Fast living, law school style

Having successfully managed to get through another epic week of classes without suffering a brain hemorrhage or a tearful breakdown, I decided that it might be worthwhile to join my podmates (we have all our classes together) in the hallowed tradition of Thirsty Thursday. For those of you not in the know, this is a weekly informal get-together of pod members at one of the many fine and not-so-fine pubs in the Sellwood-Moreland-Brooklyn area. Armed with the top-secret location of this week's festivities, I grabbed a shuttle home with the intent of fortifying myself with some wholesome home cooking.

When I returned from classes at 8pm, I found that Gaby had not yet eaten dinner either, because she had really wanted to eat together. How very sweet. Unfortunately, she had also not had any snacks all afternoon, so she was feeling too hungry to actually wait for something to cook. Thirsty Thursday sounded like a promising source of food to her, and so began our trek out to the bar within a scant few minutes of my arrival home from classes: this gave me just enough time to pull off my tie, slap some cold water on my face, and generally switch out of knowledge-dumpster mode and into charm-offensive mode.

It was 8:45 when we got to the Limelight, and to my very great surprise there were many pod members there who were already, inexplicably, three sheets to the wind. Some quick calculations suggested that these folks must have come over directly after class and been dedicating themselves to wiping the whiteboard of their memories clean ever since. Amazingly, their pace did not seem to slow all night. Gaby and I grabbed a table and ordered some food, and when we looked up from our empty dinner plates, we were surprised to see a prodigious row of empty glasses stacked along the bar, while two woozy-looking students returned to their fellows with crooked smiles and an armful of shot glasses. Eventually, the party moved to a nearby residence. I was floored by the seemingly unending reserves at the command of these normally retiring and hard-working students. Were savage party animals hiding beneath the surface of their fastidious exteriors the whole time? I shuddered slightly at the thought.

While such thoughts were running through my mind, a couple of students, one male and one female, cornered me on the back porch and really started laying it on thick. The gentleman used a very direct flattery-based approach, while the lady employed a subtler hand, combining techniques of ego-stroking with actual stroking (the old "you're so funny" hand on the arm routine) and liberally sprinkling in some winsome smiles. I didn't know what they were playing at, but it occurred to me briefly that this was going to end with an invitation to join them back at their place for a more private sort of get-together. (You may laugh, but I have received invitations to these sorts of events before, and any suggestion that another might be forthcoming sends me into DEFCON-4.)

Thank heavens I was way off-base. Within a few more minutes, it became clear that they were trying to recruit me for their study group. I almost laughed with relief, as some measure of reason and decorum was restored to the world. These were no party animals, and they were no seedy swingers. They were simply preparing for the professional eventuality of three-martini working lunches, sweet-talking and negotiating their way to advantage. You have to admire the skill and the instinct. Accordingly, I did my best lawyering too: I told them I would take the offer under advisement, and that we would talk further when we had a chance to compare schedules and work out the logistics (see kids, these are techniques called "back-pedaling" and "hedging"). I'll probably join the group, because I need to make friends; still, I'm a little weirded out by the bald recruitment campaign, and my eye still twitches every once in a while by the fleeting suspicion that these two wingnuts will show up to the first study group session wearing bathrobes and carrying a bottle of chardonnay and a spank paddle.

Happy birthday to me

About half an hour ago, I turned 25. My birthdays, far from being celebratory and champagne-soaked, have always give me occasion to reflect on my life, its direction, and how far I have come from the day I entered the world as a placenta-covered and cone-headed projectile. This year especially, since I am far away from all that is familiar, there are more questions than well-wishers. So while I can justly take a break from my several-years-old tradition of asking myself every 22-Sep why I am just treading water in a dead-end job, I do not have the luxury of avoiding the question of whether I have chosen the right path to escape that misery. Or any of the following: Is law right for me? Am I right for it? Can it keep my interest? Can any career? Am I spending loads of money on something I will end up hating? Is my vision for my future realistic? Do I have it in me to be a force for change? Will I ever have a birthday characterized by confidence and contentment, rather than questions and brooding?

One thing is certain: I still have a knack for procrastination. So all that work I was going to finish before today (so that I could at least brood in peace) is still waiting for me. And I've got to try to do it now, with the usual birthday existential crisis (my annual present to myself) on my mind. So I guess I'm another year older, but not much wiser for it. Damn.

