Previously Unpublished

This pretty much made my night: Rob Lowe, Emily Procter, and a significant number of other alumnus from The West Wing are returning for the end of the show’s run come finals time (I mean May).

I think now I can safely say that I have not liked a television show more than TWW, ever. There are lots of shows I’ve really liked, but I don’t think as much and for so many different reasons. Although I personally don’t think it’s diminished particularly in the time since Aaron Sorkin left, many have felt a slight drop-off in the writing. Well either way, it looks like they are going to pull a lot of old threads together in a way that is very hard to do with so many good actors with different schedules, to make the show realistic (since in real life people don’t just disappear without ever being heard from again).

So it will be great to see Sam and Ainsley and Amy again. When I want to nail a meeting or an interview, I imagine Sam dominating a Supreme Court short-lister (and when I want to imagine fumbling interaction with women I think of Josh and always studying in school and so never learning to read the signs). When I think of Ainsley I think that it might be possible to date someone of a different political ideology after all. Finally, when I think of Amy, I think about half the girls I’ve attempted to date, because I guess I like that sort of confident swagger (though really, can anyone compete with Donna?)

Anyway, clearly I align my life up to an imaginary TWW world way too much. However, regardless, it’s cool that this show is going to go out with a bang, unlike the vast majority of shows that just sort of die. I mean how much better can you get for orchestrating an ending sequence?

-jd

I just got my first real interview offer! (The JAG offices don’t count because those are only informational). This is ironic since finally I can only assume all these horrendously time consuming extra-curriculars are paying off and yet I just finished pulling my third all-nighter of the semester just to try and keep pace.

I’d really like to intern in this office too (no, it’s not a paying job, but a during-school intern deal, although it’s one of my favorite subjects in the law).

-jd

Eh, so I lost my oral argument tonight. As much as at first it was just a class and then it was a chaotic undertaking and a little nerve racking, I sort of wish I had gotten through maybe one more round of competition. There’s something about the adrenaline rush that’s cool. The only thing I have left now is a negotiations tournament and possibly the ATLA tournament. I have a chance to do well in negotiations since I placed last time, but I’ve never done a trial all the way through, so I’m skeptical as to how far I’d get considering in that I have experience in moot court and still didn’t get very far in the “playoff” rounds.

I think despite all the extra work and the inevitable complaining, in law school, it is worth the extra time to compete a little bit as long as it doesn’t debilitate you to imagine arguing in front of a judge. It is not too likely that I’ll end up as a litigator - possible - but I’m headed more towards transactions right now, so I might never get a chance to do this type of thing again. If someone asked right now, I would definately say I’ll do this again next year, even if I’m supposed to be relaxing for the Bar. I could do better.

Some annoyances/mistakes that I don’t want to forget:

1. I’ve gotten better at slowing down, but got nailed this time since I got caught up in the first, procedural issue and then had to catch up to get through the main part of the argument. It was one of my old professors from 1L too.
2. I was also much better at fixing my problems from the Fall competition in two respects: I laid out an outline and stuck to it, and I was more confident overall and didn’t get so damn nervous.
3. However, this led to bad transitioning since I still don’t know how to nuance the judges away from questions that are hampering me down, like tonight. Finally I basically apologized for not conveying my thoughts correctly after I attacked a question from all three analogies I had come up with.
4. I didn’t organize strategically. If someone gets nailed in your favor, don’t mention it again and draw fire to yourself. It you have a losing issue, even if it is procedural, don’t bring it up first. Also don’t take on your hardest argument first since it might cost you the chance to talk about you best arguments.
5. I had a great finish. Championship type finish. Olympian if you will, but it was to recover from staggering blows the first 2/3 of the argument. Everyone knew I got beat up then. I was close though, even though my competitor was very good, I know it was not impossible for me to also move on since it wasn’t one-on-one elimination, just the best two out of four in front of the judges.

So anyway, I wish my opponent luck since she used to be my sectionmate and she is smart, and just like in baseball, if the Cardinals lose to the Astros, then I will then support the team that beat my team. It just seems like what you should do.

