
Screwed up programming my VCR and missed the first 20 minutes of The West Wing. I was deeply saddened by this.
But while getting paid to proctor an LSAT diagnostic, I finished Double Billing, and it ended up being a really good read. It engendered the "Oh God, I Need to Keep My Loans Down So That I Can Work for the ACLU" kind of feelings I suspected that it might, as well as more than a few thoughts that the ad industry isn't all that bad, but overall it was a pretty hopeful message. Here's a theory I want to float: while reading the book, I continually got the feeling that Cameron Stracher (the author) might actually be Atticus Falcon of PLS fame. I don't have any hard proof, but it sort of makes sense to me, and there were a lot of phrasings that felt familiar. Any thoughts?
In other fun, the folks over at Apple have opened the ITunes music store. You buy full-quality MP3's for 99 cents a piece (discounts for most full albums) and it includes positive fair use rights...basically, you get to burn a billion mix CD's with it or put it on your IPod and not feel guilty. Not that people aren't doing this already, but it sounds like a decent start toward some sort of middle ground between filesharing enthusiasts and Lars Ulrich. And it fits right into ITunes, which is smooth, if a bit Big Brother.
Wednesday, April 30, 2003
No Laptops? That's like...Having No Laptops!
Well, it turns out that I'm bloody glad I didn't get into NYU, as I would have flunked out. Only a handful of profs are allowing computer-based exam taking, and this would doom me completely. There is no way that a professor, upon seeing my handwriting, could ever be persuaded that I deserved anything better than a C, which is my whole theory behind my very poor showing on the AP tests. (Some might argue that my falling asleep during all eight tests, none of which I had any real business taking, would have had an appreciable effect. I call these people 'Proctors'. Still, knowing that I got a 1 on the Spanish test, I'd really love to hear the tape of my oral expression portion of the exam.) That and the crippling carpal tunnel syndrome that shows up during written exams would have made that suck beyond all belief. Here's to going to a school with a badass IT department.
Sunday, April 27, 2003
Some Stuff
1. Though I like the notion of a tournament of judges in order to speed up judicial nominations and eliminate some of the political ickiness that pervades the process, I think America's needs would be better served by a Judicial Rap Battle.
2. Finally got waitlisted by NYU. This means I can stop checking their website three times a day to see if my SSN will get me access to the admitted students area. So now UCLA is the only school I haven't heard from. I'm sure they're just taking their time considering my request that Whore Money be added to my Total Financial Need.
3. I thought that my post on the 23rd was pretty freakin' funny. Apparently, I was pretty freakin' wrong.
4. Picked up Double Billing at BookPeople today, providing further proof that if you put the phrase "A Must Read for Law Students" anywhere on a book, I will buy it. I am a moron.
5. Started the E&E; on Criminal Law. It is much sexier than the Contracts E&E.; I am happy about this.
Friday, April 25, 2003
No Bush in Alabama
Check this out. If the democratically controlled Alabama legislature doesn't let a bill through to push back their deadline for nominating presidential candidates, Alabamans won't be able to vote for President Bush. Well, they'd be able to write him on, but that could present some serious challenges, since it's, you know, Alabama.
Wednesday, April 23, 2003
USNWR Releases Annual Ranking of Law School Ranking Systems
In an attempt to evaluate the increasing number of law school ranking systems being provided by various publications, professors, and judges, editors at U.S. News and World Report have just released their first annual Rankings of American Law School Rankings, and they expect it to be available on most newsstands by the end of the week.
"We just felt that American students deserved an objectively considered set of objective evaluations that rated, among other objectively chosen factors, the relative objectiveness of the various ranking systems' criteria for objectively determining law school quality," said a USNWR representative. She continued to explain that those criteria included overall popularity, as well as relative success rates in rhyming the ranking institution's name with "Blue Dress Views and Curled Bee Snort."
When asked about the fact that USNWR's popular annual rankings were the only rankings to be assigned to the topmost of the ranking rankings' seven tiers, the representative declined to comment, muttering something under her breath about 'player hating'.
As expected, the editors of nearly all the American rankings signed an open letter decrying the bias and inaccuracy of the USNWR Rankings Rankings:
"The absence of any consideration of [important intangible] factors, combined with the arbitrary weighting of numerical factors, makes ranking system ranking systems an unreliable guide to the differences among ranking systems that should be important to you."
The Ranking the Rankings issue will be available for $3.95, and includes a free CD-ROM from TestPrepPrep, the nation's leading provider of materials that help students prepare to choose a testprep company.
