Bunsnip

Crampwriting

noreply@blogger.com (Sra) — Fri, 25 May 2012 06:17:00 +0000

So I was having lunch with the attorney who employed me whilst I was in my last year of law school, and we were talking about things like the bar exam, and he told me a horror story of how, when he took the bar exam, his computer blue-screen-of-deathed on him toward the beginning of the essay portion, and so he had to hand write his exams for 6 hours (that's six hours of pure hand crampage, folks). In order to allay the horrors that would accompany such a bad stroke of luck, the attorney advised me to practice writing at least some of the essays I am analyzing in my bar prep with my hand, so that I can build the muscles and get used to the idea that I can do it if I have to. So I'm not quite ready for full on essay hand writing yet, because of the severe atrophy of muscles in my hands other than for purposes of stabbing downward at keys, but I went ahead and outlined an essay this afternoon. As you can see, having computer death will probably be close to the worst thing that could happen to me on the bar exam, because my handwriting is nearly illegible even to myself. Maybe I should just bring a back-up computer instead.

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Final Grades

noreply@blogger.com (Sra) — Sun, 13 May 2012 09:34:00 +0000

Final grades are in. I only had three graded classes this semester, and I managed to pull two A's and an A- in them, earning my highest semester average of my entire law school career. This semester stands in stark contrast to my first semester, during which I earned two B's, a C+, and a nagging feeling that I had made a terrible mistake. But I pushed on from that bad start and showed constant improvement over the course of my schooling. I accomplished many things which I am proud of, I grew a lot, and I identified many areas where I need to continue my personal growth. My cumulative GPA going out is 3.436, which is good enough to graduate Cum Laude, and which probably ranks me in the top 25% of my class, although the final rankings are yet to come out. A nice way to end this chapter of my life.

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Bar Study

noreply@blogger.com (Sra) — Mon, 23 Apr 2012 17:24:00 +0000

My bar exam study books arrived in a package today. I had trouble hoisting it into my house because it had this many books in it:

I have a hard time seeing how I'm going to get through that many pages in two months, but they put you on a pretty regimented schedule, so I guess if they say I can do it, I can.

Bar study doesn't technically start for a few weeks. I am still in my finals period at school, although my finals really came early this semester, back when I was freaking out turning in a bunch of papers and giving presentations, and finishing up client matters. Now all I have to do over the next two weeks is revise my capstone paper and prepare for and take my antitrust exam. So much more low-key than finals period normally is. I mean, I paid my dues early, but it is nice to laugh a little while some of my friends have a regular finals period freak out.

I filed my bar application (barely) on time, and booked a room at the hotel where the exam is taking place, so everything should be set to go for the exam in July. It's a two-day exam. The first day consists of six essays and two "multi-state performance tests", which is basically where they give you a closed universe scenario with some cases and statutes and whatever else so you can analyze a legal problem, almost as if you are given real legal cases to work on. Day two is lots and lots of multiple choice questions.

So anyway, the sun has arrived in Portland and it is lovely. Ian and I went to the batting cages yesterday to hit some baseballs (just being around baseballs makes me kind of giddy like a child, apparently). Today my arm is weak and my shoulder aches as a result. But it was worthwhile.

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The future is now

noreply@blogger.com (Sra) — Thu, 12 Apr 2012 09:40:00 +0000

Well, I'm almost at the end of my final semester of law school. These past three weeks have been super hellacious, even though one of them was Spring Break. I wrote my 36-page capstone paper and a 9-page contract over Spring Break, which means I worked practically every day, all day.

I did take two days off during Spring Break: one to watch the Hunger Games (just like the book, it's perfectly enjoyable, but so not worth all the attention it's getting), the other to watch the most amazing live soccer game I've seen (RSL kicked the P-Timbs' asses 3-2 with two of those RSL goals being scored in the last 5 minutes of the game).

Then the week after Spring Break, I had to juggle a number of obligations and deadlines, all working up to Saturday, which was not really a Saturday because I had to attend a 5-hour paper symposium, during which I nervously presented my capstone paper to my class and professor for 15 minutes. I thought the end of that week would see my stress levels diminish, but instead they have carried over into this week.

This week I have been working on wrapping up my client matters at clinic, and finishing up my final contract drafting project, consisting of a short 10-page article and several supporting documents. Finishing clinic has been the most stressful. On the whole I have mixed feelings about my clinic experience. It has been positive exposure to lots of different things, but I also found the experience very restrictive in a number of ways. The biggest restriction was that I had a lot to do and only a very small amount of time each week in which to do it (we were only in clinic 8 hours each week -- hardly enough time to get any real work done, especially when that's broken into two sessions, and each session is broken into a number of administrative interruptions). So I've taken a lot of that work home in the past two weeks, and even stayed an extra two hours at clinic on Tuesday. Anyway, I'm pretty glad to be getting that clinic stuff done this week. But the stress of my last day tomorrow (and the near certainty that I am going to have to put in extra time tomorrow too) is what's keeping me up entirely past my bed time right now.

My contract drafting project is due Friday at 5:PM. It will be done by then, and it's about half done now, but I just wish I could focus on it without having to deal with other annoyances, like classes, and clinic bleeding into my home hours.

I also need to get my damn bar application in the mail by Friday. To do that, I need to get a fingerprint card. I was going to get it on Tuesday, but the place that does fingerprinting closes an hour after my clinic hours, and since I had to stay at clinic late on Tuesday, I couldn't get it done. So I have to go do it tomorrow. And if for some reason that doesn't work out, I have to scramble to get to a police station before Friday to get printed, all while getting that stupid contract drafting project in by 5:PM. So it's a time pressure thing. Maybe I'm to blame for putting the fingerprinting off to the last minute, but it just turned out that way.

The good news is that after 5:PM Friday my life will be a lot easier. All I will have left is a single class the following Monday, followed by a week or two or three of studying for my single final exam in antitrust. It's an open exam, so I can take it whenever, hence the one or two or three weeks of studying. I guess I will also have to revise my capstone based on my professor's comments once I get them. I am feeling pretty good about the paper, so I think that shouldn't be too bad. Then once that antitrust test is done, I can wallow for a couple weeks before Bar-Bri starts and I have to start studying for the bar exam in July. A few days after bar studying starts, my family is coming to town for commencement, which should be fun. Well, no, graduation ceremonies are never fun. But having family in town is fun.

