These are the rest of the pictures from Harley’s pre-finals frolic in the snow.
Yesterday, all I wanted to hear was “look back at me” by Trina. I waged a steady nagging campaign all night, but the host was not playing my song.
Then it struck me.
After last night’s rally, I felt armed for this morning’s Conflicts of Laws exam.
I was exhausted, queasy, but prepared.1
I tried my best to remain super cranky on this morning’s dog walk, but it is hard to stay bitter around a big, bumbling dog.
I got the library, avoided the beaver, and reviewed while using copious amounts of tabbies.
The Conflicts exam was another elegant, concise exam. No chaos, distracting typos, or panicked exercises in figuring out what the heck the question is.
I am now at Wilde Roast, in my home stretch preparations for tomorrow’s 8-hour Constitutional Law exam. One more, and I’m done!
1That half & half was really bad…
It is 8pm. My Conflicts exam is in 12 hours. I feel tired, cranky, and ridiculous.
I haven’t seen my boyfriend in two weeks. He said he was going to come over tonight, but watched a movie with his roommate instead. These are busy times – they live together and haven’t seen each other in a week.
The cream in my coffee tastes off. I look at the “use by” date and it says November 15th. It is December 20th. Epic fail.
Then the dog farts. It smells like rotten mouse.
So I am sitting there – tired, lonely, with undrinkable coffee and unbreathable air. This is not going to work.
I take the dog on a walk. It isn’t so terribly cold, and the air is breathable.
When I come back to the apartment the air is safe again. I dump the coffee and creamer., and pour a fresh cup.
I then sit down, retool the outline, and get it done. 2 more exams and I’m done!
Professor L explained why our exam is eight hours:
Professor L: “The reason I give you eight hour exams is not just sadism. That’s just a part of it! I like people to suffer…”
She then went on to say that the time limit is to give us time to think about, and flesh-out our answers, but that was lost in the nervous laughter.
After the shock that was employment law, I engaged in a bit over-study for today’s Real Estate law exam.
So I dragged a bloated, coffee-stained outline into the exam room. It felt like carrying a bible with tabbies.1
The outline had two major chunks. I am a firm believer that every 100 pages of substantive outline needs to be covered with at least one irreverent picture. My outline was about 200 pages, so I got two pictures.
The first table of contents featured a picture of Miss Lepore as photographed by David LaChapelle:
The second table of contents had a picture of my favorite lolcat: chastity kitty.
As paper was flying during the exam I kept coming across the pictures of Amanda Lepore and Chastity Kitty, and I snickered each time. Best exam ever.2
1 Although it was determined yesterday that beating the exam with my outline while screaming “I’M FILLED WITH MORTGAGE LOVE!” would probably be disruptive and possibly be against the honor code.
2 The real estate law exam was elegant. It was only four pages! I think the one-question tort exam last year was at least 10 pages. And that’s not even an exaggeration! I walked in the snow, uphill, both ways for a single question 10 page exam! Oh those were the days…
I knew to worry two days ago when I read the sample multiple choice question for the exam:
In State v. Hennepin County, the majority opinion declined to address the BFOQ issue raised by Justice Coyne’s dissenting opinion because:
The multiple choice questions were nitpicky. That’s the only polite description. It was worse than the tax exam. It felt like they paid someone to stand inside the exam room and deliver a nice, firm, back-handed bitchslap to us while screaming, “You thought this class was easy huh?! WRONG!”
Anyhoot, another one down… now on to Real Estate law…
I was scrubbing three inches of snow off my car at 5:30am and arrived at school by 6.
After two hours of excitement and trying to make sense of § 1031 exchanges, I went to the exam room with a pile of books and tabbed notes. I didn’t feel the least bit ridiculous carrying so much crap because these are the tools of comfort. If the professor says open note, then I will bring my notes on the not-so-off chance that I will have to look up the answer to an obscure question.
The exam consisted of multiple choice and short answer. The multiple choice questions were pretty straightforward and not as hard as the questions on the practice exam. No odd-color questions besides the 1031 essay question.
The problem I had with studying the § 1031 material is that the numbers in Professor A’s examples were off…but, tax being OVER, this is all blissfully irrelevant until next semester’s corporate tax class.
1 down. Four to go. Now, off to prepare for exam #2: Employment law.
Before recapping the past few weeks, I offer my stressed-out 1L readers a metaphor. No, this isn’t about liability looming in the air or about tree-fruit. This is a metaphor about law school:
“Finals are like the last drop on a rollercoaster ride.”
