Jackpot.

For some reason, it never occurred to me that my professors might have blogs. Yesterday, my eyes were opened to the cool-potential of my professors. My Constitutional Law professor, Paul Horwitz, writes for PrawfsBlawg. When I found out that Prof. Horwitz blogs, I had to confess my impulse to bling out his pimp-cane (which I wrote about in this post). I emailed the blog post to him, but he hasn't responded yet. I don't know if that means he's amused or perturbed, but I hope his reaction is positive. It was meant to flatter you, Prof. Horwitz, honest!

I also found out yesterday that my Property professor is as much of a rockstar in property law as his son is in music. The Property rockstar is James Krier, and his son is Andrew W.K.

The professor who has been mentoring me through the book publishing process, Alfred L. Brophy, has a blog as well. Professor Brophy went to lunch with (literal) rockstar dad PropProf. Krier. Here's Prof. Brophy's write-up of their lunch.

Also amusing: Prop.Prof Krier's son, Andrew W.K., released an EP called Party Til You Puke.

Two Things:

As I'm using lunch to furiously skim for Evidence class (and I take full responsibility for having to use lunch to read; I regularly succumb to the influence of my slight academic arrogance, which always says "Don't worry about that, you can do it tomorrow."), I noticed two wonderful things. First, in one of the examples in the book, the girl is named Noe I. Dentity. That's like straight off The Simpson's! Wonderful.

The second thing that amused me was when I misread a hypothetical in the chapter on character evidence. It actually says "Toby Wyatt: Adulterer or Rapist?"

I read it as: "Toby Wyatt: Adulterer or Baptist?"

Busted, Professor.

Although Gchat's notification noise is less obtrusive than AIM's, Gchat's is still distinctive. So distinctive, in fact, that our professor's Gchatting habit was uncovered when someone sent him a Gchat message in class. The notification noise gave him away, and then a little Gchat box popped up on the PowerPoint screen. Busted, professor.

Gratuitous '80's Rap Line of the Day

No I'm not internationally known, but I'm known to rock a microphone. Hit it!

--Rob Base and DJ E-Z Rock

The Pre-Emptive Strike Theory

In every class, our professors call on a couple of people per day. You don't know if today is your day to get drilled on a certain case, so you have to be prepared to explain each case each time. It's mentally exhaustive, but I've come up with another strategy that works approximately 86% of the time.

The Pre-Emptive Strike Theory holds that when a student pre-emptively raises his or her hand to answer a question in a law school class, the professor is less likely to call on that student to answer a more difficult question.

When you speak in class voluntarily, you get to choose your question. Choose one you know the answer to. You also get to choose a moment when you're not engrossed in a Gchat discussion on Prof. X's obvious hairpiece, so your attention will not be divided. Finally, it creates the impression that you're on task at other times (when you're actually exploring the non-law school related corners of the internets).

Here's the lesson, kids. Raise your hand next time -- it's less painful.

MLA Beats Down Bluebook

I met with someone at Career Services yesterday. Regarding my resume, the meeting was extremely productive. I had no idea how to put experience writing a blog or a book on a resume, and they helped me get it straight. Also, according to the Bluebook, apparently newspaper names are underlined. Whoda thunk it? I'm going to continue using (approximate) MLA style for this blog, because it's flexible enough to change to fit the pace and tone of what I want to write. The Bluebook is rigid, and while I see how it is useful, it's not gonna work for this blog. Bluebook, I'm sorry. (Not really though.)

Recent Property Professor "Wisdom"

"Don't write things down, because then you won't remember them. It's much easier to just remember everything."

Right. Just remember everything. Why didn't I think of that?

The Root

This strikes me as exploitation. Why do we still feel the need to separate ourselves?

Perspectives

Here's classroom 187 from one seat in on the fourth row:

It's where I've spent most of my life for the past few weeks, and where the rest of my semester will be lived.












Here's the same classroom from the professor's perspective:



I posted these pictures for a few reasons:
(1) I just got a new phone, and wanted to test out the camera function;
(2) I wanted to see how clearly the pictures taken with my phone would show up online;
(3) I wanted to see if the classroom seems as daunting in picture form as it does in person.

