Negligent Use of a Dangerous Mind: March 2006

driver's ed

It's common knowledge that Driver's Ed classes across the country are taught by whoever draws the short straw among the football coach, the drunk gym teacher, the shop teacher, and the math teacher that just won't retire already. (Hmm...this sounds eerily like the selection process for UW legal research and writing professors....)

Even though my own Driver's Ed teacher would spike his morning coffee with rum (yes, he sat in the car and drank it like that), he at least taught us that you don't go below the speed limit in the left lane.

I'm driving to get dinner after leaving Best Buy ($15/off X-Files seasons 1-6), and I'm in the left lane because I have to turn left. The douchebag in front of me is going literally 10mph below the speed limit. After following him for about 2-3 minutes, I realize that he's also swerving. (Side note: isn't 7:30pm too early to be that drunk while driving around?) It takes me a few more minutes to get over because of the long line of people who couldn't put up with the speed thing either, and finally just floor it past this guy. (I'd forgotten how much fun it is to floor it. God, I miss living in a city actual interstates.)

There's really no point/punchline to this story, just more evidence that people don't know how to drive.

aluminum foil makes a lovely hat

At the beginning of the semester, I kept telling myself that it would all get better once I was able to pick my own classes and learn stuff I "care" about (outside of the rest of the Diploma Privilege requirements). I know that my greatest weakness is not paying attention in class - and my ability/desire to pay attention is directly proportional to my interest in the subject matter - so the more classes I take that I *want* to take, the better.

Apparently, the law school is conspiring against my quest to actually not hate school (and do well in classes that I want to take) by forcing me into the last registration group possible. This means that I get my choice of whatever classes are left over after all of the rising-2Ls and 3Ls have picked over everything. It's like trying to go buy the week's featured fruit item at the grocery store on the last day of the sale, and the only thing that's left are two bunches of overripe bananas, a couple of badly-bruised apples, and some moldy grapes
(otherwise known as the 7:50am classes and those classes that conflict with either "Gilmore Girls" or "America's Next Top Model").

Granted, I could find something that's worth taking once everyone else in the school has made their choices. At the very least, though, I'll have another semester's worth of stuff to complain about.

Labels: classes

the world's worst stalker

My sister relayed the following conversation from an athletic training conference she went to today:

Principal: Do you know where King William is?
Sister: I grew up in Mechanicsville. (next county over)
Principal: Lee-Davis or Atlee?
Sister: Lee-Davis.
Principal: What year?
Sister: 2003. My sister graduated in '99.
Principal: What's her name?
Sister: [Dangerous Mind]
Principal: Oh I remember her. I taught her in math class.

So my sister calls me to tell me this. She gives me the name of the teacher. I then proceed to list off all of my high school math teachers, as well as my study hall teachers - none of whom were this man who honestly believes he had me in class.

So either (a) this man remembers hearing my name thrown around in the tales of my athletic and academic awesomeness and thinks he had me in class because it's the logical belief, or (b) he was stalking me, failed miserably (ending up in Virginia's farm country instead of, well, the Midwest), and is trying desperately to cover his tracks.

my property professor is still a death eater

"I got off on wanting to kill her." ~Property professor, on losing his train of thought after posing a hypothetical involving a dead woman.

...and now, from the "Why I Don't Participate In Class" files...

Property Prof: Who gets the estate if one of the joint tenants dies?
Me: The survivor.
Prof: What if she dies first?
Me: (blank stare)
Prof: Who gets the property if one of the joint tenants dies?
Me: The one who's still alive.
Prof: Come on. Who gets the property?
Other 1L: The survivor?
Prof: Yes!
Me: (whispering) Did I not say that? (goes back to playing Spider Solitaire)

everything you always wanted to know about george mason*

*But were afraid to ask

Yesterday, the 11th-seeded George Mason Patriots defeated UConn to become the third team in this year's Final Four. All around campus today, I've heard people asking questions about George Mason - who are they? Where did they come from? Do they abduct us in the night and implant barcodes in our stomachs? (Okay, maybe not that last one. I don't think.) So I've decided to take it upon myself to educate people who otherwise would not know about the University. I mean, I was recruited to play softball there and know people who graduated from GMU - that totally makes me qualified to act as it's midwestern PR liaison.

-----The University's namesake, George Mason, is among the least-known founding fathers of the United States. His draft of the Virginia Declaration of Rights became one of the models for the Bill of Rights.

