What is this feeling?

I don't think I can play it off as anything but jealousy...

For the record, it's not the wedding I'm jealous of... it's the happy, smart, good-looking, successful part and maybe the "she's tough, she's feisty, she's fun" part, too.

Might as well recap the weekend now... at 11:26 on Saturday night...

Yes, readers, it's finals season once again (for those of you not on an academic calendar, of course.) I did escape for a bit last night and headed out camping at Devil's Lake in scenic Baraboo, WI. Baraboo is home to the Circus World Museum, in case you were planning a road trip. Anyway, it was lovely but I didn't take any pictures, so you'll just have to take my word for it. Also broke in my brandnew/old tent. And drank a lot. A lot. A lot of PBR.

I know I've said it before, but I am very, very much looking forward to summer. The past week or so has had a strong undercurrent of summer prep. I got my bike fixed. I bought an air conditioner. I bought a grill. I bought an annual pass to the WI State Parks. Ok, I realize this might just actually be about how much money I've spent in the last week (wow...) but I think they're justifiable expenses. Like how it's ok to go crazy at the grocery store, so long as you promise to eat everything you buy. They're offerings at the feet of the gods of summer... and at this rate, I'll get myself appointed Patron Saint of Fun by August.

And now there's just these next pesky two and a half weeks or so to get through... Hmm.

I'd rather be grilling.

Here's a Question...

At what age will I stop popping my pimples and creating huge pocks on my face?

Follow up... at what age will I stop getting pimples, fortheloveofallthingsholy?

Old News

But infuriating nonetheless... How irresponsible can this administration be?

Am I a nerd?

I've started biking again since the weather has gotten nicer. And a couple of weeks ago, I was at Target, in the bike aisle, and a couple of thoughts came to me-- one was my Torts professor last semester telling us that since we were trying to make our careers based on our minds... we should wear bike helmets to protect our investment. And then my thoughts turned to the nearly $300,000 worth of education I'll have by 2010.... (holy. fuck.) And so I bought a helmet. Kind of a cool one with flames on the sides. And I've been wearing it and trying to feel hardcore about it instead of like a nerd. But I still feel like a nerd. And like riding through campus there are a lot of 19 yr old from Wauwatosa who are judging me as such. Which is fine... kind of... right? This is just something I guess I will have to grapple with on my own. But if you see me nerding out with the helmet, just know I am a little sensitive about it...

Names, Vol. I

As you may be aware, my wife and her husband are expecting a baby in late fall/early winter. Since it's due right around thanksgiving, Pavo would be an obvious choice for a Dominican/Norwegian baby. Unfortunately, I think it's a little trite... so here is the first installment of my suggestions for baby names:

For a Boy:

Barwon
Dorak
Toste
Thorulffr
Snorre
Gamel
Borg
Iago
Gower
Bo

For a girl:

Valgerdr
Linda
Tourmaline
Bo

There's always the standby of Sarah for a girl, or Saroh for a boy. But we'll get to middle names in the second trimester.

New product encounters this weekend...

Diet Coke Plus: Replete with 15% of your RDA of Niacin, B12 and B6. Sadly only 10% of Zinc and Magnesium.

And Gatorade A.M.: "Helps put back the fluids and energy you lose during a full night's sleep... In flavors designed for the morning."

Ok, in all honesty... which of these concepts is weirder? I can't decide.

Weekend, recap

This weekend was kind of like the kind of weekend one might have if one were working full-time, as opposed to if one were a student. This is great for a lot of reasons, bad because we have a week and a half left of classes and denial is no way to prepare for finals. Friday was jam-packed with class, oral argument, meeting, meeting, quick dinner and The Decemberists, which was great. Saturday was a nice walk, a trip to the mall involving a last-minute pedicure, setup of my new very own wireless internet (if you live within 300 ft of me and want in on "righttoroam," maybe I can disclose the password) dinner, bluegrass show and bar for a friend's birthday. Today was assorted other tasks, a baby shower and homemade pizza. Phew. Pretty darn fun. Hopefully not also pretty darn screwed for exams. Eh.