Career Services Office

I'm a 1L, just received the grades at the end of my spirit-breaking first semester, so this is my first opportunity to deal with the Career Services Office. My first meeting is tomorrow. Wish me luck.

Super Tuesday is Coming

I'm a newcomer to Alabama's election primary system, so I thought I'd share with you what I'm learning. (I was born and raised in Alabama, but voting wasn't exactly on my 11-year old radar. I was too busy climbing trees and capturing flags with the boys to worry about primary systems).

Super Tuesday refers to the day in early February when a huge number of states hold their primaries. This year, Super Tuesday is February 5th. It's a slightly bigger deal if you're a Democrat -- Dems have 52 percent of their delegates at stake on that day, while Republicans have only 41 %.

Alabama has 9 delegates: 7 representatives and 2 senators. Our primaries this year are on Feb. 5th, and they're open primaries. Open primaries mean that you don't have to register as a dem, republican or independent -- you can just vote in whichever primary you personally affiliate with.

This information was surprisingly difficult to get, but I finally found it at FairVote.org. Check out FairVote even if you're not voting in Alabama; they have pretty accurate information.

A Stunning Lack of Foresight

And I thought our law school's admin was bad. A US spy satellite has lost power, and sometime in the next two weeks, it's going to hit earth. For realz.

Postcards

I collect postcards, and I have some great ones from all over the world. My friend Helen just sent me a few, including one amazingly cheesy one from Washington, DC. Cheesy, by the way, is a big compliment in my book.

She also sent me a few that her naval officer brother Nick got while he was on deployment. I'm a little embarrassed to admit, however, that I had to look up a few of the places to see where they were. Rota, I know now, is in Spain, and Seychelles is in the Indian Ocean about 950 miles off the coast of Africa. Welp, now we know.

If you'd like to add to my postcard collection, email me and I'll send you my address. My primary email address is Senichols@gmail.com.

Mama, check this out.

To make a long story short: I found out a few days ago that my insurance company dropped me when I turned 23 on Dec. 6, but they've been telling me -- up until Jan. 21st -- that I was still covered. They didn't notify me that I was dropped until the 21st, which makes more than a month without insurance coverage. You're supposed to sign up for student health insurance within a month of being dropped by your old insurance company, so because the old company gave me false information and I relied on it, there are problems with my student coverage.

All that boring background leads me to something more exciting. I just wrote my first REAL letter threatening legal action. The "legal action" would be to file a formal complaint with the state insurance board. It's a very mild threat, but it gave me a rush nonetheless.

See, mama? I am totally learning useful things in law school.

"Check" your mail.

Oh, puns. Get it?

Law Students and Stress

"The emotional distress of law students appears to significantly exceed that of medical students and at times approach that of psychiatric populations.” -- Finding of a new(ish) study, found via the WSJ Law Blog.

Why is law school so stressful? Is law school even more stressful than medical school? I think it is, and the number of hours spent doesn't have much to do with it. If you tell a medical student that law school is more stressful than med school, they'll likely respond by telling you how many hours they just spent in a lab or studying for a test. But just because you spend hours and hours doing something doesn't necessarily mean that it's stressful. The only instance when time spent studying is truly stressful is when I'm not getting enough sleep. Lack of sleep takes an emotional and physical toll, but this doesn't explain the difference in stress levels between law and other graduate students.

It doesn't relate to the difficulty of the material, either. I'm not disputing that med school is hard -- it should be hard, and law school is hard too. Both take a ton of work to be admitted and to stay afloat.

I think it has something to do with the method of accountability in law school. Law classes are dialogues that turn into verbal battles sometimes. The system is adversarial by nature. As a student, you have to do all the assigned reading because you might be called on -- not only to answer specific questions, but to take and defend a position on an issue. Making an argument about the material takes more than a cursory knowledge of it. And usually, law professors are not kind enough to move on to another student if they call on someone who doesn't know the answer. The alternative to being prepared is being embarrassed in front of your class, and people will usually go to great lengths to avoid embarrassment.

Any and all bitterness I have, I blame on law school.

How hard is it to get a restraining order?

My boyfriend is really annoying. (Grrrreat headline, and the article is interesting too.)

I have hate in my heart.