-----Located in Fairfax, Virginia, the University is home to 29,728 students enrolled in 60 undergraduate programs and 88 graduate programs. 83% of these students are Virginia residents. It is also the closest publicly-funded University on the Virginia side of the District.

-----GMU houses one of three publicly-funded law schools in the state of Virginia, all of which are in U.S. News and World Report's top tier programs. The law school is also incredibly difficult to get into, accepting less than 10% of it's applicants.

-----Home basketball games are played in the aptly-named Patriot Center, a 10,000-seat arena that also houses concerts and other entertainment events (for those acts who don't want to play the MCI Center or the nearby outdoor complexes).

-----Mason's sports teams compete in Division I. Like most of the member schools of the Colonial Athletic Association (CAA), Mason does not have a football team.

-----It's northern Virginia campus is convenient for those wishing to visit Washington, DC. A nearby DC Metro stop takes those wishing to avoid Beltline traffic into the District's center in less than an hour. (Via the Orange Line, if memory serves me correctly...)

-----The students and locals refer to it as "Mason". If you call it "George Mason", then you stick out like a white socks-wearing American in any foreign country.

If you want to know anything else, visit the bloody website yourself, 'cause I'm not getting paid for this, and I should probably be reading for Property (or finishing up the blasted Moot Court brief).

a midsaturday night's dilemma

To homework, or not to homework--that is the question:
Whether 'tis nobler in the mind to write
The slings and arrows of the Moot Court Brief
Or to take arms against a sea of Con Law issues
And by watching TV end them.

I went out and bought X-Files Season 2 to keep me company while I finish the Moot Court Brief. It will be done by tomorrow, because I need to have time to proofread and make sure I haven't replaced the parties' names with "Scully" and "Mulder", or started waxing philosophic on how "the truth is out there" instead of whatever issues the packet presents.

That would be pretty funny, though...can I get through law school simply on my encyclopedic knowledge of, well, anything that doesn't pertain to the law (unless it's the law as portrayed on television, of course)?

i have reached (yet another) new low

I told someone today that I actually wish I were a gunner.

Granted, my reasons for this wish pretty much stem from me envying the fact that they actually, you know, care about law school. I don't want to be the giant douche who writes daily limericks about Property cases...or the annoying people who smugly discuss the not-to-be-discussed Moot Court Tryout brief in the atrium...or the even-more-annoying people who talk incessantly in class even though they have nothing valid to say, just because they like the sound of their own voice. I'd just like to feel motivated enough to do homework every once in a while.

Aside: Go Mountaineers! (I know...it is West Virginia...but my bracket's still livin' on a prayer, thanks to WVU.)

pure freakin' genius

From tonight's "South Park", in which Chef comes back from spending time with the "Super Adventure Club", a society that cleanses the auras of it's members (not unlike Scientology), brainwashes them into sleeping with children, and flips out if outsiders try to persuade the members to remember their old beliefs and loves (again, not unlike Scientology, apparently):

"We shouldn't be mad at Chef for leaving us - we should be mad at that fruity little club for scrambling his brains."

Though I have to say - the funniest part of the whole episode was how they very obviously took sound files of Chef's lines from previous episodes and spliced them together to give him "new" lines about his newly-discovered love for children.

I guess this solidifies what Matt and Trey think was the real reason for Isaac leaving...

three words that i never needed to hear

Madagascar. Hissing. Cockroaches.

Thank you, America's Next Top Model. I really enjoyed tasting my dinner a second time.

Next time, why not just put some camel spiders on the runway with the girls?

Side note: I wouldn't mind seeing the crazy Wendy's "Sensational Salads" woman covered in Madagascar Hissing Cockroaches.

i shoulda gone to med school instead

Tre's letter is going to be what I have to resort to next summer after I get screwed by OCI, Symplicity, and NALP job searches.

