My law review submission isn't totally done yet. The submission packet
requires excessive amounts of copies and I still have to check all my
citations again, but I'm over the hump as far as the majority of the
work.
A few days before I started on my entry, Heidi wrote an entry about how isolating
she found the write-on competition at her school. I hadn't started yet
on my submission, but I'm glad she wrote it. It was a good warning.
The write-on submission has been hard, not so much because of the topic
or the citations but because it's such lonely work. As Heidi said, it's
isolating. The rules of the competition forbid discussion with
anybody about anything law review. The most I have managed is a vague
complaint about the amount of work and there's only so much generic,
unidentified whining that can be done in a conversation.
Until I was forbidden from any legal conversation I hadn't realized how
much I talked about law with my friends on a daily basis. While I miss
the serious conversations in which we puzzled out new areas of law, I
miss the jokes about a tort case or mock despair at the intricacies of
civil procedure more. It's the daily interaction that I miss.
I didn't expect to run into this. I'm a solo studier. I never jointly
prepared an outline or a brief, never joined any official study groups,
and never went to any of the discussion groups or review sessions that
my school offers. The only "official" joint studying that I did was
practice exams: whenever I took a practice exam, I scheduled it for
when one or more of my classmates was taking it and we discussed the
results.
But what I realize now is that while I didn't do any official joint
studying, I engaged in a tremendous amount of informal interaction that
undoubtedly helped me learn during the year. As I wrote earlier, I liked my classmates,
and I regularly chatted with most of them. I shared my outlined topics
and notes freely with those who asked, and my classmates likewise shared back where
I had questions. It wasn't formal, but, I realize now, it was
substantial.
I suspect I would make a very bad novice nun in an order that has taken
a vow of silence. I'm ready to throw in the towel after a week in which
conversation is forbidden on one topic only. Very, very bad silent nun
material.
Sunday, May 30, 2004
Wednesday, May 26, 2004
maintaining general radio silence
Sorry about the lack of posts over the past few days. I'm trying to
finish this dang write-on paper, and I find my rate of work increases
proportionally to the time I spend with my wireless off.
Saturday, May 22, 2004
not quite finished
Law school dribbles out its endings. Someday I'll graduate, but rather
than being "Done!" I will be "Done, except for the bar review classes
which start on Monday and oh by the way you don't get your bar results
for six months after you take the test. But, ha ha ha, you can graduate
today anyhow."
Not as satisfying as a regular graduation, I think.
Right now I'm working on my law review write-on submission. Even though 1L year finals are over, law school isn't over for another few days. Dribble, dribble.
Law review is a peculiar law school tradition. Each school produces a series of scholarly journals which are run and managed by law students. It is considered a prestigious, resume-building activity while simultaneously it is considered by many to be excruciatingly boring work. A 1L can "make review" by either grading on (being one of the top students in the class), writing on (writing one of the top papers) or a mix of both (not quite the best paper, not quite the top grades, but together a strong candidate).
Perhaps I'm naïve, but I think I'd like it. My biggest frustration with Moot Court was the paternalistic legal sandbox the entire affair took place in. We weren't allowed to move beyond the strict confines of what my Moot Court professor considered appropriate. In law review, the form of the citations is strict (and admittedly a huge amount of work is checking on these citations), but the topics, the papers we read and work on, are wide-ranging and not subject to the same artificial intellectual barriers.
We'll see. Before I can make that assessment I have to make review. Before I can make review, I have to finish this paper. Before I can finish this paper, I have to start it.
Not as satisfying as a regular graduation, I think.
Right now I'm working on my law review write-on submission. Even though 1L year finals are over, law school isn't over for another few days. Dribble, dribble.
Law review is a peculiar law school tradition. Each school produces a series of scholarly journals which are run and managed by law students. It is considered a prestigious, resume-building activity while simultaneously it is considered by many to be excruciatingly boring work. A 1L can "make review" by either grading on (being one of the top students in the class), writing on (writing one of the top papers) or a mix of both (not quite the best paper, not quite the top grades, but together a strong candidate).
Perhaps I'm naïve, but I think I'd like it. My biggest frustration with Moot Court was the paternalistic legal sandbox the entire affair took place in. We weren't allowed to move beyond the strict confines of what my Moot Court professor considered appropriate. In law review, the form of the citations is strict (and admittedly a huge amount of work is checking on these citations), but the topics, the papers we read and work on, are wide-ranging and not subject to the same artificial intellectual barriers.
We'll see. Before I can make that assessment I have to make review. Before I can make review, I have to finish this paper. Before I can finish this paper, I have to start it.
