Note to self

Finals are fast approaching, and every resident of the 1L universe is acutely aware that good grades – especially in this economy – are important. And so, with the utmost care and discipline, outlines must be drafted, practice exams taken, friendships postponed, and minor hygiene violations forgiven.

Yet, I find myself tempted to ask: why the mad dash?

For starters, good grades translate into a good career. The importance of a good career being: money, pride, and an intellectual challenge. But why are these things desirable? Ultimately, because they make us happy.

If happiness is the endgame of all our hard work and ambition, does it even make sense to take a rain-check in the present for the purpose of attaining perfect exam scores?

The answer, I think, is no. Exams are coming, and they are important. But being human is also requisite for our happiness – present and future. To abandon our bliss during these darkest law school hours would be nothing short of a huge mistake that renders everything else we’re aiming for, well… meaningless.

This week, the universe tapped me on the shoulder to remind me that there are more important things in life than impending doom. Seeing a face you love and miss, having a door opened for you, realizing that destiny is the only adequate explanation for certain things, haggling over sushi with your sister, singing Motown in the shower, are all things that make life worth living NOW.

And so with that, I return to outlining. But not before enjoying a frozen waffle (or two.)

Open Letter #5

Dear Torts Casebook,

I’d just like to take a moment out of my busy day to say “thank you.” You are a casebook, Torts Casebook, and as such – I know there are many things you can’t avoid. For instance, I know you can’t really help but weigh 90 pounds and contribute significantly to my adult-onset scoliosis. Additionally, I know your cases have been edited ever-so-carefully to avoid exposition or explanation of any sort.

However, Torts Casebook, there is one thing which distinguishes you from the multitude of other casebooks… the very thing for which I now offer you my highest compliments and affections: You, my sweet pleather-bound tome, are full of carnage. If I could have a dime for every lopped off finger or toe floating around your pages, I’d have more money that someone who wins punitive damages in the state of Utah. I haven’t been able to watch  many movies in recent months, but you are a very close replacement with your harrowing tales of bone-grinding escalators, medical botches and insane people who somehow own and operate vehicles.

For this, I owe you my undying gratitude.

Alex

Trying to avoid a panic attack: ur doing it wrong

Back from Boise! The team did an amazing job reppin’ Boalt… and although we’re not going to Nationals this year, we’re all finalists/semi-finalists so I’m happy!! And by the way, apart from a few of the judges who may-or-may-not have called my negotiation partner “smarmy” because of our city mannerisms, Boise isn’t the rural potato-town I thought it would be (it has an Urban Outfitters and everything!)

So now that my competition update is out of the way…

Would somebody please explain to me why I thought it would be a good idea to attend a career-planning session at lunch today, and schedule an individual appointment for tomorrow when I have a week’s worth of reading to catch up on?!? I just checked my calendar. And, um… finals are less than a month away. AND I haven’t put so much as a DENT in my outlines because of last weekend’s competition. AND now they tell me I’ve got to send out applications for jobs the first week of December. AWEUHBGAKB.

*Clears throat* I mean, I’m on top of it. I’ll just… find a substitute for sleep and/or invent time travel or something. I GOT THIS, OKAY?

Infiltrated

Well, it’s official. Someone in my class now knows about this blog. Out in the courtyard, I let it slip that I get approx 90% of my hits from Google image searches of “wolverines.” Lo and behold, my dear friend pulled out his laptop and… BAM! First wolverine leads straight the the MP (at which point I flung myself upon his Mac and begged for mercy not to look until I had a chance to edit things.)

Upon further reflection, however, being discovered isn’t such a bad thing. Better safe than sorry anyway!! Not to mention, the friend who found me out is the coolest, bestest person I’ve met at Boalt thus far (and so I just KNOW he will honor our pact of secrecy which may-or-may-not have been induced by a threat of assassination.) And as a fun aside – said friend is pretty much idwsj’s identical personality-twin, so he’ll probably enjoy poking around the related links.

My buddies, the Cal Supremes

AS IF the nuttiness of morning classes, afternoon cramming, and late-night negotiation practices wasn’t enough – today, life in law school got just a little bit crazier…

Today, the Cal Supremes came to Boalt!! They held a day-long special session that began with student Q&A, followed by oral arguments for five cases in a jam-packed Booth auditorium. Law students, local high school kids, and attorneys from several local firms were in attendance.