But it's not going to be exactly like this...because the only thing I've learned in Property this semester is that you can copyright the expression of an idea but not the idea (i.e., writing a letter to discuss all of those qualities you can't put in a résumé) itself. So I'll write instead about the people skills I learned ~~by dealing with rich upper-class jerks~~ by working in a grocery store for five years, my "Where in the USA/World/Time/Europe/America's Past is Carmen Sandiego?" prowess, and the fact that I once picked the lock on the Lieutenant Governor's desk back in college.

twelfth day

Or, The Lamentable Tragedie of the Return Trip to Madison of Dangerous Mind

I started freaking out when we got to the airport around 6:00 for my 6:50 flight because the security check line was roughly 200 people long (due to the mass-exodus brought about by the end of South by Southwest) and not moving. And these airlines, as I learned when I left, don't give a second thought to the people waiting in security... needless to say, I started wondering if I wouldn't have to e-mail someone my brief to turn in while I was marooned in Austin.

(Side note - people, you know you're going to have to empty your pockets and take out your laptops. Do it before you get to the trays and stop holding up my freakin' line already!)

Luckily, I made it to my gate a full five minutes before the doors closed, and I was nowhere near as sweaty and disgusting as the guy sitting in front of me who also had to sprint from security. And I make it from Chicago to Madison with no problems and arrive home with plenty of time to get back to school.

As I'm wheeling the larger of the two suitcases I checked into my apartment (yes, I checked two suitcases and had two carry-ons for Spring Break), I noticed that it had a nice new quarter-sized hole in it. Fortunately, the inner lining of the suitcase prevents my stuff from making the hole larger, but the hole is there nonetheless (and a nice place for bugs to hide when the suitcase is stashed away in my closet). So, I start to wonder just how hard the baggage handlers were throwing these suitcases around, because they were certainly chucking the gate-checked bags around when we got to Madison.

I open the smaller of my two suitcases to retrieve some books to take back to school, and my fingers touch what I honestly believed to be Ectoplasm. And then I realized: my brand new bottle of shampoo had opened up, and was all over my school books and DVDs. I see that a case to a computer game is cracked and wide open (fortunately, the discs inside were safe). I sat there and thought about it, and realized that my shampoo was wrapped tightly in a plastic bag and zipped inside the plastic pouch...which is now unzipped.

So the TSA went through my crap and didn't zip it back up. And the baggage handlers through my bag around so hard that it caused the top to blow off of my shampoo bottle. (I'd think it was pressure, but all of the other bottles that were just as full as that one were intact.) So thank you, airport people and TSA, for conspiring to douse my books and class notes in shampoo...and forcing me to go buy a new bottle of shampoo, since this one's now empty.

The only consolation is that this didn't happen in the bag with all of my clothes...because otherwise, someone would be getting a hefty drycleaning bill. (And that someone would be me, because they aren't liable for their haphazard suitcase tossing.) Oh, and I turned my paper in a full 45 minutes before the deadline.

never bet on a big ten team to win a basketball game when death is on the line

Yes, Ohio State, I'm looking at you. Thanks for ruining that quarter of my bracket.

After doing nothing but laying on the couch and watching TV for the last twelve days, I've decided that I may start breaking things the next time I see that Wendy's "Sensational Salads" commercial with the worse-than-a-soap-opera-actress spokesmodel. The more I see that commercial, the less I want to eat Wendy's salads - in fact, I may sue Wendy's for the extreme emotional pain and suffering that commercial has caused me over the last few days. They owe me that much.

On that note...spring break's over. I finished the brief that is due at 3:00 this afternoon about an hour and a half ago. Two copies are printed and ready to be carried on the plane back to Madison with me. Keep your fingers crossed that I won't have more than an hour and a half's worth of delays tomorrow, and that I'll make it to school on time to get rid of this blasted thing.

march madness in high definition

Does anyone remember the CBS four-game split-screen? Those were good times - you'd be sitting in class in high school, and the teacher (if the teacher was nice) would turn on the TV so you could all watch the games, and CBS would show one game for a few minutes, then go to a split-screen on which all four could be seen, then flip to one of them if they got interesting or if, say, the University of Richmond was about to beat South Carolina.

I'm really frustrated that CBS doesn't do that anymore. However, I noticed yesterday that CBS's basic affiliate and CBS-HD show two different games. So here I sit, with one game on the big screen, and the other game on the picture-in-picture screen on my parents' TV.

Side note: Wisconsin basketball is terrible. I'm so glad I didn't even blink twice in picking Arizona. It would've been nice, though, if UNCW and Winthrop hadn't blown it at the end...

I should probably start writing the brief that's due on Monday afternoon.

job search stew

Dear Austin-Area Law Firm to Whom I Applied and Have Not Yet Heard Back From:

After I send you a letter, resume, and grades, and follow up with an e-mail, you refuse to respond. However, you apparently have time to add me to your e-mail distribution list (twice!) to send me a newsletter about how great you are.