Thursday, May 20, 2004
recovering from finals
What I planned to do today
1. Work out.
2. Go grocery shopping.
3. Start reading the law review write-on that's due in a week and a half.
4. Get a pedicure.
5. Clean office which is a mess from the two months of finals preparation.
6. Catch up on email.
7. Go to the library to get new fiction reading.
What I did today
1. Napped for three and a half hours.
1. Work out.
2. Go grocery shopping.
3. Start reading the law review write-on that's due in a week and a half.
4. Get a pedicure.
5. Clean office which is a mess from the two months of finals preparation.
6. Catch up on email.
7. Go to the library to get new fiction reading.
What I did today
1. Napped for three and a half hours.
Wednesday, May 19, 2004
poof
I am now a 2L.
With the last click of the keyboard, I finished my first year of law school. My Contracts exam was hard, but by this stage in the exam cycle, I'm mostly just relieved to have it over. Exam season is a long and tiring haul.
But, as my friends and I were musing during the post-exam section party yesterday evening, we're sad that it's over too. We're all happy to get our lives back, to start our summer work, which for most of us is the first legal work we've ever done, to read fiction, to see friends and family, and to waste time with abandon rather than guilt. Yet the end of such an intense experience is tinged with a little melancholy. We'll go on to take more classes, and eventually the bar, but we won't be together in the same room day after day, class after class, wrestling down new, huge, and vastly complicated subjects, learning something utterly unfamiliar every day. We'll always find novel things to learn about the law, but the newness and intensity of the 1L experience is a single-ride ticket.
Yesterday at the party there were more than a few semi-sober toasts to our 1L year. "We did it," somebody would say, and there were grins and cheers all around.
I think I'm the last of the 1L bloggers that I read to finish up. Cheers. We did it.
With the last click of the keyboard, I finished my first year of law school. My Contracts exam was hard, but by this stage in the exam cycle, I'm mostly just relieved to have it over. Exam season is a long and tiring haul.
But, as my friends and I were musing during the post-exam section party yesterday evening, we're sad that it's over too. We're all happy to get our lives back, to start our summer work, which for most of us is the first legal work we've ever done, to read fiction, to see friends and family, and to waste time with abandon rather than guilt. Yet the end of such an intense experience is tinged with a little melancholy. We'll go on to take more classes, and eventually the bar, but we won't be together in the same room day after day, class after class, wrestling down new, huge, and vastly complicated subjects, learning something utterly unfamiliar every day. We'll always find novel things to learn about the law, but the newness and intensity of the 1L experience is a single-ride ticket.
Yesterday at the party there were more than a few semi-sober toasts to our 1L year. "We did it," somebody would say, and there were grins and cheers all around.
I think I'm the last of the 1L bloggers that I read to finish up. Cheers. We did it.
Monday, May 17, 2004
book selling
For those that sell textbooks back, have any of you had luck with using
eBay or Amazon? My bookstore has abysmal book buyback rates and I think
I'd have better luck online. Is it better to hold onto the books and
sell them in August when next year's 1Ls are beginning?
Saturday, May 15, 2004
what i learned today
Now that I'm in law school I've had Shakespeare's famous quote
regarding lawyers quoted at me several times, usually by people
intending to make a joke. The first thing we do, let's kill all the lawyers.
(A helpful side note to those considering telling me this quote:
anybody who has anything to do with law has heard this quote about two
bazillion times by the end of their first few months in law school. You
are not original in quoting it. You are not even remotely funny because
any humor associated with the quote disappeared after, oh, the
twentieth time. Now when I hear it I tune out and start thinking about
chocolate. Mmm. Chocolate.)
Anyhow, after awhile I began to wonder about it. I thought it was a little weird to hear such a sentiment expressed by Shakespeare. It seemed out of sorts when considered in the context of the rest of Shakespeare's plays. Shakespeare's plays hardly advocate anarchy and rarely advocate indiscriminate killing of any group, let alone a group as decidedly middle class and Globe-theater-ticket-buying as lawyers.
So what I learned today: that quote as it's parroted now is taken totally out of context. It comes from Henry VI, Part II. The line is spoken by a baddie, the leader of a villainous gang. It is intended to express the concept that in order for the gang, and therefore for evil, to triumph, it would be necessary to deprive society of the protection of law first. The baddies want to kill off all the lawyers so there will be nobody left to protect the innocent citizens from their dastardly scheming.
Now I can't wait for the two bazillionth and first person to quote Shakespeare to me again. I am totally prepared. Poor person. I am a secret Shakespeare scholar in disguise, not a law student!
Anyhow, after awhile I began to wonder about it. I thought it was a little weird to hear such a sentiment expressed by Shakespeare. It seemed out of sorts when considered in the context of the rest of Shakespeare's plays. Shakespeare's plays hardly advocate anarchy and rarely advocate indiscriminate killing of any group, let alone a group as decidedly middle class and Globe-theater-ticket-buying as lawyers.
