Ugh

In one hour and thirty minutes, I will be swept up in an epic battle against a business law final. While at the beginning of the semester, I might have had delusions of obtaining victory, my goal now is merely to survive.

As a self-professed nerd, I'm usually a little bit excited to take tests. While I complain about them excessively and have my fair share of exam anxiety, I'm a bit of a junkie for the thrill. There's something strangely exciting about getting the chance to show off how much you've learned from reading that 1400 page casebook and attending class all semester. This test may be the first one in my life that I've honestly dreaded entirely.

Every self respecting law exam is in an essay format, which gives you a lot more room to show off what you do know, without having to focus too much on the things that you don't. Business Associations, however, culminates in a three hour exam of short answer questions - the cruel kind.

Take, for instance, this sample question from an actual final my teacher gave a few years ago:

"John says shareholders should be glad that, in setting executive compensation, directors are not permitted to be wasteful. What do you tell him?"

The correct answer? "He's wrong - salaries are reviewed under the business judgment rule and will be overturned only if they amount to waste"

Double Ugh...

My "Amazing" Math Skills

Today, while waking up at the crack of dawn, I realized that 7:15 was not 45 minutes before 8:15. My inability to do the simplest subtraction has robbed me of over 5 hours of sleep over the past semester.

Conclusion: I'm going to die in the mandatory tax law class next semester - I've heard the final involves a beastly amount of math, even if you bring a fancy calculator.

At Least I'm Sufficiently Oxygenated

Thursday, 4:41 pm: Get an email from a 3L on the journal, announcing that we have oral presentations on Monday

Thursday, 4:42 pm - 7:07 pm: Proceed to hyperventilate

Thursday, 7:08 pm: After checking the syllabus, all previous emails, and my class notes several times, respond to the email asking what we are supposed to be presenting on, and for how long

Thursday, 7:49 pm: Receive a follow up email, telling us our presentations should run for about 12 minutes, and to be prepared to field questions from professors

Thursday, 7:49pm - 11:00 pm: Proceed to hyperventilate

Friday, 6:30 am: Awake after having a nightmare about forgetting class and missing my presentation

Friday, 11:38 am - 3:25 pm: Spend the day at the law school, studying, attending classes, and having many conversations with fellow students about how unpleasant the presentations sound and complaining about how little notice we were given.

Friday, 6:28 pm: Get an email from another 3L on the journal, announcing that an issue has arisen that requires a mandatory meeting of everyone on the journal (including us 2Ls who have yet to ever see or work on an issue). The meeting is scheduled for Monday, half an hour after our presentations were supposed to begin.

Friday, 6:29 pm: Rejoice, because it looks like our oral presentations will have to be postponed

Friday, 6:30 pm: Fret, because the email never actually says our oral presentations will be postponed. Especially because a professor flew back from London this weekend just so he could attend (and grade) these presentations.

Friday, 6:31 pm: Irrationally decide that a 3L must have overheard me complaining about the journal, and that the meeting is being called to discuss the lack of enthusiasm by 2L members.

Friday, 6:32 pm - Saturday, 9:22 am: Hyperventilate

Plans for the day include more hyperventilating, and preparing my oral presentation because my stomach tells me we'll probably be getting an email soon telling us our presentations have been moved to tomorrow night.

If only it were this easy...

I'm off to be productive!

So let it be written, so let it be done.

Discover an Amazing Brownie Recipe? Check!

So ages ago, I posted a list of things I wanted to accomplish over Summer Break. Surprisingly, I did almost all of them - the Law Review writing competition, interviews, travelling, moving, reading, swimming. I failed at writing a novel (the three sentences I jotted down before realizing my plot premise was more than a little creepy* were definitely not sufficient to count), and my new apartment, while adorable, is generally less-than-clean. But for the most part, my summer was a success.

Except for the brownie recipe. I tried at least five different brownie recipes over the summer, but none of them were as good as the box kind. Except for the kind made out of a box mix, with some coconut and sweetened condensed milk thrown in (sweetened condensed milk has a magical way of making everything taste even better). When the summer ended, however, my quest did not. Rather, the cooler fall temperatures, along with the apple harvest and sales on pumpkin puree, pushed me into a baking frenzy. And then, last week, I found it - the brownie recipe I've been hunting for. They're quick and easy to make, have a texture at least as good as a boxed mix, and are a great way to get rid of the lonely, browning banana that is inevitably left on our counter after his friends were all devoured. I bring you deliciousness.