No rest for the wicked

Another week is almost done, and I have not yet posted an update. This is because my schedule has been hellaciously busy thus far. Normally, I try to get my work done for the entire week by the preceding Sunday (and in this effort I am invaluably aided by the fact that I have no classes on Friday, so every weekend is three days long). Alas, my master plan met with no success this week, and I was still playing catch-up on Tuesday despite the fact that I had worked myself into a lather all weekend long. Gaby can vouch for this; it was not pretty to live with (she suggested more frequent bathing to get rid of that pesky lather smell). And what with this weekend containing that red-letter day 22-Sep, I am trying desperately to get a jump on next week's work right now, so that I don't have to spend every moment of my twenty-fifth birthday in contemplation of the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure. Not that we have any big plans for my birthday - I would be satisfied with just a day to sleep in and not do anything. If even this modest wish is to come true, though, I must return to work right now. And probably also skip out on the usual Thirsty Thursday end-of-the-week celebration with my classmates as well.

So instead of getting a job...

I have three posts sitting as drafts so you'll get a lot of activity this week. They are awaiting pictures from my cross country trip (I know that photoshop doesn't make me a better photographer but it makes my photos look better so whatever) so It should be fun.

Meanwhile, through boingboing, I found a new band to really digg called The Craft Economy. Per the website they describe themselves as a brand of music inspired by 70's punk and 80's new wave. The effect is great and just really full of fun and good beats.

Big plus they are giving away their first album. You can download
it on their website or if you must have a real cd you can buy it
from them for $5 and it will come with hand made, hand printed
artwork. Alternatively if you are in Toronto they have them stapled to lamp posts. If you can find one it's yours for free. So take the time, take a listen and if you like, tell two other people. 'Cause that's how the Internet works. Shiny?

Constitutional Law Superstar Exposed as Fraud

Today in my Con Law I class, in the midst of a discussion of (what else?) Marbury v. Madison, I decided that I should finally make an effort to distinguish myself from the mass of students studiously avoiding the professor's eyes. Accordingly, I shrewdly awaited an opportunity to volunteer an answer in class. This is harder than it looks. Many of the questions presented by the professors are carefully laid traps, or otherwise lead to treacherous hypotheticals that end in shattered first-year egos. So choosing which question to assay (when a student has that luxury) is as much a matter of reading the professor's pedagogical intent as it is about knowing the material. Furthermore, even presuming a question that is on the level, the student must judge whether he is sufficiently sure of his answer and ability to articulate it well before throwing his hand into the air. Professors will usually give him some credit solely for the attempt, but unless he nails the answer he will not be remembered except as a well-intentioned bumbler.

With these reservations firmly in mind, I lurked around the fringes of the class discussion until the moment to strike should present itself. And lo, within a few minutes it did. The professor posed a question, sufficiently obscure to present a challenge, but asked with straightforward intent. All the conditions for determining a good candidate question for classroom participation had been met, but still I hesitated. It did not feel right to answer this particular question, because my knowledge of the answer seemed comparatively ill-gotten. It had not come from my incredible insight based on the assigned reading, or a cognitive quantum leap. No, I knew the answer because last week, I happened to overhear the professor mention the relevant statute in a conversation with another student. The statute name was odd enough to stick with me, even though I had not seen fit to research or read it myself. Could I ethically use this information, given to me (though unknowingly) by the professor himself, to make it look like I was mastering the material? I mean, it was bad enough that I had been eavesdropping to begin with, but to actually use what I had discovered to my advantage would be a whole new level of wrong.

Still, I didn't know when my next opportunity would arise for a slam-dunk in this class, and meanwhile the discussion had dragged on fruitlessly for some minutes. Eventually, I took a deep breath, thought "It's only this once," and took the plunge. Once I gave the answer that I knew the professor was holding out for, a funny half-quizzical, half-admiring look came over his face (I don't know if he expected anyone to get this one), and he restated it to the class without further modification or comment. I breathed a sigh of relief. Now, even if I flub an answer or two in class this semester, at least I made a good first impression.

However, by some strange twist of fate, I was not yet done piping up in Con Law class today. As I feared, a heretofore quiet student pulling the perfect answer out of his hat is just inviting the professor to issue further challenges designed to ascertain whether the student is skilled or merely extraordinarily lucky. So it was that I found myself, several minutes later, on the receiving end of a question about the interpretation of the 1789 Judiciary Act. By some bizarre coincidence, this was also a question that I could answer well, but for an equally stupid reason. The differing interpretations of this poorly-written Act turn on the grammatical function of a single semicolon. I knew this because of a web article, totally unrelated to Marbury, on which I had stumbled over the summer. So it was that I gave another gem of a response, my second of the evening, and cemented my place in the class's firmament of intellectual superstars. The only problem? I did it by dumb luck, and now I feel super uncomfortable about the whole situation.

