What To Expect From Law School--Part 1

"See, the sad thing about a guy like you is in 50 years you're going to start doing some thinking on your own and you're going to come up with the fact that there are two certainties in life. One, don't do that. And two, you dropped one hundred fifty grand on a fucking education you could have gotten for a dollar fifty in late charges at the public library "

---Good Will Hunting

I have recently been getting a lot of hits from what I assume are people who are entering their first year of law school in the fall (i.e. What to expect from law school or Hardest part of law school).(Every one else is interested in diamond rings). So this is my attempt to distill my knowledge into a short primer (and to take a break from bar study because two hours of that shit fries your brain).

Starting simple. What is the hardest part of law school. That is easy. Final exams. Next question.

Alright, here is some more detail on that. The vast majority of law school classes have one exam. And that is it. That is your grade. Unlike in undergrad you are not going to be able learn everything you need to know in one 24 hour bender the day before the exam. Well you might, but not many people can. So you have to go to class. You have to take good notes. You have to do the assigned reading before class. You have to brief those cases you just read. Granted, this only applies if you are trying to do well. But you should follow those tips for at least the first year, do your best, and then see where you stand. (This is also an option).

The long and short of exams is that 14 weeks comes down to two, three or four hours. Keep that in mind on a Wednesday afternoon when all you want to do is go out and get hammered because your brain is already fried.

As long as we are talking about exams, let's take a look at the classes. First year your classes are likely to be Criminal Law, Torts, Con[stitutional] Law, Contracts, Property, Civ[il] Pro[cedure], Crim[inal] Pro[cedure], and some sort of writing class. Now, the important thing to realize at the outset, is that each of these topics (save Civ Pro) are tested on the MBE. Civ Pro is going to be on the essay portion of the bar exam. Each class presents its own challenges, except for Torts, Torts is fucking easy.

I hated contracts. I still hate contracts. But that is probably because the text book did not even discuss how a contract is formed until my second semester. Also, conditions, still do not understand them. They should be easy, but I read that shit in the Bar Bri outline, and I am more confused than ever. And that is my contracts rant (though I somehow did well in contracts class. To be fair, I probably thought I understood it better when I took the test than I realize how poorly I understood now. Confidence is key.)

Of those classes, Con Law is the one that really only presents an abnormal level of difficulty (but note, Crim Pro is virtually a Con Law class too, but solely focuses on the 4th, 5th, and 6th Amendments). Supreme Court Judges like to use big words. And they love to spend eight pages explaining something when a half a paragraph would suffice. They love to refer back to every case the Court has ever decided in the same opinion. And they love to obfuscate what they said in those cases. Plus, it is the one class where dissents actually matter. Other than Con Law I can think of one case off the top of my head where a dissent mattered (Palsgraf; but I did just take the BarBri Torts class a couple days ago).

In addition, Justices hate to be clear. They cannot just lay out the rules as you learn them (Rational Basis, Strict Scrutiny and Intermediate Scrutiny), but continually use different language for the same test. It is highly annoying. So here is my trick for Con Law. Wikipedia. It is like a ready made case brief. For instance, if you read the SCOTUS opinions for Hamdi and Hamdan, they are almost impenetrable (and fucking long, but casebooks edit the cases they present). But read Hamdi or Hamdan on wikipedia and they almost make sense. (or just read about the case that came down this term)

The other hardest part of Law School is finding a job. But you should not worry about that now. Because the best part of Law School is that you have three years where you do not have to work. Some people do. I did not (other than a summer assoc position, but that does not count really). Sure, the cover charge is steep, but I have the rest of my life to work and I love to stay up until four and sleep until noon everyday.

Yeah, there are other good parts too. Making new friends, learning stuff, getting blitzed the day finals end, etc. But really, none of the best reasons for going to law school are the reason you are going. Keep that in mind too.

More thoughts on law school coming soon.

Practice Test

Today was the BarBri MBE practice test. A fun filled six hours of practice guessing, practice #2-ing circles, and practice holding in one's piss. In retrospect, not really that fun, except for the fact that it was merely practice and there is still a three weeks and a day until the real thing. Still seems a long ways a way. It felt closer at the end of May, before classes started and I was staring at a giant pile of books I would have to read multiple times in the next two months. Now, eh, plenty of time. I am considering taking the week off (other than class of course) to rest up for the two week surge of rudimentary understanding. I probably will not though. The last five days have consisted of (Wed.) me going to a concert in the city and getting shit-faced, (Thurs) actually studying (but skipped class), then going bowling and getting shitfaced, (Fri) going to a wedding (yeah, what the fuck right), and getting shit-faced and passing out at 9:30 missing the fireworks, and Sat. and Sun. were highly uneventful, involving listening to the Property I lecture that I missed and forcing myself to read the Property lecture notes. Yep, that is all I did on Saturday and Sunday.

But today was practice real thing. Because I am nerd, I graded my own test when I got home (actually, graded a.m. exam at lunch. Had to know you know). I am pretty happy with the results. Raw scored a 131. Should have been a 132 but I made a transcribing error on my answer sheet. They, whoever they are, say that your score goes up 20 points between practice and the actual thing so I am hopefully looking at a 150, which means I should have taken MI's bar.

