one of these is not like the others

Picture a group of nervous 1L's, sitting around after civ pro class (which, incidently, did much to assuage the penguin-feelings described below).

Stressbunny #1: What are you doing this weekend? I guess I am gonna study federal subject matter jurisdiction.

Stressbunny #2: Oh, me too, just studying.

Stressbunny #3: Yeah, I was going to go away, but I'm like gonna hit the books instead.

Stressbunny #4: Yeah. I like totally have to memorize civil procedure this weekend. (Turning to me) How about you?

Me: (shrug) I'm going river rafting this weekend.

All stressbunnies: (silence, shifting of feet)

Stressbunny #4: Are you gonna bring your books?

And with that, I am out of here until late Monday night. Have a good Labor Day weekend, all!

i think it's english, but i'm not sure

I feel like a penguin.

I leave it as an exercise for the reader to determine which penguin represents my brain and which penguin represents the 25 pages of my civil procedure textbook that I just read.

(Thanks to R. for providing the very appropriate penguin link.)

what would you do?

I wasn't kidding when I said that there was a lot of drama in my criminal law course.

Consider The Queen v. Dudley & Stephens. The case was brought before the British crown in 1884, and was the O.J. Simpson trial of its day.

Dudley, Stephens, and Brooks were sailors that were forced to abandon ship. They, along with a seventeen-year-old boy, Parker, were set adrift in a lifeboat. They floated for days with almost no food. Finally, after seven days without food, eighteen days after they were set adrift, and all four near death, Dudley and Stephens slit the throat of the boy, Parker. When he was killed, Parker was by far the weakest and lay dying on the bottom of the boat. The three older men had previously discussed drawing lots, but they then discussed how much weaker Parker was, and also how they had families. Brooks was against it, but didn't, as the record notes, refuse to drink his blood after he was killed, nor did he make a move to stop the killing. For four more days, they lived off of the blood and body of Parker. It was accepted that if they had not killed Parker, all four men would have died.

After those four days, Dudley, Stephens and Brooks were picked up by a passing boat. They were arrested when they were returned to England and put on trial for murder.

Guilty or not guilty of murder? If guilty, what is a just punishment?

The court found them guilty, ruling that taking the life of an innocent is not justified under any circumstances. Dudley and Stephens were sentenced to death.

flexibility is a human trait

As some of you might know, I live a considerable distance from my law school. I have a tiny room near the school where I spend some nights during the work week to avoid a multi-hour commute.

This schedule, while useful for studying, requires flexibility. My husband and I are managing as well as we had hoped so far. This morning, however, I found evidence that not all parties who live with this schedule are satisfied.

We share our home with three cats, two of which are normal, happy cats, and the third of which could politely be termed highly sensitive.

I was home last night, after spending Sunday and Monday nights at school. The cats were all happy to see me, and C. and I were relieved at the lack of apparent distress over this change in routine.

Then I picked up my shoe this morning and noticed something move. You've probably guessed where this is going already, so I'll spare you the details. Let us just say that one of the cats, despite access to perfectly clean litter boxes, had left one small, round present.

I wondered, as I sat there with the disinfectant, at the malice that led him -- and I'm sure it's our male cat -- to maneuver his furry little derrière just so, aiming precisely and perfectly for the opening of my shoe. Did he contemplate the act all evening? Did he pick the left shoe for a reason? If this method of deterrence does not work, will he escalate?

the schedule

I had a request via email as to what classes I am taking this semester. So, for the interested, here they are:

Contracts
Civil Procedure
Property
Criminal Law
Legal Writing and Research

That last class hasn't started yet though.

So far, I like Property the best. The professor is very clear and approachable, and the subject matter is fascinating. Property law is often old, since some of the most fundamental cases date from the creation of the United States, so this class is also something of a history of the United States. I can't wait until we start discussing software law and intellectual property, though I don't think we'll get into it too much this semester. Still, though, as I read the old cases I can't help but think of how they would apply to code that I've written or items that I've bought or created.

Criminal Law is dramatic, but I've only had one class so far so I can't evaluate it too much. I'm procrastinating on the reading for Criminal Law as we speak, actually, so I should have more data after tomorrow.

Contracts, well, we'll see. So far I haven't really sunk my teeth into it. And, to be honest, reading the Uniform Commercial Code is not really thrilling.