BANANA BETTER-THAN-BOX BROWNIES

1/2 c. margarine (or butter, if you're richer than me or feeling fancy)

2/3 c. semisweet chocolate chips

1 egg

2/3 c packed brown sugar

1 medium banana (overripe is fine)

1/2 t imitation vanilla extract (or the real thing, if you're richer than me or feeling fancy)

1/4 t salt

3/4 c all-purpose flour

More semisweet chocolate chips (1/2 c. is good)

Grease an 8x8 pan, and preheat the oven to 325. Put the butter in a small saucepan, and melt over medium heat. Remove from stove, and stir in the chocolate chips. Set aside. Beat the egg lightly in a medium bowl. Add the brown sugar, and the banana. Mash the banana up fairly well as you stir things together (it would probably be easier to do this before putting it in with the egg and sugar, but that would require getting another bowl dirty). Put in the vanilla and salt, then dump in the butter/chocolate chip sauce. Stir everything together, and gradually add the flour. Dump everything into the pan, and add a generous sprinkling of chocolate chips on top. Bake about 30 minutes, until a knife poked in the middle comes out mostly clean (some moist crumbs are fine). Wait to cool a little bit so you don't burn your mouth, and enjoy with lots of cold milk.

So good! My quest was definitely worth it (ignore the crazy hair... today was just one of those days).

*Turns out a story about a 16 year old who gets into law school but doesn't tell anyone she's 16 because she wants to be treated normally and then starts hanging out with a twenty something classmate she has a crush on who is weirded out when he inevitably finds out how young she is and then causes a huge scene in criminal law while the clueless professor is lecturing about statutory rape, while it makes for an entertaining daydream in Crim Law, had probably best be left unwritten - there's just the little plot problem that 16 year olds, prodigies or not, really shouldn't be going after 23 years olds.

("Evan stared at me icily as he raised his hand.

'Yes, Mr. Jasper,' the professor said.

'What if the girl mislead everyone into thinking she was older than she really was?' My heart sunk to the pit of my stomach. 'What if this wasn't a situation where the defendant took home a girl from a bar, but one where the girl deliberately crafted a false identity and exploited the trust of people she pretended to befriend? What if," he spoke slowly and deliberately, his eyes continuing to drill into my soul, "she was a fraud?'

The professor blinked several times, as though he realized Evan hadn't actually been talking about criminal law, but he answered the question. 'You should read the Lafave hornbook more closely, Mr. Jasper. The intent of the victim would be relevant if this were a crime of scienter, but such details are technically irrelevant in the context of a strict liability offense. Of course, they might sway a sympathetic jury, but juries are unpredictable, as Texas v. Scott makes clear. Mr. Hensley, will you please recite the facts of that case?'

Class continued for another 45 minutes, but my notes stayed blank. I felt too guilty to concentrate, and was too angry to care...")

A Ramble Inspired by My Inability to Focus on Fiduciary Duties in Sole Proprietorships

At least five times over the past month (mostly when I was procrastinating homework), I thought to myself "Wow, it's about time that I wrote another blog post." I would then pull up blogger.com, click to open a new post, and sit and stare at the blank box until I got sufficiently bored to return to reading for Business Associations.

At one point, I even looked for blog prompts, but the thought of writing an entire post responding to "What does mayhem mean to you?" brought on some rather severe flashbacks to unpleasant grade school writing assignments. Me, in tears because my hand hurt from gripping the pencil too tightly and my head hurt from not being able to spell anything (at the age of nine, I still frequently used the byline "LaShel Wihte"). My mom, insisting that 20 words really wasn't a monstrous assignment and imploring me to attempt writing a word with more than three letters. As a child, I had so much I wanted to write and so little ability to express myself in writing. Now that I'm an adult, with a decently fast typing speed and a reasonable ability to spell most English words (at least with the help of spell check), all the ideas have disappeared. Well, except for the age-old fall back of writing about how you don't have anything to write about.

I thought that the answer to getting over my writer's block was to have something exciting happen to me, so I would have something to blog about. I was mistaken. Turns out, the best method for overcoming that blank stupor is to be procrastinating something you really don't want to do. Like outlining for Business Associations *blech*

Things That Confuse Me

Right now, I'm a little puzzled why the IRS would decide it was worth their time to audit a pair of newlyweds who probably could have made twice as much money last year and still have gotten all their taxes back.

Also, why is it so easy to stumble across delicious looking recipes when you're not looking for them, but so impossible to figure out what to make dinner once you get hungry?*

*in full disclosure, it would probably be easier if I planned ahead and A) made it to the store to get things like bread, eggs, flour, and pasta sauce and B) wasn't trying to make dinner twenty minutes before I wanted to eat it... but that would actually require foresight.