I just finished our Legal Research take-home exam for the semester, and we had to do a bunch of research tasks on both Westlaw and Lexis. After that test, it is obvious that I am a Westlaw girl. The only hate that resides in my heart is Lexis' fault. I hate Lexis with a good portion of my heart (not all my heart, because sometimes Westlaw doesn't work and Lexis does. But it's close to all of my heart).

On the positive side, hurray for Westlaw.

"Clinton-Obama Feud Shows no Sign of Easing"

1) The obviousness of this headline made me laugh. Why would their opposition to one another end? They're candidates running against each other; this is not news.

2) "Feud" is a funny word.

3) The picture is of Bill Clinton, who is the least currently relevant person in this political threesome. Why not show a picture of the candidates Clinton or Obama? I think CNN chose this picture because they liked Bill's parental finger pointing. "Kids, be nice to each other. Because I told you to. Because I said so. Don't make me tell you again. GET OFF THE SHED!"

**Bonus points if you get the "shed" reference.

Better Luck Next Time

This comment was left anonymously after the Ghetto Vocabulary post the other day:

FYI . . .Ebonics does not equal ghetto vocabulary. While the conversations on "The Wire" are certainly ghetto, the conversations represent Baltimore street vernacular (I'm sure that you understand how the vernacular may change from region to region since you are from Troy, AL) Thus, it follows that what you heard on "The Wire" was not Ebonics.

Oooh snap. I can feel the condescension dripping from those words. It's almost an admirable level of pretentiousness -- if only it had been logical. Also, what's with the implied dis to the Southland? That's like seeing a group of hot girls and hitting on the ugly one because you're feeling lazy. It's just too easy to be an accomplishment.

That was a great shot, Anonymous. Better luck next time.

How to Use a Calculator

Every time the law school's administration organizes a large, mandatory meeting, they put us in a room that fits about 90% of the people that THEY asked to come. Most of the group gets a seat, and the rest end up standing or sitting on the floor. This is not because of a shortage of big rooms or a chair deficiency; there are plenty of rooms that fit all of us, and certainly enough chairs to go around.

Either (1)my law school's administration cannot count, or (2)they are irrationally optimistic.

If they simply can't count, that's embarrassing but pardonable. Lawyers aren't supposed to count. Heck, I can't count. But, I CAN use a calculator. Surely there is someone in the law school's administration who knows how to use a calculator.

I suspect, however, that the second choice is a better explanation for the seat-shortage. Someone knows that our class has 182 people in it and keeps hoping that we'll fit in a 160-person room. Even accounting for absences, that's not reasonable. Come on now.

Since I'm feeling charitable today (and since it will benefit me), I'll volunteer my services. If someone in the law school administration wants to learn, I'll teach you how to use a calculator.

Ghetto Vocabulary

I started watching The Wire recently, and it made me realize that I am not as fluent in Ebonics as I'd like to be. I really want to increase my ghetto vocabulary, and a trip to Tee's Ribs 'N' Things a few days ago added to my urban education. For example, I learned the Law of BBQ.

Law of BBQ: Bar-b-que is better from restaurants with bars on the windows.

Tee's had the best BBQ I've ever had, and the ghetto-fabulousity of the place made the experience even better. There were bars on the windows, a sign declaring "No Guns Allowed," and a bike with stolen tires tied to a meter out front. There was also a sign that I took a picture of saying "No O Dawgs Allowed." Being a curious little blonde girl with poor impulse control, I asked the cashier "What's an 'O Dawg?'"

If you don't already know, take a guess before you read on. Is an "O Dawg" some kind of weapon? Drug? A new breed of trouble-causing hoodlum?

An "O Dawg" is a big T-shirt with the arms cut off, so the arm holes make big "O" shapes. Now that you know what an O Dawg is, please, don't wear one. Nobody wants to see that.

Speaking of CNN

I have a site meter that keeps track of the referral links of visitors, so when someone gets to this page by clicking on a link on another website, the site meter records it. I was looking at the traffic log a few minutes ago, and realized that a bunch of people were getting here from a CNN.com page. Did CNN link to me?

