If I wasn't an unlicensed lawyer, what else could I have done with my life? And why did I not do that instead?
NBA Center - too short, unathletic, lack an enlarged heart or growth hormone defect Sunday Morning Cartoonist - can't draw, imagination destroyed by sitcoms, I sleep in on Sundays Metal Band Drummer - only own plastic drums, can't grow long black hair, reluctant to embrace the night
MLB Beat Writer - don't like to travel, don't like to bother famous people, don't know enough cliches Video Game Developer - don't like Flaming Hot Cheetos, don't want to know how the sausage is made because I love sausage Computer Tech Guy - not condescending enough, glow of computer screen will make me blind, computers just a dying fad
It's been a long while since my last post, but I can see that was right around the time law school finals took over. I've since morphed into full time bar prep mode. I knew this time would come. For the next consecutive 54 days, I'm going to the BarBri abbey for wayward future litigators on National and Motor, in the hope that after about 54 days, made up of 10-12 hours of work and study, I will emerge enough of an expert to ruin every legal drama we might watch together.
Until then, the ghost of this blog will wander the earth, maybe appearing long enough to post a video like this.
Can a man compress 1000 pages of legal remedies case history and commentary into a 20 page outline, and then reproduce it intelligently in an exam one week later?
Just wanted to remind myself that I wasn't dead; I'm just really busy in the end-of-the-year school crunch. Here are the things I'd rather be doing this week instead of trying to memorize all of the state bar's Rules for Professional Conduct: - Watch "Planet Earth" in HD at Amy's - Playing either Guitar Hero II or Pokemon Diamond - Getting back into the gym. Every semester I have an internal fight with myself, where I have to hold back the armies of apathy. It's so much easier for me to not care what happens in my finals, take Cs and call it a semester. In high school it's called "senioritis." In law school, I guess it's called being burned out. I need a vacation.
Back to work tomorrow at the courthouse, back to lawyer-apprenticing soon thereafter. It was a nice break, but I suppose I could use a new divorce to keep my barely teething lawyer fangs sharp.
As an undergrad, I never got the study abroad bug. Everyone I knew went abroad somewhere, but for someone reason I was wont to rebut proddings that I do the same, and stayed within this city's smoggy confines to read my British literature. I can see my student loan payments rapidly approaching in the rear view mirror, so I figure it's now or never. I'm going to Costa Rica this coming summer, taking two classes. One is International Environtmenal Law, the second is International Human Rights Law. It's also supposed to include "a field trip to communities under environmental threat, and visits to local legal institutions and social events," according to the program's presently limited web site.
This trip affords me the following opportunities: - spend a month in a foreign country, giving me a chance to master my conversational spanish - see a rainforest, possibly get into monkey-related mischief - cement a law school friendship or two - possibly get my first tan
The only real obstacle is money (which is what student loans were made for) and the administrative stuff (getting the app in, getting my passport, finding a place to stay after my class time ends). I have uncharacteristically high expectations for this. It has better be fantastic.
So in about an hour, I start my caffeine ritual in preparation for my 3 hour evidence final. Iced tea at lunch, some sugary coffee mixture (frappucino, perhaps) on the way downtown, a cup of coffee an hour and a half before the exam, and then a red bull right as I walk into the exam room at 5:45. Usually, I'm typing somewhere between 10 and 20 pages of stuff during the exam period, and by the end it devolves into a mix between an outline format and unbridled stream of consciousness as I try to cram everything I can remember into the blinking computer screen. Tonight's exam is unique: a scantron, completely multiple choice. I'm wondering if I shouldn't scale back my blood pressure a little bit today, considering that shaky hands while trying to keep my pencil inside the bubbles makes for a frustrating evening.
Really, this is what I hate most about law school. I don't mind the classes, socratic method and all. I don't mind the day-to-day workload, as my friends are fairly accustomed to my one-night-out a month policy by now. What really chaps my hide are these racehorse exams, that are designed so no one could ever finish them with any confidence, that cover half of the material you spend weeks preparing for, that are designed to crush your spirit and self-confidence. I will more than likely get somewhere between a 40 and 55 percent on my exam tonight. I have probably officially failed most of my exams in law school. Nevertheless, because of the curve, because everyone struggles, my class standing is right in the middle. Being average doesn't bother me. It's the worthless stressing over a test I know I'm going to do poorly in, that I have to prepare for anyway. I'm running out of eyebrows to pull out because of this. That and the $30,000 bill every year.
I like to think of my time studying in my old room in my parent's house as my Thoreau-lite attempt to hole up in Walden Woods. Except that instead of Walden Pond there's that weird coy pond my dad built with the little virgin Mary statue affixed. Instead of Concord cabin, I've got my bedroom full of my mother's bedroom furniture from last year that she hasn't figured out who to pawn off on. Instead of writing a subtle social critique of the western world, I'm trying to distill 150 years of evidence law into a 20 page outline, all the while trying to shut my wii's siren song from the living room.
Well, it was a lot more Thoreau like when I thought of it this morning in bed. I'm sure he ate a lot of tamales, too.
Other thoughts:
- Efforts to stave off apathy with regards to my last final are fading fast. The only thing I feel prepared for right now is the weak grip of disappointment after I turn in a scantron covered with way too many consecutive Cs marked. If anyone's not planning on using their upcoming Christmas miracle, please overnight it to my apartment. Must be postmarked by December 18, 2006 which is... crap. - Friday night, I went to a Lakers game with Josh, my brother, and my mom. It was a first for my mom, who is a surprisingly involved (albeit fairweather) fan. Someone was generous enough to give us their luxury suite tickets. Free food, drinks, beer, wine, a brush with the owner of the team, and a idyllic view of the court. Mix in a double overtime win over a team with a 7'6'' chinaman, and you've got yourself a memorable night.
Only one left, next Tuesday's evidence final. Last night's final was a mess, as I didn't end up using more than half of my 70 page outline. Frustrating as that is, my initial impressions were that everyone else seemed equally annoyed by the exam's narrow focus. That bodes well for my chances of the curve helping me out, but I usually only hope for that once a semester. I was hoping to save that bullet for my evidence final.
After 13 ounces of coffee, 12 ounces of red bull, and 64 ounces of water, I produced one 22 page exam, and I feel like I wasted a lot of my time. I'm ready for Christmas.
Yesterday, I took my first final of the semester; more or less a piece of cake. With the whole curved grading system, I don't know what to expect grade-wise if everyone else thought it was easy, too. I'm just glad to be done with that class. Looking ahead to next Wednesday, I have my hard (albeit open book) immigration final. It's only open book because there's literally more statutes than a person can commit to memory, so I don't expect it to be as easy as yesterday's final. If I'd known my immigration professor had argued cases in front of the Supreme Court (read: he knows his shit), I might have known ahead of time how hard this class was going to be.
On top of that, the beast still looms in two weeks: evidence. Yuck. For now, I just need to focus on putting together a well-categorized, easily accessed outline for immigration and I'll worry about evidence next week.
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