Reasons I Wish I Were Still a 1L

I've decided I'm going to just go back to being a 1L. Why, you might ask, would I want to give up being able to choose my own classes and occiasionally have new students look up to me like I'm smart or important for having finished a year of law school, only to go back to the bottom of the pile?

1. For 1st years, 15 credits involves reading about 180 pages a week. Which takes about 18 hours to get through. For 2nd years, 15 credits involves reading about 300 pages a week. Which, as you might deduce if you have the math skillz, takes about 30 hours a week to plow through.

2. Because of their lesser reading load, plus not being allowed to work, not being on journals, and not having to find a job for after graduation, first year students occaisionally have time to go to the grocery store/load the dishwasher/have brief conversations with their husbands.

3. So far, it seems that a substantial part of the 2L experience is gettting letters of rejection from various firms you were hoping would hire you

4. The busyness, the emerging journal cliques, and the fact that you don't have classes with the rest of your cohorts mean that you never really see any of your friends anymore

5. Getting to choose your own schedule means having to worry about final exam conflicts

6. All those 1L's might look up to you, but they also overrun all your favorite study spots and spend a lot of time complaining about how they have a ridiculous amount of reading. It was much more fun to be the one blissfully comiserating about the 180 pages.

7. 1L orientation is still going on... which means lots of free food (for them)

8. The most important reason I wish I was still a 1L? As a first year, I spent my days sitting in class, hoping I didn't get called on. Totally innocent, normal behavior. As a 2nd year, though, I challenged myself to occasionally volunteer in class, because class participation actually factors into our grades. The problem is, once I started talking, it became really comfortable, and now I'm having a hard time sitting on my hands during class so I don't overvolunteer. It's obnoxious... I spent all of graduate school getting chewed out my teachers for never participating, and now law school's turned me into a gunner. Sounds weird, but I miss my formerly timid 1L self... it was much less embarassing.

Ok, so maybe I'm being a little dramatic. I love my job, I love the journal, and I like almost all of my classes (one class I'm taking only for a graduation requirement wasn't quite as interest grabbing, but it's definitely growing on me). I'd just like 50 hour days (with mandatory nap times, of course), a job offer for next summer, and some kind of muzzle. Ooohh... and some brownies!

Why I Actually Have to Spend Money on Clothes

Today I'm helping with 1L orientation, which should be rather fun. In exchange for 8 hours of volunteering, the law school gave me dinner last night and a free t-shirt.

Dinner might not have been my favoritest, but it was at a pretty classy pizza joint, and it's not the law school's fault that I dislike pizza. The shirt, however...

On the bright side, it's not white or see-through (or even worse, white and see-through). And it's shirt-shaped. And it has a great ND logo on the front. But...

Let's just say the mustard-yellow tent look is not so much for me.

More Than You Want to Know About VFTs

This past week (on the 6th) Mike and I celebrated our one year anniversary. Our anniversary gift, from ourselves, to ourselves, was a used Wii with Wii Fit, which we have been enjoying immensely. It's an amazing ab workout... and I'm definitely a fan of all the cute balance games. We decided to also spend 5-10 dollars on a surprise gift for each other, to make it a little more fun. Mike got me some chocolate and some silicone bakeware, which made me super happy. I decided we were in need of a "love fern", so I got him a Venus Flytrap.

At the time, the Venus Flytrap (or VFT, as it is known by enthusiasts) seemed like a great choice. They eat bugs, which is cool, and, perhaps more importantly, they were the only living plant I could buy at Meijer. Plus, as I discovered as I looked through them, they have beautiful white flowers. I picked one that looked healthy and had several blooms on it, and brought it home. The next morning, I presented it to Mike. And then (and only then) I started looking into what care was necessary to take care of the plants, to make sure I could keep this symbol of our affection alive.

(The flowers on the one I got Mike are blooming and pretty, but otherwise this is what our plant looks like)

Turns out these VFT's are the most finicky creatures known to mankind. Because they get their nutrients from the bugs they eat, they don't need any in the soil. One would think this would make them easy to care for, because you don't need to worry about fertilizer, but actually it means that the nutrients in ordinary dirt (or ordinary tap water) will give the plant root burn and kill it. It can only tolerate distilled water, and in order to give it the badly needed transplant, we had to buy nutrient-free sphagnum peat moss. The plant is also pretty picky about what bugs it can eat. Anything with a hard outer shell (like a beetle) will kill it, as will anything with any noticeable fat content (like any sort of meat). Caterpillars and other plant eating bugs are off limits unless they are killed first, because they can eat through a trap before the trap can eat through them.