It turns out they kinda did. I linked to this CNN story, and they have a feature under their news stories (I just noticed this feature) that searches blogs that are already talking about CNN stories. If you click on "From the Blogs" underneath the news story, Thank You Ma'am comes up. For real! So in a circuitous and not really monumental way, CNN linked here.

High five.

ALL Caps.

CNN has an anchor named John KING. What more gangster news anchor name could possibly exist? I can't even type it without using all caps.

"You're watching CNN Headline News. Now back to John KING in the studio."

"My friend."

Fred Thompson peppered his Saturday speech in South Carolina with the phrase "my friend." Other politicians do this as well. It's another appearance of that calculated, folksy, fake-intimate type of speech that baby-kissers seem fond of lately. Anytime a politician says the words "my friend," I shut down and stop listening. It triggers my defenses because it sounds so disingenuous.

No, I'm not your friend. You're not my friend, and you're not going to convince me that we're friends. Stop saying it.

And no, you can't kiss my baby.

My Blogging Philosophy:

Avoid being boring.

Priorities

My parents are in town and I'm in Birmingham for the day. My brother Jay, who is 21, was just describing his new love interest to my dad, who is a Southern Baptist pastor. Here's the snippet I just overheard:

Dad: Does she go to church?

Jay: I think so.

Dad: Is she a Baptist?

Jay: I don't know! She drives a Range Rover.

Law School Gunners

Above the Law has an open thread this morning about law school "gunners." A gunner is someone who is inappropriately enthusiastic and insensitive to class etiquette, always "gunning" for a chance to speak. Gunners quickly get the disdain of everyone else in their class, including the professors.

The one gunner (that I can think of) in our class is, thankfully, more amusing than annoying. I actually have a lot of affection for him, and I like it when he talks because he usually says something funny. He's earned the nickname "The Sniper" because he sits in the back/top of the room and always finds a way to reference guns in his class comments. The Sniper is from Texas, and if the topic doesn't allow him a chance to talk about guns, he falls back on a Texas comment. Here's my favorite standard comment from The Sniper:

"I don't know about where y'all are from, but everything's bigger in Texas, including our guns."

Mischief

I had the opportunity to take part in some college mischief the other day. A few weeks ago, I started doing shout-outs to members of the grammar group on the group's main page, like a Member of the Week feature. A student at Messiah College sent me a message about her teacher, Professor Jay McDermond, who is the College's resident Grammar Nazi. He actually wrote on someone's paper "Is English your second language?"

I saluted him on the grammar group's main page, and Messiah students got a little giggle out of it. I giggled too.

Golfweek

Rightfully, I think, the editor of Golfweek was fired over this cover featuring a noose. Dave Seanor displayed some remarkable obtuseness when he approved this cover in reference to the comment that Kelly Tilghman made about Tiger Woods -- that the other golfers might "lynch him [Woods] in a back alley."

In reference to yesterday's post about Michael Vick: Really, Kelly Tilghman? Really, Dave Seanor?

What's going on?

Is this a glitch on my computer or another evil plan by Microsoft? I sometimes save images to my computer to post on the blog when I think they'll add to a certain post, but lately when I'm viewing a page in Internet Explorer and I try to save an image, I get a message that says "Access denied." But then when I open the same page in Firefox, I'm able to save the picture. Is this some sort of copyright protection effort from Microsoft, or is it a glitch on my computer?

I even got that message when I tried to save a picture on Facebook. Anybody know what's going on?

Miles to go.

On a recent road trip all over the Southeast, we were trying to figure out if we'd traveled, in total, the same number of miles that the United States is wide. From NYC to SanFrancisco, how many miles would you guess there were?

I guessed around 2,000, then we revised that figure to 2,500. We were off by a few hundred miles. What do you think the answer is?

The answer is 2,908.89 miles from New York City to San Francisco, which, according to MapQuest, you can drive in 42 hours and 37 minutes. I have my doubts about that second figure.

File this under "Hate Mail."

