I officially live in a winter wonderland.
This weekend’s storm dumped about 6 inches on Minneapolis, which Gertrude loved.
3L Fall / 3L Fall Summaries / blackberry pictures / dogs / Halvers / Life / Minneapolis-St. Paul / picture of the day
I officially live in a winter wonderland.
This weekend’s storm dumped about 6 inches on Minneapolis, which Gertrude loved.
The professors assigned one of three Supreme Court cert petitions to each student and we wrote response briefs.
Today we defended our briefs in group debates. I spent the majority of our debate challenging Nancy Grace: “The defendant recruited four guys to invade Joana’s home, pistol whipped her husband, threw Joana in the car, and stole her bayyybay!”
It is Saturday night and my car glides through traffic on 494. Whip my Hair is on the radio and I am excited about tonight’s date. Things are awesome.
The awesomeness ends approximately 15 minutes later when I open my apartment door and get smacked by the smell of rotten eggs. Harley is sick and yarked everywhere.
I manage to clean up the copious amounts of yolk-like vomit, take the dogs out, drain the building boiler, and get dressed within 25 minutes. I am not going to be late for this date, dammit!
So of course, when I open the door to leave, I hear “BLARRG!”
It’s almost 1am.
I spent the majority of Thanksgiving working on my Death Penalty paper in the Law Library. I’m probably the only non-Asian student1 here, and it’s time to go home.
It is the final stretch of the semester.
I am at the Spyhouse to write the first of the last three papers of my law school career and I’m bewildered. The paper is for my death penalty seminar. It is due on Friday, and I have never been so thoroughly disinterested in a class or topic. Strickland, Lockhart, AEDPA, 28 U.S.C. § 2254(d) deference…I can’t be bothered.
Winter smacked down during these past two weeks.
I enjoyed one last day at the lake and then Minneapolis got a foot of snow in an epic snow storm.
More randomness around Minneapolis:
University of Minnesota tuition protest posters still cake campus:
Professor H noted that we look stressed, and that stressed law students are typical for November.
She then addressed our Thanksgiving schedule:
Despite last week’s freeze, it’s still fall:
Class was hilarious during my first year of law school.
What a long, exhausting day.
I tried to call the IRS for a clinic client three times today. The first two IRS agents refused to talk to me because I don’t have my CAF1 number yet. They wouldn’t let me fax my power of attorney and special order, claimed not to have access to fax, and it was just ridiculous.
Jill summed up the situation in class today:
Jill: “I don’t know why I came to class today. I have so much to do that just sitting here stresses me out.
Amen.
Passing my 1L sectionmates follows this script:
Me: “Hey! Haven’t seen you in forever!
Jack: “So busy 3L year is! What the hey?!”
Me: “Oh yeah, I’m super swamped too.”
Jack: “I know right? Time to jet! Late for thisandthat!”
Me: “Bye cupcake!”
Class feels like a huge time suck that gets in the way of the work that I am actually graded on, and yet I have not missed a single class all semester.
Amber: “I am a happy person. Really. I’m not unhappy, but I am definitely less happy after being in law school.”
I thought it was an odd comment, but I understand it now that I am a 3L.
I remembered Amber’s comment while trying to explain what has happened to me to a college friend. I kept using words such as weary, quieter, subdued, but I could not find a satisfying description of how I am less vibrant than I was in undergrad. I think “less happy but not unhappy” works.
Laura Edwards came to my Legal History Workshop class today to talk about her book, “The People and Their Peace: Legal Culture and the Transformation of Inequality in the Post-Revolutionary South.”
Edwards’ presentation was fascinating, which is typical for this semester’s workshops, but the best part of the workshop was the question-and-answer session:
Jill: “I wonder about the rights of white men who didn’t have property, you know, those who didn’t own land or slaves…the itinerant farmers…”
Edwards: “Yes. We call them ‘poor white trash’…”
Jill: “I WAS TRYING TO BE POLITICALLY CORRECT!”
Buhaha. Edwards keeps it real.
Note: “Best Week Ever” posts summarized the week’s events.
This week? Ugh. Well, I strongly considered killing the Rottweiler twice – once for waking me up in the middle of the night, and another time for shutting down in front of the Obama line. The Obama thing was technically my fault, but she can’t exactly defend herself, so I win.
I also went to a very expensive movie, returned to vlogging, and made the locker room of the law school smell like a whorehouse. What a productive week!
I love walking the dogs on campus during the weekends. The University of Minnesota campus is huge, and mostly abandoned on Saturdays.
It is also a gorgeous fall day. So to campus we went. We parked on the West Bank walked across the Washington Avenue bridge as I listened to MPR on the blackberry.
I notice several large groups of people on the East Bank and I assume that there is a football game or something. No big deal. I then see a large line just as I hear MPR news announcer say, “Lines already forming the U of M campus for President Obama’s visit.”
Crap.
But today is different. I packed lunch for a marathon day at school, so I finally went to my locker to throw my lunch in.
My locker must have missed me because when I open the locker, it flings a bottle of Abercrombie Fierce cologne from the top shelf. The bottle smashes on the floor.
I quickly look around and pick up the glass shards, and then sneak to the trash and hide the evidence. I then wipe the floor dry, and hope I didn’t get too much of the Fierce water on me in the process.
Giving advice to future law students is EXACTLY like this:
