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!
These are some pictures I took of1 35W ruins on campus last month.
I remember watching coverage of the bridge collapse from my dorm room in Miami, thinking “and this is where I want to go to law school?”
Drake was also on my list of possible law schools. The Des Moines area experienced some major flooding the next summer, shortly before I committed to going to UMN law. It felt like a disaster avoided.
The Washington Avenue bridge remained under construction for most of the semester and the area that was “safe” to use kept getting smaller, and smaller. There was also this ridiculous situation of bikers plowing through pedestrians in the 14-foot safe area. The school eventually posted cops in the bridge to ticket people who biked across the bridge.
I think those cops should have been devoted to catching the mystery bike groper sooner, but I don’t know if that would have actually worked…
So he’s pouting. He needs to go out, but doesn’t understand what a hassle putting on the long-john’s is.
This is why he makes a point of lingering once we do get outside. He doesn’t really need to sniff each pole, but he wants to see me shiver. This is the state of things…
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 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…
It is 9pm. My Real Estate law exam is in 11 hours, and I am shoving hydrogen peroxide down my dog’s throat.
A few minutes after I let him out of the kennel I noticed he was chomping on something blue – a TomCat Poison mouse block!
I flip out, yank the rest of the poison from his mouth, and then call the vet. The vet told me to bring the dog to the pet hospital right away or induce vomiting with hydrogen peroxide.
I did not want to be at the animal hospital all night on the eve of an exam. I tried studying in the ER last semester, and it didn’t go well. So I ran to CVS, got a bottle of hydrogen peroxide, and then shoved a table spoon into my very-confused dog’s throat.
I then got the idea to call the poison control number on the TomCat box.
The poison control operator took my information and said that I shouldn’t worry because my dog needed to eat 37 blocks to have problems.
Me: “37 blocks? Then how effective is it on mice?” Poison control: “Oh, it’s a slow poison. They eat the block over the course of a few days and the anticoagulant causes massive internal bleeding. So if you dog has multiple exposures, then I would worry, but I wouldn’t worry about massive bleeding from a single block.” Me: “…lovely.”
The fishy thing about Harley eating the block is that I placed the blocks in the kitchen cabinets, but Harley ate the block in the living room. He’s kenneled when I’m gone, so there is way for him to get to the blocks inside of the cabinets…
I think the mice are trying to kill my dog. It’s time to buy some traps. I declare war! …now back to Real Estate law…
I like my dots aligned. That is why I was thrilled to finally figure out how to create a table of contents in MS Word. I’m sure this is super basic, but I was unawares, and thought I would share:
Step 1: Highlight your headers and format them using the header styles 1-3. The header styles should be under the “Home” tab.
Step 2: Once your headers are formatted, hit the “References” tab and select the “table of contents” option.
Word should automatically create a table of contents.
The nice part about having a big dog during winter is that he doesn’t get cold and pissy like the smaller dogs.
The annoying part about having a big dog during winter is that he doesn’t get cold and pissy like the smaller dogs so the dog walk isn’t shorter just because the wind chill is -20.
The employment law exam was 55 questions – 54 multiple choice and 1 essay question.
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:
Tervo was not otherwise qualified for the detention deputy position
Tervo was not a disabled individual
the County’s uncorrected visual requirement was appropriately job related
lots of people wear glasses
Tervo’s visual deficit could not be reasonably accommodated
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!”
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.”
Right now, I am at the peak of the final drop of the rollercoaster. The view is great, but the bullshitfun 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?
There was a Great Wall of Turkey, and Thanksgiving at the boyfriend’s parent’s house.
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 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…
When I returned from the grocery store this afternoon, I noticed a stranded car across the street from my apartment.
I threw my groceries into my apartment, snatched my caretaker’s snow shovel from downstairs, and then ran outside to help excise the jeep.
The African couple in the jeep was screaming at each other and questioning their decision to move to America. We made progress on their car when a plumbing company’s van got stuck on the other side of the street. Chaos ensued. Snow and smoke flew from the stalled vehicles. The Mexican plumbers cursed in Spanish. The Africans cursed in heavily accented English. A traffic jam developed.
Things looked bad, so I called 311.
Me: “There are stalled cars on both sides of my street. Each car is blocking an alley entrance and a traffic jam is building.” 311 operator: “Okay, so?” Me: “Uh, well, can you send a tow truck or a plow truck to help? The cars are causing a traffic jam…” 311 operator: “I can send traffic control to give them a ticket.” Me: “Well, that’s not going to help anyone. And traffic control just drove by and didn’t even stop to help.” 311 operator: “Sir, there’s a snow storm going on. We are busy dealing with real accidents and real emergencies. I can send someone out to give them a ticket, and that’s it. What is the car’s license plate number?” Me: “Nevermind.”
Click.
People came out of apartments and cars to help push and shovel. Even the Africans briefly stopped worrying about their own car to help push the van.
No progress was happening with the van. Then, suddenly the van lurched backwards and looked like it was going to T-bone the African’s car. There was screaming, but the van managed to stop 2 inches from the driver’s door. The van then slid back across the street and promptly got restuck.
The van driver ran to a nearby apartment building and summoned a small troupe of Mexicans to help him push the van. I then helped the Africans shovel around their car and we eventually got them unstuck.
Between the Mexicans and the other drivers, we had a small mob of people to help excise the van. The van driver was so happy when we freed his van, that he passed around $5 bills to the crowd.
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.
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.
Tax began with chocolates and veiled threats:
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 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.
I checked weather.com this morning and let’s just say the “winter storm warning” is in all caps and the word blizzard was mentioned. Maybe we are getting another Snowmageddon?
Good news is that the bullshit storm starts TOMORROW, so I have one day of non-weather-chaos.
Aside from the panting and farting, Harley is a very quiet dog.
So I was very surprised when we ran into a large, yippie dog during the morning walk.
We were by a busy street, but the other dog was off leash and the owner was wearing flipflops, in the snow.
The yippie dog and Harley did the obligatory sniff down.
Harley was over the dog after a few minutes and wanted to move on, but the dog kept bouncing around him. We couldn’t go because the dog blocked Harley’s path, wanting to play. The owner, in his flipflop-ness, was too cold to move from the side of the road, and yippie was not listening to him.
Suddenly Harley ROARED! It was the dog equivalent of an exasperated scream. The message was very clear: BACK UP OFF ME!
He has never done that before so I was shocked and terribly, terribly amused.
The other dog was freaked out, his owner was visibly worried, and I was choking with laughter.
Here are pictures of East Little Havana and the Biscayne Bay area.
I think Christmas decorations look out of place in Little Havana. Christmas is a winter holiday and doesn’t mesh well with palms, parrots, and reggaeton.
The last picture is of the ridiculous after-Christmas line at Ross in downtown Miami.