Not that I have anything to add...

... to the non-stop coverage of the shootings at Virginia Tech. It's a tragedy, it's terrible, horrific, frightening, saddening... all of those things. And the VA governor (I think it was him) is right that this isn't the time, yet, to talk about gun control or our own political feelings... but one thing I have found so remarkable about all of this coverage, is the way technology has played into it. We can read the shooter's scary plays he wrote for English class, we can read the Instant Messages he sent, we can see the warrant and what police took from his room. Just recently, the breaking news was that he took a break between two rounds of killing people to overnight mail a "manifesto" and 23 quicktime videos of himself to NBC. This all lends an even more bizarre air to a bizarre situation. And makes me wonder whether it isn't also inappropriate to publish and make widely available all of this information? Of course I find it interesting and I'm reading it and following it... but the amount of detail makes it feel voyeuristic and almost like we're following some kind of detective story. A little too much Law and Order and not enough... humanity, I guess.
It's also a stark contrast to the coverage of the Columbine shootings. Almost exactly 8 years ago I was a senior in high school, and an event took place which I think we all thought would define a generation (I almost can't imagine the pre-9/11 mentality... when that defining moment hadn't yet occurred.) There was so much less information right away, I remember it being so much more about fear and loss than what we have now, an information overload and every sordid detail about the killer's life. I think this newer way of dealing with it is much worse, obviously we should be concerned about what caused a young man to kill so many people. But the answers are not in creepy plays and being the strange kid in class, they're in how we as a society treat each other, treat the mentally ill, decide to value people and present viable solutions to peoples' problems. Just as "they hate us for being free" was an absurd and counterproductive explanation for September 11th... the answers to situations like the one in Virginia will not be picking out the kid who is a little "off." They'll be a lot more difficult. They will involve a whole society unlearning violence as the answer to strife, and that takes a lot more work and a lot more introspection.

Biting Off and Chewing

Like I should have expected, since that is the personality type of everyone in law school... the spring time is time for planning for next year. This means all student orgs, journals, clinics... everyone is trying to ID leadership for next year. Since, also, there are approximately 3 people in law school who run everything (ok... an exaggeration. But it's not because they are greedy, more that the majority of my/our peers are kind of apathetic...) this crunch gets passed on to... increasingly it feels like, me. I don't think I've committed to too much so far, and I have an idea of the crunch times for each thing... I think they'll work out ok, but saying yes to a bunch of things (Journal Board? Sure! SHN Ad. Bd.? Absolutely! NLG Chair? You say why, I say why not? 4 credits of clinic? I take challenges and I make challenge-ade!) in a short period has made me wonder if I am insane. Or will be next year. Or whether I have really been considering the fact that I will still be taking "classes." Well, if I get carted off on a psych vacation... I will hopefully have the most impressive resume in the ward. Assuming the ward is run by the ACLU.

Community Service

Dear Readers,
I highly recommend you pick this up at your local Trader Joe's. It is truly delicious-- sweet and a little spicy (a combination only second to salty and sweet, as I am sure you know) and is very good on eggs, in addition to the more obvious burrito/quesadilla route. I bet it would be good on chicken... I'll try that this week. Aside from hoping to improve your lives as mine as been improved since discovering this a few days ago... if we buy a lot of it, TJ's will never take it away.

Thanks and happy Sunday.

Gosh

So, yes, it did snow a couple of days ago. BUT... but... I will stand by Madison being a great place to live (and the snow has melted, btw.)

Most recently, Exhibit A.:

Running late for a classmate's birthday lunch on State St. downtown, I roll up in the car. Can't find parking closest to the restaurant, end up parking a block or two away in a lot with meters. Now, I have a bunch of quarters, but, you know, I need those for laundry... so I only put 2 in the meter, buying myself approximately 28 minutes.

I go to lunch. Do a little shopping at the Gap. Come back to the car two hours later. Not only do I not have a ticket, but I had left 3 (yes, THREE) of the windows completely open. And the radio was still there! And everything else! I was and am very impressed.