If the humidity drops below 50%, it will die (which is why it needs a terrarium... which makes it awfully difficult for it to catch bugs). If it is over or under watered, it will die. If its traps are triggered too often, it will die. If it doesn't get 4-12 hours of sunlight every day, it will die. If it isn't kept in the fridge during its dormancy period, it will die. And (here's the kicker) if it is allowed to flower, it usually dies.

So, long story short, VFT's do not, apparently, make very good symbols for the health of one's relationship. I'm thinking I'll be lucky if I can keep this thing alive for a month. I guess I should start planning for the divorce?

No Rest for the Indecisive

Yesterday, after a morning of working, I finally went into the bathroom for a shower. Once inside, I made two horrific discoveries:

1. I didn't have any razors (normally this might not have been a crisis, but I already hadn't shaved for three days, and I really wanted to wear a skirt for my dinner date with Mike)

2. We didn't have any toilet paper (this one's always a crisis)

Quickly, I decided that an emergency store run was in order. I didn't have the car, but fortunately our new apartment is less than a block from a big box super store, so I figured I could jog over, grab some tp and razors, and be back within 15 minutes. It seemed like a good plan, but I forgot how evil these big box stores can be.

First, there was the toilet paper aisle. I don't mind that it's hidden in the back of the store, in hopes of enticing people into buying all the snack food you have to pass on the way. I didn't even mind (terribly) that they always put the toilet paper by the paper towels, sometimes making it hard to determine which is which, at least at first glance. What I did mind was the dizzying array of choices.

1 ply or 2 ply? 4 pack or 6 pack? Big rolls or regular sized ones? Do we have room to store a 12 pack? Scotts lasts forever... but it can't be a better deal than the store brands, can it?

I just wanted the cheapest package that would do the job - but trying to figure out which package was cheapest, given the different roll sizes and pack sizes, was much too taxing for my math skills. The cost per sheet indicators on the price tags weren't much help either, because about half of the varieties were on sale. Finally, I grabbed a random package (Scott's environmentally friendly variety, in a four pack, if you're curious) and then headed to the health and beauty department to get razors.

Here, the whole process was repeated again. 2 blades or 3? Disposable or the kind with cartridges? Do I want moisture strips?

Again, cheap was better, but I did want to spend enough to get one that would work. And, again, the price per unit indicators on the shelf tags were useless, thanks to all of the "bonus" razors in the various packages.

By the time I finally got home from the store, I was stressed that I'd made the wrong choices (what if Mike hates this kind of toilet paper?) and grumpy because my fifteen minute run to the store had taken over a half hour.

I suppose choices are a good thing, and I can definitely live with them, if it helps everyone get what they need. It does irk me, though, that I never seem to have any consummer choices when I need them (how is it that I'm lucky if a store carries 1 suit in my size? [Usually made out of linen or dyed some garish color that defeats its purpose as a suit.] I promise I'm not the only pint-sized law/business student in the world).

"Cookies" and my anti-climatic visit to a bar

In case it hasn't already become apparent, I am completely obsessed with desserts. In fact, some of the highlights of my week have been Rhubarb-Strawberry Cobbler and Zucchinni Chocolate Chip Cake - and it's been a really good week.

So last weekend, when some of my classmates invited me to go to a neighboring city's summer festival, my first thought was naturally about the bake sales. After watching the little parade (the town has a population of less than 2000, so the parade was basically a procession of horses, firetrucks, and regular cars with posterboard advertisements taped to the sides) and wandering around the craft fair, we went to go get food, and I began scoping out the dessert options.

Unfortunately, my options were limited by the $1 I had in my pocket, so the chocolate dipped cheesecake on a stick was not a possibility (Mike, who was working, usually carries all the cash, and I had forgotten to borrow any). I looked over the booths run by local church groups, hoping to find some home baked brownies or pie.

The only brownies I could find, though, were being sold by a weight-loss group and, with visions of artificial sweeteners and whole grain flours ruining the chocolatey goodness, I passed them by. At the next booth, though, I spotted a bunch of elderly women selling cookies, 3 for $1. The cookies had obviously been donated by different women - in the peanut butter cookie basket, for instance, there were smaller cookies and larger cookies and some that had been rolled in sugar. They all looked delicious, though. After much indecision, I decided to buy some oatmeal cookies - there were several different kinds in the basket with delicious looking chocolate chunks or dried cranberries.

