Done!

It's over, done, finished! I have to repeat that because I'm trying to convince myself. Last night the law school junkies went out and got trashed (to some people's embarrassment...). When I went to sleep last night I conked out pretty quick but I kept waking up during the night. I'd find myself composing Contracts formulas (breach by service provider especially kept haunting me). It was outta control. I was mentally slapping myself out of it but c'mon, in my sleep? Can't let go! Can't get out of this matrix! But I am. We're done. Is it too early to get nostalgic? We'll never be these innocent babes in the woods again...!

It's a weird feeling, being where so many have been before you, saying the same shit as they said. I'm hyperaware of how beaten this path is, but I can't help myself from marking the trail right on top of the marks that are already there. Nothin new under the sun and all that.

First Final

Finals began. (oxymoronic). We did Torts yesterday; after 3.5 hours we went to FeeFie's and drank Miller latte while trying to learn black-letter Crim for Fri. After the exam, I felt like my brain had vomitted into the school's S drive, so the muscles in my head were all tired and worn out, like your abs after a hangover hurl.

But it was nice to get it all out of my mind because now I have room for other classes. I think I should be more nervous, but it's more like being in the outer reaches of delirium, where you function normally on your surface, but inside you're giggling and weeping and nauseus.

Block that

My study crew got together today for an intense sesh. I'm talking 10 hours, man. With one burrito break. But I feel good tonight, I feel a little tickle of opptimism in my brain. A rare, rare sensation this days. We get so deep into this shit -- you get caught up in the web of it, and everything you say comes out covered with sticky remnants. (Like saying I was comparatively negligent in not having my lighter 'cause I never asked for it back.) Brain doesn't feel fried today, it feels expanded. Yesterday I was burnt out. The fires are quenched.

::BLOCK THAT METAPHOR::

Self-Consumption

Current bad habits during reading week:
- chewing the inside of my lips to pieces
- rubbing my eyebrows. till there are gaps in them.
- smoking
- twirling hair between my fingers
- getting caught in internet fluff (myspace, blogging, email, etc)

Bunny ears

I love KQED. The PBS station. Me and the boy don't have cable - we just have a TV. (We got the TV free on CL. Actually, it came free with a $10 table. The kid said he'd gotten it free and didn't feel right selling it. When I bounce outta here, I'm gonna give it away too.) I still haven't figured out how TV works when you don't have cable. I mean, are there TV waves beaming through the air constantly then? So when you get a TV it just plucks them out of the air? We have TV waves flowing through our brains all the time then, right? Wack. Anyway then we got an $11 antenna. It's pretty hot; it has the two bunny ear antennas and a circular base. I don't know why, I just love its retractable metallic simplicity. And the fact that we got three more channels. If you hate trying to find something on TV, try getting rid of your cable. It's some kind of psychological fact that if you have less options, you're easier to please.

Anyway. KQED. Last night I was watching those lovely commercial-free Animal Shows. This chimpanizee 'trainer' (somehow that's not PC - it ain't a circus...) missed a few days of work when she miscarried her baby. And the chimp knew sign language, and was pissed off at her when she went back to work, because she hadn't been around. So the 'trainer' signed to the chimp "My baby died." And the chimp, who had lost a baby once herself, looked back at her and signed, "Crying." I nearly bawled my eyes out!

Redwood Shroom

 
 

Study groupin'

Three is good. Two is too intimate. Four is crowd. No doubt. Again, the high school drama - you don't talk about meeting up with The Group around other people, especially one's who asked to be in your group, or who might have expected to be in it.

We keep getting hooked on talking about Dirty Jeff. Who isn't worth our mock conversations, nor even a mention here.

Rules:
You have to have at least one Cop, who will keep you in line. (Me.)
You have to have one Comic, who'll keep you laughing. (FeeFie352).
You have to have one with intellectual integrity, who will have another right way of seeing it. (Flossy).
At least one person must have made outlines.
At least one other person must have made flashcards.
At least one person has to be cute (or all three).
There must be one ipod or other portable music device.
Finally, you have to be able to drink together.

High School

It's weird, but I think the most useful study skills I've applied to law school came from high school. For example, in Torts you have tons of factors (Tarasoff, Rowland, Strict Liability). How do I memorize them? I make acronyms of the leading key words. Same shit I did in high school. I rewrite sections of my outlines with the elements over and over - same thing I did in high school.

Now that Thanksgiving is over I have 3 more days of class. When did the end ever come so abruptly after Thanksgiving? I'm studying my outlines, but I think they're too bare-bones. It's almost nauseating, the amount of stuff you have to memorize. I keep reminding myself, insisting there's no limits to my brain. My little universe. But God, is it really limitless?? Like the universe, time and space in my brain are inherently intertwined. Do I have time to add to the space? At some point, will I be incapable of adding more elements to the factors? I want it all, I want to know every element; I want to do Better Than Them. I have an advantage: I've been creating and studying my outlines since Week 3. But I'm not convinced it's enough. It's hard to focus on one class when you have to make space for all of them.