I can’t wait till the final round Friday, it should be great.

-jd

Well, I still have no idea how I came out tonight at the competition. I went right home after my round.

However, the results of my first fantasy draft of the season for the Law Blawger’s League just came in and I am pretty happy. My pitching is easily second to none. Mark Mulder is probably my 4th best starter. I got Willis, Oswalt, and Santana, the latter two returning stars for me from the past two victorious campaigns. I also have great fielders, since that is a category that is new to me. My only concerns are speed and average. Only one of my guys last year had above a .300 average. So I guess what that means is that one of my starters is on the block.

Well, time to get back to my vast and ongoing project of organizing paper.

-jd

I forgot that the Law Blawger’s League was having its baseball fantasy draft today. I haphazardly set a draft order (since it’s automatic) a couple weeks ago. It was supposed to run at noon but with all the chaos, I forgot. I wasn’t even checking blogs (so you know I was busy) this weekend, and thus missed a reminder. Dang nabbit (as my mom often says). Well, the draft didn’t start yet, so I quickly re-aligned some of my rankings. However, usually I’m very methodical in this process, I’m convinced it’s what brings you championships.

Oh well, I guess we’ll see how this turns out then. It’ll be a nice surprise when I get back from court, it’s always fun to start planning around your teams strengths and weaknesses.

Ah yes, fantasy baseball. Because I still need to graduate law school before I can run a real big league club of my own.

*Crossing fingers* Come on number 1 (we don’t know yet who goes first, and I’ve coveted this player since I accidentally got him a couple years back before he really made it big, and I haven’t been able to get him back since for obvious reasons).

-jd

Where have I been the last few days? In crazyland.

I lucked into advancing to the single-elimination rounds of the moot court competition. Don’t get me wrong, I’m honored, but it was really unexpected, the class commitment of two nights of preliminary rounds is over and I didn’t particularly expect to advance and so now other stuff is going on that overlaps with competition prep (Please see: not bragging, just pointing out the irony of going out to dinner because you think you’re done with a class and then jinxing yourself by advancing). I basically planned to be free today to finally start catching up and going to other classes since this class was over on Friday.

But I do like moot court and going to the courthouse, so I guess I’ll just have fun making up outlandish analogies for the judges - it is good experience since I’m not nearly as nervous as I was last year or even last fall. Of course I wasn’t advancing to compete against harder opponents those times either. Plus now I’m a bit nervous which is a result of not sleeping almost at all last night and the fact that it sort of does mean something now to try hard whereas before, it was just a mandatory thing to show up and so it wasn’t really something to get nervous about because everyone was there.

Anyway, the chaos part is that the not sleeping was not from worrying about the competition or anything, it was for another project that needs to be done ASAP - I’ve worked on it a week straight in between court appearances - the volume of work is staggering! Last week was supposed to be the hard week and now it was all well-paced for some steady, but relaxing time going into finals. I have spent every weekend of the semester so far in the library and I haven’t gone out once! Well, it’s law school, but still…you need something of a breather. I can’t even make it to band practice for the small enjoyment of beers afterwards. Granted hopefully all this work will pay off in the form of a job offer…but it’s amazing to know what it really takes to make yourself look competative.

I guess I could have gone the “easy” route and just gotten stellar grades during 1L. In the end, I do sort of like this mad dash to get things done. I certainly don’t feel like I’m wasting time. I don’t even have the urge to blog. There’s just no time! I have finally conquered the feeling of wasting away Saturdays (See: post made earlier). I think I can see why some people become workaholics: it just never stops, because I’m certain working in a firm will be at least as busy as I am now.

Welcome to crazyland! Oddly, I’m not upset, strangely just complacent. I am mainly doing this post just as a factual update. If I had the time, I really enjoy doing oral arguments and my other projects. What does that mean? (I know I still like beer, and girls, and the company of friends…but somehow I can abstain too where I guess I couldn’t before without getting restless).