Hilariously, my locker was located directly BEHIND the metal detection machine, so every time I needed to get my books I had to stand in line to be scanned. Not bad, although I was suspected several times of packing heat on/around my ankles (bad day to wear studded heels.)

“What could make this even more sweet?”, you might ask. I’ll tell you! The Board of Advocates (of which I am now a member, as part of the negotiation team) was the ONE student group chosen to help coordinate this event, and – get this – as compensation for our hard work as bag checkers/ushers, we got to EAT LUNCH with the Justices (!!)

I was seated at a table with Justices Ch*n and C*rrigan. At first I was pretty star-struck, but after a few minutes I realized they are just people (albeit important, very very experienced people) with regular human interests and senses of humor. I’m pretty sure I asked Justice Ch*n if he has seen the movie Gattaca. (Note to self: keep working on networking skills.)

With finals and break on the horizon, today definitely persuaded me to apply for judicial externships come December. Although, I’d prefer not to think TOO hard about that just now – mostly because…

My negotiation competition is finally here!! This weekend I’m off to represent Boalt in Boise. I hear they have something called “fry sauce” which I must try. Most of all, I look forward to coming back and having more time to update the M.P.

Until then, to paraphrase the immortal words of King Leonidas’ inspiring Queen, “I will either come back with my shield, OR ON IT!!”

A 1L Defines: Law School Relationships

The Red Herrings

These are the people you met on the first day of orientation – the boys and girls you frantically clung to the second you both realized that it’s better to wander around as a GROUP of confused people, rather than a LONE confused person. You learned every fact about the geographic region they hail from, how much they like their parents, and which websites they frequent. At the end of the day, you exchanged info and promised to make dinner plans for the weekend. You never saw them again.

The Fast Friends

People you feel absolutely at ease with – typically found within a 2-seat radius of you on the assigned seating chart. These people BECOME your fast friends because it’s impossible to keep your studious guard up 100% of the time, and they’re most likely to hear you the first time you utter “it’s hot as a hooker’s crotch in here.” Upon realizing that you are, in fact, a person, they then feel comfortable to share THEIR person-like qualities (such as humor and compassion) and VOILA, fast friends!

The Nemeses, alternatively, The Harry Potter/Voldemort

The exact opposite of “fast friends”. People who – for one reason or another – are the oil to your vinegar (except when you mingle, you get turpentine instead of delicious salad dressing.) When you see a Nemesis a.k.a. Voldemort in the hall, you feign interest in ANYTHING and EVERYTHING to avoid making eye contact, lest a mean-mugging battle of epic proportions ensues. The interesting feature of this relationship is that it usually arises from commonalities, not differences. For example, perhaps you are both smarty pantses and can’t stand the competition – or, you thought the other person was “cool” until you imprudently slept together during the first week of school. In any case, there is a possibility that 2 or 3 years down the line, you will awkwardly realize that you are in love and get married. Otherwise, you’ll destroy each others’ careers.

The Palsgraf

These are people who are – so to speak – trainwrecks. You occasionally try to help them by lending an encouraging word or smoothing down their hair when they aren’t looking. You may suspect that a Palsgraf actually hasn’t slept or eaten since the semester started - or had sex, ever - and you’d be right. Beware: if you aren’t sparing with your kindness, they are likely to seek you out in social settings and share some of their redbull-induced dementia with you on topics such as outlines/professors/grades.

The Sensei

The Sensei is someone who takes a shining to you, if/when you concede that you are but an ignorant 1L, and submit yourself to their tutelage. The Sensei is very put-off by 1Ls who have done their homework on law school. At the extreme,  they may even mislead cocky 1Ls so that they can stroke their beards triumphantly while you cry because you thought ALL the smart kids study in the microfiche room during odd hours, by themselves. Once you humble yourself to the Sensei, however, they will open up new worlds to you – worlds in which beer and casebooks live happily together, and ponies deposit magical outlines into your lap whenever you wish it.

My first midterm… and the end of the honeymoon

[Discussion questions in bold/italics.]