So what I learned today: that quote as it's parroted now is taken totally out of context. It comes from Henry VI, Part II. The line is spoken by a baddie, the leader of a villainous gang. It is intended to express the concept that in order for the gang, and therefore for evil, to triumph, it would be necessary to deprive society of the protection of law first. The baddies want to kill off all the lawyers so there will be nobody left to protect the innocent citizens from their dastardly scheming.
Now I can't wait for the two bazillionth and first person to quote Shakespeare to me again. I am totally prepared. Poor person. I am a secret Shakespeare scholar in disguise, not a law student!
marching on to the last exam
It's not the day after my exam
any more. I have contracts coming up quickly, and I'm studying hard and
efficiently. At least, that's what's happening in some other universe.
In this universe, contracts is indeed coming up quickly, but my motivation level is, oh, sort of up there with the motivation I have to pay all the bills and clean the office, possibly even less as I may pay the bills and clean the office before starting on contracts.
How people ever study at the University of Hawaii Law School is beyond my comprehension. I can understand how studying is accomplished in places where the weather is terrible. As a child of rural Southern California, my permissible temperature band is quite narrow and I would simply sequester myself inside for months on end, venturing out only when the temperature was within acceptable range. This would be excellent for my study habits.
Alas for contracts, and really all my exams, the weather has been spectacularly within my acceptable weather band. I was able to resist at first, but now, almost two full months after I started preparing for exams, I find that my ability to resist good weather is getting weaker and weaker.
In this universe, contracts is indeed coming up quickly, but my motivation level is, oh, sort of up there with the motivation I have to pay all the bills and clean the office, possibly even less as I may pay the bills and clean the office before starting on contracts.
How people ever study at the University of Hawaii Law School is beyond my comprehension. I can understand how studying is accomplished in places where the weather is terrible. As a child of rural Southern California, my permissible temperature band is quite narrow and I would simply sequester myself inside for months on end, venturing out only when the temperature was within acceptable range. This would be excellent for my study habits.
Alas for contracts, and really all my exams, the weather has been spectacularly within my acceptable weather band. I was able to resist at first, but now, almost two full months after I started preparing for exams, I find that my ability to resist good weather is getting weaker and weaker.
Thursday, May 13, 2004
an open letter to my professors
Dear Professors,
Let us discuss the meaning of the word 'straightforward', as in the sentence two of you used on the last day of class, "The exam questions are straightforward." Here is Merriam-Webster's definition so you may refresh your memory.
Notice that the common meaning is free from evasiveness or obscurity. It does not include the meaning which you apparently use, horridly confusing and vague. We, your students, are unfamiliar with that usage for the word though we have begun to recognize the peculiar language of law professors. Maybe you should speak to the orientation staff at the school about this. Perhaps they could give us little translation sheets.
Incidentally, I have noticed that the phrase plenty of time seems to be used in an entirely unfamiliar manner as well. If you could perhaps communicate the Law School Professor meaning of that phrase to your students, it would be greatly appreciated.
Regards,
T. (who finished her 3rd and hardest exam so far today)
Let us discuss the meaning of the word 'straightforward', as in the sentence two of you used on the last day of class, "The exam questions are straightforward." Here is Merriam-Webster's definition so you may refresh your memory.
Notice that the common meaning is free from evasiveness or obscurity. It does not include the meaning which you apparently use, horridly confusing and vague. We, your students, are unfamiliar with that usage for the word though we have begun to recognize the peculiar language of law professors. Maybe you should speak to the orientation staff at the school about this. Perhaps they could give us little translation sheets.
Incidentally, I have noticed that the phrase plenty of time seems to be used in an entirely unfamiliar manner as well. If you could perhaps communicate the Law School Professor meaning of that phrase to your students, it would be greatly appreciated.
Regards,
T. (who finished her 3rd and hardest exam so far today)
Monday, May 10, 2004
help from my subconscious
Torts is over. Two done and two to go. Torts was long and intricate. As usual I couldn't tell you how I did.
Also as usual my subconscious is jumping in to help prepare for exams in my dreams. While I appreciate the heroic effort, I think I'd really prefer a solid night's sleep the night before an exam.
Last night was a torts dream, which I suppose I should have expected. I dreamed that I entered Disneyland's Haunted Mansion ride. My sisters and I made my parents take us on that ride like twenty times in a row when we were kids so the details of the ride are pretty much embedded permanently in my consciousness. I bet that if I'm ever senile I'll forget any law I ever knew but will able to tell the kindly nurse caring for me what the singing busts looked like in the Haunted Mansion.
This, however, was no kindly Haunted Mansion ride. I got in the doom buggy as usual, but from there things took a different turn. Instead the doom buggy went top speed through a series of exhibits on torts that included cartoon dioramas of battery and trespass. I think I saw intentional infliction of emotional distress as we whizzed by but I can't remember how that was constructed. The ghostly narrator pointed out all the torts in order.
Faster and faster we went, at one point entering the Matterhorn and going past the Abominable Snowman who was quoting Judge Learned Hand's negligence formula.