Brilliant, no? No? Okay, let me explain…
A good rollercoaster ride is taxing and scary. Halfway through, everyone questions why they decided to get on the ride in the first place. It wouldn’t be a good rollercoaster if the ride was pleasant.
Pleasantness is for those Jennifer-Aniston lovers over there on the teacup ride. You waited in the ungodly long line for the rollercoaster because you are hardcore, and this is how you roll.
Right now, I am at the peak of the final drop of the rollercoaster. The view is great, but the bullshit fun is about to start. What’s the worst that can happen?
Erm… Okay. Barring some Final Destination disaster (or a stray bullet) the worst that can happen is a C, maybe a C minus.
And that is why law school finals are like the last drop on a rollercoaster. Finals entail stress and work, but the GPA concerns are about as serious as the rollercoaster rider worried about yarking up a hotdog. Yes, it’s a real concern – C’s and puke suck – but worrying about law school finals is still very charmed position to be in.
You guessed it, I’m pulling the “some children are starving” card:
Or the laid-off-worker-with-family card, or the foreclosure card, or the mental health card… the point is that some people have real problems, and no, sorry, law school finals do not qualify. The worst that can happen is a bad grade, and the world will not end with a C. Trust me. (And even if you aim to be an associate at a posh firm, remember they get fired too.)
Whether I am making videos about finals, throwing shade in the library, or shaking because I have just studied for 13 hours straight, I always remember that finals stress is about as serious (and non-serious) as puking hotdogs after a rollercoaster ride. I’m sure I’ll find a mop.
So the review of the past few weeks?
That’s all!
On Thursday I had a review session for Real Estate law, and needed to print notes. I went to the law school library to print, and I was shocked by the wave of irritation that came over me.
The psst, psst, whispers. Girl on phone. Whooping cough boy…
I was not there to study – I just wanted to print – but within 5 minutes I was tense, twitchy, and annoyed.
I can study in cafes, undergrad libraries, public libraries, and at home with a 100lb dog sleeping on me, but somehow the law school library irritates the hell out of me.
I think it is the reminder of all the annoying people I spent the past semester with. Irrelevant question boy, petty gossip girl, Mr. mouth-odor, Mrs. body-odor, Facebook Scrabble boy, streaming-video-in-class girl… the smug skunk…
The little house of horrors was all here, and I needed to get out, immediately. You can find me at Dunn Brothers, or maybe Wilde Roast…
NPR said that the snow storm would worsen Wednesday. They used the term “blinding snow” so I figured that I had to go into work yesterday afternoon to avoid the impending whiteout.
I rethought the wisdom of going to work while crossing the Mendota bridge. The snow clung to my windshield and a semi-truck tailgated me Jeepers Creepers-style. I was surely going to die there on that bridge. Who was going to walk Harley?
I made it to work alive and worked for 10 hours.
I considered leaving around 7pm because the building felt abandoned and the snow had picked up – I felt like the lone beachgoer who didn’t get the memo about the typhoon.
After a gchat consultation with a classmate, I decided to stick it out until midnight, and I am glad that I did.
I was shocked by how bright it was outside of the office. A team of caterpillar plow trucks had cleared a pathway to my car, and one of the drivers lit up my car as I defrosted and scraped the windows.
The roads in Eagan were semi-plowed, and the speeding drivers of the afternoon had vanished to the ER.
I made it home before 1am. The next task was walking the much-neglected dog. I put on my gear: snowboots, face mask, 2 pairs of long johns, gloves… and then took Harley outside looking like a Chechen sniper.
Unlike the bitching I got earlier this semester, the dog LOVED the deep snow! He was so excited that I had to take him off the leash because he kept dragging me through the snow as if he was on an audition to become Santa’s next reindeer.
I took Harley to the park this morning so he could continue his frolicking. Pictures are here.
It’s 8:23am and 17 degrees.
I was supposed to leave for my last tax law class at 8:20am, but I am still on my street, attempting to start my frozen car.
The car starts.
It’s time to do a 3-point turn.
I move the car into the street and my brakes fail. All I can do is clutch the steering wheel and give a pathetic look as my car slowly slides into the side of the car across the street.
Luckily, my car is sliding SO slowly that I don’t leave any dents or set off any alarms. I did a quick check to see if anyone saw the hot messitude and then booked it to class.