So...I'm gonna take that as a "no, [you] don't have any jobs for me", and that you just don't have the cajones to tell me as much. Maybe my mediocre grades and I will try again next year, though, because I really enjoy the space that the newsletters take up in my Inbox.

Hugs,
Me

Update: I received a third copy of the same e-mail newsletter 24 hours after the first two. Maybe they'd take me off their dist list if I sent them my Civ Pro I grade.

at least i'm not stuck in the snow in minnesota

I'm sitting here watching a rerun of "The Newlywed Game" on GSN.

One of the questions they asked the men was "When you and your wife make whoopee, is it usually with her consent or without her consent?"

Umm...did they actually think they were gonna get someone to 'fess up to raping their wife on national television?

my property professor is a death eater

I decided to skip my last two Property classes of the week to come down to Texas for Spring Break. I left my house Thursday, a little before 4pm. The chain of events went something like this:

4:20pm - get dropped off at airport by KB.
4:22pm - realize that I left my purse in back of KB's car.
4:24pm - start begging people for cell phones so that I can call my cell phone in the hopes that KB will hear a phone that isn't hers and come back.
4:35pm - KB brings purse back to airport; get back in line
4:37pm - start fighting with United Airlines agent because he won't ticket me for my Denver-Austin flight, because my Madison-Denver flight has been delayed to the point where I'd miss my connection by four minutes, and United refuses to hold planes.
4:50pm - give up and take last ticket for the Denver-Austin flight leaving 10:30 the following morning
7:30pm - arrive in Denver ten minutes ahead of schedule; race to see if I can make the flight I was supposed to be on that was leaving at 7:40pm.
7:35pm - get to gate; discover 7:40 Denver-Austin flight left fifteen minutes early.
7:45pm - arrive at customer service; realize that the Denver-Austin flight stranded no fewer than half a dozen people who were either in transit or at security.
7:46pm - get even more peeved because they would've moved me back to the 7:40 flight. Get excited because I can still get a flight to Dallas that lands at midnight CST.
7:50pm - fail to convince parents to drive 4 hours to pick me up in Dallas. Glumly take voucher for discounted hotel stay.
8:45pm - arrive at hotel in Denver.
9:05pm - realize that I left my contact lens case in my checked baggage, which is conveniently back at the airport.

...the next morning...

8:00am - leave hotel in Denver.
8:45am - make it through security; discover that 10:30 flight to Austin now delayed until 10:55am.
8:55am - find an outlet to plug in DVD player and watch Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire.
10:06am - Harry Potter ends. Put in Pride and Prejudice so that it's loaded when I get on the plane.
10:30am - wonder why we're not boarding yet.
10:40am - 10:55 flight now delayed indefinitely because a crew member decided to take the day off.
10:41am - get angry and cranky, partly because of the flight situation, and partly because I'm beginning to feel like Nick Nolte's Mug Shot.
10:42am - laugh at situation, because I would already be in Austin had the previous night's plane been delayed this long.
11:30am - decide to forage for food.
11:45am - go to bathroom
11:46am - my flight's boarding! hooray!
11:47am - realize that my boarding pass fell out somewhere between the foraging and the bathroom.
11:48am - panic
11:49am - find boarding pass back at newsstand. Am informed that they would've reissued the boarding pass at the gate and let me board without coming back to look for it.
12:05pm - plane fina-freakin'-lly leaves Denver
3:30pm - plane lands in Austin. Surprisingly, my checked baggage survived it's night's stay in Denver.
3:48pm - realize that, if I had left Madison after LR&W on Thursday and driven, I would've arrived before my plane ended up landing.
4:00pm - arrive at parents' house, a full 24 hours after I left Madison.

As soon as I realized that I wasn't going to make it to Madison Thursday night, I determined that this was some sort of punishment for me skipping Property on Thursday. After watching Harry Potter, I decided that my Property professor is in cahoots with Lord Voldemort, and conjured up the previously-unknown Fourth Unforgivable Curse - the Flight Delay - in order to make me regret conveniently skipping my on-call day. When I get back, I'm gonna see if I can talk someone into sending him to Azkaban.

Happy Spring Break!

