And.... go!

Since I left you, I had a harrowing drive to Michigan, a lovely Christmas, punctuated by a declining grandma and an aunt and uncle who comment on everything and are negative about nearly everything. And then there is my brother Toby. All in all, a nice time but I am glad it's over. Tomorrow I go to Montana, which I have been led to believe looks like this:



They also haven't invented the internet yet, so hold tight... I'll be back.

HAPPY NEW YEAR!

Addictive Personality

So last night I stayed up until 5am watching Law & Order. Now, understand, that the 2 discs I watched during the day were not enough... and so I went to the video store and rented two discs of Criminal Intent. And then I watched them... all. And today, as mentioned below, bought Season 6 of 24. And now am on disc 3. Yum, yum, Jack Bauer. I don't think there is anything wrong with this, really, I mean, I also did some shopping (everyone is getting cheese this year, no joke) and OH YEAH, placed almost 200 law students in legal services in New Orleans the week of Jan. 7. Saving the world while Jack saves the world? Yes, thank you.

Also, thank goodness I don't live somewhere warm, then I might feel bad about watching tv for literally days. This is my kind of vacation.

Getting in the Holiday Spirit While Staying True to You

I hope none of you were out shopping today. It totally sucked and was crowded and frustrating... but I was such a good Samaritan. And a snarky smart ass all at the same time. The first episode was purely good Samaritan, this family with man with them who used a walker was trying to cross in the crosswalk in front of a store... and no one was stopping because, I think, you could tell it would take a long time for them to cross. So I stopped and let them cross, the woman mouthed "thank you" and I smiled. About 30 seconds later while they were still crossing, she looked at me again and mouthed "thank you so much." I made a "no problem! of course!" face. So I continue driving, feeling pretty darn good about myself and what a good person I am. So I bring that self-righteousness into Barnes and Noble and stop off for a latte to reengergize myself so as to keep performing good deeds, perhaps by buying stuff.
The line is moving soooo slowly, and I can tell the cashier is trying to upsell each customer at the front, which annoys me. Until I get closer and hear he is asking people if they will buy a book for $2.99 as part of a book drive to give books to all foster kids in the county. Every person out the 8 or so in front of me has said no, or "oh well, no, maybe another time..." So I get up there, he rings me up, starts to ask me about the books, I just say yes and put one on the counter. He's happy and surprised. I slightly turn to the rest of the line and say, "How am I going to pay $4 for coffee and then claim I can't spend $3 on a book for a kid???" Ahem. Using my powers of sass for the good of humankind.

Then I spent 20 minutes trying to get out of the mall parking lot and all feelings of joy and sugarplums had completely vanished as I decided I hated every driver in the Madison area. On the plus side, I bought myself 24 Season 6 for the holidays... so... uh.... that's what I'll be doing.

Happy Chrismakkah, courtesy of the Yarmulklaus.

Finals are Over, We went to Amsterdam.

I hope you can understand my profound disappointment...

... when a new disc of Law and Order: SVU arrived in the mail today, I told myself if I got the paper done tonight, I could watch as many episodes as I could stay awake for. Well, I finished the paper (!!!!) and threw in some Olivia and Elliot to lull me to sleep... and discovered I have seen 4 of the episodes on this disc. This is why the Bravo Thanksgiving marathon might not have been the miracle it appeared to be. Nevertheless, I will preservere and will not be daunted by this challenge. Just as I was able to to turn out a crappy paper, I will be able to stay awake until 4am watching tv shows I have already seen.

Update, 10 minutes later: I feel much better. The dude who plays Cutty on the Wire is playing the Prison warden on this episode of L&O:SVU. And you know how I love cross-pollination among my shows.

Diet

Yesterday I ate 3 quesadillas, almost an entire butternut squash and 2 liters plus 2 cans of Diet Coke. I also tried to tweeze something off my face that turned out to be a mole. And this is all why I have stayed away from blogging. Because what I have to say is at best boring and at worse, gross.

I Have to Admit

It's a little fun. I have spent 3 days researching and preparing a presentation on Chilean Judicial Reform in reaction to Pinochet and how it lead to the Fujimori extradition. It's fun. It feels self-indulgent, I'm just here thinking about stuff and writing about stuff. Kind of like college. Little like professional school. After tomorrow, I'll spend 3 more days writing the paper. I do hope it stays fun. I am also looking forward to things like: leaving the house, drinking with others and, say, talking to others.

I've held out

On "picking" a candidate. I think due to a combination of lack of inspiration and fear.... everyone I like loses... our hearts have been broken so often since 2000... and maybe I am just over-exerted and emotional, but goddamn it IF Oprama/Obamrah didn't get to me.

Family Law, Again

I guess that wasn't all I had to say about Family Law, but this is more about legal education in general. (As a side note, that post right before bed gave me this bizarro bad dream about family issues, but that won't be blogged about.) There are no doubt flaws in my clinical experience, some things are repetitive and it gets down right depressing how infrequently I am actually able to do something about peoples' problems. (It is a neverending source of amazement what is totally unfair and completely legal. Or "close enough." We call that "harmless error" and I am sure spending the majority of the rest of your life in prison feels a lot better when a bright-eyed twentysomething tells you it's because of a "harmless" error.) But I cannot imagine doing the second two years of law school without it. It's an outlet, it makes things relevant and interesting to me, centers me on why I am doing this whole silly enterprise. I have a client who told me at our last meeting that my advice on his out-of-state child support was great, he'd do that and by the way, the mother and child moved to a different state. "Whoooaaah, ok, well... that actually makes a difference... let me get back to you about the best plan of action there? " So I am meeting with my supervising attorney, asking her whether the whole thing gets transferred over to the new state, what about the unpaid portion, etc? And she starts asking me where the child was born, where the mother is from, how long they lived in the first state and I am midway into explaining all of this... before I realize, I am taking Conflict of Laws this semester, this is exactly what I am learning about-- how different systems interact and which law is used. There is a serious flaw in the legal education that keeps everything at this intellectual level, so much that you can't or don't access it when it comes up in real life... Jesus christ, I had read cases about child support for that class 2 days before! Ok, that's all for now. It's another day. Finals are so fucking boring.

Family Law

First, I have an exam in a little less than 11 hours. Don't worry, I am headed to bed shortly. But, in the meantime, let me share this with you.
I am a firm believer in making both affirmative and negative decisions. That is, it's as important to figure out what you don't want as what you do, one lends itself to the other, and so on. This philosophy also helps one rationalize things away and not think things are mistakes, just learning experiences. That said, I do not like family law. I kind of already knew this, for a brief moment thought I should dabble in order to challenge myself... then realized crying every day is not challenging oneself, it's stupid.
So it doesn't come up that often. But when it does, it cuts me. I screened a potential client at prison last week who was fighting in another state court to get his child's mother to send him photos. Not drive the kid there, not talk to the kid, but receive photos. He is in for a white-collar crime and her rationale for not wanting to send them was that he would sell them in prison. It broke my heart. According to him, he was an active dad before being incarcerated, and now she's basically either calling him a pedophile or someone who would sell out their kids to a pedphile. I am getting used to dealing with people in extreme circumstances, very emotional and sometimes pretty bad dudes. But these family law things just kill me, it's like the worst we can do to one another-- be vindictive and cruel about something so important. And yes, this is completely the result of being the product of a messy divorce and custody saga. Save your $5 psychology, but I'll take any insight in larger denominations.
Anyway, I learned something interesting relevant to both family law and my exam tomorrow. Child Custody is a due process issue. For those of you not in the legal world, the due process clause is about freedom and property and how the government can't just take them away from you-- this is why the government has to give you a trial and why they have to pay you before tearing down your house to build a park... or a mall, we've learned recently. So I think this is a little fucked up. Not only that children are property, I actually don't have so much of a problem with that... it's actually kind of true. But that in our whole system, the only way we have to describe a parent/child relationship is to mirror the property relationship. This, I think, is because property rights are just about the most sacred right in this country-- and we don't have a rubric for family... which everyone should just understand because we're human. So, you have to give natural parents notice and a hearing before you give their kids to someone else, because that bond is so important, we're willing to liken it to property. It's creepy. And this concludes, my problems with family law.

Creepy

Much like the right-hand ring and the week I got paid overtime to photocopy advertising files that I like to rant about while drinking, this cultural phenomenon is also the result of a certain South African diamond company's advertising campaign/product placement.

I like to share things with you, internet

Even embarassing things. Like how fried my brain is that I just had this thought:

Hmmm... when I buy small amounts of milk, I use it all. And when I buy large amounts of milk, it ends up going bad.

As if the explanation were psychological instead of, well, you know, having more or less milk.

Fatherly Pep Talk. Kind Of.

me: I was talking to kristi about how weird it is that after this semester, I can appear in court. And she commented how she can appear unsupervised (since she's 100% lawyer now) and how weird that is.

dad: yeah, the two of you could appear together.

me: me and kristi, with someone's freedom in our hands.

dad: you and kristi could do a death penalty case, just the two of you. someone's LIFE could be in your hands. you guys don't know anything!

me: . . . . . .

dad: at a certain point, you realize, no one is driving this bus, it's all just us kids!

me: . . . . .

yeah... but... I mean, we could probably do a better job than a lot of peoples' lawyers.

dad: oh sure, you'd do a much better job than a lot of people, you give a shit.

The upside of the snow storm

I just saw someone skiing down the street being pulled by a subaru. Like water skiing. But on snow. It looked incredibly dangerous... but also kind of made my homework-filled snow-bound night.

Well, the weather outside is frightful...

And the coffee flows freely at home. Also, peanut-butter filled pretzels and the spicy & sweet trail mix are my two newest recommendations from Trader Joe's.