I have not watched the Oscars since middle school. The show is excruciatingly boring, has no fun musical performances, and there are only 3 or 4 awards anyone cares about.
Although I suspected the Oscars would be a snoozefest, I joined the boyfriend at Jeff’s house to watch the Oscars anyway.
Nothing has changed. We are halfway through the Oscars and everyone is bored and bitchy. Vera Farmiga’s cupcake dress is almost as awful as the unflattering shots of Gabourey Sidibe. There is a random interpretive dance segment, and ample shots of the face-lifts in the audience.
The awards show was awful, but the real purpose of the evening was for me to meet thefreshly-minted-boyfriend’s friends.
“Meeting the friends” is like playing minesweeper. If I give too many beauty pageant answers then the friends will think I’m boring, fake, or stupid. What I am left with is the countless ways to accidentally offend people.
One of the friends asks us how Macbeth was. We saw Macbeth on Friday, I was underwhelmed, so I say “skip it” before learning that the friend is the promoter for the theater.
Woops…. It was lovely, I swear… the pinnacle of theater…
Ugh.
Fail.
Aside from Oscars dullness and minesweeper fail, I blitzed through the rest of the week. I think I’m busy. My week felt like it was already over on Monday.
There is also Trivia on Tuesday evening with Carson:
Judd came to Trivia and we lost, but we didn’t really care.
I get up early on Wednesday to finish studying, show up for class, and then skip to work for the evening.
On Thursday and Friday mornings I’m in my car by 7:30am to observe bail hearings in Anoka.
Anoka is a town 26 miles north of my house. After the bail hearings and hanging around at the public defender’s office, I commute back down, let the dogs out, and then head 16 miles south to Eagan and work for the rest of the evening.
Friday night is usually date night with the boyfriend, and I work for the bulk of Saturday.
Then on Sunday I hope I’m not too exhausted to finish my tax reading for Monday morning…where the cycle continues again…
… this was supposed to be my light semester…but at least I’m not bored?
I spent the majority of yesterday popping pseudoephedrine pills1 at Wilde Roast while finishing the final draft of my Moot Court brief. I felt really sick, but this “awful” had to be finished. If Webster’s dictionary had an illustration for the word “tedious” it would look like this:
I think the hypo for the moot court brief is boring and the procedural posture is awkward: an interlocutory appeal of a denial to suppress a subpoena.
Um.
Yeah.
Exactly.
I have completed four oral arguments on this brief, and my last one is this coming week. Although my brief could be better utilized as a weapon to beat skinny-pants-wearers, I am so overjoyed to finish with Moot Court.
I spent some time this week watching real court proceedings in Anoka, which are vastly more interesting than things in the State of Moot.
Watching real lawyers argue also gives me a new appreciation for how important oral arguments are and how easy Moot Court is. If a lawyer can – with a straight face – ask a judge for leniency for a defendant who had a 2.9 BAC when he terrorized his wife with a gun, then I can slap on a tie, waltz in front of my legal writing professors, and advocate for some make-believe Moot Court clients.
Unlike the raging husband, the Moot Court clients aren’t standing next to me. There’s no sobbing wife, angry mother, or threat of jail time. The lack of stakes makes Moot Court feel like a very charmed exercise. And yes, I just said that.
1Tylenol Severe Congestion. But I’ll let you know when I start using illicit drugs.
Professor W: “Those you in the class with kids! What if your kid was 15 and wanted to marry a 48-year-old guitar teacher. What would you do?” Jill: “All girls boarding school!” Professor W: “Where they beat them?” Jill: “Sure!” Professor W: “Or where they handcuff them to the bed at night?” Jill: “Well if she wanted to marry a 48-year-old…”
Professor W doesn’t agree.
Professor W: “Should the husband be allowed after 25 years to go “oh we weren’t married at all …hahaha fuck you?’ Well? Should he, Judge Smith? Will you let him do that?” Jack: “Yes!” Professor W: “NO YOU WILL NOT!”
I approached the law school information desk trying desperately not to be ”twitchy high-strung law student pestering about his grades”…but…
Me: “Hi, (twitches) I was here last week about my Conlaw II grade…and I was wondering (twitch) what the status on that was…” Infodesk guy: “Hm. I thought those were in last week. Let me call Registrarman.” Me (still twitching, and sweating): “Thank you.”
Five minutes later, Registrarman comes out.
Registrarman: “The Conlaw grades were in over a week ago. They should be up.” Me: “But my grade isn’t up.” Registrarman: “That’s odd. I posted all of the Conlaw I grades last week…” Me: “Oh, nono, but I am in Conlaw II!” Registrarman: “OH! That’s a different course!” Me (twitch): “Yes. It is. Sorry, I don’t want to be a pest,but,(twitch) I have had all of my other grades for a while, and this the ONLY grade I’m waiting on and…so…um like US Americans and such as…” Registrarman: “Let me go check that one.”
He disappears for 5 more minutes.