I'd Be Blogging, But The West Wing Is On
Will going to law school teach me to talk like Josh Lyman? If I toss in the MPP dual degree, could I sound like Toby? If not, could I at least make enough money to pay the cast of the show to live in my house and walk around having those conversations all day, maybe even pretending that I'm one of them? And if that doesn't work, will it at least get me enough influence to make congress pass a law requiring The West Wing to be on twenty-four hours a day?
Tuesday, April 22, 2003
LSAT Prep: Save the Money; Buy the Books
As someone whose only income at this time comes from teaching LSAT classes for a nationally-known testprep company, and who actually enjoys teaching said classes, I am, nonetheless, completely serious when I say the following:
For the love of God, do not take an LSAT prep course.
Everything that the testprep companies teach you in these courses is available in the off-the-shelf versions of their lesson books. And if you're with it enough to be surfing law-related weblogs, you're even better off with the store-bought versions because they don't get bogged down with the mind-numbing basics, moving instead right to the important stuff.
Additionally, the supposed bonus of having access to endless additional prep materials is totally bogus. I prepped more than anyone ever should, and I just barely finished the 20 preptests you can buy at Barnes & Noble. The 2 books of ten released preptests, plus Kaplan's LSAT 180 and any extra logic games you can get your hands on, are enough to keep even the most paranoid LSATeer busy, and you'll have in front of you everything you could ever learn from a commercial course.
Oh, and then there's the ONE THOUSAND dollars you could (potentially) be spending elsewhere. Like on freaking law school application fees. (As an aside, in my total paranoia about not getting in anywhere, I applied to 12 schools. Check it: $450 in app fees. I am a goddam moron.)
"But Mike," says my imaginary interlocutor, who happens to look a lot like Gwen Stefani,"what if I learn better from someone else, you know, explaining the strategies?"
Well, in that case, I'd say law school might not be the greatest choice. If you can't self-motivate enough to sit down by yourself and crank through the requisite number of preptests, I don't see how you're going to crank through cases. Even if you do look a lot like Gwen Stefani.
I suppose that if a supervisor of mine read this I would probably be fired. And that would suck. But the odds of a supervisor reading my blog are about the same of Gwen Stefani reading it, so I'll not worry.
...and the Prep Train chugs on...
Finished the Blum E&E; on Contracts and started working through Delaney's book. Moving through and briefing the cases in Learning Legal Reasoning has been relatively easy, but I can't help but think that it would have been roughly 6.73 times as hard if I hadn't taken the time to read the E&E;'s on Contracts and Torts. If nothing else, they're a painless way to absorb a lot of terminology, which has saved me a whole lot of thumbing through Black's. Of course, I'm glad to finally have a reason to own Black's which I bought, for some unknown but probably drug-related reason, my senior year in high school. Now I just need to find an excuse for my OED. It's the big, single-volume edition with nine pages shrunken down on each page in four-point type, and it comes with the big magnifying orb, which is way fun to use. Man. I love that thing. Man. I'm a loser.
Friday, April 18, 2003
No Money, Mo Problems
Finally got my financial aid package from UT, and got some bad news: for whatever reason, they've failed to classify me as a resident, which, at Texas, means a difference of like 15 grand a year. This, combined with very little in the way of grant assistance, did not make for a happy Mike. More of a confused Mike, really. I should be able to straighten it out with the Graduate Studies office (I'll have been living here a year without going to school, come June), but if I can't, that certainly cancels out a lot of the items in the positive column for Texas. Grrr.
On the positive side, I guess this means that I got accepted as a non-resident, which is like four times harder. I suppose that's a cool thing to know. But, that being said, I'd rather have the cash than the self esteem.
Monday, April 14, 2003
Mike for Military Governor of Iraq
It's been awhile since I've posted, mainly because...
A) My Mac died for a little while, which meant that I had to hook up the PC
B) Hooking up the PC meant that I could, once again, play Red Alert II
C) Playing Red Alert II turns me into a slobbering idiot, one unfit to interact with other humans, let alone practice law.
But the G4 is back online now (there's a teensy little black button on the motherboard you can press that resets the power something or other. Who knew?), and Red Alert II is safely deleted from the PC. So, I'm back. Here are the last week's thoughts, in no particular order:
1. Holy Crap...People Read This
Thanks for all of the comments on my ASD experience. As for the rather humble girl that I met at the opening remarks (who will be, hereafter, referred to as 'Gretchen', since that was her name), I actually looked for her for the rest of the day, but never saw her. Admittedly, I don't really remember much about her face, seeing as how I was blinded by her accomplishments. But she DID actually TALK to me, so a little bit of interest on my part is understandable, I think.