Friday was my mod’s first, and only, midterm of the semester – in contracts. Oh, but it was only 1 hour, ungraded, and nobody is going to look at it except us (interestingly, that last part wasn’t divulged by the professor until the day before – at which point the entire class heaved a collective sigh of relief and looked sadly upon the stacks of notes we had worked on in preparation.) What is it about law students that makes us treat even an ungraded, 1-hour midterm like a REAL exam if we know somebody is going to look at it and judge us??

In any case, even after we found out the “midterm” wasn’t going to be collected, people still brought their A-game (i.e. nobody went out drinking the night before, but apparently many of us watched reruns of True Blood / Lost / Seinfeld in lieu of studying. What is it about staying home and wasting time versus going out and wasting time that gives law students a sense of accomplishment??) And it went pretty well – although I think we still have alot of work to do before real finals roll around.

Friday was ALSO our last day of orientation. I guess they reserve all the talk about career development, finals, and the honor code until we’re better acclimated (read: can’t demand a refund) to the law school environment. All in all, besides the amazing lunch from Gregoire’s, this 4.5 hours was completely useless. Hearing the staff psychologist tell us we weren’t impostors was kindof heartening – and the 30  minute presentation on how white men get “heard” more than women/minorities was interesting (if only because the professor kept relating his points back to Sherlock Holmes) – but the Career Development Office’s 2.5 hour variety show on resumes/networking/cover letters was NOT helpful, in my opinion. They could have just said “look on the website”, which 99.9% of us already have done, because we are sickening overachievers (see point above re: fake-in-class-exercise-slash-midterm.)

So I guess this marks the point in the semester where we are no longer cute-baby-1Ls, but begin the transformative process into crazed-prepping-for-finals-and-jobs-1Ls. I still plan on bucking the trend and maintaining a calm attitude in the face of intense pressure to perform and a strained job market. Perhaps I’ll do so by taking a lesson from negotiation strategy: what’s my BATNA/WATNA? White collar prison and a career writing contracts in the back of an auto-dealership? Eh, I’d say that’s worth this experience.

An update, long-overdue

Bonjour, mes amies… I have missed you. While I’ve been posting from time to time over at N&B, there’s nothing quite like coming home to the blog where it all started (and where there aren’t legions of snarky lawyers ready to tear you a new one…hah!) Here we go:

Class

Some of my non-law friends have asked me, “What’s your favorite class?” Seems pretty simple – but it’s not an easy one to answer. For the most part, I have fairly healthy love-hate relationships with my classes. They are interesting, but draining. The relevant bits are intermingled with reams of information that I’ll never remember past this week and that (I hope) won’t come up on exams. I suppose figuring out the difference is what they call “teaching us to think like lawyers” – but until I get there, it feels more like learning how to be an insomniatic psychopath (in a good way, I guess?!) My torts prof. has the best quotes, by far:

“OK, so how much is a dead baby worth??”

“NEVER get killed in Nebraska.”

Prof: “Police have no duty to protect.”
Student sitting right next to me: “That’s why I always carry a weapon.”

Extras

In the final tally, I’m doing two journals and the negotiation team, plus contributing over at N&B. Overall, it makes my workload heavy – but it’s manageable. Negotiation, in particular, has been eating up every minute of my free time… we practice twice a week, with each practice taking about 3 hours with 2 hours of prep beforehand. The competition got bumped up by a week, though, so it’ll be nice to have a little time to myself post Nov. 7-8.

Don’t worry (be happy)

Just checking in with y’all to say… don’t worry, I’m not disappearing anytime soon (although my lack of posting might have you thinking otherwise.) This negotiation competition is going to suck up approximately ALL of my free time between now and early November – but after that, I’m sure I’ll have TONS of… oh wait, then it’ll be finals. Haha, okay – guess I’ll just have to get my act together and stop making excuses.

In the meantime, I’ve posted again over at N&B.

Let me extend my apologies… while sipping this pina colada

Fall break has been faboo – productive, relaxing, sleep-intensive, and full of daytime TV paternity tests. I did my first batch of cite-checking for one journal (which I’m 14% sure I did correctly… remind me why they let 1Ls do this again??), got started on my outlines, and read “Getting to Yes” in an effort to prepare for next Six Weeks of Insanity ©  (leading up to the external negotiation competition in Salt Lake!)