Civil procedure is hard, I think the hardest of all my classes. The material is very dense. It reminds me a lot of my computer architecture courses in college: it's the building block upon which everything else is based, but it's often arcane, seemingly random, and has a language which isn't as approachable as the higher-level languages. Plus the professor is scary. Today somebody came in late to class and he halted the entire class while that poor soul found her seat and got out her books and laptop. I will never, ever be late to that class.

humor is all relative

Public Service Announcement:

Do not joke about contracts. Specifically, do not write out sentences such as "We hereby agree to sell to W.O. Lucy the Ferguson Farm complete for $50,000.00, title satisfactory to buyer" as a joke, even if you're drunk when you write it and you write it on the back of a bar napkin. Do not go and get your wife, the co-owner of said Ferguson Farm, to sign the napkin, all as part of your funny, funny joke.

This is a bad idea, because, sad to say, judges might not think you are making a funny. They may say, in effect, "Mr. Zehmer, I do not like your joke. I do not think you are making a funny ha-ha." This might be bad for you if you want to, say, hold on to your farm instead of sell it for $50,000.

Just keep that in mind next time you're in a bar and you inexplicably feel the urge to write sentences such as the one above because you're such a funny jokester.

This public service announcement brought to you courtesy of Lucy v. Zehmer and my contracts class this morning.

thank goodness it's friday

I finished my first week of classes and I am headed home for some rest and relaxation, and, it must be admitted, a little bit of reading for Contracts which I just can't concentrate on right now. It's sunny, and my brain is full.

For those of you whose phone calls I have been ignoring for the past few days (hi Mom), I will be calling you all this weekend. Apologies for the disappearing act.

And finally, thanks to all of you who dropped me cheery mail or sent me good wishes. I really appreciate the support.

I'm off for the weekend. Everybody, enjoy your weekends!

the law of discovery

Engineers, as a rule, are not compulsively early to meetings or classes. Being too early is, after all, an inefficient use of time.

Figuring that it wouldn't do to be late on my first day of class, I arrived a full six minutes early, a copious amount of time in my view. You can imagine my horror, then, when I opened the door to the civil procedure classroom and found a) the professor standing silently at the front of the room and b) almost every single seat in the classroom taken.

I panicked. I thought perhaps my clock had been wrong, and clattered noisily into the nearest seat as quickly as possible. The entire class and the professor watched impassively. I spilled my hairbrush and some pens out of my bag in my hurry to unpack, but as I bent over to gather them up I realized that nobody was saying anything. Not the professor, not the students, nobody. So I took a deep breath, and opened my laptop and waited. Silence. We all waited, professor staring at students, and students staring back.

At precisely 9:40 am, Prof. Civ Pro started talking and my law school career began.

Civil procedure passed in a haze. Though friendly enough, Prof. Civ Pro is old-fashioned, which means we are addressed with our last names, and he engages in classic Socratic discussion. This, combined with the subject matter, means I'm utterly terrified of this class, but it was only one hour today, and I managed to not call any further attention to myself before I escaped off to my next class.

Property is a two hour class, but it was a totally different experience. For one thing, I went to class twenty minutes early, along with most of the other students. I wonder at these alien people who arrive at a class 20 minutes before it begins, but since that seems to be the rule of the place, I joined them for property. Prof. Property also engages in Socratic discussion, but so far it appears to be a kinder, gentler Socratic discussion. Furthermore, I find Property inherently fascinating, and the class went by so quickly that I was surprised when the professor said that time was up.

I could write for hours about my experiences today alone, but fortunately for you, I've been studying for hours tonight already and my little brain can't take any more. 'Night, all.

last day of freedom

Classes start tomorrow, but I had today off. Following Dylan's lead, I spent my day of freedom at the beach.

I brought trashy, lighthearted books, a big bottle of water, lots of sunscreen, and let myself bake in the sand next to the crashing waves for hours on end.

At sunset, I walked along the seashore, watching the waves and the cavorting sea otters, and I finished the day with some of the best gelato on the planet: chocolate chip mint made with fresh mint leaves and Donnelly's Chocolate chips.

Wish me luck tomorrow!

i'm home, i'm home

After the property classlet, I skipped out on the rest of today's orientation, finished all my reading for the week, and then headed home.

It's really, really nice to be home. Cats, husband, and me are all happy.

class preparation is always good

Today my school held a series of introductory classes to teach students how to brief cases and how to prepare for class.