Labels: airports suck, austin, property class, vacation

i've probably thought about this way too much

The World Baseball Classic: more or less underwhelming than this year's Winter Olympics?

I'm actually trying to figure out what was the point of the World Baseball Classic in the first place...mostly because that means that I don't have to think about the fact that the rule against perpetuities makes no freakin' sense. I think it has something to do with the fact that we ate it - hard - in the last Olympics because all of our "good players" have their regular season during the Olympics, and we want to prove that there are decent non-drugged players in America. And then we go and lose to our puck-loving, round bacon-eating neighbors to the north.

The only thing I think this tournament is accomplishing, other than an onset of carpal tunnel syndrome as people across America flip past both ESPN and ESPN2, is to show that all of the good baseball players come from other countries. Oh, and this gives hockey announcer Gary Thorne something to do.

more proof that i've lost my mind

So before I hit the snooze button about six times this morning, I had this horrific dream that I was at school. Not just at school, but back in Contracts class. Up in front of the class. And for some reason, I was talking about the AARP. The last thing I remember, I was talking about "all of those commercials you see in the afternoon that feature Wilford Brimley".

I don't know why; it may have to do with the fact that I had a similar conversation with my sister about my grandparents and how they only watch Game Show Network, and they show that commercial with Wilford Brimley...and then my brain juxtaposed that conversation with Contracts, the bane of my existence.

And just the fact that I was thinking about those commercials featuring Wilford Brimley in my dreams...I think I watch too much TV.

why wisconsin grads suck at legal writing, part 2

I heard through the grapevine today that my LR&W professor will mark us down on our briefs if the arguments we make don't mirror exactly the arguments she believes are the best. We have to use certain cases to rebut other cases in certain ways, and our arguments have to center around a particular general topic area.

While it sort of makes sense - they want to compare our writing based on the same subject/topic, and can only do so if we make the same arguments based on the same cases that we all "coincidentally" found "on our own" - it takes the wind out of the sails of those of us who look at the cases and see other issues that should be exploited. Because, I mean, if I can make a solid argument based on Wisconsin cases, isn't that better than making a solid argument based on out-of-state cases? Why should I be punished for something that a court, in reality, would probably prefer?

And then I remember that I'm being taught legal writing by someone who has never worked as a lawyer or a judge, and my anger multiplies tenfold. (I mean, good writing is good writing, but if the only documents my professor has ever turned into the court involved a UW law clinic or a 2L summer clerkship...that doesn't make me want to put a lot of stock into what I'm being "taught".)

television stew

The only thing I hate about this season's Amazing Race? The fact that I spend half of the episode wishing that the one all-female team (Danielle and Dani) would put a freakin' shirt on already. BJ and ~~the Bear~~ Tyler finished first, which means that they'll be eliminated by week 7. Lake (who is apparently not related to River Phoenix) is much like Jonathan (of "ugh...Jonathan and Victoria" and "Battle of the Network Reality All-Stars" fame) from a few seasons back, except he doesn't act like he completely hates his wife...but I'm still waiting for him to haul off and smack her, just because he's the man and she's the woman.

The only thing I hated about watching tonight's rerun of "Gilmore Girls"? The fact that it makes me remember just how much I enjoyed the show before it leapt off the shark and started this god-awful "Luke has a Daughter" storyline. And tonight's episode (which I missed the first time around, for some odd reason) reinforced my belief that Jess is the lesser of two evils, and that Logan is a dink.

Top Model comes back tomorrow night. You better believe I'll be watching that instead of organizing my notes and outlining for my LR&W brief.

he died - you win!

I realized about twenty minutes ago that former Minnesota Twins star Kirby Puckett passed away yesterday from a stroke. I remember watching the '91 Series when the Twins beat the Braves in 7 - back when I used to root for Atlanta because their AAA club plays in Richmond (in the ghetto, mind you)....there's really no point here, other than it's sad that a good player that I watched when I was a wee lass has died.

I'd also like to apologize for the insensitive title of this post. Lemme just preface this by saying that I couldn't think of anything better, and so I used the title of a gimmick that I used to listen to on DC101's "Elliot in the Morning" (i.e., Howard Stern Lite). Whenever anyone of note died, the next broadcast they'd play a trivia game about that person's life entitled "He Died - You Win". So, like, "Robert Palmer: He Died - You Win!" or "Ronald Reagan: He Died - You Win!" (those are the two that stick out in my mind...I think I remember a Robert Pastorelli one, also)... but that's where I'm coming from here. Except that I have no Kirby Puckett trivia to accompany the title.