Then I study hard for two months, then I take the bar exam for a couple days, then I pass out, then I cry, then I celebrate, then I cry some more, then I sit around and do absolutely nothing for a few days, or else go on a short unplanned road trip, then I start pounding the pavement and hitting networking events and trying to get someone to hire me. That should about be the rest of my year, I think.

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Practice

noreply@blogger.com (Sra) — Fri, 27 Jan 2012 07:47:00 +0000

If I could go back to my 1L self and advise me on what to make sure I do in law school, I'd say take as many practical (rather than substantive or theoretical) classes as you can, because learning by doing can be way more effective than learning by reading theory.

This semester I am taking two practical classes: the small business legal clinic and contract drafting. Both of them have already provided some of the best experiences I have had in law school.

In contract drafting class, I am rewriting some form contracts, which is a very useful skill to learn. You might imagine that this is a very regular thing for law students to learn in law school, but actually I have heard that contract drafting classes are quite rare. The one at my school is a very small class that always has a huge wait list, so I am glad I got the opportunity to take it before graduating. It's much more useful than my technology licensing class I took a year ago, in which I read about licensing, and looked at some rather dense and unintelligible contracts, but didn't really learn much because I wasn't asked to draft anything.

There is so much garbage out there in contract language. When was the last time you read a contract that you understood even half of? Ok, ok, I know. You don't read the contracts you sign. I don't either. But wouldn't it be nice if you could understand what they said when the shit eventually hits the fan and you have to actually go back to read them? I am planning to eventually amass a collection of coherent form contracts that I can use in my future practice. This class is a great chance to get a start on that.

The small business legal clinic is turning out to be something I probably should have done last year to build up some of the confidence that the first year tore down. I started it with a great measure of anxiety. I have been struggling with anxiety issues for many years, and sometimes it is more bearable than others, but before this semester started, I was in a pretty bad place in terms of managing it. It was getting to the point where I was starting to contemplate seeking professional help, but that's not something I want to do before the bar application process, so I've been holding out. But in the last two weeks, I have been able to work on a lot of my anxiety issues via the clinic class. I have already had to interview two clients, which is an intimidating thing, but they went well and my confidence is growing by the day, noticeably.

On the day of my first interview, I was nervous as hell. But I got through it in pretty decent shape and had a nice endorphin high the rest of the day. I was so insanely cheerful that day, and had a bunch of positive interactions with people throughout my day, including random strangers. The following day, I was exhausted from having had so much positive energy the prior day, so I kind of crashed and retreated into my shell again. But clinic is forcing me to come out of that shell on a regular basis, and it is having derivative effects in my life outside of clinic that are starting to stick around a little longer.

Today I had my second client interview, which went great, and I carried my positive attitude into my after-clinic hours. I am beginning to realize how important human relations skills are to the practice of law. It's customer service, really, and in any industry that performs customer service, it is a boon to be kind and pleasant to people in general. You never know who may walk into your law office needing help some day. And you want to build interpersonal skills so you can provide good customer service for the needs of your clients, because they are at the center of what lawyers do. I am feeling more confident, and can actually envision myself getting into this profession and eventually being good at it, one step at a time. It's nice to have positive, confidence-building experiences at last, instead of just being torn down in the classroom all the time.

I think this last semester will be a good one.

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In the end

noreply@blogger.com (Sra) — Fri, 06 Jan 2012 11:26:00 +0000

Lately, I am very resistant to going to bed. I am not resistant to sleep: I love taking naps during the day. But even if I am tired, I don't want to go to bed at night, because that means my day is over, and tomorrow will come by the time I am next cognizant. I just want to grab on to time and hold it back for a bit. Hold it until I am ready for it to advance again, and I'm not sure how long that would take. It could be quite a while. Maybe it's that I'm finally starting to feel "old", or maybe it's that I feel like there is just too much in front of me to handle, and I don't want to get to it yet, or at least not all at once. It's kind of paralyzing, when you see how many obligations lay ahead of you. Ironically, all I really want to do is sleep right now. Sleep until winter is over, like a nice hibernating bear, those lucky bastards. (See how much of a break they get from life every year.) But sleeping means time advancing, and I don't like that right now.

So yeah, these are my last few days until my very last semester of law school begins. What's that you say? You can't believe I'm here already? Feels like just yesterday this journey began? Yeah, that's what pretty much everyone who hasn't had to live with me or otherwise suffer with me through the past 2.5 years seems to be saying. Time is relative, my friends. Of all the notable 3-year blocks of my life -- junior high, high school, most of college, my first full time job -- this has been by far the longest and the most self-transformative. I feel like a completely different person from where I once was, and it has taken a long, long time to become like this.

What lies ahead for me? In short term, a Capstone paper; a few classes; some writing assignments; a single remaining final exam; a clinic; graduation; the bar exam. Then? I don't know. Everyone asks what's next, and all I ever say is I want to get hired by anyone who will hire me, pretty much. But then the advice begins. You could practice such and such law. And sometimes they are right, sometimes I could practice in that area. But usually they just bring up some area in which I have neither experience nor interest, and they've never gone to law school anyway, so they don't really understand why it's not feasible for me to do whatever they think is a brilliant idea for me to do. I just want people to not ask me what I'm going to do next, because I don't know, and no, you can't help me figure it out, most likely. But I will find something, at some point, and when I do, I'll let you know.

As my friend heidikins recently wrote: It all works out in the end. If it hasn't worked out, it isn't the end.

I think that's going to be my new mantra.

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Dead Batteries and Self-Induced Isolation

noreply@blogger.com (Sra) — Sun, 25 Dec 2011 11:39:00 +0000

This Christmas Eve, Ian and I spent 4 hours chasing after a new car battery to rescue our dead car.

We had spent the morning downtown, having lunch and walking the streets, listening to brass bands playing on sidewalks, admiring the Christmas tree in Pioneer Square, and watching the statue man stand still like a statue in the cold for tips (that's got to be harder than it looks).