And then through a loop, always faster, getting to the point where I was pinned back in the doom buggy by gravity and then slam! The brakes came on and my eyes flew open. There I was, 3:45 a.m., wide awake and thinking about suing Disneyland for negligence in the operation of their doom buggies.
I finally fell back asleep about an hour later. It was not a helpful use of my sleeping time as doom buggies did not appear in any way on my torts exam.
Also as usual my subconscious is jumping in to help prepare for exams in my dreams. While I appreciate the heroic effort, I think I'd really prefer a solid night's sleep the night before an exam.
Last night was a torts dream, which I suppose I should have expected. I dreamed that I entered Disneyland's Haunted Mansion ride. My sisters and I made my parents take us on that ride like twenty times in a row when we were kids so the details of the ride are pretty much embedded permanently in my consciousness. I bet that if I'm ever senile I'll forget any law I ever knew but will able to tell the kindly nurse caring for me what the singing busts looked like in the Haunted Mansion.
This, however, was no kindly Haunted Mansion ride. I got in the doom buggy as usual, but from there things took a different turn. Instead the doom buggy went top speed through a series of exhibits on torts that included cartoon dioramas of battery and trespass. I think I saw intentional infliction of emotional distress as we whizzed by but I can't remember how that was constructed. The ghostly narrator pointed out all the torts in order.
Faster and faster we went, at one point entering the Matterhorn and going past the Abominable Snowman who was quoting Judge Learned Hand's negligence formula.
And then through a loop, always faster, getting to the point where I was pinned back in the doom buggy by gravity and then slam! The brakes came on and my eyes flew open. There I was, 3:45 a.m., wide awake and thinking about suing Disneyland for negligence in the operation of their doom buggies.
I finally fell back asleep about an hour later. It was not a helpful use of my sleeping time as doom buggies did not appear in any way on my torts exam.
Sunday, May 9, 2004
exam season marches on
Despite my best attempts to stop time, I have Torts tomorrow morning.
I've been taking a lot of Prof. Torts' old exams, and I am as ready as I'm ever going to be. While I did study today, I quickly hit my saturation point for Torts and I moved onto Employment Discrimination, my next exam.
I realized that I'd had enough of Torts when I read a fact pattern and the first thing I wrote was, "Liabilities of Alfred, Brian, and Charles. All are screaming idiots who should be locked in a room with a bunch of rabid monkeys."
This is not the path to an A answer. That was one practice test too many. I stopped.
Send waves tomorrow. I shall attempt to avoid using phrases such as "rabid monkeys."
I've been taking a lot of Prof. Torts' old exams, and I am as ready as I'm ever going to be. While I did study today, I quickly hit my saturation point for Torts and I moved onto Employment Discrimination, my next exam.
I realized that I'd had enough of Torts when I read a fact pattern and the first thing I wrote was, "Liabilities of Alfred, Brian, and Charles. All are screaming idiots who should be locked in a room with a bunch of rabid monkeys."
This is not the path to an A answer. That was one practice test too many. I stopped.
Send waves tomorrow. I shall attempt to avoid using phrases such as "rabid monkeys."
Friday, May 7, 2004
anatomy of the day after an exam
Yesterday, the day after my civil procedure exam, I sat down to study.
Or something. I'm not exactly productive the day after a hard exam.
The Day-After-Exam Schedule
6:45 am: Am up and ready for day. Eat healthy breakfast of spinach and cheesy eggs. Make husband coffee. Am veritable morning activity machine.
7:32 am: Important to read both local paper and Wall Street Journal before starting to study. Very important for law students to keep up on current events.
8:32 am: Husband leaves for work.
8:36 am: Decide to clean kitchen before starting studying. Cleanliness next to godliness. Want to be Godly Law Student or at least Healthy Law Student.
8:58 am: Go upstairs. Sit down at desk. Am ready to study.
9:00 am: Must check email and blogs first. Critical information may be revealed that is more important than torts. Perhaps blogs will reveal new secret to torts heretofore unrevealed. Essential to day.
10:00 am: Ready to start. Open outline on computer.
10:06 am: Decide that subheadings in section on 'Owners and Occupiers of Land' would be more interesting if they were in Comic Sans MS font.
10:07 am: Change all subheadings to new font.
10:08 am: Get wild and crazy and change that entire section to 'Zapf Wingdings'. Realize that section makes only marginally less sense in Zapf Wingdings, otherwise known as Zapf Wingdings.
10:09 am: Panic, change fonts back.
10:10 am: Work on short issue outline.
10:22 am: Realize laundry must be done now or will never be done and poor husband won't have clean jeans and will be laughingstock of engineering team.
10:23 am: Do laundry. Ignore realization that a) husband is perfectly capable and willing to do laundry and has pile of clean jeans to prove it and b) engineering team is incapable of recognizing difference between clean and slightly dirty jeans anyhow.