2. UC Davis is Neither Selective Nor Generous
Finally heard from Davis today. Though the letter was on nice stock and included a cute little handwritten note, they neglected to offer any sort of scholarship money, which I guess isn't much of a surprise, since they took four months to accept me. Now, understand, I don't think I actually deserved any money from Davis, nor do I intend to go there, but it would have been a nice thing to tell Gretchen the next time I saw her.
3. When I Grow Up, I Wanna Do Moot Court
A friend of mine who's a 1L at Texas this year asked if I'd be a timer for his moot court rounds, and I said sure because I don't really do anything else.
I liked it a whole bunch.
As a former debater, I have this built-in distaste for "lay judges", the normal, everyday, parent-type people that judged most local tournaments. Through no fault of their own, they didn't know much about debate and ran the gamut of the IQ spectrum. This distaste translates into a real fear of juries, and for much the same reasons. So, the idea of arguing only in front judges that know what you're talking about (usually better than you do) really appeals to me; for any other debaters out there, appellate work seems to me like like doing CX in front of flow judges and debating nothing but topicality and kritiks all the time. I could definitely live with that. (Incidentally, I've had several painful high school debate flashbacks as of late, mainly as a result of reading Disputation's blog.)
4. Sure, I'll Buy It
Got the Delaney books in the mail. Almost done with Blum's E&E; on Contracts. Now I'm worried that I shouldn't read anymore of the E&E; stuff (I bought like ALL of them while I was still getting my employee discount at Barnes & Noble) until I figure out what my first semester courses are going to be. Texas just decided to make Contracts a one semester course (is that freakin' beautiful or what?) and that's monkeyed around with scheduling a bit. As much as I'm looking forward to the Glannon book on CivPro, I don't want to read it until just before I'm actually taking the class. I know that buying all of this is probably excessive, but it will help to calm me before classes start. And maybe Gretchen will want to borrow some of them.
While I'm at it, any opinions on LEEWS? I'm thinking about just buying the tapes, so I can hit them in the summer. But actually taking the course would allow me to see just how many other people in my class were taking it, so I'm not sure. Any good/bad/vomitous experiences?
5. Wings & Vodka: The European Edition
As I've never been out of the United States (not even to Mexico), and am unlikely to get the chance one law shcool starts, I'm going with three high school friends to the UK for about three weeks. A week in London, a week hiking through Scotland, then to Ireland and KillarneyFest to see Counting Crows and the Cranberries. If all goes well, I might not even make it back for school, possibly living out my days as a cavedweller somewhere green and misty. All I really want to do is rent a BMW and drive around London pretending that I'm James Bond.
6. Don't Forget: Send in Your Deposits
So excited was I to have my taxes in on time that I almost forgot about the UT deposit due on the 16th. Don't forget to reserve your seat on the Crazy Law School Bus.
Saturday, April 05, 2003
"Continental Breakfast AND Free Fajitas? I'm in!"
Went to admitted students day at Texas yesterday. (I ended up skipping the social the night before...doesn't sound like I missed much.) These were the highlights for me:
1. While listening to the opening remarks from the dean, this girl comes in late and sits in the seat next to me. Within thirty seconds she has informed me that she not only got accepted to Boalt, Michigan, and Columbia, but that Michigan was really just a safety for her, even though they offerred her some 40 g's a year, and she decided not to bother with Boalt's admitted students weekend, since they didn't give her any money, which is why she's not wearing a nametag, because she registered late for Texas's thing. All this completely unsolicited and while the dean was still speaking. Very impressive.
2. The food was very good. A great fajita lunch (we're in Texas after all) and a breakfast spread that surpassed my expectations. Well done there.
3. Mock class was fun because the prof was really great. But it was pretty frightening to watch one hundred seemingly congenial people suddenly turn into vicious, handraising law students in a matter of seconds. It seems to me that gunnerism is a communicable disease that grows exponentially: the more people who raise their hands to think out loud and confuse the crap out of other students, the more other students feel the need to straighten everything out by doing the exact same thing. The Socratic method seems incredibly stressful to me, but for completely different reasons than I thought it would.
4. During lunch we heard from Medley, the law school a capella group that performs as a part of UT's Assault & Flattery show.
The amount of time put into this show is simply astounding, and you can find some of their songs
here.
5. Had I not been here before, the proceedings would have seemed very Texan. I'm not sure if that's good or bad. But what I had feared would be a class full of grads from Texas colleges is really a class full of Texans who went away for college and are coming back for law school. So that's neat.
All in all, it was plenty enjoyable. If I haven't heard from NYU by the 15th, I'm putting my deposit down and the game is over, dammit.