On the way home from our restful Christmas Eve activities, Ian decided we should stop at the Safeway close to our house for some Christmas Eve snacks. While I sat in the car with the headlights on, Ian went into the store. He was in there for a good 15 minutes, I'd say. I watched several carloads of people come after him and leave before him. By the time he returned, I tried turning the car over to the dull sound of clicks, signaling a dead battery. I felt like a dunce for leaving the headlights on, but Ian said he's been suspecting that the battery wasn't holding a full charge anymore and expected it to go soon.

We felt fortunate that this happened close to our house, as it was only a 7 minute walk from where the car died. But we felt not so fortunate that this happened on Christmas Eve when places that sell batteries are not likely to be open.

We took our groceries home, then brainstormed on the best mode of rescuing our car. In retrospect, the thing to do would have been to hang out in the parking lot of Safeway with the hood raised and wait for some good Samaritan to give us a jump so we could take the car home and worry about a replacement battery Monday. But, I guess the best way for me to explain why we didn't do that is that we are both very independent people who like to do things ourselves before depending on help from others. Character flaws, perhaps, but that's just how it is. Ok, maybe that's a cop out. See what I mean at the end of the story.

It was 3:30:PM, and on Christmas Eve, that means options would quickly be running out. There's a Les Schwab about a 10 or 12 minute walk from home, so we decided that instead of trying to figure out a bus route to go to some unknown auto parts store far from our home, we'd try walking over there. I suggested that Ian give them a call first to see if they were open, but he was like, "let's just go." And I was willing to just go along instead of calling myself. Another thing about Ian and I is that we are both rather averse to making phone calls if we don't have to. It's kind of a phobia that I actually think is not too uncommon. Anyway, since Murphy is in charge of the universe, Les Schwab was not open today.

A Jiffy Lube was open (just in case you need your oil changed on Christmas Eve), but they do not sell car batteries. I seemed to remember in my childhood seeing car batteries stocking shelves at convenience stores like 7-11 (am I hallucinating about that?), so we poked our head in a couple gas stations along our way, but I am either dead wrong about that, or gas stations have just stopped stocking them. Running out of options, I got over my telephonophobia for a minute on our walk and called the local Fred Meyer, asking if they stocked car batteries. Our Fred Meyer recently remodeled, and while the layout is much improved, the selection is much diminished: they no longer have an automotive section at all, so no dice.

We looped back around to the Safeway, since we were closer to that than our home at this point, and tried the car again. No avail.

At this point it was 4:15 and we didn't have many options left. We thought of asking our apartment manager to come give us a jump, but they appear to be away, and besides, we feel crummy about bugging people on a day many treat as holiday. Finally, we decided that Sears Auto Center would be the last choice for a car battery on Christmas Eve. We called ahead (lesson: learned) and found that they would be open until 6:00. Only problem now was traveling the 4 or 5 miles to get there on time. We looked up a bus route which would drop us at the mall where the auto center was located 45 minutes before closing, but we would be dropped off clear on the exact opposite side of the mall parking lot area, and would have to walk fiercely in the cold to get there after having already waited a half hour in the cold for the bus.

We did all this, got the battery, and then called a cab to take us back to the car, because there's no way we were going to carry a car battery back through that long walk and bus ride (car batteries, it turns out, are quite heavy). A $23 cab ride later, we were standing at the car again. Ian decided to just jump the car with the new battery and take the car home then change the battery later from our own parking lot. Immediately upon raising the hood and connecting the jumper cables, a woman parked in front of us asked if we needed a jump. We told her no thank you, but it was ironic that we were so reluctant to ask for help, and we went on this big adventure, and just when we were close to finishing our independent quest, some kind person offered to help. All we really had to do was ask and this whole day would not have been the headache it was.

This experience underscores something that Ian and I have both been experiencing lately: isolation. For some reason, this year we have both started to feel quite homesick and lonely. We just miss being around people that we know and love. We don't make friends easily, and though we have made friends here, I can't say we're particularly close to any of them. I do enjoy some of them quite a bit, but I have not achieved the same level of intimacy with anyone in Portland that I had achieved in Salt Lake.

Ian and I were talking about these lonely feelings lately and Ian said something that struck me: "You know how when we first moved here, we thought the people of Portland were all so nice and friendly, unlike the people in Salt Lake?"

"Yeah," I replied. I can't say I'd describe the people of Portland the same way today.

"Well, it was us. They were friendly to us because we were receptive to meeting new people since we were in a new place and didn't know anybody. They reflect back to us what we give to them."

That made a light bulb go off for me. I think it's true. I for one tend to keep pretty closed off from people for a lot of different reasons. One reason is that it's only the people who are close to you who can really, really hurt you. Another is that even strangers can hurt you, though maybe not as badly, and I have had plenty of experiences in life that have made me distrustful of the way people will behave toward me. Another is just that I am an introvert. While extroverts find social settings a great way to unwind, I find them taxing on my system, and I need a lot of alone time to balance it out. Thinking back on my close relationships in life, they have, for the most part, been with people whom I grew up with as a child, or with whom I lived as a roommate. A couple exceptions exist, but in all cases, there has been an environment ripe for intimate development of a friendship. I'm not the type of person who's going to become best friends with someone if we haven't ever had a real conversation about who we are as people. And growing up with people or living with them is a great way to facilitate those conversations. It's harder to get there without that.

But the bottom line is, we are alone because we have made ourselves that way. I can take a lot of alone-ness and not feel lonely, but I think it is to the point where something's got to give, and I guess Ian has convinced me that the change has to come from me. But Inertia also rules the universe (right up there with Murphy), and it is hard to make myself move when I am so used to standing still.

I guess I have a lot to work on in the new year.

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Bad Hand

noreply@blogger.com (Sra) — Fri, 02 Dec 2011 22:58:00 +0000

This is why I should not be allowed to hand write my exams:

I'd give myself an F if I had to grade an exam that looked like this. TGFC (Thank God For Computers).

