You are finite, Zathras is finite. This..... is wrong tool.




Wednesday, December 3, 2008

Been a long while

But now is time to study for finals, so I am back to posting so that I can avoid studying.

I was just thinking about the adage that if you treat people like adults they will behave like them, and if you treat them as children they'll act like them.

I sit in the library with a sign on the table that says (for finals weeks)

"QUIET ZONE PLEASE NO TALKING IN THIS AREA"

I was just noting the "please" in that statement and thought it unusual. Often you'll see "Please do not sit on the desks" or something similar, but more often it's "NO SMOKING" or similar.

The law school tends to treat us as adults. There is a little bit of extra hand-holding in the first year especially, which gets people's hackles up, but for the most part, they give us some sort of requirements and don't really specify how we go about them all that much. They'll send reminders and such, but it's not as much as I generally did for certain things at the School of Dentistry. Maybe it's my perception only, but it seems that way.

As a result, sometimes people skip stuff that they shouldn't, but the law school still does bend over to help them out with whatever was missed, and that's not as much real world as it could be. On the other hand, they don't take attendance and then track you down if you don't show to these things, so it's your responsibility to get the information or whatever. They will help you get it, but they won't help you realize you didn't get it.
I guess that's the main thing I'm getting at; I think that when you're in professional school, you should be able to realize what you need to get and get it by whatever means you can. If you screw up, people will try to help you, but you have to realize and admit your own mistakes .

Monday, September 15, 2008

W.A. Mozart v. Franz Schubert in a no-holds-barred, knock-down, drag-out brawl cage match

I was reading outside today taking advantage of the fact that for the first non-rainy day in what seems like weeks (actually only 3 days, although only the second in a week and it's been cold) I was distracted by a couple of LLM (international) students coming out to the Toyota Plaza having a loud conversation. The pair of Desis were speaking loudly enough that the other people having quiet conversations out there had to speak up to hear each other, and it was definitely enough to distract me greatly from my readings.
Not wanting to pick up and go inside, I decided that I would put on my iPod in order to drown them out. It was a difficult choice, though because I did not want to be distracted by the music that I chose. Of course, I have a fair number of lyricless (or semi-lyricless/non-english) music on it; soundtracks, opera, german polka stuff.... I chose to put on the Mozart Symphonies.

It took very little time before I was more distracted by the Mozart than I likely would have been by some pop-music crap. The intricate and interesting melodies and harmonic brilliance distracted me from the dull discussion of voting rights in corporate entities quite easily.

I'm going to need to find something that will not be quite so distracting. Interesting, lyricless, but not so interesting as to be distracting. . . . any suggestions?

Thursday, September 4, 2008

First week is upon us

It's the third day of classes, and I thought it would be a good time for some reflection.

The more time goes on, the more I am stung by not making law review. I think it has less to do with law review as my overall mood. I am simply not feeling satisfied with much of anything at the moment. I am hoping that my classes will soon begin to interest me, as I believe that a large portion of this is down to not having any structure or goals for much of August. Now that the OCI process is over, the rush from that--the inertia--is gone too. Yeah, I've got a couple of callbacks, but for the most part, it's back to business as usual. Things will pick up I'm sure as the semester goes on, but really, I shouldn't be relying on the amount of work on my plate to keep me occupied--that's a recipe for workaholism (and for me, alcoholism.)

Now that that's out of the way...

On the bus this morning, I was listening to the Jurassic Park Soundtrack. I know, I'm a nerd for simply owning a couple of John Williams' albums, but whatever. I reflected on how much I liked the book Jurassic Park and felt like watching the movie again. Then I remembered how much the movie stank compared to the book, and how despite my enjoying The Lost World (book) even more, the sequel movie was even worse to the point that it's hard to tell it's based on the book. It's depressing.

Anyways, three days down, 102 to go.

Sunday, August 24, 2008

Negotiations seminar or Tax?

Difficult decision to be made by tomorrow: Drop tax to take "Interviewing, counseling and negotiations" or keep tax? It's hard to decide because I think tax is an important class, and yet I have the chance to take it later. ICN is going to be harder to get into again as I lucked out as the first 2L on the waiting list somehow. Yet tax is quickly shaping up to be the only really substantive course I'm taking besides BA Corps.

I'll know by the end of the day tomorrow what I've done. I just won't know whether it was the right decision for longer.

Wednesday, August 13, 2008

Decisions

A couple of decisions have been made, and the firms have all made their OCI choices.

I was granted interviews at seven of the eleven big firms. I was passed over by Dorsey and Whitney which is a bit of a downer, but apart from that, I'm not heartbroken over Gray Plant or Maslon. Briggs I interviewed with last spring, and wasn't surprised to be passed over.

On top of those seven interviews, I was also preselected for nine interviews in the general OCI pool. I've accepted five of them, and one has become moot as the slots are all filled up. I'm debating the remaining three, but it's a bit of a rough stretch to do more than twelve interviews in a week.

All in all, a good showing, I think. Not much to be disappointed about, but the real work starts now.

I've decided to drop Employment Law now. I think. I haven't actually done it yet, but I feel like I should and just be done with it. I've essentially decided to do so, but I still worry about doing it, as it's irreversible. I'm still regretting dropping myself from the Employment Law clinic wait list, and I doubt it even mattered. Perhaps I will be swayed by any changes to registration as they happen. I could get an opportunity to get into another class instead.

Still no decision on the Journal topic, unfortunately. Need to get something going there quickly.

Wednesday, August 6, 2008

First Post

I'm setting up this blog as a way to record my thoughts on law school. I intended to start it a lot earlier--in fact, I registered the site almost a year ago--but the rigors of my first year made it difficult, and I was reluctant to begin midway through the first semester. This just ended up making things worse, but at any rate, here begins the blog, about a month before the beginning of fall term of my 2L year. I hope that as I go along, I can go beyond the autobiographical and write more about issues and topics that interest me and arise in class or news. Upcoming thoughts/events for the next couple of weeks:

OCI Selections are revealed on Tuesday August 12. I applied for an interview with about 25 firms, including the 11 "big" firms in town. I hope to get a good number of interviews as I feel like my record is good, and my resume is well put together, but my weakness has always been my cover letters.

Class selection: At the moment, I'm registered for Tax, Employment Law, Negotiations and B.A./Corps. On top of that, of course, I have my research position with Provost Sullivan and Prof. Clary, the staff position on the Minnesota Journal of International Law and then the role as a Supplemental Instructor for Prof. Nussbaumer's Civil Procedure class. That puts me at seventeen credits plus the research position (and journal), which is going to be tough. I'm considering dropping a class, but I'm undecided. The most likely class is employment law, but dropping that would put me very much on the transactional side of things for the fall despite my Civ Pro SSG position, which, while I'm uncertain which side of the line I want to explore more, I don't necessarily want that appearance on my transcript as I apply for jobs.

Research: At the moment I'm working on the edits that Professor Clary gave me for the two sections that I've written already, and once those are done, I'll be looking for case law and state bar association opinions on metadata.

Journal: I'm still undecided and basically completely lost as to what topic on which to write my journal article. We shall see what comes of orientation and whatever other direction I might get, but I feel that it is important for me to figure out something to begin my research as soon as possible.