But there were several shocking things I learned over the course of the Practice Test:

• I Was legitimately surprised at the number of of answers I knew were 100%. In that there were shockingly few of them. In law school, I only had one multiple choice test out of 5 or 6 where I was not positive I got at least 75% right. Here, it was maybe 20%, if that.
• What the fuck is up with intoxication questions? Shit, every other question has some jackass getting loaded. It seemed excessive. I wonder if the actual bar exam is similar. Needless to say, six hours of reading about defendants and tortfeasors getting plowed made me a little thirsty. This liquor store across the street appreciates your efforts Conviser.
• I know nothing of the elements of any crime. I knew them pretty well about three weeks ago, which incidentally was the last time I looked at the Criminal Law Outline. Arson, Common Law Murder? I know they have something in common, no clue what it is. I have not bothered to look it up.
• Ditto for Torts, except it has probably been four weeks. I know a lot of this stuff, but I could not articulate it. An essay on Tort or Crim. Law would screw me at this point. On the exam, I played the "One of these things is not like the other" game.

• Back to arson for second. Those arson questions were ridiculous. There were like six of them that involved arson. Who the fuck cares about arson? May as well ask me a mayhem question (though I probably have a better shot at getting this one right. Hard to forget what mayhem is).
• I Love the Constitution. There is a lot of good stuff in the Constitution. Why I have to know if something is EPC or Due Process of the 14th Amendment or Art. IV something when I could find the answer in two seconds on Wikipedia is beyond me. I know the fucking test, lets move on.

Those are the random annoyances I have. The amazing thing is that, despite my shaky grasp of the material, how many more questions I should have gotten right. There were about 40 questions that I missed that I simply had no fucking clue what the answer was. I did not check the ones I got right, so I do not remember how many wild ass guesses were right. Probably a few, though 40 does seem a bit high for the questions I had no clue on. So this means on 30 to 40 of the questions I missed, I narrowed it down to two and picked wrong. It was surprising how many these turned on understanding the difference between "if" or "once" and I just completely missed it.

Boils down to poor reading comprehension skills. Sure, it is time pressure and all that, but it does not excuse not understanding why every single word is used in the fact pattern and or answer. Something to work on. As I have mentioned before, I have not been practicing taking tests, so maybe that comes with more exposure.

I think I had some overarching point. But it is lost to me know. If this needs to be continued I will post it, sometime in the next year or so.

RIP

I saw this on deadspin. Too great not to share.

Awesome

Edmonds (02)
by bsap11

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Practice Does Not Equal Perfect. . . yet

If you are taking BarBri, you know that they give out an outline of all the assignments plus homework that you should be completing as you go. I am sure that everyone has tweaked it to suit their own tastes and study habits. This is how I tweaked it.

In my opinion, doing a bunch of practice problems is an inefficient time waster (and a little redundant too). I have always believed this to be the case, with the exception of math problems (i.e. testing a process rather than rote learning). In law school, I may have looked at one or two prior exams, but only to get the tenor of the questions rather than what was being tested or to "practice." For a final exam, one has only a day or two to learn a semester worth of material. That time is too precious to be spent doing busy work. The better approach is focus on the material and keep reinforcing it, by writing the elements out, re-re-reading an outline, etc. Why focus on application of one narrow portion of the material when that time is better spent knowing all the portions.

But, because Conviser has been teaching this longer than I have been alive, I initially deferred to his methodology. I did some of the first set of Torts problems, the so-called easy ones. And I got three wrong. Hooray for me. But what does this do for me? I can answer the easy tort questions. But the thing that bothered me was that when I was answering the questions, I knew my grasp of the material was shaky. I had to think through the problems. I had to close my eyes and visualize the elements for whatever tort the question was asking about.

That is not how I want to take a test. I want to get to the point where I read the question and I know the answer. If it is a torts questions, everything tort related flies through my mind, I see it as an old computer that ran on punch cards, and I go through all the punch cards in a second, know what I need, and go back to that punch card in the next second.

I am not going to get to that point by doing a bunch of practice questions, then having to read the analytical answer to see how I got it right. I do not want to have to read the analytical answer. I want to just know it.

That does not mean that I will not do any practice questions. I will do them, but not until I feel ready. Then I will spend four hours on some near-future Saturday doing nothing but Torts questions. That way, I can really tell that I know the material inside and out, because that sort of testing process will tell me that either, i) yes, I know all the material, even the material that the questions did not address simply because of the number of questions done; or ii) that I am screwed.

The same rings true for the essays. Same thing for the essays. I knew the answers for the practice essay I did, but again, my superficial knowledge made it difficult to effectively answer the question in the way that is required when one poor soul is grading a hundred of these things a day. So forget practice essays too.

Knowing the material is the most important thing. Each essay is worth an incapacious five points. And I would think that at least two of those points are going to be awarded for a black letter law recitation. And with a point or two for analysis (the easy part of the bar exam, unlike with a law school exam), that is the magic 3 you need for bar passage.

However, the essays have a distinct difference from the MBE, which will make practice a necessity. Issue-Spotting. Thus, when I finish my four hour tort exam, I will crack open a book of essays, and just pick out the issues, think in my head what I would write about, then check to make sure I am right. Of course, the key with issue spotting is that you have to know the law to understand what the issues.