It's finals season now. I'm probably taking my first exam tomorrow, assuming I can decipher all the chicken scratch on my notecards and put my exam taking tool together in time. Believe it or not, I am immune to my own bad handwriting most of the time and should be able to read it just fine.

I have four exams this season, and will probably be done with them in a week and a half. Most of them are unscheduled, which is why I'm playing the timing rather by ear. They are all open book and 3/4 are part multiple choice, so I am feeling pretty good about it.

The one concern is that my school is making us use some new exam software this season, and I can just envision tons of problems happening. Hopefully not to me, otherwise some poor professor is going to have to read my bad hand and my grades will suffer the consequences. :S

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Welcome to the Big Apple

noreply@blogger.com (Sra) — Wed, 05 Oct 2011 09:30:00 +0000

Just when you think you are the busiest you've ever been in your life, things just get busier.

I'm reminded of the time I went on a cross-country road trip with my roommate the August after I graduated from college. We headed out to Boston, down to New York, and finally to DC before heading back home via Lawrence, Kansas. When we reached Boston, I was hotter than I had ever been. That is, until we reached New York, where I was even hotter. Then, of course, sweltering DC blew away my whole conception about how hot a person could actually be before their head would explode.

I'm kind of going through that same experience right now but with the busy. I think I'm in New York at this point. I say that because I can only image how busy I am going to feel when I begin preparing for the bar exam, which is probably going to be about in the vicinity of DC. But New York is pretty damn unpleasant, and I have felt myself toeing the line of a mental breakdown once or twice in the past week or two.

Luckily, I have Mr. E to help diffuse my I-can't-handle-this with a hard-nosed dose of yes-you-can-and-you-will-dammit. I also have a great sense of denial and an exhibited pattern of avoidance.

So what I'm dealing with right now is this: (1) I have to draft a complaint and motion for summary judgment for work, which does not have a hard deadline, but which I promised they would see a draft of in two weeks, which means Friday; (2) I have an in-class graded midterm in Criminal Law next Tuesday, and the material to be covered is actually quite challenging (mens rea -- difficult -- who knew?); (3) I have a roughly 8 page paper due in Wills & Trusts also next Tuesday; (4) Law Review, the evil obligation from the third circle of hell, will be assigning me to perform a second edit of a paper on Thursday and will uncharitably ask for it to be due Saturday night (the first edit took me roughly 15 hours, and considering the appalling state of the paper, I'm not sure the second edit will take much less).

It is now, I guess technically Tuesday night, but my computer clock is calling this Wednesday. That means I need to get the Complaint practically finished tomorrow. I think I can do that. It is started, but needs a lot of fleshing out. I think I can make my bosses happy by supplying them the Complaint on Friday and promising the MSJ the following week. Next most important is the Crim Law studying -- that test ain't gonna disappear and there are a lot of bright eyed bushy tailed 2Ls in that class who have not had their souls crushed in 1L (remarkably) and will probably come guns blazing to the test. I gotta bring it too. Finally, I can take a two day extension on the Wills paper, and most likely will. Otherwise I might have to, like, not sleep for a few days or something, and that would be most unpleasant and out of the question. As for law review, well, it's low-priority, AFAIC.

Today's takeaway advice:
Don't join the law review; or if you think you must, make sure that the review has entered the 21st century and uses digital means to accomplish its purposes. I'm talking Google Docs and Dropbox and the like. There is no reason I should have to vie against 30 other people for 4 computers and hard copy binders of the materials we are working on. Digital, people! For fuck's sake.

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Hell of a

noreply@blogger.com (Sra) — Thu, 01 Sep 2011 09:31:00 +0000

I am just over halfway through my first week back at school and already I am feeling very high stress levels. I have a lot on my plate this semester: 15 credit hours (that's 5 classes, most twice a week), law review, and law firm work.

This law review business has been a royal pain in the ass since I started on it the week before classes. So far, I've been doing my part in source checking a 100-page paper written by one of my school's professors that will be published in the next journal issue. What that entails: locate original or photo-PDF versions of the sources cited in the paper, check the citation format, and then check to make sure the source actually supports what the author says it does, on the page he says it does.

Finding my sources was pretty easy thanks to the magic of the internet. I checked out some real live books from my school's library for the first time ever. Two of my sources are unfortunately in Spanish, so I can't verify if they support the author's assertions, but I am told that someone fluent in Spanish is going to do it. Actually, I was able to verify one of those sources by using Google Translate -- artificial translators are actually getting pretty good these days! But someone else will officially confirm the original.

The hardest part has been pin-citing each footnote that quotes each source. I only have about 10 sources, but some of them are quoted in 50 footnotes, and sometimes those footnotes do not give specific pages on which the support is to be found, so I have to find it myself. Here is where Google comes to the rescue again with Google Books. Not everything is on there (yet), but luckily two of my sources which the author cited copiously were text searchable on GBooks. The biggest problem is where the author cites a 10-20 page range that is support for his assertion. I'm supposed to go in and highlight and label the support, but what do you do in that situation? I've been skimming to make sure the pages generally talk about what he's talking about and then move on with my life.

After hours and hours of work (probably between 20 and 30), I have finally highlighted all my sources. All I have to do is enter the changes to the citation format on the computer in the law review office. Only problem is those four computers are always full of other LR students doing the same damn thing. They have some ethernet ports available in the office, and I googled a video to help me figure out how I can connect to their network using my own laptop (haven't had to use ethernet since about 2004, and that was on a PC). That way I can work whenever the hell I want to work. It's better not to have to use a foreign machine anyway. I hate having to work with other people's default settings and without my shortcuts. Wastes so much time just figuring out how stuff is oriented. Maybe I can get that crap done tomorrow.

Anyway. After this part is done, I guess things should go easier as we move into other phases that are more about editing than source-checking. All I can say is it's fucking bullshit that they only give you 2 credit hours for a whole year of law review, with all the damn work you put in. I said I wasn't going to complain about it, because I got so fucking sick of hearing my friends complain about "stupid law review" last year. But what can I say? It really is a royal pain. I cannot fathom why people out there in the legal realm are so impressed with this credential. Maybe because it proves you are willing to be a little workhorse bitch. Whatever.