-jd

As I’ve said all along, law school is like a crazy drug. You never know what you are really feeling or why, it’s such an unusual experience. Dangerous and seductive all at once. Alright, that’s all.

Drew just slung her “boob” over her shoulder and made quite the graceful exit from a cameo on SNL’s Weekend Update of which I was forwarded a clip this morning. It was awesome. I have never seen someone sling their tits as it were or make such an audacious stage left (not dirty, but rather a very nuanced Beaches reference-yes ladies, I’m smart, handsome and sensitive).

To explain, they were making fun of her breasts’ appearance at the Golden Globes and she came on stage with an outfit sporting what could only be some beyond-alphabetical or larger fake breasts. Anyway, I still find SNL to be out-there funny sometimes. I understand others don’t get it or find it funny anymore and I’ll admit that a lot of stuff is pretty lame (Bear Country?). However, I just assume that they’re all doing this stuff as personal inside jokes, or at least that’s how it feels. So I just pretend I’m in on the jokes. Also forwarded from apparently the same night: the Chuck Norris tribute song and the incomparable Darrell Hammond.

-jd

And the dessert cart rolled on.

This blog is listless. I’m not sure quite how to correct it yet, but I think to be an effective public forum and exposition, something must change.

More concise entries perhaps.

Possibly less rambling.

Less pontification about parking.

More wit and sarcasm.

Much less discussion of grades and classes and logistics.

The problem is there are a lot of blogs out there that interest me, but as long as this blog stays only semi-anonymous, it’s hard to get really outlandish. Plus there are already a lot of blogs that do things I’d be interested in doing.

So yeah, listless. Maybe once law school becomes less hectic, I’ll lively things up a bit. Pictures, hypotheticals, quotes from the deviant and sexual legal underworld. I mean obviously this blog should be the focal point of everybody and anything reading it (I get this weird signature for one of the page hit trackers - I can only assume it’s a hit from outer space. Clearly).

-jd

Moot court was okay too. The girl I was against in the second round finished with five minutes to spare, forcing me to scramble for my rebuttal. It was fun.

Again. See below.

Moot court is tonight. I’m excited (Mainly because one class is almost over). I know I can talk for 15 minutes on either side (Which is good because we have to argue once for each side tonight). Rinse, repeat tomorrow.

I also have a paper prospectus due tomorrow. Maybe the judges can help out on that during the critique segment of our evening.

-jd

Parking in IRAC (Catchy title, no? It could also be the name of a very artsy, quasi-documentary independent film).

Issue: Should the school be allowed to cordon off a whole level of the parking structure, unannounced except on the day-of in the form of a hapless parking officer bleakly shaking her head, “no,” as students approach the whole open deck level of the parking structure?

Rule: If a student pays for a commuter parking pass, there should be commuter parking spaces somewhere on campus, not cordoned off for visitors.

Analysis: Students should not be expected to have to be on campus two hours early to secure any parking whatsoever. You may not get premium parking in the law school lot, but you should be able to get some parking. The west parking structure on the opposite side of campus and serviced by a shuttle is not a viable option because it would take at least 20 mintes walking to park on that side of campus and then get to class. If you wait for the shuttle it takes longer because they only come around every 15 minutes and they make a hundred stops along the way. Moreover, when departing class, the student will agian have to journey back to the west parking structure. In the worst case scenario, this will happen only to exchange books and start the process over again. For students with jobs or other off-campus committments, it is not feasible to have to park off campus or on the opposite side of campus, or to arrive hours before class starts. The price paid for a parking spot is not merely the price paid for the pass, but also the price paid for the very expensive legal classes themselves and the experience and knowledge of our professors which will be invaluable to us in the future.

Conclusion: Students paid for commuter parking at the school and they should not have to spontaneously park off campus when all the commuter spots are taken up because of some random university event.

Voila. I meant for that to be a one line complaint because, well this issue comes up every week. However, I thought using IRAC would be a creative way of addressing the issue in a blog entry. Don’t worry, I’m not all about simply complaining. The next issue of the school newspaper will have my grand proposal for a solution to the parking problem.

-jd