Registrarman: “Your professor has until February 1st to turn the Conlaw II grades in. She’s not late yet.” Me (twitching, sweating, my deoderant breaking down…):“Oh…okay…thank you…”
I then scury off awkwardly, trying not to stumble as Registrarman cackles evilly. Womp.
This week I had family law, corporate tax, advanced estate planning, and a housing clinic. I dropped the clinic before the end of the first session because it sounded like a miserable time-suck. I did that “oh we’ll see how this works out” bit last semester and I’m over it. I know what I want in a class and will drop accordingly.1
Law school has definitely lost its new car smell; I am bored and annoyed. Does Jack have to raise his hand in every class? Where is my Conlaw II grade? And why is it okay for people to go barefoot in school? If you can’t roll into a McDonald’s barefoot then it shouldn’t be acceptable at a professional school – just saying…
I don’t exactly march around school shooting bitchy looks at people, but I am no longer the chipper, lingering 1L.
So of course by Friday I was run-down and sick, popped enough cold and allergy medication to offend my liver, and woke up early enough on Saturday to start my 10-hour workday at 5:30am.
Today I worked, went to Wal-Mart, did laundry, cooked for the week, and finally combated the hostile occupation of grime on my stove. I smell like vinegar and Lysol…which isn’t a terrible way to end the first week of spring semester.
1I added International Tax Law to replace the credits lost by the clinic. It’s at 8:30am on Mondays and Tuesdays, but it means that I have Thursday and Friday off from school. It isn’t truly a 4-day weekend because I am working, but I prefer to do my 20 hours over a 4-day work week than a 2 day weekend.
I dropped my Housing Clinic before the first session ended.
Today’s class was a blitzkrieg of red flags which made it clear that the clinic would make me miserable. The directors spoke in terms of “amorphous grading,” last minute changes, and court times that force students to skip class.
They also hinted that housing cases move so fast that “good enough” would have to suffice for court preparation, and the student directors said that some of the hearings were so brief that they sometimes only had time to spurt out their first, best argument.
I need a break this semester. I want to snuggle up with the dogs and the tax code. Rushing around crazy and sleep deprived because I let some irrelevant1 clinic play Godzilla to the Tokyo of my schedule is not going to happen. “Looks good on the resume” be damned.
So I am the newest member of the morning international tax course, and so grateful that I put my foot down, and fled.
Last night, after Trivia1 I had a long gchat conversation with Jack.
Jack stayed in Florida2 for law school, but we have had very similar dating experiences.
During the conversation, we were able to articulate the problem gay men in law school face: we have boobs.
Big, healthy, Pamela Anderson boobs.
I was going to post the entire conversation3 but here’s the premise: There is a generic gay4 ideal of the “young, educated, career-bound man” and we fit squarely within that.
Jack: “It is part gold digging, because only lawyers seem to be aware of the legal job market, and it’s part trophy-wife status because they can say, “Look, here is Jack, my boyfriend. He’s a law student. He must be smart, and therefore I am the shit for bagging the young educated man.” Me: “It’s like being a blonde with big boobs.” Jack: “Exactly. Call Kanye.”
[…] Me: “And you never know if they are dating you because they actually like you, or because they want to be seen with the twins.” Jack: “And then they get bored. We are not that interesting. After introducing you to everyone they realize that we are stressy, cranky, and prone acne.” Me: “Speak for yourself. My skin is silky smooth, bitch!”
[…bitchyness ensues] Jack: “But the question is, […] how much of being a law student is part of our personality?” Me: “Besides the coffee consumption??” Jack: “No, but seriously. Just like the guy dating Pam Anderson! There’s the huge question if he is only dating her for her body, but at the end of the day he wouldn’t be dating at her if he was repulsed by stacked blondes. And being THAT much of a stacked blonde isn’t natural. She sough it out …just like we sought out the abuse that is law school.” Me: “So what do we do?” Jack: “We wait.” Me: “…for?” Jack: “Graduation. We see if they still like us when we are baristas paying off student loans. It’ll be like a breast reduction.” Me: “With lots of sagging skin.”
We then, in typical law student fashion, began assigning cup sizes to different schools. Am I the only one seeing a Halloween costume in this?
1 We won again, thank you. 2 He’s a gator, but we’ll forgive him. 3 With permission obviously. 4 I think it extends beyond gays, but gays tend to fall into the “I want a guy with abs” or “I want a guy with brains” camps.
This semester I took 17 credits (5 classes + moot court), worked 20 hours a week, and had a social life. Oh, and the dog, of course. I might be superman… or a time-shifter.
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 probablywasn’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 cliché is misstated, but the gist true. You can’t really do anything with a law degree, but the most important thing that is taught in law school is the art of ass busting.1 My job prospects as a BA in English and History only involved an espresso machine or a price scanner. I may still end up working with espresso machines or price scanners, but the difference is the work ethic and professionalism I have acquired in law school will allow me to advance quickly in whatever company I end up in. 2
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.
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