So classes: I think they are probably going to be alright (for law school classes). The subjects are all bar subjects. Things like wills / trusts, criminal law, income tax, and secured transactions (fancy talk for when you put up personal assets to secure a debt). Those are all pretty dry subjects, but happily, at least three of the four professors teaching them are very engaging. The fourth... I need to see her in action a few more times to be sure, but she will probably be fine. I actually have a fifth class only once a week, and tomorrow is my first session. It's a class on cyber-crime (internet fraud, child porn, online copyright & trademark infringement, online trade secret misappropriation, hacking -- things like that). It will be taught by a USDOJ guy who I heard give a presentation earlier this year. I liked his presentation, so hopefully I will like his class. This is my one "fun" class. I am slightly concerned because it's a seminar: worth fewer credits, but always seeming to have more work than a regular 3 or 4 credit hour class. But I'm pretty much all in if I want to both graduate on time AND have an easier load next semester.

This morning I woke up drenched in sweat, changed my clothes, went back to bed, and then hours later woke up drenched in sweat again. I guess that could be an indicator of stress. I also wonder if it might not be a reaction to the change in weather. In 2004 when I went to Kiel Germany on study abroad, my first week there I woke up drenched in sweat in the middle of every night. Needless to say I had a lot of laundry after that first week. I remember talking to a friend there who was experiencing the same thing. Maybe it was the weather, maybe we were both stressing. Who knows?

Anyway, it's gonna be a hell of a semester.

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Lactose intolerance!*

noreply@blogger.com (Sra) — Thu, 25 Aug 2011 21:14:00 +0000

*The title of this post should be read as Meg Ryan's voice in the movie French Kiss.

So it turns out I have developed an intolerance to lactose. This is highly inconvenient for me because many of my favorite foods involve milk or milk products. Coffee and tea -- staples of my diet -- are not complete without milk. Cereal, cheese, yogurt, and butter have been on my daily ingestion list for as long as I can remember.

Ever since I identified my unknown food intolerance as being linked to ingestion of milk products, I have been making an effort to reduce my milk consumption, but I find no day's meals complete without it. I have been taking lactase enzyme supplements to aid in my body's digestion of lactose, and they do help, but they do not completely solve my problem.

Yesterday I tried my very first soy latte. My first sip was a little off-putting. This was not what I expect my latte to taste like. It was sort of nutty and sweet and the texture was a little thicker than I am accustomed to. The taste of the soy milk was stronger than the taste of the espresso. But as I kept sipping, the taste began to grow on me, and by the end of the cup I may or may not have removed my lid so as to lick the frothy foam within. I can't really say I have made a practice of doing that with regular lattes. So in the end I think it may be an acceptable substitution. I hesitate to put soy milk on my cereal, though. It just doesn't seem right.

I have heard that lactose-free milk exists. I'm going to look for it, but I suspect it might be (a) hard to find and (b) prohibitively expensive. Things are always more expensive when they take stuff out, for some reason.

Meanwhile, I will be chomping on chalky enzyme tablets and trying to figure out what kinds of foods I can put into my food staples list that do not involve large amounts of lactose.

I need to find a good substitute for yogurt. I mean, I can't live without yogurt. I am just too passionate about it. It completes me.

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Chopped all my hair off again

noreply@blogger.com (Sra) — Fri, 05 Aug 2011 20:51:00 +0000

Just felt like time. What a damn goofy grin on that last frame.

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Tell us how you really feel

noreply@blogger.com (Sra) — Mon, 18 Jul 2011 05:49:00 +0000

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Two Points

noreply@blogger.com (Sra) — Thu, 14 Jul 2011 05:05:00 +0000

(1) Yesterday one of my old longtime roommates texted me out of the blue because she and her boyfriend were driving through Portland on the way home from Canada. So I went downtown and met them for lunch. It was quite nice to chat since I haven't actually seen or really talked to this friend in maybe a couple years. Sometimes time just spins away from you as far as old friends are concerned. But it's nice when you get to reconnect with someone that you genuinely like, and have only neglected because you now live in far away places having new adventures. It was not an awkward meeting the way meetings with long-unseen people can be. Instead it was a delightful visit very much like how our interactions always used to be when we lived in the same apartment, and that makes me glad. I do love the chance to hang out with old friends who come through this town. And Portland is a very come-through-able town indeed. Mostly, though, I just wish all my old friends would move here, because I'm self-centered like that.

(2) I have been accepted to join the law review at my school for next year. I went ahead and participated in the write-on competition to try to get a staff position. I don't remember if I mentioned on this blog that I would be participating or not. Might have kept it to myself in the chance that I would be embarrassingly rejected. But, nope, they like me. So I will join their elitist ranks and have another line for my resume. I think there's a chance I might like doing it too. We'll see. At least this means I will have enough credits to drop a class next Spring semester. Huzzah!

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Not Alienating People 101

noreply@blogger.com (Sra) — Sat, 02 Jul 2011 06:22:00 +0000

Here's how it is, people. If you say you are going to do something, you do it. If you don't know if you can do something, you don't say you are going to do it. Backing out because you got a better offer is not cool. Backing out at the very last minute is ultra not cool. Backing out because you have a very good reason is fine, but there is a very limited set of very good reasons comprised mainly of unforeseen emergencies. That's all there is to it. It really isn't complicated.