10:47 am: Laundry complete. Back upstairs and in front of computer working on short issue outline for torts.
11:11 am: Realize that classmates may need sympathy and support. Is critical to support friends at this point. Log into Instant Messenger.
11:12 am: Chat with law school friends. Discuss whether to watch Friends finale though have never watched show with any regularity. Decide that is important to participate in important cultural milestone.
11:14 am: Post to blog. Is important to keep loyal readers updated.
11:42 am: Log out of AIM after mutual realization that day is wasting away. Panic.
11:43 am: Back to work.
12:32 pm: Hungry. Go downstairs to kitchen.
12:33 pm: Decide that nutrition is important now. Short lunch that doesn't pay attention to important food groups will not do. Sauté spinach with garlic and olive oil and grill wild salmon for lunch.
12:43 pm: Take healthy lunch outside to courtyard and eat. Attain Healthy Law Student status.
12:58 pm: Pets need attention. Have been cruelly neglecting attention to needy animals as evinced by said animals' interest in wild salmon. Poor pets. Play with pets now necessary or will be Bad Pet Mother.
1:32 pm: Back at desk. Pet duty done.
2:14 pm: Am sleepy. Go for walk in sun to wake up brain.
2:34 pm: Walk in sun has opposite effect. Nap is necessary.
3:35 pm: Nap over. Head not awake but back to work.
4:08 pm: Something that had been confusing makes sense. Am shocked by realization that something seeped into head today. Must take break to celebrate attainment of Serious Law Student status.
4:10 pm: Celebratory consumption of Ben & Jerry's Mint Chocolate Cookie ice cream. Lose Healthy Law Student status but am now Serious Law Student which is much better.
4:20 pm: Back to work. Celebratory consumption is over. Must continue to solidify status as Serious Law Student.
5:07 pm: Realize consumption of celebratory ice cream has immediately turned body into shapeless, formless mass. Exercise is urgent or will dissolve into wiggly puddle on floor.
5:16 pm: Drive to gym. Bring reading not in line with sort read by Serious Law Students and read while on stairmaster. Work out until shirt is unattractive and face is red from exertion.
6:08 pm: Go home. Realize that status as Serious Law Student may have slipped but is very important during stressful time to keep exercising and so have regained status as Healthy Law Student.
6:15 pm: Ant discovered on kitchen counter. Horrors. Indicates slovenly housekeeping not in keeping with status as Healthy Law Student. Must scrub kitchen and clean dishes from lunch. Ignore fact that dirty dishes and a single ant do not normally excite interest in housecleaning.
6:56 pm: Back upstairs. Ready to work now and reattain Serious Law Student status.
7:02 pm: Husband is home. Go downtairs. Is important to talk to husband about day so that status of Good Married Law Student is not lost.
7:30 pm: Husband volunteers to make dinner so that I may study. Very thoughtful. Return upstairs.
7:31 pm: Panic. Way too much to learn before Monday.
7:56 pm: Dinner. Important to eat downstairs with husband rather than at desk. Discuss conclusion of debate with law school friends over the 'Friends' finale. TiVo is set to record as husband agrees that it is important not to miss important cultural milestone.
8:15 pm: Back upstairs.
9:30 pm: Status as Serious Law Student reattained. Finish studying chapter on personal injuries. Am so good am ready to take exam now. Yay me.
9:42 pm: Watch 'Friends' finale to celebrate. Agree with husband that important cultural milestone was lame but feel somehow patriotic and so am Good American Law Student now.
10:30 pm: Decide to go to bed. Is important to conserve energy during exam time. Tomorrow will transform into Serious Law Student. [Ed.: sadly, this plan has not yet materialized today.]
The Day-After-Exam Schedule
6:45 am: Am up and ready for day. Eat healthy breakfast of spinach and cheesy eggs. Make husband coffee. Am veritable morning activity machine.
7:32 am: Important to read both local paper and Wall Street Journal before starting to study. Very important for law students to keep up on current events.
8:32 am: Husband leaves for work.
8:36 am: Decide to clean kitchen before starting studying. Cleanliness next to godliness. Want to be Godly Law Student or at least Healthy Law Student.
8:58 am: Go upstairs. Sit down at desk. Am ready to study.
9:00 am: Must check email and blogs first. Critical information may be revealed that is more important than torts. Perhaps blogs will reveal new secret to torts heretofore unrevealed. Essential to day.
10:00 am: Ready to start. Open outline on computer.
10:06 am: Decide that subheadings in section on 'Owners and Occupiers of Land' would be more interesting if they were in Comic Sans MS font.
10:07 am: Change all subheadings to new font.
10:08 am: Get wild and crazy and change that entire section to 'Zapf Wingdings'. Realize that section makes only marginally less sense in Zapf Wingdings, otherwise known as Zapf Wingdings.
10:09 am: Panic, change fonts back.
10:10 am: Work on short issue outline.
10:22 am: Realize laundry must be done now or will never be done and poor husband won't have clean jeans and will be laughingstock of engineering team.
10:23 am: Do laundry. Ignore realization that a) husband is perfectly capable and willing to do laundry and has pile of clean jeans to prove it and b) engineering team is incapable of recognizing difference between clean and slightly dirty jeans anyhow.
10:47 am: Laundry complete. Back upstairs and in front of computer working on short issue outline for torts.
11:11 am: Realize that classmates may need sympathy and support. Is critical to support friends at this point. Log into Instant Messenger.
11:12 am: Chat with law school friends. Discuss whether to watch Friends finale though have never watched show with any regularity. Decide that is important to participate in important cultural milestone.
11:14 am: Post to blog. Is important to keep loyal readers updated.
11:42 am: Log out of AIM after mutual realization that day is wasting away. Panic.
11:43 am: Back to work.
12:32 pm: Hungry. Go downstairs to kitchen.
12:33 pm: Decide that nutrition is important now. Short lunch that doesn't pay attention to important food groups will not do. Sauté spinach with garlic and olive oil and grill wild salmon for lunch.
12:43 pm: Take healthy lunch outside to courtyard and eat. Attain Healthy Law Student status.
12:58 pm: Pets need attention. Have been cruelly neglecting attention to needy animals as evinced by said animals' interest in wild salmon. Poor pets. Play with pets now necessary or will be Bad Pet Mother.
1:32 pm: Back at desk. Pet duty done.
2:14 pm: Am sleepy. Go for walk in sun to wake up brain.
2:34 pm: Walk in sun has opposite effect. Nap is necessary.
3:35 pm: Nap over. Head not awake but back to work.
4:08 pm: Something that had been confusing makes sense. Am shocked by realization that something seeped into head today. Must take break to celebrate attainment of Serious Law Student status.
4:10 pm: Celebratory consumption of Ben & Jerry's Mint Chocolate Cookie ice cream. Lose Healthy Law Student status but am now Serious Law Student which is much better.
4:20 pm: Back to work. Celebratory consumption is over. Must continue to solidify status as Serious Law Student.
5:07 pm: Realize consumption of celebratory ice cream has immediately turned body into shapeless, formless mass. Exercise is urgent or will dissolve into wiggly puddle on floor.
5:16 pm: Drive to gym. Bring reading not in line with sort read by Serious Law Students and read while on stairmaster. Work out until shirt is unattractive and face is red from exertion.
6:08 pm: Go home. Realize that status as Serious Law Student may have slipped but is very important during stressful time to keep exercising and so have regained status as Healthy Law Student.
6:15 pm: Ant discovered on kitchen counter. Horrors. Indicates slovenly housekeeping not in keeping with status as Healthy Law Student. Must scrub kitchen and clean dishes from lunch. Ignore fact that dirty dishes and a single ant do not normally excite interest in housecleaning.
6:56 pm: Back upstairs. Ready to work now and reattain Serious Law Student status.
7:02 pm: Husband is home. Go downtairs. Is important to talk to husband about day so that status of Good Married Law Student is not lost.
7:30 pm: Husband volunteers to make dinner so that I may study. Very thoughtful. Return upstairs.
7:31 pm: Panic. Way too much to learn before Monday.
7:56 pm: Dinner. Important to eat downstairs with husband rather than at desk. Discuss conclusion of debate with law school friends over the 'Friends' finale. TiVo is set to record as husband agrees that it is important not to miss important cultural milestone.
8:15 pm: Back upstairs.
9:30 pm: Status as Serious Law Student reattained. Finish studying chapter on personal injuries. Am so good am ready to take exam now. Yay me.
9:42 pm: Watch 'Friends' finale to celebrate. Agree with husband that important cultural milestone was lame but feel somehow patriotic and so am Good American Law Student now.
10:30 pm: Decide to go to bed. Is important to conserve energy during exam time. Tomorrow will transform into Serious Law Student. [Ed.: sadly, this plan has not yet materialized today.]
Thursday, May 6, 2004
one down, three to go
Thank you very much for the waves. I think they helped. I didn't think of the nice weather outside once during the exam.
As usual I left the exam thinking it was very hard and not having any idea how I did. I couldn't have predicted any of my grades after last semester's exams, and I think the same will be true this time around. It was very, very tough.
The biggest challenge in this exam was the time pressure. My professor told us ahead of time that while the questions would be relatively straightforward, "You won't be able to finish the exam if you don't know your civil procedure cold." She was not lying. It was a test of the speed with which we could show the depth of our understanding. I personally disagree with her assertation that the questions were relatively straightforward, but I've learned by now that my definition of straightforward and a law professor's definition of straightforward are two entirely different things.
Last night I took the night off, and I'm back at the books this morning, though admittedly with a lack of enthusiasm.