It was very useful to me, but not for the reasons the professor envisioned. We were supposed to read a very famous Property case, Pierson v. Post, which is, as I discovered later, mercifully short. It is also the second case in my Property book, rather than the first.

I instead read, and briefed, the first case in my book, a much longer case. It took me hours, and I was beginning to panic at the prospect of having a professor who assigned such a case for her fake introductory class.

I'm glad I learned how it feels to come to class unprepared on a practice class, not a real one. It was not a pleasant sensation.

it's finally begun!

I have so much to tell you all!

Today was orientation at my law school. I have been nervous and antsy for days now, worried that I made a foolish decision and that I was about to learn how wrong I was. I haven't been sleeping well, and I've dreamt that I was back in high school three times in the past week. Believe me, there are few subconscious punishments worse than three nights of high school dreams.

Today, though, that is all behind me. I'm sure I'll question my decision-making skills many times in the upcoming months, but at least I can base it on something solid, rather than a vague idea of what law school really is. We started, finally.

The day started with talk, talk, and more talk. Not surprisingly, perhaps, my law professors are far more talkative than my engineering professors were. Fortunately, they are also somewhat more eloquent. A few interesting things I learned about my classmates: The age range is 19-51, with 24 being the median (yay, I'm not THAT far off the median). They are 52% female, 48% male (weird to be in the majority for once). 30% have advanced degrees (yay, I'm not the only one who is a grad school junkie). The vast majority, perhaps 25%, were political science undergrads. The percentage of engineering degrees was pretty small, maybe 1% or 2%, but I'm not the only one.

In fact, I know for sure I'm not the only one. Perhaps the small section assignments (our Legal Writing and Research sections) are not just random, but I unexpectedly found another software engineer, an Indian woman who has been a programmer for years. We talked Java, C, and C++ together, including my passionate dislike of the latter. We probably know the same people. She went to law school for much the same reasons as I did, and I am absolutely delighted that I met her.

In the gratuitous ego-stroking category, I was pleasantly pleased and surprised by the number of people who asked me what my undergrad school was as though I had just graduated the previous year, and had the decency to at least pretend they were surprised when I said I had graduated several years previously.

And finally, I have homework! I feel like a runner who has finally heard the starting gun. I'm not dancing around the start line any more. I've begun the race.

maybe it's not all bad

After a long, long day, C. and I are sitting at home, splitting a bottle of Chianti, listening to music, with the doors wide open to the summer night. It is sublime.

The earlier part of the day was not as relaxing. Today we drove to school, moved boxes into my little apartment, drove to Ikea, bought a desk and bookshelves, drove back, dropped those purchases off at the apartment, drove to my parents' home, picked up an extra futon they have, drove it back to the apartment, and then finally, finally, we drove home.

I needed the Chianti, or perhaps Bob Holroyd. I found the entire day overwhelming.

For one thing, I'd never been to Ikea before. It was thought-provoking and at the same time utterly numbing. As we went through row after row of cheap furniture, produced in either China or Thailand, with woods of questionable origin, I could not help but wonder about the human suffering and environmental degradation that I was buying along with my $49 bookshelves.

Yet, at the same time, C. and I both noticed the ten to twenty unique languages we heard spoken by our fellow pilgrims to the altar of cheap wooden goods. We heard various Eastern European languages, Russian, Spanish, a few different Indian dialects (well, we guessed they were different), Arabic, and even some sort of African language. I saw a car with a Namibia bumper sticker and one with a Colombian flag license plate frame. We saw women in saris, women in hajib, men in turbans, and then plenty of people of all different ethic backgrounds in blue jeans and t-shirts. Here were native-born Americans and immigrants from all over the world, more or less co-existing in harmony, all focused on the allure of Ikea pressboard.

I thought it was all rather remarkable.

big day today

Wow. This is really happening. After years of considering it, two years of applications and the LSAT and eventually a tough decision to really go, it's started. Today I got my schedule and I got my books.

My schedule is really good, I think. I think it's the best one I could have out of all the sections. My classes start at either 9:40 or 10:40, so late enough to study or work out in the morning before class, and they're done by about 3:00 pm on all but one day. The best part is that on Wednesday I don't start until the early afternoon, which means that I can go home to my husband on Tuesday nights. I was afraid that I wouldn't be able to go home at all during the week.