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New Experiences

noreply@blogger.com (Sra) — Sat, 02 Jul 2011 00:42:00 +0000

Seattle. Last weekend, Ian and I drove up to Seattle to catch a Mariner's game with my buddy Sov, who flew up to meet us from Salt Lake. The drive to Seattle from Portland takes almost exactly three hours if traffic is unimpeded, and it was. That is, right up until we actually reached the city. Then, due to one of those annoying city races where they close down city streets, we had to detour in nearly stand-still traffic for an hour until we could finally find a parking lot that would take cars all day. (Lots of parking lots in Seattle seem to have a 1-2 hour limit for some reason. That makes sense for roadside parking, but I don't get it in parking lots.) Once we finally ditched the car, we met up with Sov near the two enormous stadiums in the southern end of the city. I was pleased to notice a restaurant in that neighborhood called Berliner Döner Kebab. Next time I am in Seattle, I will be sure to check it out to see how it stacks up to my own local Döner shop. We then toured Seattle mostly on foot, but also on bus and monorail. I think Seattle is a really fun town to play tourist in, but I think that's also one of its main drawbacks as far as livability goes. So many damn tourists everywhere. Portland gets tourists, but not nearly to that extent. After we tired ourselves out seeing the sights, we headed back to the stadium for our baseball game. The Mariners lost to the Marlins 2-6, but it was a very action-packed game, which is really all I ever want out of a ball game. (I am known to applaud either team for making a good play -- don't care if it's "my" team or not.) I had a good trip, and it was great to see Sov. Next time I'm taking the train to Seattle, since it stops mere blocks from the stadium.

Last Thursday. I guess it's probably strange that I've lived in Portland for two years but only just attended my first "Last Thursday" yesternight. Last Thursday is kind of like a thing Salt Lake has called Gallery Stroll, where all the local art galleries open their shops with wine and cheese for foot-touring. But Last Thursday is Gallery Stroll times about a thousand. It takes place up on NE Alberta Street -- kind of a cool little strip of coffee shops, bars, boutiques, and food shops. The street is closed down to automobile traffic, the businesses and local artists put out their wares, crazy people juggle fire, and musicians good and bad release their music into the atmosphere. It's a cool thing, but it is very well attended, which makes Last Thursday a little beyond my comfort level. You don't feel like you can linger too long in any place because there are so many people moving about like cattle, and you feel like you have to join the flow. The only time in my life when I felt more crowded was when I went to Bumbershoot music festival and literally could not move without touching somebody. I could move without touching people at Last Thursday, but inevitably some people were touched, and that is something that I don't really like. Touching people, I mean. I'm not a touchy person. I like my space. Space is a definite issue at Last Thursday. But it was cool to do once. I think I'd be happy to hang out in NE Alberta on any other day, which is saying something, because it's on the dreaded east side of the river (which I don't really like going to in general). And the affair kind of reminded me of one of my old roommates, so that was nice.

Top 25%. Well, it's official: I have made it into the top 25% of my law school class. (I am number 62 out of 258, which is technically the top 24%.) Now I have a new goal: top 20%. Not sure if I can make it by the time school ends, but I'll give it a shot.

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The joys of summer

noreply@blogger.com (Sra) — Thu, 16 Jun 2011 05:10:00 +0000

Summer is so lovely this year. Last summer was much less relaxing and much less engaging than this summer.

Last summer I was working full time (and for free -- no, scratch that, I was paying for the privilege to work because I got school credit). This summer I am working part time for pay.

Last summer I had to get up super ass early and walk 20 minutes to my bus stop (after having spent half an hour getting ready) so that I could arrive at the office before 8:30. This summer I snooze my alarm from 8:00-9:30-ish, roll out of bed, check my email for 5 minutes, then clock in to my job at home, and if for some reason I can't work in the morning, I can work at night and it makes no difference.

Last summer I researched a few interesting things, like music licensing and the intersection between IP law and bankruptcy law, but most of the time my work was very tedious and boring. This summer most of my work is interesting: I get to work on copyright and trademark cases, draft actual response letters to opposing counsel, research interesting legal questions, and familiarize myself with some litigation filings. Only some of my work is mindless data entry, but even that is ok because I can listen to my music while doing it, or have TV on in the background.

So basically I am very happy doing what I'm doing this summer. I am learning a lot of really interesting things that I actually really like learning about. I think this area of law is definitely for me. I hope I get to keep doing this through next year.

Exciting bits of news:

My last outstanding grade is in: A- in tech licensing

I have been accepted to my school's small business legal clinic for next spring

In 1.5 weeks Ian and I are driving up to Seattle for a Mariner's game, and my best friend Sov is flying up to join us!

I got tickets to see CAKE this August; haven't been this excited for a show in a long time.

Happy early solstice to y'all.

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It pays to be a 2L

noreply@blogger.com (Sra) — Fri, 27 May 2011 18:50:00 +0000

I have already received all but one of my grades. Actually, I received these grades a week ago, which was a mere week after finishing my last final. Apparently the turn-around is much quicker in the second year, because you end up taking classes with a bunch of graduating 3Ls who need their grades STAT. So I got mine stat too. Here are the results:

Ethics	B
Copyright	B
Business Associations	B+
Constitutional Law II	A
Trademarks	A+
Tech Licensing	awaiting

Check that out! I received my first (and probably only) A+ in a law school class. I am quite pleased with that. I feel only slightly bad for whoever had to suffer a C at the expense of my A+.

I am also very pleased with my A in Con Law. I left that test feeling like I had slayed it, so I'm glad the result mirrors my impression.

The B+ in BA is also noteworthy, because I didn't have a chance to finish that exam and worried that it would probably be a C of some kind. Shows you how much the curve matters.

Of course, I am always satisfied with Bs in any law school course, so I feel fine about Copyright and Ethics too.

Altogether it was a very good semester for me. I think the Tech Licensing paper should be good for at least a B, but I tend to do well on papers, so maybe it will turn out better. Maybe this semester will be good enough to bump me up into the top 25% at last.

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Tired and Hired

noreply@blogger.com (Sra) — Sat, 14 May 2011 23:20:00 +0000

I took my last of five final exams last night, and am now officially done with my second year of law school. Next year, I am going to do everything in my power to make sure I don't have five finals in one semester ever again. It was most unpleasant. I think four is the max you feel like you can handle over a two week period. The most challenging thing was that my last two finals were on consecutive days. Normally, exams are well-spaced with at least a day but often two or even three between each exam, so you have plenty of time to purge the old material from your brain and reload with new. But I couldn't do that for those last two exams. Altogether, I feel like three of the five will probably go pretty well, but I don't feel as good about the other two. At this point I am beyond caring, and besides, your feelings about an exam often don't sync up with reality.