And I'm distracted again by thoughts of New York. I want to give SF a chance, but my heart hurts when I think of being in NY. I wonder if I'm the kind of person who can do the East coast-West coast transplant. My friends at school are all west coasters. But me, I have this drive inside of me that screams East coast. I wish I could feel the West coast without the pre-conceived notions of it that you get. Thanksgiving was a break, but also an unwanted opportunity to think about bigger issues. I don't want that distraction right now. I have to focus, and I don't want the outer world intruding. I need a self-imposed small-mindedness. And yet...part of why I want to do so well is that I want the opportunity to leave SF.

clouds in my coffee

 
 

You might be a law student if...

A little humor, inspired by blogger Law Student Barbie.

You know you’re a 1L in San Francisco when:
1) You refuse to laugh at your professors’ microphone jokes. Or, you can’t help but laugh.
2) You seriously wonder about the existence of the Reasonable Born-Again Christian Scientist.
3) You still think it’s funny to bring legal concepts into your daily life, such as accusing people of ‘trespassing your chattels.’
4) You really have no idea what a chattel is.
5) Somebody got the third highest grade on the LRW midterm – and it’s barely a B.
6) You really have no idea what ‘grade’ you got on your LRW midterm.
7) All the student groups are funded with bake sale cookies.
8) You wait in line for 25 minutes just to get a midterm assignment on a Friday afternoon.
9) Your tutor publishes an open request in the school paper to get in your 1L pants – and some people take him up on it.
10) You still cannot remember where you sit in room 100.
11) You’ve made your Crim law professor literally hop up and down waiting for you to answer a question.
12) You carry your own supply of toilet seat covers.
13) You can’t get through Torts without marveling at your prof’s boobs at least once.
14) You realize those kids you don’t recognize aren’t 2Ls – they’re from the other section.
15) You’ve had at least one sloppy, passionate make-out session on bar night – and you pretend you don’t remember it.

Bumper sticker of the day

My favorite anti-Bush bumper sticker of the day:

"2008: The End of an Error"

Epiphany 

Advice

Advice is exhausting. I can only really appreciate advice until I've had all the experienes that lead me to that advice. You can't skip the steps. You need all those neuron connections to truly and intimately understand the final epiphany.

Transplantee

Does anyone else think there's a plaintiff bias at law school? I'm getting that vibe in class. But you know, I think it's related to the supposed "liberal bias" at higher education institutions. I think liberalism is a product of higher education. The more educated you are, the more you realize the liberals have it right. So it makes sense. Defense lawyers always feel tied to Big Business in my mind. And Big Business is conservative, and wealthy.

I miss NYC terribly. Is there any consolation for a NYC-to-SF transplantee? Will I ever stop missing it? I have made some progress; I've moved beyond the stage where you try and relate every SF neighborhood to a NY neighborhood. I still have dreams where I'm in the NYC subway, but I've learned to love my car a little more and hate Muni a little less. I frequently extol the cheapness of drinks...but that's still a product of constantly comparing this city to that one. But really, honestly, where is a girl to go if she wants to leave NYC? SF is it.

I read in my crim book today (in a footnote; my text is authored my illustrous Professor Shatz) that the defense of entrapment began in the bible. You know: when Eve tells Adam that the snake tricked her into eating the apple by promising her greatness. Isn't that hilarious? Shatz, you're a nut.

 

It begins

This blog, that is; my law school "career" began at the end of August, 2005. I am a 1L. It's funny, after reading other student blawgs wailing over the "1L drama," I'm trying to see my world through that lense. I'm forced to admit it exists. It's fun at first, y'know, talking in legalese. But even now, only several months into this, and already my mates are scolding, "No law school talk!" (This kid in my section got hit by a car on his motorcycle. You can imagine the tort talk...). But it creeps in more insidiously than you think. ("How is online poker legal??" "They better fix that pothole...") It's part of the cult mentality that all community groups have, I guess. Something that shows you're "in" and that other people are out. And I think that effect is worsened by the high degree of intellectual rigor required to get here. High Academia Snobbery.

I go to __________________. We have a lot of hot girls here. (Word on the street is, ______ has all the hot guys. Can't confirm that though.) But it's incredible how many girls are Taken. I mean, I'm fresh out Just Trying to Get Laid (aka, college) and now everyone's married or engaged or has the live-in boyfriend (me). I think this fact has concentrated the singles drama considerably, since a big chunk of us are unavailable. But all of the Taken are enjoying the rumors and drama. This is probably stating the obvious, but can you believe how juvenile people get in a student microcosm? I don't know if it's that people are older. In college, there was no trickery and device - there was less emphasis on the Relationship element. But here, it's like high school again, the way people get involved with other law students.

It's good here. It's...light hearted, if I may use that in the law school context. The competition is gentle, existant but not persistant. I motivate (ok, ok, police) my friends into doing their reading. I mean, is that what it's like at first tiers? Don't people support and hope for their friends, even when the competition is brutal? Admittedly, I haven't even had one set of law school finals yet. I've only gotten one grade (not even, it was a number, a number without a high or low score) so perhaps I haven't tasted that bitter drink yet.