Wednesday, April 02, 2003
Mike Stalks Mailman; Mailman Sort of Likes It
I've heard whispers about NYU letters trickling out of Manhattan, and this has increased my anxiety just a bit. Okay, a lot.
Is it out of line to ask your mailman to check for anything addressed to you before he's finished doling out all of the mail? How about asking him as he's just pulling up to the apartment complex? Calling him before he leaves the sorting facility? Sitting outside of his house and asking if you can ride with him to work? These are important questions.
UT's Prospective Students weekend is this Thursday and Friday. I'm skipping the apartment hunt on Thursday, but I'm still on the fence about that evening's social. It's billed as a chance to get to know both current and future students, but I ask myself: What kind of 1L has time to go to a social like this during the week, and is that the kind of person that will make me feel good about my choice of law school? Furthermore, if this person is not preoccupied with scholarly duties during the week, does that mean that they're not really into law school, or that they're one of those very social types, perhaps so social that they would see an encounter in the back of my Subaru not as frightening and demeaning, but as a great Get-to-Know-You experience? Again, very important questions.
Took a running start at Contracts the other night with four good hours reading in the architecture library, and it's going much smoother this time. Came up with several estoppel puns that weren't very funny. Hated myself for awhile.
Bored the shit out of my LSAT class tonight, which happens whenever Reading Comprehension is one of the sections we're covering. Hated myself for that too, but they didn't quite fall asleep, so I suppose it could have been worse. Next time it should be better, because I get to bust out my Missy Elliot's Guide to the Contrapositive, which goes like this:
"If the rule is worth it, you should work it, put your thing down (your thing being the initial rule which looks something like "If A->B"), flip it, and reverse it."
If you don't think that's funny, well, you're probably right.
Thursday, March 27, 2003
Thoughts on the Campus
Though I've basically spent the last six years on and around the UT campus, it occured to me that I'd never actually been to the law school. So, yesterday I went.
I was looking for something along the lines of the Bathing Virgin Pool or the Office of Free Booze or at least some information on the school's Society for Unspeakably Beautiful Female Law Students Who Would Shag Mike if Sufficiently Inebriated (SUBFLSWWSMSI), but I wasn't able to locate any of them. What I did find was a lot of people watching the NCAA tourney on what was, admittedly, a very nice big-screen TV in the lounge. The classrooms were what I expected, and there's lots of nice outdoor sitting-around space, but I was pretty underwhelmed by the library and reading room. This, of course, has nothing to do with the actual quality of the library, since I wouldn't know the difference between, well, anything. It was more a reaction to the architecture and feel of the place compared to Michigan, which is totally unfair. I'm sure UT just used the money they could have spent on stained-glass windows to fund other, more important stuff. And if I really need the windows, I'll go and study at the architecture library.
In other news, I put down a deposit on a new apartment here in Austin (which should go a long way toward improving my chances at NYU). It's nice, really close to the law school, and has lots of built-in bookshelves. Everybody should definitely come over.
Monday, March 24, 2003
Nobody Likes Yale Anyway
Well, in the least surprising news of the day, I got dinged at Yale. I was hoping for some sort of clerical error in my favor, but the truth is that I only applied to Yale because they didn't require a letter from my dean. Besides, who would want to go to a school where they don't give any real grades and you're pretty much set for life upon graduation, forced to accept fabulously high-paying jobs and be forever connected to some of the most powerful people in the country? Certainly not this dude.
So now it's pretty much down to NYU. I've decided not to give Chicago any more chances to reject me, partly because the chances of me convincing a U of C girl to go to bed with me seem slimmer than my chances with a girl just about anywhere else, but mostly because I don't feel like wrtiting another essay. I don't think that NYU should admit me, but the more I look at things, the more they seem like LSAT whores, so who knows. The LSAC calculator has been fairly accurate for me thus far (especially if I chalk up the Northwestern waitlist to my lack of work experience), and it gives me an 87-96 chance at NYU. Keeping my toes crossed.
Had lunch with a UT 3L the other day. He seemed generally depressed about the job market for UT grads not in the Top 10%, which scared me, because I haven't been in the top 10% of anything since high school, and even then I was the absolute last person in the top 10%. So going somewhere where firms dig a bit deeper into the class would be sort of nice.
My newest project is figuring out which loan-bought laptop I'm going to buy. Dell is nice, but those Sony VAIO's are just so damn sexy. And even if the 16-inch display and DVD-RW combom drive set me back a few, you know what I always say: if you don't graduate with more than $200,000 in debt, you weren't trying hard enough.