When I handed over my $1 to the woman at the booth, she reached in the basket of oatmeal cookies and handed me a baggie of cookies. I was disappointed to see, however, that my cookies did not have chocolate chunks or cranberries or even raisins. In fact, they looked very odd - flat and perfectly circular. After one bite, I realized why. These weren't bake sale cookies! They were the Great Value brand oatmeal cookies sold for $1.50 a package and found on the bottom shelf of the Walmart snack aisle. I was grandly disapointed - although I did still eat them. After all, they were vaguely cookie-like.

In other news, last weekend was also the first time I'd ever gone to a bar (the law school was hosting a social event to help welcome new students to South Bend). I was very excited to finally get to go to one of these things - I missed most of the law school social events last year because they were all in bars and I was still underage. When we got to the bar, I realized that I'd left my ID in the car, a few blocks away. Turns out, though, that I didn't need it. No one ID'd us when we went in (the ID checker didn't appear to watch the doorway until about five minutes after we went in) and the waitress missed me when she ID'd our group before taking drink orders (of course, I did only order a huckleberry lemonade, but she checked Mike's ID, and he only had a water). It was nice not to have to go back to the car to get my license, but also vaguely disapointing to know that it wouldn't have mattered if I had still been 20.

So now I have two more tasks to add to my To Do This Summer list - get (or make) some real oatmeal cookies, and be ID'd. It's going to be a busy three weeks :)

Math I Can Handle

900 sq. ft. apartment with a deck, vaulted ceilings, a huge kitchen, and an in-unit washer and dryer - 400 sq. ft. studio with 18 inches of counterspace, an insect problem, and no internet = an indescribable amount of awesomeness.

In other words, our new apartment > our old apartment. By a lot.

Pictures may follow shortly, presuming I'm ever able to get all these boxes unpacked.

I ♥ Sleep!

You know you're an adult when you keep a running countdown in your head to track the hours left before you can go to bed.

Ok, so maybe I used to count down to bedtime as a child too, but that was just because I was worried I wouldn't get through my stack of library books before my mom made me turn the light off.

Mmmm... sleep.... only 11 hours and 16 minutes to go!

Oh Canada

So unlike several fortunate cousins of mine, and practically half of my classmates, I am not enjoying/will not shortly enjoy being able to gallivant about Europe :( On the bright side, however, I am having a splendid vacay this week in a super swanky condo on Vancouver Island, in British Columbia, with Mike and his parents.

(picture from the website of the unit we're staying in... it looks exactly like this)

In fact, from where I sit right now, I can see the Pacific Ocean... the beach seriously starts twenty feet from the back door.

The crazy part, though, is how close we came to not being here at all. First, there was the unfortunate combination of math errors, the lack of a map, and Chicago rush hour traffic that got us to the boarding gate at Midway right as they were announcing the last call for "Shaw, party of two" over the loudspeakers.

We got on the plane with seconds to spare, flew too and navigated through Seattle, and then stood in the longest line ever known to mankind at the Greyhound station, where we wolfed down our only real meal of the day (tacos from the shop next door) and watched a drunk homeless man get ejected from the women's rest room by a harried security guard.

(not the actual line at the Greyhound station, obviously... ours was much longer)

When the bus stopped at the border, we assumed the process would just involve a simple check to make sure we both had passports. Turns out Canadian border patrol officers are a bit more hardcore. We were grilled about our plans, and only cleared to enter the country with great trepidation - the officer was worried that we were indigents who would spend what little cash we had in Canada and then be stranded in the country and drain their welfare system dry. Two of the other people on our bus, both of whom had passports, were actually turned away. We certainly would have been if we weren't going to meet Mike's parents, who, as we assured the security guard, had a car and enough cash to fill it with gas and drive us back to the States.

The Greyhound dropped us off in Vancouver (beautiful city, by the way) where we had to navigate the bus and metro system with all of our luggage, making a series of connections that brought us 100 kilometers outside the city and took us several hours.

In the meantime, we befriended a British med-student/rock-climber, who desperately needed the twenty dollars of cash we had to be able to pay the airport security fee to get home (sort of sounds like a scam, I know, but we have his phone number and email address and talked with him for forever... he was legit). Then, penniless (well, we did have debit and credit cards and a Canadian nickle we found on the floor) we took a ferry over to Vancouver Island, where we were picked up by Mike's parents and got back to the condo at 1:30 in the morning. Which, Eastern Time, would have been 4:30 in the morning... which is impressive considering we had gotten up at 5:00 that day.

But we made it! And it's beautiful here! And although it may not be Europe, the people here do have cool accents, and I get to see a bunch of stuff on loan from the British Museum when we go down to Victoria tomorrow. Plus, I'm betting Europe doesn't have Nanaimo Bars...

