Anthem

Every semester, I fall prey to two things at finals:

1) Junk food
2) Junk music

It's taken me several years to accept it, but I am not only an emotional eater but an emotional listener as well. 1L year, I couldn't stop listening to Mariah Carey. 2L year, Carrie Underwood. This was not the sustenance on which I was raised.

But, nature trumps breeding, and this year, I have Mariah Carey on continuous loop. Again.

Untied States

I wonder if the professor would notice if I didn't correct my typos.

Unwittingly bourgeois

It's the final weekend of my fall semester; I'm down to tackling that never-ending paper about non-immigrant temporary guest-workers.[FN1]

As I've started to collect my citations, I've noticed that all my examples from the popular press come from the The New York Times. This alarms me for two reasons:

1. I complained earlier about less-than-rigorous scholarship in the literature. When I cite only to one newspaper in a forty-five page essay, I contribute to that less-than-rigorous scholarship. (Though I have plenty, plenty of other sources - triple-digit footnotes, here I come.)

2. I really am as bourgeois as I look. Bad.

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FN1. Note the maximization of character count. "Non-immigrant" instead of "nonimmigrant." "Guest-workers" instead of "guestworkers."

Cognitive Dissonance

Over Thanksgiving break, my father remarked to me that he hoped my job offer was still good after the sub-prime mortgage mess. I piped up, "Oh, I do. Remember the San Diego wildfires? My firm represents San Diego's largest insurer, so we'll be defending against all those insurance claims."

This after I cheerily announced that I still believed in the good of humanity, even the good of my firm, even after three years of law school.

Garbage

It's amazing how much garbage gets published. It's just unreadable.

Writing

I aspire to be a good writer. In some ways, I think I already am. But law school, and "legal" writing in general, have confounded me into thinking that there actually is no such thing as good writing. At least, not in this profession.

You might recall that I'm writing a paper on guest-workers (note the hyphen). My research has unearthed pages and pages of bad, bad writing from ostensibly "good" (read: tenured) writers at law schools all over the country. Reading all that garbage has made we wonder if there are any truly bold, new ideas for guest-worker programs and immigration, or if the debate is just a broken record of the same arguments, repeated over and over again.

The 3L in me should embrace the broken record; if legal scholars can't think of anything new, then I certainly shouldn't have to, either. But the honest-L in me yearns to differ.

Vision is overrated

Two weeks ago, I had the unfortunate experience of having two physicians inform me that my body is deficient in two separate ways. First, the sports doctor told me that my patellae are abnormally loose, which makes for painful running.

Second, the eye doctor told me that my eyes are abnormally dry, which makes for no contact lenses. She also intimated that I might need new glasses, but that I should wait until my follow-up to be sure.

Problem is, my (potentially insufficient) glasses already make my head hurt. So this morning I took them off during Evidence, where I sit in the back of the classroom.

Law school isn't nearly as painful when it's blurry.

Progress!

Today, Lunch Pal and I had our weekly Friday lunch outside the Faculty Lunch room. We did not get invited in, but one of the professors did bring out a tray of cookies for us. And only for us, not the other students who also happened to be eating nearby.

I'm so glad my mother taught me the importance of having goals.

Siesta

3L year has brought back the mid-day nap, and boy, is it great. At least, I think it is. I'm still groggy from today's so I'm not 100% certain.

Weekends

So, it's been a while (I think) since my last post because I had a paper draft due. Which I actually submitted. On time. (But don't ask about the quality of the work submitted, because, well...yikes.)

The draft took up my entire weekend last weekend, so already I'm looking forward to making up for it this weekend. Gone is any sense of propriety as I already have 1) double-booked on both Saturday and Sunday, 2) accepted invitations without first consulting the Captain, and 3) intensified my work-outs in anticipation of all the gluttony.

Giddy-up.

Papers and baseball

How to write a paper while the World Series is on: for every sentence completed, you get to watch an at-bat.

Tips from a 3L

When wanting to boost your page count (i.e., when you have to write a really long paper), opt for longer words instead of shorter words because the longer words take up more space on the page.

For example, write "undocumented immigrants" instead of "illegal aliens." Your fingers might get tired from the extra keystrokes, but that's nothing compared to the brain power you've saved by not having to think new thoughts.

Edited to add: And, if given the option, always always use hyphens. "Guest-workers", not "guestworkers."

Goals

My teachers taught me early on in life that it's important to have goals.

These are my goals for 3L year:

1. To get invited to the faculty lunch. Every Friday, the faculty get together for lunch, whether purely for fun or for some sort of institutional advancement/team-building effort. Every Friday, my pal and I get together for our weekly lunch, which serendipitously takes place outside the faculty lunch room. My two favorite professors always stop to chat when they're on their way to lunch. Lunch Pal and I have decided that one of these days, the faculty will get so used to seeing us, they'll have to invite us to the faculty lunch. It's gonna work.

2. To get a one-year subscription to Cook's Illustrated. I am an aspiring foodie and I subscribe to Cook's Illustrated, a fantastic collection of science and food writing. Every couple months, I read a new issue, full of tricks of the trade and of explanations for why white chocolate won't behave the same as dark chocolate in a recipe. [FN1] I'm not averse to renewing my subscription, but I want to see if I can "win" one, because if you write a letter to the magazine, and they print it, then you get a free year's subscription. I want to be printed.


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FN1. There's no actual cocoa in white chocolate. That upsets the sugar-fat ratio in recipes calling for regular chocolate. Any dummy knows that, but it's nice to be affirmed in a magazine.

Chairs

Sitting in the library makes my bum hurt.

I used to carry around a cushion, and I never was ashamed. This year, I totally forgot about the cushion until a friend of mine reminded me. So now I'm carrying the cushion around again, and I'm totally ashamed. I'm a 3L.

Signs

Sign that I'm a 3L: Rather than finish some reading, I attended an interesting lecture instead.

Sign that I'm still a law student: I got there super early, and lamented that I hadn't brought my reading.

Used books

The law school started selling more used books this year, which on the whole is an excellent thing.

Except if you think your book's previous owner wasn't so smart with the highlighting, and now you have all these unimportant passages colored in pink.