As usual I left the exam thinking it was very hard and not having any idea how I did. I couldn't have predicted any of my grades after last semester's exams, and I think the same will be true this time around. It was very, very tough.
The biggest challenge in this exam was the time pressure. My professor told us ahead of time that while the questions would be relatively straightforward, "You won't be able to finish the exam if you don't know your civil procedure cold." She was not lying. It was a test of the speed with which we could show the depth of our understanding. I personally disagree with her assertation that the questions were relatively straightforward, but I've learned by now that my definition of straightforward and a law professor's definition of straightforward are two entirely different things.
Last night I took the night off, and I'm back at the books this morning, though admittedly with a lack of enthusiasm.
Tuesday, May 4, 2004
send waves tomorrow
My civil procedure exam is tomorrow. Please send me good thoughts about the
Federal Rules, work product, and issue preclusion. Please do not send me
thoughts about warm, sunny places. I manage to do enough of that on my
own. Thank you.
note to self
Taking a blanket, a water bottle, a pillow for head support and one's
books to a lovely old tree nearby and stretching out underneath it does
not count as studying. No matter how much studying one has done
previously, this is not behavior that adds to that total.
It doesn't count even though it's lovely out, without a cloud in the sky and the occasional warm breeze tickles one's toes and it would be a sin to stay indoors all day. And it especially doesn't count if one has hidden* one's current favorite paperback under Federal Rules of Civil Procedure.
* It is not clear from whom this hiding is happening.
It doesn't count even though it's lovely out, without a cloud in the sky and the occasional warm breeze tickles one's toes and it would be a sin to stay indoors all day. And it especially doesn't count if one has hidden* one's current favorite paperback under Federal Rules of Civil Procedure.
* It is not clear from whom this hiding is happening.
Sunday, May 2, 2004
party in the jury room
I just finished reviewing my favorite civil procedure case from this semester, Tanner v. United States.
The defendant, Tanner, was convicted of conspiring to defraud the United States and of committing mail fraud. The case itself proceeded normally, and the jurors appeared to all parties to be as interested as jurors ever are in the proceedings.This, apparently, is a fairly low standard.
After the verdict but before sentencing, one of the jurors visited the defendant's lawyer. He was suffering from a bit of post-conviction malaise.
As the juror told it, the jurors in this case were a merry bunch, given to indulging in chemical excess. It seems that the day's debauchery began at lunch, thus rendering the afternoon court session somewhat less than effective from a juror's point of view.
The juror's interview is quoted in the case:
In the interview Hardy [the regretful juror] stated that he "felt like . . . the jury was on one big party." Hardy indicated that seven of the jurors drank alcohol during the noon recess. Four jurors, including Hardy, consumed between them "a pitcher to three pitchers" of beer during various recesses. Of the three other jurors who were alleged to have consumed alcohol, Hardy stated that on several occasions he observed two jurors having one or more mixed drinks during the lunch recess, and one other juror, who was also the foreperson, having a liter of wine on each of three occasions. Juror Hardy also stated that he and three other jurors smoked marijuana quite regularly during the trial. Moreover, Hardy stated that during trial he observed one juror ingest cocaine five times and another juror ingest cocaine two or three times. One juror sold a quarter pound of marijuna to another juror during the trial, and took marjiuana, cocaine, and drug paraphernalia into the courthouse. Hardy noted that some of the jurors were falling asleep during the trial, and the one of the jurors described himself to Hardy as "flying."
They sound like quite a group, but I think I'd prefer to meet them at a baseball game rather than in my jury room.
The defendant, Tanner, was convicted of conspiring to defraud the United States and of committing mail fraud. The case itself proceeded normally, and the jurors appeared to all parties to be as interested as jurors ever are in the proceedings.This, apparently, is a fairly low standard.
After the verdict but before sentencing, one of the jurors visited the defendant's lawyer. He was suffering from a bit of post-conviction malaise.
As the juror told it, the jurors in this case were a merry bunch, given to indulging in chemical excess. It seems that the day's debauchery began at lunch, thus rendering the afternoon court session somewhat less than effective from a juror's point of view.
The juror's interview is quoted in the case:
In the interview Hardy [the regretful juror] stated that he "felt like . . . the jury was on one big party." Hardy indicated that seven of the jurors drank alcohol during the noon recess. Four jurors, including Hardy, consumed between them "a pitcher to three pitchers" of beer during various recesses. Of the three other jurors who were alleged to have consumed alcohol, Hardy stated that on several occasions he observed two jurors having one or more mixed drinks during the lunch recess, and one other juror, who was also the foreperson, having a liter of wine on each of three occasions. Juror Hardy also stated that he and three other jurors smoked marijuana quite regularly during the trial. Moreover, Hardy stated that during trial he observed one juror ingest cocaine five times and another juror ingest cocaine two or three times. One juror sold a quarter pound of marijuna to another juror during the trial, and took marjiuana, cocaine, and drug paraphernalia into the courthouse. Hardy noted that some of the jurors were falling asleep during the trial, and the one of the jurors described himself to Hardy as "flying."