Ill (or at least feeling guilty) over ILL

Normally, I hate to Interlibrary Loan (ILL). It's nothing against the books themselves... they're lovely. I just feel so guilty making the non-profit library spend several dollars of their limited budget on getting a book sent just for me, instead of being able to put that money towards buying new books that lots of people, including myself, could read.

This summer, however, I've had to ILL quite a few books for the professor I'm working for, and I started to feel more comfortable with it. When I discovered a book that I needed for the research I'm doing for him, and found out on WorldCat that there were a dozen libraries in the country that had a copy (as opposed to the book that was only owned by a single library in the Netherlands) I went ahead and ordered it. "I pay tens of thousands of dollars in tuition," I thought to myself in self-justification. "Surely they can spare to spend $2.50 on shipping for a book that's likely to be a goldmine for my research project."

The day after I put in the ILL request for the book, I got an email from the school library saying that none of the other libraries in WorldCat actually had circulating copies. I was somewhat dissapointed, but figured there was nothing I could do about it, and decided to proceed with the project without it. Today, however, as I was running another search through the card catalog, I found out that this library owns the book I requested.

Feeling somewhat dumb and wondering why the librarian hadn't said anything, I went ahead and clicked on it... only to discover that it is still in processing, after having arrived yesterday. So forget about feeling bad about having the library spend three dollars on shipping for a book... I now have a major guilt complex for inspiring the acquisition of a new book, which had to have cost at least 30 pounds (I checked), plus a ridiculous shipping charge from Europe. The worst part is, the book's a 500 page volume, in French, on a narrow topic of European constitutional adjudication, so it's not like anyone besides me is ever going to read it. *sigh*

Ye Olden Days Lacketh Convenience

Ordinarily, I'm a big fan of all things medieval.  

In fact, I even got up the courage the other day to visit the medieval collections at the library here at Notre Dame - an entire floor of non-circulating books, many of them very old and most of them in Latin.  Unfortunately I couldn't stay long - I was worried that one of the Medieval Studies doctoral students studying there would suddenly yell something like "Hey, you can't be here... you're just a law student."  Plus, more rationally, I neeeded to hurry back to the law school so I could actually get some work done that day.  But I intend to go back, scary Ph.D. candidates and all.  It was too wonderful to stay away from long.

But this post isn't about the impressive medieval collection here, or my love for crumbling Latin texts written a thousand years ago.  It's about the medieval period I'm going through in my own life, and how much I dislike it.  Turns out, I couldn't have been happy in the Dark Ages.  Or even the 1980s (although, if you ask me, the decade of big hair and Prince was the real dark age).

Last weekend, one of our neighbors moved out of our apartment building.  Normally, we probably wouldn't have noticed, but this particular neighbor happened to be the only person around with un-password protected wireless internet.  We'd been mooching internet off him all year, and now it's gone.  Mike and I decided not to sign up for our own account at this point, because we are moving at the end of next month (to a "real" apartment, with a separate bedroom and living room and a kitchen that will have more than 18 inches of counterspace, even after we move the microwave in - so exciting!).

So now, anytime we want to look up a recipe for dinner, or check to see where a Facebook event is happening, or need to look through recent decisions by the Supreme Court of India (my task for work, of late) we have to pack up our computers and either walk 3 1/2 blocks to the grocery store, or make the 20 minute walk to the law school building (despite the added distance, the law school building is usually the more attractive option - it's quieter, and has sofas).  

I know I shouldn't be complaining, especially because we conveniently had free internet for the entire school year.  But still... I miss the twentyfirst century!!

*thump**thump**thump*

As I type this (and for the past several hours), a herd of elephants is parading about above me.  Ok, so maybe they might actually be roofers with nail guns, but the unpleasant effect on my sanity is the same.

In the good news, I'm not dead - just lazy.  I'm enjoying my new job, but working full time has left me with considerably less free time than I was envisioning for this summer.  Plus, the monstrous law review packet (which finally arrived) may not have taken up all my spare time, but it has done a pretty good job of ruining those free minutes with gnawing sensations of guilt.

I did finally see Benjamin Button.  I don't know why I'm so drawn to stories and movies that explore the brevity of life and the tragedy of mortality - I always end up in tears almost from the start.  It was pretty good, though.

And I just finished reading The Prophecy of the Stones.  Maybe it doesn't quite count for my literary accomplishment for the summer, but it was really good - and written by a 13 year old, to boot.  It makes me so old to realize that I'll never be a teenage author... or an Olympic gymnast... or tall.  That's probably the best part about being a kid - your life has infinite possibilities, and there doesn't seem to be any reason that you can't grow up to do and see and be everything you want.