Professor A: “I think, when you look back on this semester, and particularly this class, you will remember that this is the first class you had at 8 in the morning…
…and now, the last day of class is the anniversary of Pearl Harbor! President Roosevelt said that this is “the day that will live in infamy” and I don’t know if that pertains to this class or the exam…but uh, I decided to start the day by giving you something. So here are some chocolates!”
Professor A ended class with a longer, prepared speech. And that was it. My tax class was over. Tax was definitely my favorite class this semester, probably because it was the most challenging. (And yes, I was a CivPro buff 1L year as well…)
The final is in exactly a week. Heavenly…
Professor E: “Thank you for a great semester. Even from the first day you’ve been great, which is unusual…”
Professor E then darted out of the room as we clapped, which was awkward, but as a 2L I have grown to expect, accept, and embrace the awkwardness that is law school.
It’s like being in a Dilbert Comic strip with heavy books and beavers instead of cats.
I spent most of the day with the tax outline.
Finals preparation comes with a sense of accomplishment that is absent from everyday class reading. I love the periodic realization that a topic confusing in class suddenly makes sense! It’s like:
My tax preparation is an advent calendar of these small victories.1
I spent the majority of the semester lost and overwhelmed with information and expected not to remember anything from the beginning of the semester. But it turns out that the topics built on each other, so the early material was ingrained in me throughout the semester. Glensaw Glass, Old Colony Trust, Hickman, … I get it, I think. Maybe. We’ll see…
I also spent some time at work today. During a break, I had a phone conversation with the boyfriend. I think he understands that the next 17 days determine my grades for the semester and that I’ll shower when it’s over.2
But until then, I am in that unapologetic, self-involved, hermit mode called “law student during finals.”
The boyfriend claims to understand and says he’s supportive, but I suspect he’s thinking: “Crap. I’m dating a hunchback.”
That’s actually a reference to Transylmania, a slapstick horror comedy we saw last night. The movie has a huge cast of characters, including a hot Romanian girl who seduces a guy online, but neglects to tell him about her hideous, veiny, hunchback.
That sums up the situation.
The neglect has an end date (Dec. 22nd!) and I’m sure everything’s gonna be alright.
Hunger kicked in during the middle of Jack’s answer in Employment Law:
Jack: “I think it’s reasonable because the employee’s actions don’t show wonton disregard… wonton? Wanton?”
Professor I: “Wanton. Wonton is the Chinese restaurant.”
Jack: “It’s almost lunch time!”
More from Employment Law:
I was exhausted after school today, so Harley and I took a nap after the afternoon walk.
I woke up to snoring around 7:30pm. I forgot that Harley was the one sleeping next to me, so when I turned to tell Joel that he was snoring too loudly, I was greeted by a smiling bullmastiff mug, which promptly blew snot all over my face. Bleh.
Harley and I walked around Lake of the Isles tonight.
Some of the mansions around the lake have gaudy holiday displays that have beautiful reflections on the lake. The walk was unusual because it was cloudless and oddly quiet due to the lack of screaming children and intense middle-aged runners. The lake surface was still except for when we were approached by a flock of shadowed geese that glided towards us like a little army of Loch ness monsters.
Harley saw the geese and did his imposing, big-dog “Imma eat all y’all” stance.
The geese said “nevermind” and floated back into the darkness.
After the walk, I sat down and finished the reading for tomorrow. I always do my tax law reading first. Tax is typically the longest and most difficult assignment I have – and it makes all of the other assignments read like James Patterson novels minus the dramatic cliffhangers.
Tomorrow’s lunch period needs to be ultra productive because I am going to try to make it to Trivia night in St. Paul. Our team is called “Beauty and the Beasts” and we came in second place last week despite only having three people:
We’ll see how we do tomorrow.
It is easy to fall into a funk during finals.
Joel and I had a conversation about law school on the way home from Thanksgiving dinner. It was a familiar whine-fest and the gist was:
“It’s funny how law schools don’t tell prospective students how irrelevant “prestige” is or how shitty our employment prospects are. This is something you realize halfway through, when you’re stuck.”
I felt like a student who found out his online technical college wasn’t accredited. This was an expensive waste of time. Shitty-shitty-bang-bang, wah-wah-wah. The whining and apathy probably wasn’t easy to listen to, but luckily Joel couldn’t figure out a good way to kick me out of the car at the nearest bus stop.
I try to take the dog on at least one 5 mile walk every day during the few hours of winter daylight. These extended walks are perfect for thinking things through. During today’s walk I reminded myself of why I chose to go to UMN and not a free school:
The ass busting skill is the most vital one to develop in law school. Most of the other stuff is superficial and unspeakably irrelevant in the real world.