At first, this schedule seemed positively luxurious with time. I thought was that they were missing a class, that there was no way that this was my entire schedule. After years of work in engineering, a schedule that started around 10:00 am and ended around 3:00 pm seemed practically frivolous.

Of course, my quickly following second thought was that they didn't mention the four hours of study time needed for one hour of class time in the schedule.

I didn't meet any other students formally, but the ones that I passed as I was milling around the posted sections and reading assignments smiled and nodded at me. I take that as a good sign.

the power of words

I reread the entry below after I wrote it. Up until that point, I was perfectly comfortable in my laziness. I had no problem procrastinating on my packing and putting off my preparations. I was happy.

Then I read my entry describing my laziness, and suddenly it wasn't as much fun. I think being lazy is inherently a private, guilty pleasure; tell people about it, and it becomes stressful rather than enjoyable.

So, after I posted that entry I did the following:

• packed up all towels, sheets, and blankets for my apartment
• prepared a box of items that I've been collecting for charity
• unpacked four boxes of random dishware that we've hauled from move to move
• prepared the majority of those four boxes for donation to charity
• cleaned the kitchen
• packed up a bunch of glasses/plates for my apartment
• started a load of laundry
• went to a spinning class

Then we walked downtown for a lovely dinner with some good friends.

All in all, a very good end-of-summer day.

my last day of summer vacation

Tomorrow, everything begins.

Tomorrow I head into school to pick up my textbooks. I get my schedule. I start the process of moving into my little hole in the wall near the school. I meet my classmates.

I wish that I could say that I spent today doing appropriate, last-day-of-summer activities like going to the beach or going hiking or somesuch. I've done all of that during my time off. But today I didn't. I have mostly spent the day packing up stuff, catching up on email, and all together being supremely lazy. I did work out, but that seems to have taken my energy for the day. At least we are meeting friends for dinner tonight, to celebrate my last-day-of-summer.

I think it's time to start school.

security experts they aren't

My school's website has a section that is designated for admitted students. When I received my offer of admission, I received a login/password to this area of the website. It was an appropriately complex password and an unusual login name, so I didn't think anything of it.

Until this morning. I had received email yesterday stating that our class schedules would be up at the end of this week, and we could check the admitted student website to find out what section we would be in. Since my offer of admission had long since disappeared into the paper black hole we have in this house, I called the admissions office.

Me: "Hi, I'm an incoming student, and I have lost my login..."

He interrupts me: "Oh, okay, it's [login name], and the password is [xxxxxxxx]."

Me: "Uh, okay. Thanks". I hang up.

I suppose that it's fortunate that the admitted students webpage mostly consists of boring forms that we have to fill out before they take our money.

meetings, meetings, and more meetings

I have now received two special invitations for events at my law school. One is a welcome reception for new students aged 28 and older. I'm curious about my fellow returnees, and I'm planning to go.

The other invitation isn't really for me, actually. It's for my husband. It's a panel and discussion forum that's politely called Understanding the Law School Experience. I wonder if they meant to title it Understanding the Law School Experience: How to Live With a Neurotic Law Student Without Committing a Capital Offense.

I think we'll attend this session, but I hope to keep a sense of humor about it. If it's a panel full of deeply sensitive couples discussing their deep, heartfelt relationship issues, I think we'll need as much humor as we can muster.

i'm easily entertained

Blogging is fun. I've wasted an inordinate amount of time (as much as one can waste time on summer vacation, I suppose) on fooling with colors and links and format.

This, for example, is a largely contentless entry created solely for the purpose of trying out buddy list blog entry creation.

so it begins

I've joined the madding crowd. Blogging is the It thing to do these days, the personal webpage of the 2000s. Of course the pioneers gnash their teeth at the addition of the unclean masses. But I had a home page in 1994, so I can at least pretend that I was hip once too.

The subject of this journal is intended to be my journey from engineering to law, and all the twists on the road I encounter on the way. I'm largely interested in keeping my friends and family up to date with what I'm doing, though of course any unknown readers will always be welcome.

For now, I'm going to keep this relatively anonymous. I may change my mind later, but since my current audience is a) extremely small, and b) knows me well already, I don't see much advantage to revealing all online. Besides which, I'm going to be attending school with a bunch of future lawyers, which means I should probably start paying attention to what I say.

Here's to the first step.