I've also watched 3 people being stopped by the Madison Police in the past couple of days. Whether its plain schadenfreude or actual research for the search and seizure unit of criminal procedure as I may or may not have claimed last night... ("ooh, I hope that woman who drove the wrong way down a one-way has a weapon! yeah! And ten pounds of marijuana! yeah!") And this is a little more tangential, but after more run-ins with Louisiana Law Enforcement last week-- these cops are great! Also I could stand a little more frisking. If you know what I mean.

Winterwonderland

Not sure if these news has made it past the tri-state area. Or what's going on in the rest of the country for that matter... heck... what's going on outside of the .9 mi corridor between my apartment and the law school. But. Madison is supposed to receive 6-12 inches of snow by tomorrow. It began last night, has been pretty consistent all day. Yes, I know it's mid-April. And yes, it was 80 degrees here a couple of weeks ago.

Totally Moot

So it's Moot Court write-on season here at law school... they distributed these packets right before Spring Break and a brief based on the situation and cases provided is due on Wednesday. Then, next week, folks will present oral arguments on the same case. So for those of you not in law school-- Moot Court is a competition, or a bunch of competitions, where students prepare briefs and oral arguments and compete against teams from other schools. Moot Court, like everything else in law school, is taken way too seriously. First, over break, there was a scandal, wherein 30 or so people were accidentally given packets a day late and were then emailed over break, telling them they couldn't try out anymore. You take a bunch of first-year law students, tell them something is vaguely and abstractly important to their future and then tell them they can't do it? Obviously, there was a virtual explosion. The Moot Court board, obviously, thinks they are gate-keepers to the most important thing ever and the shut-out competitors all of the sudden think this means they will never get a job. Moot madness.
I picked up a packet, but within 20 minutes decided I didn't want to try-out. But I'm on this email list, where competitors ask questions anonymously and all of the questions and answers are distributed to the entire list. So, over the past 10 days, I've received at least one per day, sometimes 4, with 1-6 questions in each. The gist? WHAT THE HELL IS WRONG WITH PEOPLE?? These are my peers, friends... Here's a sample:

Q: With regard to question 2, the assignment packet says that we do not need to cite to the record in our brief. That is still correct, right?

Q: Should point headings also be double spaced, or just the body text of
the statement of facts and argument?

Q: Page numbers are left-aligned bottom of the page or the top of the page?

Q: Also, you stated that justification should be set at left when answering a question concerning where headings should be place. However, justification and indentation are not the same; something can be justified left and still indented. Are there guidelines about where the headings should be place or is it not important?

Q: I know that the justification is to be set at the left, but I was wondering whether the sections of the titles, for example "Question Presented" may be centered, because the sample briefs show the titles centered.

Q: You say that titles need to be centered...Does this include the titles for our own subsections of our argument?

Q: Is there any chance of posting all of these questions and answers on a website so that we needn't sift through our e-mails to find them?

Two ways to skin a cat...

So I used to think that "only the good die young" was a kind of morose statement, bemoaning the fact that everyone good dies young. Then Billy Joel reminded us we should think of it as encouragement to be bad... long life.

Similarly, the Milwaukee D.A. spoke to our Crim Procedure class a few weeks ago and among other things, there were 108 or so murders in Milwaukee last year. Now this is disturbing, but once he told us only 3 of the victims were white... well all of the sudden Milwaukee looks like the safest place in the country for a white girl to move...

In New Orleans, the Orleans Parish Prison is inscribed with the phrase, "This is a Government of Laws, Not of Men." Until I wikipedied it a few minutes ago, I thought this was one of the creepiest things I'd ever heard. Shouldn't we create human and humane governments and shouldn't the laws be derived from humans, not subjectively created? Well, then I read this and turning it all around into an issue of separation of powers and governmental accountability to the people... well I guess it's less creepy. And while skinning cats is also creepy, sometimes its justified.

Home Again

My faithful readers... I am 15 minutes home from the drive from NOLA to Madison. Having seen almost all of this country from South to North TODAY... I'm tired. I have not forsaken you, however-- stories and more pictures to come.