After class, people complimented me on a "great pull" for that "brilliant semicolon thing." I got a high-five from some guy. Girls from the lecture hall smiled coyly and waved as they passed me on campus (weird). How am I supposed to tell them that it was all a freak accident? And will I be able to keep up this impossibly high standard when class meets on Thursday?

Once more, with feeling

So this morning, after a leisurely awakening, Gaby reached for her phone and engaged in what has become a daily ritual for us: calling up the Portland IKEA store and using the automated inventory function to check for the presence of our dream mattress. Apparently, it's many other people's dream mattress as well, because the store has not been able to keep it on the shelves for weeks.

On our first trip up to the store, we spent some time trying out the display beds (though we were mostly just being lazy after walking around the showroom for an hour), and settled on the Sultan Heberg, a mattress that has the twin advantages of being comfortable and costing only $130. Clearly, we were not the first to reason in like manner, because we almost got laughed out of the warehouse when we got down there and breathlessly asked where to find the Sultan Hebergs. (The length and intensity of the mirth this question provoked led me to immediately suspect that it had nothing to do with my half-assed attempt at pronouncing "Heberg.") And just like that, our hopes of driving home that day with the dream mattress were frustrated.

It has now been several weeks since that first trip, and every morning upon waking up on the noisy queen-sized air mattress that we somehow wedged into our full-sized bed frame, Gaby has faithfully muttered some swear words unfit for polite conversation, and then placed an immediate call to Anna, the friendly robot customer service agent for IKEA. Once or twice, Anna has given us the good news that the Hebergs had arrived at the Portland location, but by the time we got around to making the trip across town to the store (usually after my classes let out for the day), without fail there had been another run on the warehouse and the dream mattress was out of stock again. So when Gaby made the call to Anna today, and heard the good news, we knew there was no time to waste. No time for showers, or brushing of teeth. Hardly enough time to pee. Within minutes, Gaby had herded me into the car and we were zipping up the highway toward the big blue box of a building with the Swedish flag out front. An hour later, the taste of victory was sweet. We now have a proper bed, and Gaby has promised to stop saying such nasty and rude things until at least 10:00am

Incidentally, we also determined today that, because we have been unable to resist the call of the IKEA restaurant and cafe (mmm . . . . fika) on each of our several visits to the store, we have eaten there more than at any other restaurant in Portland. Does this make us sad, pathetic people?

Oh how I have missed school

It's midway through my second week of law school, and already I feel the electric excitement of the academic environment all around me. Dense readings, thorny philosophical issues, textual parsing, copious discussion. Assigned writing and projects. A buzz of activity. Only having to be anywhere apart from your bed for the 15 or so hours a week that class is in session. Watching that showoff in class make an ass of himself by running his mouth, before getting summarily stomped by the professor (altogether, let us silently chant a la Nelson Muntz: "HA ha"). These are the modest joys of a student's life.

Granted, there is much work to be done, but in academia, almost as if magically, the work is not much of a stressor. I have had occasion to consider why this should be true, and have reached a conclusion that may be worth sharing. You see, gentle reader, out in the "real" world, when people in authority would dump assignments on me, there was usually a smothering sense of responsibility that came with them. Oh golly, quoth I, I had better complete this TPS report with as much speed and skill as I can muster. This was primarily due to the paycheck that I received; I have always felt that I am on the hook for providing my best work whenever I am given money for it. There is nothing more stressful than having the constant pressure to be razor-sharp. Even at public school in the days of my youth, although I obviously was not personally paid to attend class, the entire community had paid for my education, and I knew that I owed it to Joe Taxpayer to give my full attention and effort to my studies.

It's different now. In college and again in law school, I finance the undertaking, so I am beholden to absolutely no other person for my performance. This gives me license to cut myself some slack once in a while (I know the guy who signs my paycheck, and he's pretty forgiving). So far, I've been totally scrupulous and on point in my study habits, but I don't feel weighed down by the necessity of keeping my nose to the grindstone, and that makes all the difference in the world.

Our Apartment

So after much debating, biting, and multiple trips to Ikea our apartment is furnished. It took us a while to decide what we wanted for seating in the living room and settled on a chaise. We got a couple of bookcases and my desk, the rest was already ours. We still have some pictures to hang but we may have run out of wall space.
My favorite part of the house is my closet and my desk. I love how the curtains really make it look like it's on purpose that the closet does not have a door. My desk is huge and allows for me to use half of it on a project and the other half for my computer. It's just gorgeous with a sanded glass top and bent birch legs.
I've posted pictures of the apartment on our flickr page. Take a look. So what do you think? Please, leave a comment and let us know.