I am MacGyver, and I attend a school of MacGyvers.
This is exactly why this is going to be a stress-free finals season – it’s not about the grade, but about working hard and learning the material. The point is not being able to make a rocket out of a ballpoint pen and a paper clip better than the next guy, but to be able to make the rocket out of the ballpoint pen. Once we get outside of the McGuiver academy we can use our skills in the real world, and good things will happen.3
1 Work hard, smart, and crushing the competition with a smile. One of the best ways to teach people to work hard is to find the smartest students and grade them on a curve. Even the C student in that situation knows how to bust his (or her) ass, and will be fine in the real world. This is why the vast majority of UMN students pass the bar, and go on to succeed in a variety of random career fields.
2 What is outrageous is that one of my orientation speakers told me this last year – she said that the point of law school is not the perfect grades, the journal position, or national ABA moot court team – the point is to learn how to work hard and graduate. I guess I just had to come to that conclusion myself…
3 Method vs. result… akin to the true athlete and the person who ruins their health for the temporary beach body.
This morning the dog woke me up shortly before 7am like “It’s poopy time! Take me out or suffer!”
We were walking down the street within three minutes because I still regret the last time I made him wait.
In my hurry to get him outside I didn’t do any hair or teeth brushing, so the dog peed on poles as I tried to light the poles on fire with my morning dragon breath. It was like a blow-torch of funk.
7am is the best time to walk the dog because all of the school children are at the bus tops. The Somali girls are afraid of the dog but the Mexican boys love him.
We got to the end of the block when two huge fire trucks swung onto the street and stopped right in front of us. I was suddenly floodlit and I couldn’t decide whether to bust out with “RING THE ALARM” or not.
The firemen stepped out of the truck like “welcome to the gunshow” in such an annoyed, unhurried way that I could tell this was a response some old lady who fell and called the fire department through her life alert. Apparently my dragon breath didn’t lite anything on fire after all…
One hour later I was in Tax law. This week’s topic is like-kind exchanges and I was so unspeakably confused that I didn’t even know how to articulate my confusion.
I spent the last 10 minutes of class hunched over, flustered, and staring hopelessly at the problems the professor was whizzing through on the board. What the…
I have never felt so confused in law school. I was so flustered that I skipped Employment law, went home, and walked the dog. I was too disoriented to pay attention in employment law, so it will have to wait until after the break.
After today’s second dog walk, I went to the Mall of America. I have not been to the mall in a long time and had forgotten how ridiculous the mall is: blaring music, bitchy sales clerks, and ridiculous ads. I felt like Zoolander would pop around the corner any second and strike a pose.
I was at the mall because I needed to go to LensCrafters for a contact fitting. I lost my glasses this weekend at the Saloon, so I figured prescription contacts are a safer (and cheaper) alternative. On the way out of the mall, I smelled a Hollister store from five stores away and remembered that I was out of cologne.
Hollister seemed full of bored teenage employees until I actually needed a cashier. Nevermind that I didn’t just walk out of the store and actually hunted down a cashier down to purchase a $40 bottle of cologne… He didn’t say a word to me and barely made eye contact, but I wasn’t going to lecture the 16 year old on good customer service because he obviously hated his job and not making commission.
So I was drenched in the Hollister cologne when I walked into work shortly thereafter. It was hard to get into the building today because the great wall of turkey blocked the building’s entryway.
My company gives out turkeys to its 7,000-odd employees. The frozen turkeys were in big white boxes that were trucked in and stacked on giant pallets. There was a solid 6 foot wall of turkey boxes which I had to walk around to get to work.
I picked up my turkey on the way home. It’s in the freezer now. I’ll figure THAT disaster later.
I was only home briefly to drop off the turkey before turning around and going to Innuendo for Trivia Night with Joel and Kurt. We came in second place to this overly intense group of regulars. The win of the night was coaxing Jake the Trivia Host to play the Halle Berry. Aye!
My only class tomorrow is Tax, and I hope it’s not as awful as today… unrealistic expectations?
If my tax professor is anything, he is honest:
Professor A: I am forcing you guys to learn about like-kind exchanges for three reasons:
Other Professor A posts:
Amber fretted about finals at work today:
Amber: I am not looking forward to my week. You’d think I wouldn’t be so stressed out about a two-day week, but this is sort of the last breath of freedom before finals – but only, it’s NOT a fresh breath because I have commitments with NORMAL people who do not understand the madness that law students have to go through.