Side note: now I miss listening to EITM...and I wish I was back east so that I could go to Kegs & Eggs this year - Soul Asylum is headlining this year with Carbon Leaf. Good times.

i want to clerk for this guy

A judge in a Texas bankruptcy court denied a motion for "being incomprehensible", then accompanied this justification with the following footnote, in which the judge quotes Billy Madison:

"Or, in the words of the competition judge to Adam Sandler's title character in the movie, 'Billy Madison,' after Billy Madison had responded to a question with an answer that sounded superficially reasonable but lacked any substance.

Mr. Madison, what you've just said is one of the most insanely idiotic things I've ever heard. At no point in your rambling, incoherent response was there anything that could even be considered a rational thought. Everyone in this room is now dumber for having listened to it. I award you no points, and may God have mercy on your soul.

Deciphering motions like the one presented here wastes valuable chamber staff time, and invites this sort of footnote."

Edited to add: I just realized that the judge's name is Leif...like Leif Garrett. That makes me want to clerk for him even more.

i feel happy! i feel happy! i feel ha-(thunk)

Things that I need to do before/over Spring Break:

--clean
--wash dishes
--finish this week's Property reading (20 pages)
--finish this week's Crim Pro reading (20 pages)
--LR&W brief
--Moot Court tryout brief
--pack for trip
--laundry
--Civ Pro reading for the Tuesday after break (40 pages)
--figure out what in the world I'm going to do this summer
--buy Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire to watch on the plane to Denver

Now...arguably, I could've gotten 2/3 of that list done (or partly done) this past weekend.

Instead, I spent about 60 straight hours (with bathroom breaks) in bed. Not on the couch. I mean, literally laying in bed watching TV because of this stupid avian flu, or whatever sodding disease I have. This is probably *not* the best time in the semester for me to be blowing off entire weekends...

And if I sit here asking two months from now why I'm in the bottom 10% of my class, someone should remind me that, while my classmates were spending their weekends studying and working on schoolwork, I was passed out in bed watching a marathon of "Beautiful People" on ABC Family because I couldn't move my head. So much for "improving my grades" and "making myself more marketable for OCI" this semester...

a fun project for the whole family

1. Open up an internet browser window and go to www.google.com.

2. Type the word "failure" into the search field.

3. Select "I'm Feeling Lucky".

4. Laugh hysterically at the astute observation made by the folks at Google.

*Many thanks to LC for pointing out this phenomenon.

hello, you've reached the winter of my discontent

take the WHAT INTENTIONAL TORT ARE YOU test.

^^See, that's funny because that's Intentional Infliction of Emotional Distress, and my LR&W brief is about it's bastard cousin, Negligent Infliction of Emotional Distress...

Okay, so maybe it's not that funny. My judgment may be clouded because I've been battling avian flu for the last week and a half. It's to the point where I may be schlepping over to UHS to make sure that I'm not dying, or make sure that I'm not already dead, and my lifeless shell of a corpse hasn't been running on auto-lawschool-pilot for three weeks. And if I am dead, that means I can do the "Thriller" dance, right?

At the very least, by this time next week, I'll have escaped the frozen tundra and will be enjoying the sunny warm weather of Austin. My theory is that the heat will kill all of the icky bird flu germs living in my bloodstream whilst the sunlight does not kill the motivation that I need to complete both my LR&W brief and my Moot Court tryout brief. And by that, I mean "to lay on the couch and watch the History Channel and Food Network".

So for those of you who are counting (i.e., me), the official "Eating Mexican Food Cooked by Real Mexicans That Crossed the Border Illegally Last Week Countdown":

6 days, 23 hours, 55 minutes, and a few seconds

......as long as (a) I don't get delayed in Denver (someone please explain to me how flying Madison-Denver-Austin makes sense), and (b) it doesn't take them an hour to get my luggage to the terminal. But it really doesn't matter, because it'll be Spring Break, it'll be Texas (warm), and it'll be NO PROPERTY CLASS FOR ELEVEN DAYS. I'll gladly take a delayed flight in exchange for that.

why wisconsin grads suck at legal writing

We're going over how to write our trial briefs in class. The big deal about this semester is that we were supposed to go do our own research and learn to form our own arguments.