So, study now, practice later, like in a month. Shit, this is going to be a lot of work. Back to it . . .

. . . Or am I just trying to justify my own laziness?

Pete and Repete are standing on a bridge. Pete falls off. Who is left?

In trying to figure out ways to amplify my bar study process, I thought of Ryan Holiday's post on Meditative Isolation (though he might say that I have no idea how to achieve my goals). Ryan talks about methods of isolating the right and left side of the brain by listening to the same song on repeat dozens of time. This helps with concentration and inspiration, and in a larger sense, creativity.*

I am not too concerned with inspiration or creativity. All I care about is concentration and memorization. Read the outline. Know the outline. Memorize the outline. Seems easy enough. But with 21 areas of substantive law [possibly] tested, the task is about as hard as it sounds. I need every edge I can get. A more recent post by Ryan clued me in to what I needed. He stated, "From a glance I can feel what song I listened to as I read [each book I have], if I was stable or depressed or excited or hopeful."

With my Holmes-like powers of deduction (Ollie, not Sherlock of course), I deduced that Association is the key. For instance, when I read It, the only CD I listened to was Soul Asylum's Let Your Dim Light Shine (forgive me, I was 14, my musical tastes had not matured). Now whenever I listen to that CD I think back to the plot of It (though in looking back on it, there was a lot I did not understand. Stupid underfunded sex-ed class). It is an odd feeling to hear a song and think back to the part where Bev remembers the time she and the six boys experiment with sex to solidify their bond and Ben (the fat one), goes further than the others, because as Bev remembers, "she felt sticky inside." (Not sure if I remember that because of the music or because I was whacked out on junior high hormones at the time. Nah, probably the later, but still, I have only read the book the once). It seems obvious to me in retrospect that the album should be associated with that book, what with lines like: "But she saw the world through the eyes of a child / And remembers how good it was, and how good it felt"; "No one told me people could be so cruel / Nobody told me about any of this in school / Still nobody understands the things that I don't understand"; " She walks into the evening air / She disappears in the darkness / All that's left's the faint smell of her hair / She's done wondering what it's like to be liked by everyone." To give only a couple examples.

So, it begs the question, can this really work for learning black letter law? It is still reading, it is still knowing, but hell, it does not have to be understanding. There is a masturbation scene in It that I would not understand until a couple years later. But still, 13 years later, I remember what happened in the book (though, in addition to the reasons stated above, it may have been because I was reading a King novel, an action my mother was not too particularly keen on my doing at 14).

Understanding is most likely essential to answer a multiple choice question in 1.8 minutes. Everyone has to be a micro-Will Hunting. Regardless, everyone has to understand, so that requirement is a nullity. Understanding has to happen.

Recall is the major issue. With that, I think that music can be a huge help. Specifically, listening to the same album over and over for each. Ryan listens to the same song, but I hardly have the patience for that. For me, the music is not about isolating myself, I am already isolated, it is about the constant, the moor (yes, I realize that the way I used moor is only a verb, not a noun. I am trying to say that the music is mooring me to the material; keeping me in it, tied to it, removing distractions, preventing cavitation).

Deciding that yes, one CD per subject would be a good idea, I went about finding the 21 albums that I would utilize. At the outset, I was unsure if this would be an easy or difficult task. With as near as I can guesstimate (6000 songs / 15 songs per album; horribly rough) I have 400 albums to choose from. However, I quickly decided that I was going to have to limit the albums I chose to the most recent ones I have purchased. For instance, Panic! at the Disco's A Fever You Can't Sweat Out already has a nice association with a vacation I took to Michigan, and The Who's Tommy, while a great album, has negative associations in mind (fucking slut (hmmm, that is redundant)). I decide to eliminate the vast majority of my collection based solely on the fact that I may already have some mental association with it (easier than spending 15 days listing to all those songs).

So with those parameters in mind, I quickly "cover flow"-ed through my albums on my iPod and came up with 23 albums. I was not keeping track, but 23 turns out to be a pretty good number. From there, I took away two albums to total 21. Then came the tough part. Finding the proper album for Real Property (three days according to BarBri) and Contracts (also three days). The first was easy, Say Anything's In Defense of the Genre, simply because it is a double album. Contracts was much tougher. My only other double albums are Garth Brooks Live (yeah I know, but Garth was a great (the greatest?) entertainer of his day, his live album is worthy of owning), Meloncollie and the Infinite Sadness, All Points BUlletin, O.A.R. Live, The White Album, Beethoven concertos, Beethoven symphonies, and probably a couple more I cannot think of right now. They are all old and failed to meet the first requirement. So I picked an album, but feel that the two auxiliary albums might come into play here. We shall see.

Shit. I got distracted and completely forgot how I was going to conclude. Whatever; Graham Colton,** you and Criminal Law are on the clock.



* He also states that silence is most conducive to concentration and inspiration. I cannot study in silence, my mind wanders to easily; or more accurately, goes off on irrelevant tangents. There is a relationship between where my mind goes and what I am trying to learn, but studying for the bar is not the proper time for this activity. Hence, when part of my brain can focus on the music and the other part can focus on the black letter law, I can stay on task (unless I have had four hours of sleep the last two days. Then I cut my losses and blog).

