Rechlorinated

Another reason law school is just like high school - I have to get up early and drag myself first thing to the pool for exercise. At least the other swimmers don't make me crazy this time.

Desk Appeal

Since my desk is probably the most "complete" part of my living space - here's a view.

Weekend Update

The good thing about this term is that I don't have any Friday classes, so I pretty much have a three-day weekend, right? Unfortunately not. I've been going out on Thursday nights which is a nice decompression after four days of work. Fridays are usually spent in study groups and running small errands; study group takes up a good four hours, so by the time I finish that and eat, etc., it's usually the evening and I'll end up going out again. Hurrah. Saturday has become Non-Law School Day during which I avoid even thinking about classes and schoolwork, instead doing all the things I would be doing if I didn't have coursework (aka, being lazy). And Sunday is homework day for Monday and trying to figure out what's going on. By Sunday the guilt has set in and I usually spend six hours in the reading room to catch up. But after all the fun of the weekend, I suppose the tradeoff is fair.

The War on Clutter

The table and couch aren't covered with random junk anymore!

At this rate I may be fully settled by Thanksgiving.

Personal Days

A couple weeks ago I saw my Con Law professor on the street and it was only a little awkward - he said hi to me first. Today I was in my Torts professor's office and a fellow parent called her about a playdate, which she told me after the call had to do with contingency plans for a lice breakout on her son's soccer team (or at least I think that's what she meant). And after classes today our Property professor waved to me on the street jauntily and said "Hello!" in a bright tone of voice. Will this ever not seem awkward?

Professors - they're just like us!

Chain Reaction

Bike update: My chain broke this morning halfway through crossing a four line street. This is what I get for trusting a rusted chain that's eight years old. Gah.

Infinite Regret

I just read David Foster Wallace's 2005 commencement speech at Kenyon College. Hot damn. Why did we get stuck with McCain for my graduation (who recycled a speech he gave once before and once after) when such brilliant orators walk among us?

This might be enough to make me tackle Infinite Jest again, although my pleasure reading has been supremely compromised by the lack of subway commuting and available time. Must fix that.

DIY - Success!

A day later and with a little help from the hardware store - all is well with the bicycle (Batcycle?). Now this means I can take my books home with me with the swiftest of wheels as opposed to leaving them at school so I don't have to cart a 5 lb tome on my shoulder.

Weirdly this makes me feel like an actual human being with a life that can vary, et cetera. And riding a bike is quite nice in A2, at least when the traffic is relatively light. I wear a helmet so as to guard against my natural clumsiness. 

DIY

I got a bike basket from the bike store that I planned to install myself and save the $12.95 installation. But the screws they gave me didn't work and were so soft that one of them broke in the attachment hole and now I can't get it out. Irritating!

Balancing Test

With the recent economic crisis it's hard not to think about what the job market is going to be three years from now, even though I'm only three weeks into school. Of course, it's actually more complex than that for me since many firms hire their 2L associates at the beginning of the 2L year (i.e. a year from now for me) and those summer jobs are what often turn into post-grad employment. So, the economic situation next fall will probably make a big impact on my job prospects.

The other issue is balancing my own interests with the more pragmatic elements of the law. I'm not raring to go into corporate law but I am interested in antitrust, which means that I'll probably have to take at least three business law classes (argh). But also I want to study mass media and copyright, and do some clinical work and maybe a research project....and how do you jam all that into two years of elective course work? Not very easily.

So once again I've put the cart before the horse and neglected thinking about my actual courses. 

No Way Out

There was a session today for people who are interested in becoming admissions volunteers (of which I am one), which of course made me think back on the strange road that brought me to law school. 

I was pretty confused about what I wanted to do for graduate school, perhaps in part because I never had the conviction that I think one needs for a Ph.D. and because I had no experience in the law at all. So either option seemed both appealing and incomprehensible. Looking back it would have been hard for me to do the doctorate or to progress efficiently beyond it because I think I lack that intuitive, all-seeing nature of the humanities professor, but it's impossible to say that for certain.

I do remember that when I got the big envelope from this law school, I immediately thought Well shit, now it's all been decided for me. I'm still not sure why I thought that first - possibly so that if I felt unhappy about the decision, I could claim that it was out of my hands. A more charitable interpretation might be that it was just my cynical brain reworking a gut reaction that I just had to go to law school. But I'm a little too jaded to see it that way.

I was talking to one of my classmates yesterday about law school and the reasons of doing it, probably because we both have ambivalence about the entire endeavor. I remarked that since my sister dropped out of law school after her first year and much of my family position is based on my intellectual superiority to her (a fact I'm not proud of at all), it was impossible for me to ever drop out of law school - if only to maintain my role in the family. That's not a good reason, of course; nor is it the only one. And it's not as though I feel that I would love to drop out, except that I'm barred from that because of my weird family hangups. I'm actually pretty happy in school so far, I think.