Thursday, March 20, 2003
I Take That Back: War is Fucking SCARY.
Good lord. I sure hope that they really got Saddam with those cruise missile strikes. I just can't ignore the fact that if we have to take Baghdad by force, people are going to die. Like, lots of them. If I were the praying type, I'd be praying for the troops, but I'm not, so I just say "Come home safely, boys" to nobody in particular all the time.
Watching this, I'm all conflicted. Part of me wants to give Robert Byrd a hug and denounce a stupid war and grow out my hair and get pepper sprayed. But then part of me wants to down a six-pack, stand in the back of a pickup, and sing "Proud to Be an American" at the top of my lungs while shooting off a rifle. I guess that's what happens when you spend too much time in Austin.
Speaking of Austin, I spent a good two hours reading UT propaganda last night (mostly stuff from Leiter, both his ranking stuff and the How to Become a Law Professor hootie-hoo), and I'm feeling a lot more Texas than Michigan at the moment, which will probably only be reinforced by the Admitted Students Weekend next weekend. (Michigan's weekends are already full. Bastards. I'll have to make a visit on my own sometime.) I am confident that I'll meet several girls at ASW that are putting their careers as supermodels and/or Audrey Hepburn impersonators on hold to attend law school, and that they'll immediately be drawn in by the mysterious smirk I've been practicing all week. There should also be some decent food.
Taught my first LSAT class tonight. I teach for an unnamed, major, not Princeton Review, test prep company, and I'm doing a total of three different classes for the June test, so I'll have a pretty full plate. I really enjoy teaching in general, and this gives me a chance to get at least a little more out of the pointless LSAT mojo I accumulated last summer, as well as an opportunity to hit on undergrads (though company policy dictates that I not see students socially until AFTER their test, the fascists). They took their diagnostic test tonight, and looking at it, I was almost a little sad that I never have to do a logic games section again. Please don't tell anyone that. Especially not the Hepburn chicks.
Wednesday, March 19, 2003
War is AWESOME!
(actually from the night of the 17th...freakin...computers)
I was really excited about tonight, because I thought the gravity of the speech would inspire Bush to finally pronounce nuclear right. Oh well.
Has anyone ever entered law school while in a non-married/non-engaged relationship and graduated with that relationship intact? Ever? All I hear are horror stories.
I've spent most of the day looking at Michigan housing info. A huge part of the attraction is that I'd be able to start over and live like a college freshman again: dorms, few belongings, pre-paid meals, the joy of puking my guts out in a communal bathroom. If I stay here in Austin, I'll probably move, but just to another apartment closer to the law school, and there are no cafeterias at which I could get a meal plan. And I'd still have to clean up my own puke. I just like the idea of wiping the slate completely clean and moving to a state I've never even visited before to go to school where I don't know a single person. Well, the way things usually go for me, I'll probably know exactly one person, but it'll be somebody like the guy that used to sit next to me in sixth grade band, or my nextdoor neighbor's cousin that I met once, so it won't really count. So, yeah, the clean slate. 'Twould be nice.
Monday, March 17, 2003
Quilters Need Representation Too
Thanks all for the input on the Michigan dilemma. No mail from anyone else today, but already two other fat envelopes from Ann Arbor. I grow more conflicted as the minutes go by. But then I feel major anxiety when I have to choose between McDonald’s and Whataburger, so whatever.
Fun legal question: My mom owns a quilt shop in Vegas (sells fabric, patterns, notions—everything you need to make a quilt), and has a bit of a copyright problem. The question is this: when she purchases a commercially available quilt pattern, and then makes a quilt from it, can she sell it without paying royalties? If I look to, say, normal copyright law for this, and treat a quilt as a work of art like a play or a novel, then it seems that she’s creating a derivative work that would require permission of some sort. But if the process for putting the quilt together is looked at just like the process for, say, building a bridge, then it would seem that she’s in the clear, since only a patent for that particular method of construction would protect the inventor. But on must also consider the fact that there’s no way I could ever get chicks introducing myself as Mike the Quilt Shop Lawyer, so I should stop thinking about this immediately.
My next project is to work on my extra essay for U Chicago, which can be about either:
A) The SUV arms race and people getting bigger and bigger cars to be safe on the road,
B) B) Moral and ethical implications of representing a client that you know to be guilty,
or
C) A book I read.
I’m leaning toward the book topic, and if I’m serious about trying to get in, I’ll probably write about the Teddy Roosevelt bios or LBJ bios. If not, I’ll do something on The Gospel According to Ali G . Booyakasha.
Thursday, March 13, 2003
I Miss Bobby and J.R.