**Had no idea he was associated with American Idol until I looked up that wikipedia page.

God and Moses in Creationism Defined (A Play)

[Scene] Mount Sinai circa 1200 B.C.

God [in booming epochal voice]: MOSES!

Moses: Ahh! What!

God [ominously]: HAVE YOU BEEN MAKING FALSE IDOLS?

Moses [nervously hurried]: NO! What? No, of course not. God? Is that you? Where are you?

God [incredulously]: I am the bloody burning bush you ponce.

Moses [gears cranking, not comprehending]: Bloody. . . and . . . burning . . .. Ponce?

God: Oh, Jesus . . .

Moses: That's a good name.

God: . . . forget it. Turn around, see the fire. That's me.

Moses: Uh, O.K. Whatever you say, your highest holy burningness.

God [feigning annoyance at the superlative style]: Did you bring the tablets?

Moses: Yes, oh Great and Merci--

God: Good. Put them down, we won't need them for a while. Today, we are going to start at the beginning.

Moses: The beginning? Do we have enough time? I mean, that bush can't burn forever . . .

God [making whatever expression a burning bush can make to show that it is going to patiently wait for the realization that previous statement was idiotic]:

Moses: . . . uh God? You there?

God [flicking out a burning ember onto Moses' foot]:

Moses: Ow! I thought you were a merciful God!

God: Oh, just wait until I tell you about Job. [under breath] What I did to him is going to pale in comparison to what I do to you [returning to normal] I am eternal, all-powerful, omniscient, yada yada yada, the bush will burn for as long as I wish it.

Moses: What if I pissed on it?

God: Remember your foot? How would like that three feet higher and a hell of a lot hotter?

Moses: My apologies for my impudence my lord. So the beginning?

God: Alright, pay attention. This is pretty complicated. Do you know what gravity is?

Moses: Like degrees?

God: Um, are you referring to degrees of temperature?

Moses: Is that what you want me to be referring to?

God: Sort of, but not really. We are not quite there yet.

Moses: Then, no.

God: So what degrees are you referring to?

Moses: Um . . . gravity . . .[awkward silence] . . . like, um weightiness . . .

God: [excitedly] Yes, exactly. Like weight.

Moses [overly enthusiastic]: O.K.! [gives bush the thumbs up]

God: [dryly] You have no idea what I am getting at do you?

Moses: Sure I do. Gravity is like weight. The beginning is so very important and serious, so I should pay extra special attention.

God: No, no, no and no. But sort of yes, but more accurately, NO! Gravity is the force that holds you onto this earth. It is why things are heavy.

Moses: Aren't things heavy because they are big?

God: Not necessarily. Compare a rock with leaves balled up in the same size as the rock.

Moses: What's a leaves? Do you want me to go?

God: Argg. Fucking desert. Forget leaves. Compare a rock with balled up cloth. Same size. Different weights. But gravity pulls on both objects the same. Let me show you. Take off your frock and ball it up. . . . Good. Now pick up one of the tablets. . . . Nice work Moses, there may be hope for you yet. Now get up on that rock over there. Good. This is the tricky part. Hold out the frock in one hand and the tablet in other so they are at the same height. Good. Now, how much heavier would you say the tablet is than the frock.

Moses: Oh, about a third of a talent.

God: Good. So the tablet is much heavier than the frock. Because of this, you may think that the tablet should fall faster than the frock. But gravity exerts its force on all objects equally, so they will all fall at the same speed. Go ahead, drop them. They will hit the ground at the same time.

Moses: Uh, won't the tablet break? It is six cubits off the ground.

God: Do I have to give the all-powerful speech again? It won't break.

Moses: O.K. [drops objects. They hit the ground at roughly the same time] I think the tablet still hit first.

God: That is just air resistance. Next time we will use your head. Anyway, gravity is a force that is exerted from the very center of the Earth. At the center of the Earth is a huge mass that is tightly compacted. You know how when you pick up wet sand, you can crush it between your hands into your hands into a smaller denser ball?

Moses: Ayup.

God: Good. Now imagine all of the grains of sands across the Earth crushed into the same size ball.

Moses: [closes eyes. Sways back and forth] Hhhhmmmmmmm. I do not mean to offend you your eminence, but I do not understand how that is possible. I have been to Egypt, there is sand as far as the eye can see, yet you pile up all that sand, it is still much larger than the largest pyramids.

God: Yes, I know that it is hard to conceptualize, but I am trying to explain to you the power of gravity. It was gravity that created the Earth.

Moses: But, I thought you created it?

God: Yes, but only evanescently. You think I want to be a burning bush? I would much rather be a cougar, or a Tyrannosauruses Rex, that would scare the hell out of you, hell, I would rather be a camel. The world works according to certain rules that even I cannot change. One soul per body. I cannot push out the camel's soul for my own gleeful purposes. That is the essence of free will. [whimsically] But maybe, if I could have a son, a child, part me, with a tangible presence on the earth, carrying out my dreams, a messiah maybe . . . [trailing off]. But, that is a discussion for another day. I created the universe. I created physics. A nudge here, a nudge there is all it took once I figured out the math. Moses, I figured out how to get three atoms of oxygen to bond with each other.