If you don't know about the grammar Facebook group, check out the old posts here and here. Currently, we're about 240,000 strong. Every once in a while I get messages composed of the heartfelt ramblings of confused people who take offense at the group. Here's one I received today.

i[sic] think that ths[sic] group is STUPID and GAY!!![sic]because like really come on sometimes people don't gt enough schooling tobe able to have the right Grammar or whatever!! like would you JUDGE a little girl or anyone from like a foreign country, now would you... so why would you "JUUDGE" a "NORMAL" person i would think that you people make mystakes ometimes, i mean i'm sure you guys make somemystakes sometimes. and again i say... THIS GROUP IS RETATRED!!!

I gave up on the [sic]s after the third one. Thank you, Jessica Postma from Woodstock Collegiate Institute.

I hope Rush Limbaugh trash talks me one day.

My Facebook friend Ezra Klein got trash-talked by Rush Limbaugh. That's a status symbol that I hope to earn one day.

UPDATE: Link fixed.

Really.

One of my favorite SNL skits is a Weekend Update segment with Seth Meyers and Amy Poehler. In it, they mock Michael Vick for trying to sneak weed past an airport security checkpoint in a water bottle that he wasn't allowed to take on the plane in the first place. The skit is called "Really?!"

Amy: You didn't want to throw your weed away before you went through security?

Seth: Really?!

Amy: You have $117,000,000 left on your contract. Do you know what a $117,000,000 means? It means you can afford to replace your weed if you have to throw it away at the airport.

Seth: Really. And you got caught at the Miami airport, really? You didn't think they'd check for drugs... at the airport... in Miami? Really?

Amy: Michael, do you not have an entourage? Because you should put together an entourage. And the first guy in that entourage should be called "Michael Vick's Official Weed Carrier."

Seth: Really. Also, you were flying back to Atlanta. Where you live. Do you not keep weed at your house? Because if you like weed, you should have some at your house. Really.

Seth & Amy together: Really?!

I think about this skit whenever I see something stupid in class, or, more often, when I read something stupid in the news. You think we shouldn't have private property? Really? Eddie Murphy says his wedding was symbolic? Really?

They should update the SNL skit to address Michael Vick's more recent legal problems. Michael, you have millions of dollars, and you felt the need to use it to finance dog fighting? Really? Did you think you'd make some money from dog fighting? Was this money really substantial enough to outweigh the embarrassing possibility of being caught for... dog fighting?

Really.



ADDED: There's an inadvertant SNL allusion in the news today. CNN's headline about on-the-run Marine Cpl. Cesar Laurean describes him as "like MacGyver." Or, perhaps... like MacGruber?

SPOGG

National Grammar Day is March 4th, and we've decided to partner with The Society for Promotion of Good Grammar to encourage the use of proper grammar, especially on March 4th.

By the way, their acronym is SPOGG, which is way cooler than IJYWYUPG (I judge you when you use poor grammar).

Brad Renfro is Dead

My friend Gloria's comment on the situation:

"You know you're getting old when your childhood crushes start dying."

Gloria's facing her 27th birthday in a week.

Superman-ing Jerry Falwell

I’m tired of hearing “Superman” used as a verb. However clever it was originally, it’s been tired out by overuse. Maybe in a few years you can use “Superman” as a verb again and it’ll be cool in a throwback sense, but not right now. You can’t Superman that ho’ anymo’; “Superman” is too tired to be effective.

I do, however, advocate the use of another noun as a verb: Jerry Falwell. More specifically, I just want you to use his last name. To “Falwell that ho” means to put a woman in her place, figuratively or literally. It has a broader meaning than “superman,” making it more useful in a variety of situations. Go ahead, use it in a sentence. It’ll make you look witty and cultured at cocktail parties.

To quote The People vs. Larry Flynt: “There is a public interest in making Jerry Falwell look ludicrous.”

Impulses

I struggle with my impulses sometimes. For example, when I see something climb-able, I have a strong impulse to climb it. That applies to trees, buildings with low ledges, and especially statues. I have to remind myself when I'm in downtown Annapolis that it might be disrespectful to stand on top of Kunta Kinte's head. It's difficult, but I've talked myself out of that particular impulse. Most of the time.

Today, I had a similarly inappropriate impulse. My Constitutional Law professor had back surgery a few days ago. As a result, he walks with a cane. A PIMP cane, which would be made even more pimp-like if he would let me act on my impulse to bling it out. This cane is crying out for some diamonds and dollar signs (and rims! Think of the possibilities!), and I want to be the one to up the pimp-factor on my professor's cane.