They sound like quite a group, but I think I'd prefer to meet them at a baseball game rather than in my jury room.
a bit of honest advice
Ambivalent Imbroglio, who knows a lot about humanities graduate school himself, introduced me to the now-closed blog, the Invisible Adjunct, and a great article in the Chronicle about her.
Reading her blog, which is about the broken system of humanities education in this country and the struggle of a non-tenure track professor, I think, "Maybe that could have been me."
I can't remember if I've mentioned it here or not, but my background isn't purely engineering. I started out in the humanities and fell into engineering by accident, discovering a love for programming and engineering after taking the aptly named Beginning Programming for Social Sciences Majors.
Even though the majority of my undergraduate work ended up being engineering and math courses, I kept up my interest in history. I found engineering courses more academically rigorous and more intellectually challenging than my history courses, but I always tried to take a history course where I could.
On graduation, then, I had a choice. I had two degrees, one in history, one in engineering. Which way to go?
Most of my history professors, all of whom were tenured and well-established, encouraged me to go to history graduate school. "You love history and you love to learn," one said, "what better place for you than a history Ph.D. program? You shouldn't be in engineering." I think they found my interest in engineering rather distasteful, as if I had developed a freakish interest in worm intestines or pig guts.
I mulled it over. I did and still do love history.
But I was lucky in a way the Invisible Adjunct wasn't. Her advisors told her, "You're too smart for law school. You're one of us." Most of my history professors were similarly vague. But my favorite professor, a tenured no-nonsense professor of European history, known for her difficult but fascinating classes, was clear-eyed and brutally honest with me.
"Do NOT go to history graduate school," she told me without hesitation. "There is no place for you in this system. You have an engineering degree. The world is open to you. Do not cloister yourself in a world that doesn't really want you." She then told me about reality of life in the humanities, the lack of jobs for Ph.D. graduates and the myth of meritocracy in that system.
A few years later I enrolled in engineering graduate school. While I had been strongly leaning in that direction anyhow, I still appreciate my professor's honesty.
[Update: I am not the only one who was advised to stay away from humanities graduate education by a wise professor. Waddling Thunder recounts his story here.]
Reading her blog, which is about the broken system of humanities education in this country and the struggle of a non-tenure track professor, I think, "Maybe that could have been me."
I can't remember if I've mentioned it here or not, but my background isn't purely engineering. I started out in the humanities and fell into engineering by accident, discovering a love for programming and engineering after taking the aptly named Beginning Programming for Social Sciences Majors.
Even though the majority of my undergraduate work ended up being engineering and math courses, I kept up my interest in history. I found engineering courses more academically rigorous and more intellectually challenging than my history courses, but I always tried to take a history course where I could.
On graduation, then, I had a choice. I had two degrees, one in history, one in engineering. Which way to go?
Most of my history professors, all of whom were tenured and well-established, encouraged me to go to history graduate school. "You love history and you love to learn," one said, "what better place for you than a history Ph.D. program? You shouldn't be in engineering." I think they found my interest in engineering rather distasteful, as if I had developed a freakish interest in worm intestines or pig guts.
I mulled it over. I did and still do love history.
But I was lucky in a way the Invisible Adjunct wasn't. Her advisors told her, "You're too smart for law school. You're one of us." Most of my history professors were similarly vague. But my favorite professor, a tenured no-nonsense professor of European history, known for her difficult but fascinating classes, was clear-eyed and brutally honest with me.
"Do NOT go to history graduate school," she told me without hesitation. "There is no place for you in this system. You have an engineering degree. The world is open to you. Do not cloister yourself in a world that doesn't really want you." She then told me about reality of life in the humanities, the lack of jobs for Ph.D. graduates and the myth of meritocracy in that system.
A few years later I enrolled in engineering graduate school. While I had been strongly leaning in that direction anyhow, I still appreciate my professor's honesty.
[Update: I am not the only one who was advised to stay away from humanities graduate education by a wise professor. Waddling Thunder recounts his story here.]
i haven't disappeared
I'm studying for finals. It's also very nice outside. I have a hard
time studying for finals when it's nice outside. Issue and claim
preclusion have nothing on a lovely, sunny day.
Sadly, my experiment with taking my laptop outside on the grass ended in a warm nap in the sun, not productive study time. It was a very nice nap, however.
Thank goodness my finals aren't in late May or June. I think I'd just default on all of them. At least yesterday it was foggy.
Sadly, my experiment with taking my laptop outside on the grass ended in a warm nap in the sun, not productive study time. It was a very nice nap, however.
Thank goodness my finals aren't in late May or June. I think I'd just default on all of them. At least yesterday it was foggy.
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