Moses: Is atom like gravity?

God: Adam? We have not even finished the creation of Earth yet. Don't get ahead of me.

Moses: My deepest regrets at having offended you your illustriousness.

God: Don't do it again. The mass, at the center of earth is what exerts gravity. It is a force that goes off equally in every direction. And before you ask, the Earth is round. Just accept that as fact.

Moses: Round? Huh. I mean, interesting your um . . . godliness.

God: So this dense mass formed, and it pulled lots of other matter to it through gravity. So, you understand gravity now right Moses?

Moses: Yes sir.

God: Good. Because your understanding of gravity is essential to the rest of the story. Gravity is how all the stars were formed, how the sun was formed, the moon, and of course the Earth. You understand this yes?

Moses: Yes. Crystal Clear.

God: OK. Now, we have to go back to before the Earth was created. Before the Universe was created. In the beginning, there was just me. And I had a thimble. And inside the thimble was all the matter ever created.

Moses: Wow. So, if the Earth fit in the thimble, then how big are you?

God: NO! It was a thimble that is the same size as a thimble that you have. Just an ordinary thimble. Like the one Aaron "borrowed" from Miriam. Remember the sand analogy? Same thing, just more matter in a tiny space. The power of gravity. Is this making any sense?

Moses: It is your divine word. I heard sometimes you speak in riddles. I am slow of wit. I know the riddle about what is more beautiful than your face, but I am having trouble solving how you can fit the Earth inside a thimble. Unless it is a very large thimble of course.

God: Oh, Moses smell the roses. It is not a riddle. Follow this. All matter was in the thimble. I exploded the thimble. All matter spread throughout the universe as space dust and gas. Some dust and gases formed clouds. At the center of these clouds, the dust and gases came together to form hugely dense areas. Like the sand. As they got more dense, its gravity increased. At the center, the core pulled in gas, and eventually became the Sun. Further out, more dust came together to become the Earth. Now this all happened over millions of years. It is a very slow, and lonely, process. But, eventually, all that swirling dust formed the Earth as you see it now, thanks to it being the exact right distance from the Sun, among other things. Understand?

Moses: I thought dust was created by dead skin cells? Is that part of the riddle?

God: Damn you Moses! One more mistake out of you, no matter how trivial, and you are barred from entering the holy land. Seriously. [muttering] I knew I should have waited for the Greeks.

Moses [crying]: Oh Holiest of Gods, I mean the one and only true God, I mean, my Master, I am your humble servant, please do not smite me down as I bow before you, on my hands and knees, I beg of you, for I am fallible, I falter in front of your brilliance, for I am weak, unfit to hear your divine prose, I am but one man, and you are all men, I am not worthy to appear in your presence, please, for I will let my people go, you can find them a new shepard, but spare my life, for even now, I will express unworthiness by kissing your feet, placing my face in the fire, to kiss the base of this magnificent bush, and--

God: Get up Moses. Sheesh. Have some dignity. That was a just a test. Yeah, a test. Or, a riddle. No, just a test.

Moses: [still weeping, wiping snot from his nose] Did I pass?

God: Oh yeah, you passed. Passed with flying colors.

Moses: I learn at your feet, oh great one.

God: Sure you do. You learn. Close your eyes. . . . Here is the lesson. There is no truth but the truth as I give it to you. There is no meaning but the meaning I subscribe. Now listen and listen carefully. This is my truth to tell. Memorize it. Share it. Spread it. For this is how I created heaven and Earth. On the first day, I looked at what I had to work with. Not much. Water. Some firmament. I moved across the Earth taking stock. On the second--

Moses: I do not mean to interrupt your sacred narrative, but was this during the day or at night?

God: Oh yeah, forgot that part. On that first day, I said let there be light. That made night and day. Certainly it had nothing at all to do with the Earth's rotation's rotation around the Sun. So that first day, surveyed the Earth, made night and day, and took a nap. That second day, I separated the firmament and the Earth, to make Heaven and Earth. Oh, and I made the sky blue. Do you want to hear about diffuse sky radiation?

Moses: [quizzical uncomprehending look]

God: Okaay. I put some water in the sky and left some water on the earth. On the third day, I called the Earth the Earth and the water the Sea. But when you retell this Moses, try to make this day sound, oh I don't know, busier somehow.

Moses: Like, you planted grass that day too?

God: Sure, that works. Thanks Mose. The Fourth day I made seasons and dabbled more with night and day. Night was too dark, so I figure out a way to reflect light to make most nights not so dark. The next day I filled the seas with all the creatures therein and the land with animals that were the size of 250 men put together.

Moses: No way. That is unpossible. That animal would be, well larger than the pyramids!

God: Yeah, sure, that was another riddle. No giant animals. Just birds. So what day are we on here?

Moses: Fish and fowl were the fifth. Did you take Shabbos on the sixth?

God: No, that is the seventh day. I still had one more day of hard work left. On the sixth I uh, shit, did I make cows yet?

Moses: No your excellency.

God: I made cows on the sixth day, and a bunch of other animals that walk on the land. Then I made man and said, Man, all this is yours. Enjoy.