If he turns down my offer to pimp his cane, I'm going to have to sit on my hands.

Finders, Keepers

Quotes from the introduction in my property book:

"Possession is eleven points in the law." -- Colley Cibber

This reminded me of the best scene in This is Spinal Tap, with the "But this one goes to eleven" exchange. I wonder if the Spinal Tap quote was influenced by the property quote, or if it was just a coincidence. It was probably just a coincidence, but the similarity made me laugh.

Here's the final quote from the intro to the property book:

"Finders keepers, losers weepers." -- Old Scottish Proverb

Eloquent, isn't it?

Haha, awesome.

I just got called "Miss Shnichols" by one of my professors, in class.

Congratulations, Professor Althouse.

Professor Althouse's blog is four years old today. Prof. Althouse is a visiting professor at the Brooklyn Law School in NYC, but she usually teaches at the University of Wisconsin Law School in Madison, Wisconsin.

She's a veteran in the blogging world, and my somewhat-unwitting mentor. Her blog was the first one I read and it's probably equal to Paco's blog in its influence on my writing. Prof. Althouse approaches politics and current events in a way that is utterly practical and interesting to me. She blogs about what catches her eye that day, and she (thankfully) doesn't comment on things that either don't interest her or about which she doesn't have anything significant to add. It's a rather un-narcissistic approach to blogging, which is kind of unusual and refreshing.

I hope my writing will resemble her precise and practical approach one day.

Lazy Sunday

I went to Barnes and Noble today and bought The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao, by Junot Diaz. New York Magazine ranked it as one of the best novels of the year, so we'll see. I am excited about reading it. I also bought Dave Egger's The Best American Non-required Reading of 2007, which is usually an insightful collection of great short fiction from the year. I just noticed that Sufjan Stevens wrote the introduction, and I'm a big fan of his aggressively imaginative music, so I have high hopes for his writing as well.

Now I'm watching Alabama basketball on TV while checking email and catching up on the blog. Alabama and Florida are tied, by the way.

Laundry and cleaning are next on the list of Sunday chores. I hope your lazy Sunday is going as well as mine is.

I hate cigarettes, but I like this picture.

Life Lists and Moonshine

I generally hate lists and resolutions. If you "officially" declare that you're going to get your oil changed today, or get a B in Contracts, or lose ten pounds by February, you're only setting yourself up to feel like a failure. If it's a motivational tool and it actually works for you, fine. But when I do it, I just end up feeling like a failure. So I take a different approach to "life lists," or Things I Want to do Before I Die.

My list isn't very specific. It includes anything that will make a good story when I'm too old to do anything but tell stories. If I succeed, my great-grandchildren will think I just made up all my stories, when in fact they actually happened. I hope to hear "Ha-ha, you got them Grandma! They actually believed you!" Then I'll laugh at my "deception," knowing that these stories actually happened, even if my grandkids don't believe me.

Besides, I'm a horrible liar. I need true crazy stories to be interesting.

Anyway, one of those events happened over Christmas break when I drank moonshine for the first time. I didn't actually know that "Drink moonshine" was on my life list until we started talking about it that night, but after doing it, I'm definitely depositing a mental check on my list.

I was with Josh at his friends' place in the hills of NC. The moonshine was brown and had "blueberries" in it, although they looked more like "brownberries" to me. I took a drink. It burned like heck so I made a spectacularly girly "Eewwwwwww!" noise. One of Josh's friends informed me that eating a berry was the equivalent of taking a shot of whiskey, so I said "Ok!" and promptly swallowed one. Then I gave already-intoxicated Josh two berries. Hehe.

It was the most disgusting thing that has ever made its way to my stomach, but I drank the darn moonshine and lived to tell about it.

Legal Writing Grade Breakdown

My Legal Writing professor just did a breakdown of the grades he gave out. As I mentioned before, I turned in my memo late and the professor took 10% off the final grade. I ended up with a B-, meaning that I wrote an A- paper before calculating in the lateness penalty. After seeing the grade breakdown for this class, I'm pretty happy with the outcome of the situation.