In other news, I got a summer job! The small firm that does copyright work finally got around to interviewing me, and they offered me the position. I am going in on Monday to get my computer set up and talk out details, but I will be able to work remotely, which is great. Coffee shop office, here I come! The work is part time, too, so I should be able to get a little down-time in this summer. That will be most welcome. I'm hoping I will learn a lot in this job and also that maybe it will work out so that I can keep doing it through next year. And maybe even if we like each other they would see fit to hire me after school. We'll just see how it goes. Maybe it won't be all that, but at least it's a load off my mind to have some employment.

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Nervous and Excited

noreply@blogger.com (Sra) — Tue, 03 May 2011 22:03:00 +0000

I have two job interviews tomorrow, and am both nervous and excited.

I will let y'all know if I become gainfully employed as a result.

Fingers crossed.

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Kind of a random collection of reports and thoughts.

noreply@blogger.com (Sra) — Fri, 22 Apr 2011 07:28:00 +0000

Classes are almost over for the semester. I have one more full day of classes next Monday, but then it's reading period for a week until finals begin. I have 5 exams again this term, but I feel less stressed about it. I'm not sure if that's good or bad. Maybe high stress yields good exam performance? We'll see.

A lot of my classmates are worrying about our business associations final (that class deals with things like the governing of various business entities, such as general partnerships, limited liability partnerships, limited liability companies, and closely-held [non-public] corporations). It's a statutory class, which is why I think a lot of people are worried. They tend to be a little harder, I think, because not only do you have a written code that is technically the law, but you also have cases that may interpret and apply that code differently, so the state of the law can be more complex than in areas that are mainly case-law driven, even though you would think areas of law that aren't written down in a code would be more complicated. But my sales class last semester, which was also a code course, was much harder, so I'm not really feeling the same sense of urgency about business associations. That may or may not backfire on me.

As for my summer job search, I sent off a couple more applications but have not heard anything on them. I also sent a nudge to the small firm that would have me doing copyright issues part time, and they actually said they are still interested in filling the law clerk position, and again said they would get back to me on interviewing. It sounds like they are uber-busy with their recent firm move, which I can understand. It does make me feel better to think that might still be on the table. It seems like it would be a good job for me.

Now let's talk about some non-law school things: TV, for instance. Recently, I have been watching some old TV series on Netflix (which, at $10 a month and commercial-free, seems to be a much better deal than cable or satellite), and I'm a little bit startled that people who used to look old to me now look like contemporaries, more or less. For instance, I just began watching Ally McBeal, a show that I saw a few episodes of back in high school, but never really followed. Back then (10 years ago now, imagine that), all the characters on the show looked so old to me. Now, most of them actually look not much older than myself and the people I go to school with. In fact... ok, no. I suspected that Calista Flockhart may have been about my age when the show began, but I just googled it, and it seems she was 33 then, so she had 5 years on me. But considering her character's position as a relatively new lawyer, I guess that figure is not too far off from where I might hope to be career-wise in 5 years. I guess it kind of freaks me out a bit. What really freaks me out is realizing that I am presently older than Gillian Anderson was when she first played Scully on the X-Files. She always seemed like such an adult to me, such a professional, when I was in junior high and high school. Now I'm as old as she was when she had been playing Scully for 3 or 4 years, and that just doesn't seem right. It is weird how TV characters have a kind of immortality, though. They will always be the age that they were on the show, even 10 or 20 years later. The rest of us do not get that luxury.

You know what I think's maybe the saddest thing about life? You never really arrive. You are always striving for the carrot at the end of the stick that will always be out of reach, no matter where you are. There was a time when I thought that was the whole point of life: to continue reaching for things, for personal betterment. But I think what it really means is that we will never be satisfied. And that, to me, is sad.

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somnabul

noreply@blogger.com (Sra) — Tue, 05 Apr 2011 09:41:00 +0000

Sometimes I feel too stressed to go to sleep. My bed time has been very late this semester anyway, averaging about 3:AM, I'd say. It's been as bad as 4:30. Right now it's about 2:30, and I surely could have comfortably gone to bed a couple hours ago, but I find myself feeling like everything will move too fast if I go to bed, and I can delay the things that stress me out by staying up. Of course I know that is not the right way to handle things. The right way is to go directly to bed, get plenty of rest, and tackle my issues head on in the morning with a fresh mind. Instead I allow myself to get paralyzed and I am perpetuating my stress by putting myself into a zombie mental state and not allowing myself to just let go of the things that cannot be handled tonight anyway.

It's that time of the semester: finals loom in four weeks, paper due in two weeks, annoying in-class negotiation of a license agreement in 1 week, daily reading ever present, pressure to find summer gig constant.

Additionally, some of Ian's family is coming for a visit this week. Feeling pressure to entertain. Visits during semester not easy for me, stress-wise. Feel at cross-purposes.

As to summer gig: the small business legal clinic that I applied for contacted me to say they have cancelled the summer session, but I can have my application considered for fall or spring semester. That would be fine, but it would mean less flexibility in being able to decide my schedule next year. I will still apply, and if I get into that, it would make me feel better in the case that I don't get a summer gig, which is looking more and more likely as time goes on. There was one possible gig that looked like it would have been pretty perfect: 20 hours per week working on copyright cases for small firm. But the position was not for-sure yet, and the guy said he'd contact me last week to set up an interview, but he didn't, so I'm thinking the position is cancelled, or they just don't want me and can't find the cajones to say so. Starting to feel like I may end up just taking classes this summer, in which case I need to register before they are all full up. Don't really want to do that, but not sure if I'm gonna get lucky this summer.

Sometimes I really wonder what the hell I'm doing.

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WYSIWYG

noreply@blogger.com (Sra) — Thu, 17 Mar 2011 07:38:00 +0000

I think about my grandfather a lot now that I'm in law school. My grandfather's life was replete with the law: he was an FBI agent, an attorney, and ultimately a judge in the Utah state court system. He died shortly before I graduated college, before I even considered that going to law school would be a viable option for me. I wonder sometimes what it would be like if he were alive now. I know he would be tickled pink that I came to law school, and he would boast of it proudly to his bridge group and golfing companions. He would smile and chuckle to himself and say, "My granddaughter's going through law school."