Well, I need to go figure out what we're having for dinner.  I'm really in the mood for some cake, but it's much too hot in here to turn the oven on.  I might have to settle for some ice cream (we just bought a tub yesterday, so it should hopefully still be icicle-free, despite our evil freezer).

Summer!

After 2 semesters as a lowly first year student, I'm now officially a 2L.  Unfortunately, unlike levelling up in a video game, this hasn't appeared to give me any special powers or even made me aware of any previously-locked secret areas.  I guess that must not happen until you become a 3L...

My exams went alright(ish).  As mentioned earlier, I forgot about the First Amendment during my Con Law exam.  My Torts exam was so severely word limited that I couldn't really explore any nuances.  The exam I'm most worried about, though, is Property - I started getting a migraine half an hour before the exam, and even though I loaded up on Excedrin when I realized what was happening, I know the first third of the test was consequentially a probable disaster.  But enough about that... there's no point in obsessing now, considering that I won't get my grades for at least 3 weeks (some rumors have even suggested that they won't be in until late June!  I don't think my sanity is that patient). 

Almost as predictable as my impatience for my grades, the end of the semester has also filled me with grandiose plans for this summer:

1. Do the law review write on (of course, this goal might be a little bit easier to accomplish if they actually gave us the packets with our topic assignments - we were expecting them 62 hours ago).

2. Assuming I make law review, start working on research for a note topic

3. Travel (visit Utah, Chicago, Michigan City, the Amish, Canada, and hopefully D.C.)

4. On campus interviews

5.  Try to get a jump-start on coursework for semester

6. Move to a bigger apartment (meaning one that actually has a bedroom).  Furnish/decorate it adorably.  And keep it clean.

7. Write another novel.  Maybe actually let someone besides my mom read it this time.

8. Find a recipe for brownies from scratch that I like as much as the box kind (a surprisingly difficult struggle, to be honest... I've already been working on this one for several months)

9. Read something literary.  I'm not sure what yet... any suggestions?

10.  Watch all my DVDs with the French dubbing on, in a probably-too-late attempt to remember the language.

11.  Start hitting the gym again.  Law school killed all those good exercise habits I built up in grad school.

12.  Actually use the pool at our apartment complex, at least once

13.  Get caught up on movies and TV shows.  Especially want to see Benjamin Button.

14.  Write letters.  And actually mail them.

15.  Take pictures of me and Mike doing all these fun things.  Maybe even blog about it.

And, of course, (16.) work.  This summer is going to be epic.

Random Ramblings of an Exam-Fried Mind

I may be in the midst of the most grueling finals week of my life, but, hey, at least one week from today I'll be free!*

Although, truth be told, as demoralizing as exams are, there's a little part of me that kind of likes the insanity.  If only that little part of me would have chimed in to remind myself about the existence of the First Amendment during my Con Law exam this afternoon...

I had the first Gyro of my life today, and thought it was delicious.  Plus, an excellent excuse to get bakalava... mmmmmmhmmm! 

*Working on a twenty or thirty page paper and an exam on citation forms for the law review competition.

The Good, The Bad, and the... Cute

Last night I made some of these.  Very good!

Last night our nextdoor neighbor and his girlfriend broke up.  At two in the morning.  Very loudly.  Right outside our window.  Very bad...

Last night, I discovered this when I was supposed to be working on my Con Law outline.  Very cute.  (And an even worse procrastination technique than baking goodies or blogging.)

So that's what leg warmers are for...

I spent most of last week looking forward to Friday.  Not because it signaled the beginning of the weekend (with less than two weeks until finals, there's no such thing as a weekend in law school) but because the weathermen had promised a beautiful sunshiney day with temperatures in the low 70s.  I love the winter, but the thought of not having to put up with clouds and freezing winds for at least one day this April was very tantalizing.

Friday morning I pulled out my capris, which had been banished to the top shelf of the closet since September, and put a t-shirt.  At the last minute, as I headed out the door, I threw on a hoodie too.  After all, it was only 7:30 in the morning and the sun had only been up for about ten minutes... it probably wasn't perfect weather yet.

5 minutes late, as usual, I ran out of the house and began walking briskly to school.  By the time I got to the parking lot, I could tell that something was amiss.  My toes, who had been so happy about the return of the flip-flops, were beginning to protest.  

"It can't be that cold," I mentally told them.  "Suck it up."  