Out of 43 total people,

2 people received A's
4 people received A-'s
4 people received B+'s
33 people received B's or below.

"First, they get to make mistakes — scribble, scribble, scribble, making mistakes."

"And then, that's their raw material for a whole new set of articles."

Ann Althouse on the political pundit machine.

That Happened Quickly

I changed my position on my Evidence teacher from ambivalence to adoration when he posted this quote on a PowerPoint slide and had us repeat it after him:

"Law school grades will not determine if I will be a great lawyer."

"Make a surprise for your woman!"

That's the subject line of my favorite spam email I've received so far today.

Grades Part II

Grades for four out of our five classes were released today, but we're still waiting on the 5th and final class grade. My guess is that it's taking them longer to release this one because they have to calculate overall rankings. So I know that I passed 4 out of my 5 classes, but the 5th is still up in the air along with my class rank.

Oh well. I'm content with my grades -- they weren't great, and weren't horrible. I did pretty much how I expected. Now that I have a better idea how to do this law school thang, I'm going to do the darn thang and do it better.

"Today's a two-vicodin day!"

-- Constitutional Law professor, who recently had back surgery but is bravely teaching his class anyway.

Here's his full quote: "I decided since teaching on one vicodin was so much fun yesterday, two would be even more fun. Today's a two-vicodin day!"

Quotes from Property Class

Professor: Why is there over-fishing going on?
Student: Because fish are delicious.


Professor to Student 1: Why are you yawning?
Student 1: I'm not sorry for my yawn.
Professor: Well good for you! What did you do last night?
Student 1: Nothing, my dad just snores really loudly.

[Laughter from class.]

Student 2: Welcome to Alabama!

Class Number 3: Evidence

So far, I'm not enjoying Evidence. The professor came off as rigid and nervously pretentious. It's like he's not really arrogant, but it's a coping mechanism for his nervousness. Instead of letting his self-consciousness show, he's overcompensating by acting pretentious. That's unfortunate. Maybe -- hopefully -- he'll get more comfortable with us and drop the act.

I do like the fact that he uses PowerPoint. He's the first professor I've had in law school who uses it, and I like it because it makes clear the things that he thinks are important. He displayed those points prominently on the PowerPoint slides, so he must consider those things important. It also works the other way around: PowerPoint makes the important things clear. The things that he considers to be important are clarified because we can read the words on a screen, so there's no misunderstanding his words. I suppose writing can be unclear just as speech can, but when speech is supported by written words, miscommunication is less likely.

Thumph Quote:

Thumph sits beside me in several classes. He helps my days go by quicker by inserting funny comments via Gchat. His latest that amused me:

"Law school makes me feel like 3/5 of a person."

Class Number 2: Constitutional Law

I thought I would really like this class, but it hasn't happened yet. The first class was boringly text-centered, which is predictable and perhaps necessary, but still boring. Yes, we've read the Constitution. Can we apply it now? Give us a crazy hypothetical about your insane uncle's gun collection! Let us talk about Guantanamo or Martin Luther King Jr. or Gary Coleman (heh)!

Now we're talking about counting votes. This could get interesting. I'm gonna go stir the pot a little bit -- perhaps I'll bring up Bush v. Gore and say something outrageous.

Class Number 1: Property

The professor is Krier, and I like him. He keeps running around the classroom energetically asking us questions that are meant to be funny. So far, in his hypotheticals, he's mentioned: a fox, land owned by a 5-year old, and a pregnant husband. He's acknowledged the sweat stains under his arms and says that you don't learn if you aren't willing to be humiliated -- he encouraged us to laugh it off if we ever feel uncomfortable or embarrassed. He doesn't like talking in PC terms, which is refreshing. He said we don't have to raise out hands to speak, and there hasn't been a seating chart mentioned.

My prediction: We're going to a have fun, if disorganized, semester in this class.

Round 2

As much as I've been digging the no-alarm mornings over Christmas break, I'm kinda ready to get back in the swing of things. Law school classes start again tomorrow.

I think the other 1Ls will agree that this semester is a lot less daunting than the first one. Knowing what to expect is half the battle, and we've got that part down. Now we just have to actually do it.

So, here we go. Round 2: BEGIN!