I'm headed to Dallas for four days or so. This should be plenty of time for my remaining schools to reject me, so that I might get on with my life. Thank you.
Wednesday, March 12, 2003
Michigan Lowers Standards; Chicago Lowers the Boom
Just got back from five Spring Breaky days in Vegas (never mind the fact that I'm out of school and don't get a spring break...I'm still close enough to UT that my biorhythms are synched with the kids), to find a whole lotta mail. In addition to the snappy new credit card and several Insufficient Funds Notices from my bank, I finally received the long-awaited hold notice from UChicago. This is not too terribly surprising, and I half-expected an outright rejection, but it still stings a bit. They've given me the "write an additional essay to show that you're serious and then we'll be able to laugh that much harder when we officially reject you" schpiel, which is nice. I'll probably write it, because I'd still love to go, but I'm not too keen on having to wait until June to know where I'm headed.
But just as I was about to cry over the Chicago news (much to the chagrin of the cat that hangs out by our mailboxes), I found a little parcel key hidden under a bunch of pizza coupons, and subsequently unlocked the admissions package from Michigan. I said 'Wahoo!'
Now, I have mixed emotions about Michigan. On the simplest level, getting in confirms that my UT admit wasn't a total fluke, and makes me feel wanted and loved, which is nice. Everyone I've read on PR freaking loves it there, and if I didn't have ties in Austin I'd probably join the Horde in seconds, if only to go somewhere new. But evaluating this in a SocialTie-less Vacuum, the question is this: Does Michigan's better reputation and quality outweigh the cheaper tuition and better weather down here? It occurs to me that I asked that question a few posts ago. How about this, though: Does Michigan's rep actually help me any if you consider the fact that I could possibly graduate much higher in my class at UT? Does the fact (I'm just wildly guessing here) that graduating top 50% at Michigan is the same as top 15% at UT help me at all if I would actually graduate either top 50% at Mich or to 15% at UT? These are pompous sounding questions, seeing as how I'll be damn lucky to graduate at all, but I wonder just the same. I love Texans, but I wonder if law school isn't more about the student body than anything else, and I worry that UT's 80% in-state rule yields a 1L class just slightly smarter than my last Shakespeare seminar (Prof: "Anyone agree with this claim that Hamlet knows he's being overheard?" Student: "Uh, there are two pigeons fucking on the window sill.") I'm not saying that I'm better than those people...I'm not. I'm the first one to point out fucking pigeons or fucking homeless people or whatever. Which is why I feel it's necessary to surround myself with the smartest people I possibly can. And if it comes down to that, maybe Michigan wins.
Thursday, March 06, 2003
From the People Who Brought You GW...
I need to get the hell out of Texas. Tonight, as embarrassing as it is, I had planned to watch Ed , even if it was a rerun, if only to gaze longingly at Julie Bowen for awhile. But I turn on the tellie and find out that Ed has been preempted by a televized hour of Billy Graham, who, apparently, was speaking in Dallas. Now, I could be wrong, because I didn't actually check, but I'm willing to bet that in LA or New York or Maine, if you tuned in to see Ed tonight, you actually saw Ed , and if you wanted to see Billy Graham, you were out of luck. Just a guess.
No exciting mail the last few days, save a nifty, handwritten postcard from a UT 1L inviting me to admitted students day. Now, I know that she probably mailed ten or twenty of these herself, but there's just something about the way she signed her name that makes me think that she'd like to make this more than just a Silly1LRopedIntoWritingPostcards/SemiDesirableRecruitCheckingHisMail relationship. Maybe even something beyond the GirlTryingtoActPolite/SociallyIneptStalkerGuy relationship. More on this as it develops.
Tuesday, March 04, 2003
And Another Thing
I've seen a lot of people, both in their blogs and on various boards, who are really really concerned with protecting their identity. I am not one of these people. I'm not saying that I don't understand their motives, and I don't think I'll be sharing anything that could get me arrested (mainly because I'm too lame to do anything that could get me arrested in the first place). But the fact that someone reading my blog can easily find out what school I'm going to, and knows my full name, only means three things to me: 1. I shouldn't trash people who I think might be able to beat me up. 2. I have a little more incentive to pay attention to the quality of my writing than I would were I able disavow it later (not that it helps). 3. If the right girl starts reading this and realizes that she wants to make sweet, lawyerly love to the author of these words, it'll be a lot easier for her to find my address.