Moses: Wow, you truly are a great god. Created all of this in only six days. An amazing Earth that provides us with sustenance and a temperate climate and a night that lasts justs as long as I can sleep. It is mind-boggling how perfect you got it. But God, why are the Egyptians so evil to the Jews?

God: Oh, Moses. I made man in my image. I have free will. Man has free will. And now, I shall tell you what a God does with his free will . . .

[scene closes on Moses sitting cross-legged, staring intently into the burning bush, as the Sun slowly sets in the background]

[fade out]

Graduation and Other Things

I have conditionally graduated from law school. I still have one grade outstanding, but I sure as hell did not write a 43 page paper with the intention of getting an "F", so I think that I am permitted to put "Quasi-Dr." on my letterhead now.

Unfortunately, my utter laziness caught up with me this semester. The two exams I took were multiple choice which seriously inhibits my utilization of the one talent I can genuinely attribute to law school, bull-shitting. One exam was so hard, there is no point in discussing it. But I did well enough on it.

The other exam was easy, except for about 10 of the 70 or so questions. All those questions came from a class that I skipped. Being lazy, I did not bother to get anyone's notes for that class, figuring that a) there would only be three or four questions from that class and b) if push came to shove, I would survey the statute book during the exam and find the right answer.

So, I was wrong; on both counts. Some of the statutes necessary to determine the proper answer were not in the statute book (it was only state statutes, and some questions referenced federal statutes). I had the textbook with me, but that proved just as worthless. I suppose there was a reason that there was no assigned reading for that class. Conversely, some of the statutes that were needed were in the statute book. That helped, the annotations however did not. For all of the questions that had an answer contained in a statute I had access to, some of the annotations clearly contradicted the plain language of the statute. So, like a good lawyer, I looked at the most recent cases, the effective date of the statute, and what the statute really said. (Remember, this is while I am taking the exam). In quite a few cases, the statue and the annotations simply did not jive. Needing to make a decision on how to answer the question (already narrowed between two answers), I drew on my prior experience that annotations fucking suck. Numerous times I have seen annotations (at least for the states), fuck up the true holding of the court. So, I went with the language of the statute.

But who knows if that was right or wrong. I could have just as easily screwed up another part of the exam (I did skip about five classes, but most of the stuff was easy. This particular class was hard because there was no text/statute to help understand it). So I got a B+ on that exam. Even though I have known that grade for a week, I am still a little annoyed. At myself really (even though, I had to attend a mandatory function during the class in question). Should have tried harder. Should have gotten notes. Should haves are not going to help me now; now that the 4.01 dream is dead. For the first time ever in law school, my GPA is actually going to go down, regardless of the grade in the remaining class. Annoying; humbling.

Now, I am stuck in IL studying for the IL bar. It is in a good location. There is absolutely nothing out here to distract me, other than watching Cubs games everyday, though the mute button helps limit that distraction. I am spending about 8 hours a day studying (for the last two anyway), trying to study my way through the annoyance of my final law school semester. Or at least force my way through laziness. It is tough though, after reading black letter law for five hours, I lose the ability to focus my eyes. I figure this might be a bonus though, because with double vision I read everything twice. Win-Win.

Yeah, that is enough for now. Over under on the next post is 13 days. Place your bets.

Key to Getting an A

Don't let the timestamp at the bottom fool you. It is about 5:30 a.m. right now. In about three hours I will be taking my first final. I have had about a week to study for it, but did nothing of substance until a couple days ago.

Around 11:30 tonight (last night?) I was halfway through the final read through of my 103 page outline and realized that there was no way I was sleeping tonight without some help. Help comes in many forms. My desired sleeping aid is Tylenol PM. That was out because it takes at least two hours to kick in and knocks me out for about eight hours. Nyquil was also available, but anyone familiar with Denis Leary knows that a Nyquil coma does not relent to even the most fastidious of alarms. That left one alternative, Alcohol. Granted, drinking the night before an exam is never a good idea, but a couple of drinks to tire oneself out cannot hurt.

So I had a couple drinks. Got through the rest of my outline and went to bed. But bed did not take. My mind was racing, running through how all the damn articles of the UCC intersected with each other. Make no mistake, I was tired, but my mind does not bend to the will of my exhausted limbs and torso. After an hour visualizing the flow charts for forged indorsements and presentment warranties, I gave up. Granted, that was about 4:45 a.m. Even if I fell asleep when I wanted to, I was only look at an two hours (2 1/2 if I slept in) of sleep. At 4:45 it seemed reasonable that I would probably be sharper mentally without sleep that I would be with an hour and a half of sleep. After all, the 3.4 I got in undergrad was a direct result of taking exams upon 24 waking hours.

Of course, I am much older now (at least five years), but I refuse to bow down to the necessity of sleep. If marines can go 96 hours without sleep, I can make it 23. After all, I spent the last week getting at least 10 hours a night. I should be good, what with my coffee, and my soon to be run to the gas station for red bull and Five Hour Energy Drink, followed by a McDonalds bagel and coffee. I will probably piss every 30 minutes during the exam, but it is a small price to pay.

Oh and none of that is the key to getting an A. This is the trick. About 13 minutes before the exam is scheduled to start, I put on Flying At Tree Level 1.0 by Brand New. Then I listen to Jet Black New Year by Thursday. Those two songs get me properly amped to take an exam.