What makes law school finals stressful is not the material, but the curve. Our grades are not based on what we know, but on how much more we know than our equally-competent1 peers.
There are miserable students live in the library during November. Most of us don’t want to become that goonish, vampire-like study-carrel dweller, but we all want to do well.
This is why finals season feels like a SAW sequel: how much are you willing to give to stay alive? An arm? A leg? Your right toe? Dum dum dum…
A lot of us are saying “fuck it.” The job market is too slim to ruin our health and social lives for an arbitrary grade. It is more important to just learn the material as best we can and retain sanity.
This week was busy even without the unnecessary finals panic. There was the crushing weekly reading, work, and an oral argument that almost did not happen.
I have to work on my Vanna White smile for class. Some of my classmates are getting exponentially more inappropriate as the semester progresses and it’s hard not to glare.
There is one girl in particular who asks such amazingly off-topic questions that it will shock NO ONE when she raises her hand one day and asks:
Off-Topic Girl: “Professor, you were talking about x, and that reminds me – sorry if this outside of the scope of our class – but, what is the meaning of life? Can you speak to that?”
That’s going to happen before the end of the semester. Guaranteed.2
Aside from the circus that is school, I’ve spent my evenings and afternoons at work. And this weekend I went out on Friday and Saturday.
We started Friday at The Eagle’s happy hour, and then later that night went to The Saloon. On Saturday we went to this gladiator-themed gay bar called Gladius. The bar tenders at Gladius wear these little leather gladiator-skirts…with running shoes… and there was a boy trying SO HARD to sell a tray of these red shots that looked exactly like DayQuil (in the DayQuil cup and everything!) Fail.
The music at Gladius was impressive, and we spent some serious boomkat time on the dancefloor.3 The party continued at The Saloon, where I managed to get my glasses stolen.
The Saloon has a heater right above the dancefloor, so Eric and I took off our blazers and put them on a speaker. My overpriced plastic frame glasses were too light and kept slipping, so I set them on my blazer.
When I picked up the blazer the glasses were gone. Dum dum dum. Angela Lansbury had already gone to bed, so that case went cold pretty quickly.
I’m going into for a contacts fitting on Tuesday. I figure contacts are a more practical investment than another pair of lose-able/steal-able glasses.
I only have class on Monday and Tuesday this week, and nothing but Tax Law on Wednesday. The rest of the week will be spent working and outlining full time, but hopefully a little less stressful than Amber’s week.
1 And it’s really a shitshow at UMN law, where the 98/99% bar passage rate means that even the people with the lowest GPAs are competent enough to practice law.
2 Minnesota nice has gone out the window. Sure, off-topic girl is annoying, but a lot of people are just downright bitter. If I can hear the bitchy comment from two rows away, or read it on gchat screen on a nearby laptop, then off-topic girl will find out eventually.
3 Will and I were the only ones on the dancefloor, because Joel and Eric were too busy socializing. And no, although some minimal voguing was done, there were drops or duckwalks.
I don’t understand the point of these University of Minnesota crime alerts. The theme seems to be: “Young-ish black men wearing dark clothes mugged someone. Watchout.”
I’m sure the police are frustrated when the only description they get is “I dunno. It was a black dude. Youngish… dark clothes.” – but passing that unhelpful description on to the student body probably sends one message: “If you see a young black male: be very afraid!”
This is why I rock pink.
Here’s today’s crime alert:
On Thursday, November 19 at approximately 6:30 p.m., a 21-year-old University of Minnesota student was the victim of an armed robbery near Marcy Park, off campus in the Dinkytown neighborhood.
The victim was at the intersection of 7th Street SE and 11th Avenue SE when he was approached by two males. One of the suspects pointed a silver handgun at the victim and ordered him to the ground. While the victim was on the ground, the suspects took his backpack and ran south-bound from 7th Avenue SE in between 10th and 11th Avenue SE. The victim was not injured.
The first suspect is described as a black male between 20 and 30 years of age, approximately six feet, two inches tall with a medium build. The suspect was wearing a baggy black hooded sweatshirt with the hood pulled up and black baggy jeans. The suspect held the sliver handgun in his left hand.
The second suspect is described as a black male between 20 and 30 years of age, approximately five feet, eight inches tall with a medium build. The suspect wore glasses and had short black curly hair, and was wearing a dark hooded sweatshirt and dark pants.