We've spent the last hour and a half going over everyone's research, and exactly what research should go where in the brief, and basically...the professor is telling us exactly what to write and what arguments she wants each side to make... Because we're totally going to have a professor telling us what to write when we get out into the real world.

Isn't the whole point to push us out of the nests and see if we can fly on our own, then give us some constructive feedback so that we have the confidence to write briefs on our own this summer (and beyond)?

All I want is for her to tell me how to structure a brief. That's it. I'll take care of the rest.

asphinctersayswhat?

Sometimes, it really pays to pay attention in Property class:

Prof: Why are the words "for the rest of their lives" better than "to live in" to create a life estate?
Student #1: Because that gives a specific duration.
Prof: [thinks for a second] I don't know...
Student #2: Because "to live in" is too unspecific when it comes to talking about a duration?
Prof: Yes! Exactly!

At that moment, the Earth started rotating in the direction of the force field created by 65 students simultaneously glancing up from their Solitaire games and looking around in confusion.

free fashion advice

Ladies:

If you're going to wear a skirt in public, please make sure you know how to sit in said skirt before you leave the house. In fact, make sure you can sit in said skirt while you're trying it on - that's one of Mom's basic rules of clothes-shopping. It's no fun for anyone when they look up from, say, a laptop computer to find themselves staring straight at your...y'know...simply because you can't sit properly in your skirt. I hate to say it, but if your legs are too large to cross, then buy a longer skirt. You're not Paris Hilton, and even if you were, no one wants to see that.

Thanks.

a giant waste of cell phone minutes

Moot Court tryout packets came out today. Two guys in my Crim Pro class who I can only describe as "James Spader in Pretty in Pink-esque" spent about five minutes debating whether to pick up the packet before or after class...since, as one put it, "I want to see the prompt before deciding whether or not I want to take the time trying out"...because, you know, trying out for Moot Court should be regarded with the same care as the decision to drop the A-Bomb on Hiroshima. They go get the packets, and one of the Spader Clones makes a phone call during our break in the middle of class to one of his cronies with (I presume) a false sense of superiority who just doesn't happen to be in Crim Pro with the rest of the pretentious crowd.

"Hey, [friend], I just wanted to let you know that the Moot Court packets are out, so you can go pick one up. They're in the office that's on the side of the building next to our Contracts classroom."

Now, the date/time for the distribution of these packets was mentioned in a meeting a week ago (and spread around by the 100 people who attended this meeting), as well as included in at least two e-mails sent out in the last week. People know about this. This does not require a phone call to come up here immediately and get a packet, because YOU HAVE THREE DAYS TO PICK UP THE BLOODY PACKET. Honestly, one day will not make that big of a difference at this point, since no one will even start on this until after LR&W briefs are due. So do the rest of us a favor and chill out, Captain Competitive.

Negligent Use of a Dangerous Mind

Friday, March 31, 2006

driver's ed

aluminum foil makes a lovely hat

Wednesday, March 29, 2006

the world's worst stalker

Monday, March 27, 2006

my property professor is still a death eater

everything you always wanted to know about george mason*

Saturday, March 25, 2006

a midsaturday night's dilemma

Thursday, March 23, 2006

i have reached (yet another) new low

Wednesday, March 22, 2006

pure freakin' genius

three words that i never needed to hear

i shoulda gone to med school instead

Tuesday, March 21, 2006

twelfth day

Monday, March 20, 2006

never bet on a big ten team to win a basketball game when death is on the line

Friday, March 17, 2006

march madness in high definition

Tuesday, March 14, 2006

job search stew

Monday, March 13, 2006

at least i'm not stuck in the snow in minnesota

Saturday, March 11, 2006

my property professor is a death eater

Thursday, March 09, 2006

i've probably thought about this way too much

more proof that i've lost my mind

Tuesday, March 07, 2006

why wisconsin grads suck at legal writing, part 2

television stew

he died - you win!

Monday, March 06, 2006

i want to clerk for this guy

i feel happy! i feel happy! i feel ha-(thunk)

Friday, March 03, 2006

a fun project for the whole family

Thursday, March 02, 2006

hello, you've reached the winter of my discontent

why wisconsin grads suck at legal writing

Wednesday, March 01, 2006

asphinctersayswhat?

free fashion advice

a giant waste of cell phone minutes

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