I'm Going to Law School So I Can Kill My TV
I think I finally figured out what it is that bothers me so much about Bill "O'Reilly Factor" O'Reilly. It's not that he's a social conservative of the sort that makes me think I've accidentally been transported back to the fifties; I admit to listening to Limbaugh from time to time, and I think that, even though I disagree with him 90% of the time, Pat Buchanan is the most entertaining guy on TV (he totally said 'bullshit' on the air back in December...on MSNBC...it was sublime). And it's not because he insists on publishing a book every year that basically repeats the same set of opinions he recites over and over again on his show; Chris Matthews does the same thing, and I like him a whole bunch. Hell, it's not even the fact that he pretends to be a respectable journalist, knowing full well that we all remember him as the host of the very reputable Inside Edition ; if Jerry Springer started hosting a show on foreign affairs, I'd probably watch. (Discussion Question: Who would win a Springer stage brawl between Blair and Chirac, provided that Chirac temporarily forgot that he was French and decided to fight?). No, the reason I hate Bill O'Reilly with every morally bankrupt fiber of my being is that he is, with out a doubt, completely Humor Impaired.
The man cannot only not take a joke, he can't even detect a joke. Whether he's complaining about advertisers using Ludacris as a spokesperson, or advertisers using a porn star as a spokesperson, or stores carrying the products of advertisers who either Ludacris or a porn star as a spokesperson, Big Bill simply refuses to lighten up. And that's what makes his antics so hard to take. There are plenty of other TV personalities that are just as hard-headed as O'Reilly, who interrupt and make blanket assertions about what's right and true, but they've learned not to take themselves so incredibly seriously all of the time, and that makes them seem at least a little bit human.
Okay. This is boring. But the fact that that bastard can get me so pissed off really pisses me off, and I think I've finally figured out why. So, now I can finally stop watching his show and contributing to his overblown ratings. Thanks, Bill.
In other news, I've gotten none. UT has started sending out some financial aid offers, and if I don't get anything tommorrow I'm going to go ahead and accept that I won't be getting anything from them, which is sort of a bummer. Iowa offered me a full ride, and I'd totally consider it if it weren't, well, in Iowa. I've been to Iowa City once or twice (there was a time when I honestly planned on trying to get into the Iowa Writer's Workshop), and though it is a charming town, I would end up killing myself and not a few Iowans were I forced to stay there for three years. So, I was sort of hoping that UT would come through. Bah.
For those who care, here's my essential admittance info:
3.1/179. No real work experience. Two LOR's that are solid but not from senators or anything. Strong EC's. A white boy with no compelling life story.
In: Texas, Iowa $$$, BC, UNLV $$$
Out: Boalt
Waitlisted: Northwestern
Still Waiting On: Yale, NYU, Chicago, Michigan, UCLA, UCDavis
I'm obviously not going to get into Yale, and I'll probably get into Davis and UCLA, but I don't really want to go to either of those now that I've gotten into Texas. So, that really only leaves Chicago and NYU, which are distant hopes, and Michigan. While I'd say that if I got into NYU or Chicago I'd pretty much go automatically, I don't know that I feel quite the same way about Michigan. If Michigan takes me, which I put at something like a 62% probability at this point, I'd be weighing their (depending on who you talk to) significantly/slightly better national rep and academic quality against cheaper tuition and infinitely better weather in Texas. If Michigan let's me in I'll have to at least visit, and if I can make it through two days there with out losing my mind in the cold, then maybe it'll be okay. Of course, I'd be visiting in like April. But it'll probably still be cold enough to scare me away. Because you know what they say: "Born in the desert, raised in the desert, bound to live in eternal fear of ice and snow even if means sacrificing an important career opportunity."
Monday, March 03, 2003
I am a Book Whore
Today was my next-to-last ever shift at Barnes & Noble. After working there off an on for something like seven years, I think this will be the last time I ever live the life of the Wage Warrior. At least until I burn out at forty and take some time off to go to Tibet, where I'll fall in love with the exiled lady president of some as-of-yet nonexistent South Asian country and spend all of my savings trying to buy back her children. After that I'll probably need the bookselling job. But for now I'm content to start accruing that fabulous debt everyone's been talking about.
The one nice part about being a bookstore slave is that I manage to spend roughly 30% of my day reading on the sly, and another 40% of it looking up and ordering books that I might consider wanting to look at someday, but will probably just send back to the warehouse. Most of these, at least these days, are books that I just know are going to give me that killer edge in law school, because even though they sell thousands of copies every year, I'm sure nobody at my law school will have heard of them. Thanks to Planet Law School, a book of the "I Did Alright in Law School But Here's All of the Stuff I Wish I'd Done Even Though I Have No Proof That It'll Work" variety (not to be confused with books of the "What I Really Wanted to be was a Novelist But I Didn't Have Any Decent Material So I Went to Law School and Wrote About It" variety, which I despise simply because nobody will ever advance me thousands of dollars to write one, though that doesn't stop me from reading all of them), I've ordered the Examples and Explanations books for every single first-year class, along with the Gilbert's outlines for most of them as well. I know that this is stupid, but let me explain.