I wonder what he would think if he knew how often I felt scared and incompetent and unsure of my chosen future profession. I wonder if he ever felt the same things when he went through law school. Somehow, from what I know of him, I don't think he would have felt as much self-doubt as I do, if indeed he were familiar with the concept at all. His mind was so analytical, so impassioned for learning, and I think maybe the instances of not knowing would have seemed an adventure to him, just another puzzle to unravel with his brilliant mind.

Of course, usually there is another side to the coin -- a private face behind every public facade that the world does not often get to see. Sometimes, in fact, when we see glimpses of that private face, we are horrified, because we realize that those whom we idolized in gold are really mere humans bespeckled with flecks of tarnish like the rest of us. That's probably true of everyone. But I think if it were ever not true of someone, it would have been not true of my grandfather. He seemed to be a WYSIWYG -- a what-you-see-is-what-you-get kind of man. It comforts me to hold on to that, whether or not it is true.

He wrote an autobiography, which I read when I was in the 9th grade. I partially re-read it a couple years ago when I began to digitize it and work on editing it -- a project I have never completed, but may finish some day. There's a story in the book that sticks in my mind: at one point, when my grandfather was a green Fibbie out in the field, he managed to leave his firearm in a public restroom and drive 20 or 30 minutes away before realizing what he had done. This was it for him, he thought. He would be in so much trouble if that gun wasn't there when he went back to look for it. He would certainly lose his job. By some great strike of fortune that my grandfather always seemed to have on his side, the gun was still in the stall where he left it when he finally made it back to the restroom. The way he must have felt during that 20 or 30 minute drive back to the restroom is probably similar to how I sometimes feel in law school -- like my career is about to go down the toilet before it has even had a chance to begin. So I think about things like that and it makes me feel like maybe I can get through it all by some lucky strike of fortune too. Maybe I can learn to overcome my self-doubt, or else cover it in a nice shiny facade of gleaming golden self-confidence.

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Points of interest

noreply@blogger.com (Sra) — Mon, 14 Mar 2011 09:32:00 +0000

(1) Coffee. There is now another (sort of) late-night coffee shop in my Portland universe: Bella's Garage, a cute little coffee shop close-ish to my school (25 minute walk). It stays open until 10:PM 6 nights a week, which is not too shabby. Midnight would be better, but I will take what I can get, and this place is closer to my house and not as crowded as Ava Roasteria. Bella's happens to make a delicious chai latte -- it rivals Peet's in tastiness. As a bonus, apparently Bella's has belly dancing on Fridays, which is nice because I used to enjoy watching belly dancing at the Grecian Gardens in Salt Lake before that joint sadly close-up shop.

(2) Kindle. I broke down and got myself a Kindle. I kind of love it. I really do like the electronic ink technology that makes the screen look like paper (Ian says this is technology that has existed in PDA land for years -- but who cares? When was the last time you saw anyone using a PDA? Mid-90's, right?). The Kindle takes PDFs and TXT files just fine, and I guess if you want to load up a Word document without going through the minor inconvenience of resaving the file as a TXT, you can email the document to your Amazon account, and Amazon will deliver the doc to your Kindle reformatted in Kindle format. Pretty cool.

(3) Behind. I am ridiculously behind on my reading for school now. Luckily I have just one more week of classes until Spring Break. I'll be able to use Spring Break to catch up, even though there are other things I'd rather do. I guess this signals the beginning of the time of the semester when I'm supposed to start freaking out about how finals are almost a month away. Meh. I'm not too concerned yet, and I'd rather relish that relaxation.

(4) Friends. The making of friendships is going easier for me this semester. I have never really been good at doing the friend thing. For one thing, I am very independent and introverted, and sometimes I get exhausted by sociality, which wants much interdependence and extroversion. I have had plenty of friends in my life, but they are almost always a result of circumstance. Maybe we happened to grow up on the same street, or maybe we happened to live together in college, so we were friends because of that. Not that that should cheapen the relationship at all: I consider all those friendships true, and still think on them fondly. But to be someone's friend because you like them enough to seek them out even if circumstance does not afford the convenience is something else. Since coming to Portland, I have made basically one good friend, a handful of minor friends, and a number of acquaintances. I think things are starting to expand now so that I might be able to shift the numbers in those categories. So maybe my solipsism that I both cherish and lament is fading a bit.

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Late Night Coffee Shop Procured

noreply@blogger.com (Sra) — Sat, 05 Mar 2011 09:52:00 +0000

I wrote recently about various things I miss about Salt Lake City, one of the most important of those being late night coffee shops. In Salt Lake, I had my pick of several regular late night joints, each staying open between midnight and 2:AM. Surprisingly, Portland is lacking in that scene; most shops here close around 7: or 8:PM. But I am pleased to report that I have located one 24 hour (!) coffee shop not horribly far from where I live (10-15 minute drive). It is technically in Beaverton, which is to Portland like Sandy is to Salt Lake.

The place is called Ava Roasteria (warning, annoying Flash site complete with unwelcome musical onslaught if you click that link). The place reminds me a lot of the love child you would have if the Salt Lake Roasting Co. and Coffee Connection got their grind on and produced a fine brew: it's got the cozy atmosphere of Coffee Connection, with arty decor, hip lighting, and similar-feeling just-this-side-of-the-tracks neighborhood, but it's got the delectable-looking cakes and other treats of Roasting Co. We have gone to Ava twice now, both times on a Friday, once after 11:PM, and tonight after 9:PM. Both times there was literally nowhere to sit, unless you wanted to brave the drizzly and not yet warm enough patio air. We may have to try going earlier in the evening, or maybe not on a Friday. But one of these days, rest assured, we shall get a seat!

What does this seatlessness tell us about coffee? People want to drink it at night! There's a market for it. With the amount of foot traffic going in there at such nightly hours, they could easily sit twice as many tables in there, I'm confident. Can you hear me, Portland? Bring the nocturnal coffee shops! If Salt Lake (land of the coffee-eschewing religious persuasion) can rock the coffee shop scene, surely Portland (supposedly having a reputation for fine coffee) can own a little of that scene too.

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