They didn't stop tingling, though, and as I continued walking my legs and hands and ears joined in.  Puzzled that my extremities were so bothered by what I assumed was 50 degree weather, I started to look around at my surroundings.  Someone defrosting their car window.  Crunchy, ice covered grass.  My own breath, escaping from my mouth in puffs that reminded me of the pictures of nineteenth century trains in my property casebook.  

I passed three people on my way to school.  Every single one of them was wearing gloves.  All three of them had coats.  Two of them were wearing beanies.  Smart, sensible people who actually checked the weather before dashing outside in beach wear.

"So this is how natural selection thins the gene pool,"I thought dismally.

After what seemed like a very long 25 minutes, I finally made it into the warmth of the law school building.  As my feet began to thaw enough to resume their tingling protests, I looked around at my fellow classmates and was confronted by a sea of bare feet, legs, and arms.  The girl to my right was wearing a mini skirt and flats, the boy on my left had on flipflops and shorts.  This made me feel much better about my own judgment.  Of course, it also could have prompted me to worry about the future of a legal profession in the hands of people who weren't even capable of dressing themselves appropriately for the weather... but I'm pretending that it really wasn't a matter of inferior judgment, but a signal of superior foresight.  After all, it may have been a miserable 28 degree trek to school, but when my fellow classmates and I headed home that afternoon, it was a glorious 69 degrees -- warm enough that my toes began to forgive me.

Freezer Burn Is Not My Friend

And I wanted ice cream so badly... 

:(

Procrastinating again...

I feel so terrible to be one of those people who created a new blog, wrote a short and senseless post, and then didn't return for months.  It's the virtual equivalent of leaving a baby in a dumpster, without the chance that a kind hearted passerby might intervene.  

That being said, my discovery of my cousins' brilliant blogs (here, and here) gave me the inspiration to give this another try.  Besides, it's that time in the semester again where I am supposed to be spending every waking moment outlining... meaning, of course, that my desperation for new procrastination techniques is full force.

At Eastern Oregon University, all of my classes were online, and none of them had caps.  The result was that I could register for anything I felt like, as long as I made sure that I was getting my GEs.  I was even a Liberal Studies major, which is effectively like majoring in electives.  Probably best of all, EOU was on a quarter system, which meant that I knew that even if I ended up hating a class, I'd only have to put up with it for a couple of months.

When I moved on to grad school, registration became even simpler.  The program was small enough that there were only 6 or 7 classes offered by the department each semester, and most of them were three hour seminars that met once a week.  The chance for class conflicts was basically non-existent, and there were no class caps.  I knew all of the professors in the department well enough to know what to expect from any given class, and 9 credits was considered a full course load.  Again, a very easy experience.

Cue law school.  The first year's registration was simple, because the school took care of it for me.  All of us 1L's had to take the exact same classes at the exact same times, and the registrar just divided us into sections and sent us our schedules.  This week, though, they let us register for classes for next fall, and it was incredibly stressful.  I picked out the classes that I wanted to take, and for the first time in my life, had to deal with scheduling conflicts.  After a good deal of agonizing and nearly an hour spent rearranging pretend schedules, I finally came up with a workable schedule.

The morning of registration, though, they let the current 2Ls register first, and by the time they were done several of the classes I had wanted to take were completely full.  Scrambling for a new workable schedule and rushing to beat my classmates to get seats in the more popular classes, I panicked and registered for 17 credits.  The good news is that none of the classes conflict.  The bad news is that we're only supposed to take 15 credits, and 17 credits (A) is academic suicide and (B) precludes me from any chance of doing a journal next year.

So I have to drop a class :(  Probably soon, because it's not nice to be sitting on class spots in more classes than I need, especially because some of them are now completely full.  But which one?  

The fun class taught by the world's greatest living legal philosopher (according to his Wikipedia page)?  

The class that will look great on my clerkship applications that's rumored to be an easy(ish) A?  

Or the class that's actually relevant to what I think I want to do after graduation?  

(Unfortunately, I'm not letting myself consider dropping the one class I'm actually dreading and would love not to take, because it's required for graduation).

*sigh*  Sometimes, too many options can be such a painful thing.... although at least it gives me an excuse for why I'm not working on my outlines.

Perhaps it would be a better use of my time to be working on my Constitutional Law reading rather than creating a new blog. Perhaps. But bizarrely, typing about my life seems more appealing than delving into a dense 20 page exploration of the Rehnquist Court's Revival of Internal Limits on the Commerce Power.

At some point I'll post something about my actual life, instead of just griping about homework and posting scary pictures of my textbook. For now, however, my guilt's getting the best of me... I guess I will go acquaint myself with the historical significance of United States v. Lopez after all.