The PLS thesis is that by starting with basic explanations of the law and slowly working up through outlines, by the time you get to the actual cases, everything will be a snap. It's based on the idea that law professors try to make everything hard for no reason, and that these awesome commercial tools are your secret defense against the Black Arts. This all made sense to me in December, and was reinforced by the fact that the Examples & Explanations volume on Torts, by Joseph Glannon, is an awesome read. It's well organized, clear, and he's freakin' funny, or at least as funny as a law professor could be. So, after flying through that book, I was like: "This is easy. I am going to crush law school under my mighty over-prepared boot. I cannot lose! BWAHAHAHAHA!!"
And then I got to the contracts book.
I can now see the virtue of the case method. Beyond the whole 'teaches you to think' exam-prep thing, I now feel that the slogging through one case at a time to learn rules is what makes it doable. Trying to learn contract law from the outlines was like trying to, well, learn contract law from an outline. Too fast for this little brain. As much as I'd like to speed through it, I need time to chew on this crap.
Oh well. So, I've got $300 worth of outlines and primers chilling on my kitchen table, and maybe I'll refer to them when it comes exam time. But for now I'm going to wait and hit the cases myself. At least I bought it all while I still have that employee discount.
Wednesday, February 26, 2003
Sam Boyd, Part II: They Called My House and Stuff
Got a message from a UNLV prof today, calling to give me her schpiel (schpelling?). She acknowledged the fact that I'd probably gotten in a few other places, but wanted a shot at telling me why UNLV offers something a little different. I must say, I'm weirded out that she would go through the trouble of calling me. Well, I'm mainly weirded out that any girl would call me, even one in her fifties that teaches at UNLV. So, I'll definitely call back. Maybe we could have coffee or something.
Having decided that I know exactly dick about economics, I've started doing some reading, revisiting my econ texts from the freshman classes I didn't go to, and grabbing some neat public policy and globalization books I found whilst on the clock at Barnes & Noble. You know, working at a bookstore is really the only minimum wage job to have. If it paid, say, ten bucks an hour, I don't think I'd be going to law school; from what I can tell, lawyers don't really get to shop as they work. Unless you count scoping out other attorney's suits, which I don't.
Tuesday, February 25, 2003
Sam Boyd School of Law: Not Just For Hookers Anymore
After narrowly escaping death at the hands of an icy sidewalk tonight (I wiped out in front of three children and I think they almost expected me to cry, which I did, once safely inside my house, thank you very much), I got a call from my mom, letting me know that I'd been admitted to the University of Nevada Las Vegas's Sam Boyd School of Law, with a full scholarship . Needless to say, I peed myself.
Some might wonder what I was doing applying to a fifth-tier school in the first place, and that would be understandable. I guess it had something to do with me growing up in Vegas, and a little to do with me being afraid that I'd get rejected at all of the real schools, and a lot to do with hoping that a spot on the basketball team would be part of my financial aid package. Whatever the reason, it feels good to get love from my hometown.
And though I don't really see myself going at this point, I have to at least think about the fact that I could go to UNLV, live with my parents, and graduate from law school completely debt-free. I could stare blankly at my contracts reading while playing Scrabble with my grandmother, and maybe even host really swell socials at my house, where my professors would get a chance to talk to my parents about how I was performing in class. Hell, maybe I could even get my mom to drive me to school and pack a lunch and stuff. Man. That would be awesome. I'll have to sleep on it.
Boalt Class of '06 Just Got Way Less Sexy
So, I got my first outright rejection today. I certainly wasn't surprised that Boalt didn't want me, their reputation for actually caring about things like GPA in particular and academic promise in general being well-known. But I'd been clinging to the hope that my college had accidentally misreported my grades and, while they were at it, mistakenly mentioned that I'd been both a Rhodes Scholar and a Vietnam vet. This, it seems, did not happen.
I'm alright though. I know their decision has more to do with how distracting I'd be for the ladies than it does my complete lack of work experience or community service. Besides, Texas has taken me, and even though I'm still holding out for either Chicago or NYU, I calm myself by saying things like "Mike, you don't want to live where there is snow. Snow is frightening." Which is true...except that it's FUCKING SNOWING in Austin right now.
Keep hope alive.