That is all.

Hoc-key?

This is the time of year where I write an essay telling everyone to watch the hockey playoffs. Usually it involves tens, if not fifteens, of youtube clips. Well, none of that this year. Except for a short essay of course. But sadly, it is not about the playoffs.

You may know that my team is the Blackhawks. And essentially, for the last nine years, or ever since I graduated from high school, the Hawks have slowly been killing my hockey soul. The team sucked, the ownership sucked, and basically everything about the Hawks was pathetic. Original Six to Original Shit (or something like that). I still paid attention even though I have spent seven of the last nine hockey seasons out of the state. I could not pick a new team. I am no sports bigamist.

This year though, things were different in Chicago. Ironically, it began with death. As a consumer and a fan who spent around 25 years devoted the Hawks, I am not sad that Bill Wirtz died. It is nice that he did charity work, took care of his former players (at least the guys that got paid jack shit in 60s and 70s), and was responsible for 1/3 of the alcohol imported into Illinois. Oh, and was a multi-billionaire. But he single-handedly destroyed hockey in Chicago. And, together with Jeremy Jacobs, is responsible for hockey moving from being America's fourth sport to a fringe sport.

And so it was that "Dollar Bill" was gone. Rocky Wirtz took his place. Toews became my favorite player, and along with Kane, are the best nineteen year olds in the league. This is new. This is huge. (And it bears mentioning that they have this guy named John McDonough running the show.)

We thought we had a foundation in the past. We remember Tyler Arnason, Mark Bell, and Kyle Calder, the ABC Line, that was going to lead the Hawks to the elusive promised land (Not the Stanley Cup, we just want to make the playoffs). That did not pan out. In truth, they were all only average, at best players. (check out their stats this year. Arnason, the best of the bunch had 31 points.)

But Toews and Kane. These guys are the real deal. They are own Crosby and Malkanin. OK, they are not that good, yet, but they are both the real deal. And Bill will not be around to run them out of town like he did to Roenick and Belfour. Toews and Kane make Chicago a destination for free agents again. Because, hey this is novel, Hawks home games will be televised. Attendance is up. I went to this game, and it was un-fucking-believable. The best one I have ever been to.

In short, for the first time since 1992-ish, Hockey is back in Chicago. And for the first time, I know that I will not be.

You see, this was going to be my divorce. A clean break. I would be a hockey widow, albeit for a short period of time, but unattached nonetheless.

The Washington Capitals, whose history is just about as disastrous as the Hawks, have this dude on their team named Alexander Ovechkin. And he is fucking good. Not Crosby good, but close. Very close. And he will likely be playing a 20 minute metro ride from where I live. Over the summer, the first week I was in DC, I went to a hockey Bar in Alexandria to watch a game of the Stanley Cup finals. And though the bar was small, hockey is alive and well in DC, even though the Caps missed the playoffs that year. This year they did not, but barely (do not let the three seed fool you, the got that because they won the divsion, and in reality, were only 3 points better than the Hawks).

Had I made the conversion then, it would have been understandable. If I declared in May '07 that I renounced my Hawk Fandom and moved on to the Caps, you all would have understood. But now, I cannot do that. Hell, after Dollar Bill died, I probably would have shifted back to the Hawks anyway.

But still, it is decisions like this that can shape the rest of our life. Slightly at least. I will probably still go several Caps games, they will be my back up team when in ten years this Hawk thing gives me an ulcer and probably colon cancer. But until then, I will just have to make sure that the Hawks are not playing on WGN that night.

Not to Sound Like A Dick, But . . .

One of my fellow classmates asked me if I was going to graduate with a 4.0. I told him that I was not sure. As of right now, my GPA is a shade below a 4.0. My school, in its infinite wisdom, gives a slighter higher points rating for an A+, which, at least in the abstract, makes achieving higher than a 4.0 a possibility. If I like anything, I like projects. Especially projects that really mean nothing. So I set about determining if I could achieve a 4.0.

Doing this required my first furlough into my previous grades. Do not get me wrong, I eagerly anticipate getting my grades, but once I get it, I forget about it and move onto other things. I have a very micro view of grades. This project, which really only took about ten minutes, was my first foray into a macro view of my grades. And what I learned was startling.

I have spent the last four semesters making up for my first semester. In each of the last four, I have had a GPA equal to or greater than 4. But my first semester, while good (probably excellent for most), put me in a position of fighting an uphill battle for the rest of my 2.5 years in law school.

But, I am happy to report, that I can achieve a 4.0, and possibly higher. Granted to accomplish this, I need at least one A+, and two A's. A tough accomplishment when you look at it like that. I am not too worried about getting A's, but getting the A+ is going to require some extra work. I mean, last semester, I had two graded classes, did nothing but show up most of the time to class, studied my ass off for two days for each exam, and got an A in each.

But seeing that a potential 4.01 or 4.02 is within reach, it almost makes me giddy. Almost because I do not know if I can get myself into that kind of study mode again. [At least in law school, all bets are off for the bar].

When I came to law school, and the succeeding two years, the goals were simple. Get the best grades, get the best job. Well, I got 1A down, and though it is arguable if I got 1B, it does not really matter anymore. I have a job. I just have to graduate. I could get D's in my remaining classes, and still graduate with a GPA over 3.5. I still get my degree. I still start working when the summer ends.