The issue, I suppose, is that the fact that I was going to some sort of post-graduate program felt predestined (because of my parents' perspective); the fact that I was going to end up in law school over English also felt predestined (because of my pragmatism, among other things); and the fact that I am going to finish law school feels predestined (because of my fucked-up family perspective). The only thing that doesn't feel pre-destined is my relative success as a lawyer - and that's because that is all up to me and I can't blame it on anyone else if it ends up not playing out as I envision. So, as with all the decisions I just mentioned, it's my own damn fault regarding what does or doesn't happen. As I must always remind myself: I chose this. 

I knew that already so I'm not really sure why it took me six paragraphs to come to that point, but whatever. 

Five to Four

There was a panel at school today of six profs talking about important Constitutional cases from the last session of the Supreme Court in honor of Constitution Day. As further proof of my lameness, the panel was interesting enough (on the whole) to make me want to go out and read the opinions. Who wouldn't after hearing about Scalia and Stevens fighting it out in their rulings?

Sliding Scale

We have a memo due at the end of next week that will probably end up being between 10 and 20 pages (let's use 15 to illustrate my point). If this had happened in college I'd be spitting bullets for only getting two weeks to do such a long paper. Now, it's just part of the Law School Work Train.

Or maybe I've matured since college. Eh, probably not.

Paranoia Cracks

I thought I had bedbugs but it turns out it's just dry skin.

Silver Fox

I had a dream that my hair had started to go seriously grey (more than just the few grey hairs I have now, that is). School - it's even stressful during sleep.

The Lawyers of the Sea

I can't read the phrase "maritime law" without thinking about Arrested Development. This may turn out to be a problem in the long run.

Outsider Art

Today U.S. Supreme Court Justice Anthony Kennedy gave a short lecture/Q&A at the Law School. I went mostly because I thought I "should" - it was a Friday morning, we just finished our first full week of class, I was tired, etc. - but it was definitely worth it. He's obviously brilliant but he was also quite a good speaker, and funny. I won't say he was inspirational since that's a little too Dead Poets Society for my taste but he was really eloquent about his work and the law as a whole. It's nice to get some non-abstraction.

Soft Socratic

There was a post on the NYTimes Ideas blog about the purported primary method of instruction at law school - the so-called Socratic method - in which professors choose students at random to answer questions. The post says that professors actually lecture much more than people think and that the Socratic method isn't as much of a pedagogical tool as one might think. 

I think that's pretty accurate. One of my classes isn't a lecture so that doesn't count; of the other three, only one of the teachers could at all be characterized as intensely Socratic - by which I mean the professor is very interested in engaging with a student and forcing the student to follow a logical progression. But this professor isn't at all hostile or sadistic and self-characterized this style as "soft Socratic" - whatever that means.

Of the last two, one said explicitly that class participation doesn't count for the final grade and thus no one really worries about getting called on, and the other is nice enough to lead a struggling student to the trough and/or pass the question along to volunteers.

All this is really to say that while the Socratic method was one of the things I worried most about prior to starting school, it's not really on my mind much anymore, mostly because there's either an escape route or I don't mind being embarrassed if I don't know an answer. That doesn't mean that I don't obsess of my performance when I do get called on/volunteer, especially if I have to talk for an extended period. The self-analysis never ends.

Future Interest

It's hard not to think about what's going to happen after law school is over (if it ever is), maybe because a lot of it is pre-determined far earlier than you would think. To recap: people start looking for their post-1L jobs during the middle of the academic year (from about December to March, I think), and then you look for the job you get post-2L at the very beginning of 2L year. So, the people who are 2Ls now just had interviews for jobs they won't start until May. And that job, the post-2L job, can often lead to the job you have after you graduate.

All of this, of course, is floating around in the ether as I study. Today I went to a meeting for a club focused on intellectual property, which I may or may not be interested in (apparently my interests are more "soft IP" - copyright and trademark, rather than "hard IP" which is more patent related and requires a techical - science or engineering - background).

But is that really what I'm interested in? Am I even interested in anything having to do with the law? It's a little dangerous for me to start thinking about jobs because then it leads to the question about what I'm even doing here, if anything.

Well, what I should be doing is HW, right? Right.

in sum

Torts: When Bad Things Happen to Negligent People

Waking Life

I've had my first dream (nightmare?) about school. I was wandering around some building (not the law school) and ran into my Torts professor who immediately asked why I hadn't been in class that morning. I had been sick. "Then why are you walking around now?" she asked. I made some noises about community service - I was pushing a shopping cart - and left.

Grey Day

It's raining. I don't have a coat. I don't have an umbrella. I didn't write my bike to school today. I didn't drive to school today. I didn't take the bus to school today. I walked. I have to walk a mile home.