The motivation I once felt is completely gone. Right now I am in this quasi really want to be done with school, really do not want to be done at all state. It was the same thing when I graduated from Undergrad,* only now more pronounced. Because I know that working full-time sucks, paying rent sucks, paying car insurance sucks. Basically growing up sucks. When is the next testing date for the MCAT?

So lazy me wants to dick around, and not give a shit, while studious me wants to get perfection. And when put like that, even lazy me sits up and takes notice. That lead me to do something I have never done before. I put all my CALI Awards up on the wall, right above my bed. Getting those awards actually felt good, considering the work I put into getting them. They are up just to remind me that, yeah, you put forth the effort, you can get what you desire (sort of, Elisha Cuthbert still is not answering my e-mails).

Well, that, and it is a reminder of what I gave up to get them. Considering it is a Friday night and I am not going anywhere. At the least, my GPA will represent the fact that, yeah, I was here the last three years.


*It is funny how big a deal people make about getting a 4.0 in undergrad. If I had put forth half of the effort in Undergrad that I did in Law School, I easily could have had a 4.0. Live and Learn right.

What the hell, another link

None of you listened to me back when I told you to watch Arrested Development. Well, you now have the opportunity to kick yourselves for not watching on your own time. Every episode, free (with the exception of about 45 seconds of commercials), streaming on your computer, for, did I mention, free, whenever you want. On Hulu.

Whoa!? What The?

This made me do a double take.

The guys at KSK did a book draft (it is a long offseason), and the fourth pick made me rub my eyeballs to make sure they were working.

Will Leitch, the editor of deadspin, picked fourth and chose The Long Walk. I have read that book so many times, I practically have it memorized. It was shocking to see it show up there. It is not like it is a classic of American literature or anything.

[I will now go back to finish reading that post].

99 Years of Futility

ESPN has chronicled the last 99 years of the Cubs and why they could not win. It is way too depressing for me to read, so some one please send me the cliff notes.

[f.y.i. CUBS SUCK!!!!!!!!!!!!!!1111111111111!!!!!!!!! rofl!!1111!!!!!! lmao!!!!1111!!!!! is not accetable]

Oh, and for the two (one?) person that still checks this blog, I highly, highly recommend the Tucker Max, "Hey. I am making movie" blog. It is fantastic.

Ahhh, the memories of youth

My memory is some what shitty. I think back to high school, and I really cannot remember much of it. I draw upon my high school hockey memory bank and the only things I remember are the times I utterly embarrassed myself (it was only twice, I swear), or did something halfway decent (e.g. my first goal, and . . . uhhh, there was uh, that time I got a penalty for kicking some kid's stick into the neutral zone (total bullshit by the way)).

Going back further is even more fruitless. Maybe not. I just surprised myself by remembering the names of my K-5 teachers. But with the exception of the time we went to the Mall to show the community how we learned in fifth grade (oh and the time I failed a math quiz because I was so ingrained with the subtraction process that I could not do 15-7 without crossing out the one and carrying it over, even though it resulted in a mirror image of the question. . . live and learn you know) elementary school is a blur. We could try talking about college, but as my IL bar app. proved, I could not even remember which professors taught which class.

Hell, I cannot even remember what I had for lunch two days ago. I could probably make an educated guess based on the food in my pantry, but by no means would I make a wager on it.

So then, the other day, one of my friends had a picture appear on one of those social networking sites. It was a picture of him and President Clinton shaking hands. And in the deep recesses of memory, I pulled out a nugget of knowledge that had long been dormant.

Back in Clinton's first term, when I was about 13 years old, I began to have these things called hormones raging through my body. I eventually learned that the only to prevent myself from walking around with an erection all day was to make it spit every now and then. As luck would have it, my father also had a Playboy subscription at the time and chose to store his Playboy's in his chest of drawers. As was my wont at the time, I would occasionally borrow the magazine and take care of business; generally between the hours of 3 and 5, when I was home but my folks were not. Ahhh, I have fond memories of Drew Barrymore's pictorial (link is wikipedia proof, not actually pictures).

But at some point during this time frame of stealthily pilfering my pop's mags, I would get bored and read the articles. And one of these Playboy's was a few pages on the year in sex (1994? I would guess that, it was probably in the same issue as Drew's pictorial. Needless to say, that was my favorite one). Included among Anna Nicole marrying that old oil guy and Elle Macpherson doing something fucking hot and the cast of Seinfeld in bed with the sheets pulled up to their necks was an innocuous photo of President Clinton shaking hands with some dame. Included was the quote (as near as I can remember) "Shaking hands with the President is a full body sexual experience."

So when I saw my friend shaking the hand of Mr. Clinton, the memory of that singular passage came back, I immediately Googled it, found a reference, and laid a solid gold comment on the picture.

Then I got to thinking about this. I read that 13 years ago. Right now, I am really trying to remember what I did last week, and am mostly shooting blanks.

Memory is a funny thing. But I am confident when there is something that I need to know at one particular moment of my existence, I will be able to recall it. That has to be why I do so well on exams, yet constantly forget to call people back.