Picking 2nd Yr Classes

is quite an ordeal. Two big questions:

1. Do I pick classes that will be on the Bar exam? OR
2. Do I pick classes that I'll enjoy?

Professors will tell you to take classes that you enjoy since you pay all this tuition for them but most students tell you to take a healthy dose of classes that will be on the Bar. Barbri classes teach the substantive matter during their review classes (summer before the Bar) but it gets very rough trying to learn too many new subjects. I'll be taking majority of the Bar classes my 2nd year then those I enjoy, my 3rd year. That's the easy part.

The hard part is getting into those classes before they fill up. Rising 3L's get to pick their classes one week before we do (starting tomorrow at 8pm) and we get to pick starting next Thursday at 8pm. Imagine 230 students, at 7:59pm, with their fingers poised atop their keyboards ready to madly type in call #s trying to get into an Evidence class that has only 6o seats. Vicious! We also have to take an Appellate Advocacy class this fall which I hear is a beast. It's true what they say: 1st year: they scare you to death; 2nd year: they work you to death; 3rd year: they bore you to death.

Barrister Ball

was tonight at Confluence Park Restaurant. This is like a formal for law students where we get to dress up & go out for dinner & dance. I realized today how much I don't like hanging out with law students outside of the law school. The food was ok - I had prime rib which was served rare but they were nice enough to take it back & put it on the grill for a few more minutes. Dessert was outstanding & there were free well drinks. Dinner was generally nice. I made a few new friends who were all dates of the law students.

It was the after-dinner-part that was boring. The dance floor was way too small for 400+ people so folks were packed like sardines while the rest just stood around & watched. So unless you were drinking, there was really not much else to do unless you were willing to brave the dance floor crowd. I wasn't doing either so I left. I'm glad I experienced it but will not be making a repeat appearance next year!

Go Bucks! Kicked some Georgetown Hoyas' a$$. Final OSU v. Florida. Mon 4/2 CBS.

Update: Ohio State got beat.....yet again.....by Florida 84-75! Waahh....

Close but No Cigar!

Today I went to visit with my Civil Procedure prof from last semester about my exam. I'm thinking about taking him again for Civ Pro II this fall so I wanted to review my exam to help me decide. So I go into his office & he asks me for my exam number (our exams were anonymous) & when he looked it up, he told me that he had put a red circle around the number. "Why?" I asked. Because I had set a record......in his 22 years of teaching......for leaving the most objective (multiple choice) questions unanswered! 50 out of 150.

It was amazing to him because all the ones I had chosen to answer were all correct! Perfect score. So he told me to have confidence in myself. He could clearly tell I knew the material from my 'very good' essay & all my correct answers, so he could not figure out why I had not answered more questions. "Ummm.....negative points for wrong answers," I answered. "Well, you knew the stuff so you weren't completely guessing therefore, more likely than not, had you answered a few more, they'd have been right & you'd have gotten an "A". I don't mean to make you feel bad but I'm just telling you the truth. Be cofident in what you know," he answered.

Moral of the story: I'll be retaking him for Civ Pro II in the Fall.

Sanjaya Furor

Sanjaya is still alive & kicking after making it through tonight's elimination round. The only people to blame for this fiasco are the American Idol Judges (Randy, Paula, Simon) who allowed him to keep advancing in the rounds before America was ever able to vote for him.

So don't hate the singer, hate the judges.....for unleashing him & his hair on us, the unsuspecting public!

Update: 4/4/07. Sanjaya makes it through yet another round. His hits on Google have increased from 5 million last week to 6.27 million this week. Stop the madness America.....and India!

Update: 4/11/07. Not even in bottom 3. Was channelling an Antonio Banderas who hadn't shaved in 4 days.

Re-Correction

My legal writing prof is going off the rails. We have 2 writing assignments for the course; a memo & a trial brief. For both of these, you begin by writing a draft, which the prof corrects, and based on these corrections, you rewrite a final draft. So I turned in my memo draft, got feedback & made adjustments accordingly. Was very confident until I got back the results of the final draft. All the corrections he had asked me to make......& I did......had been re-corrected to what I had originally written! Huh?!

I was up until 4 am writing my trial brief draft which was due this morning at 8 am. When I get it back, I'm going to ignore all the corrections he makes & just resubmit my draft as my final submission. Then we'll see what corrections he's going to make.

Stood Up!

Got stood up today at my first ever business lunch! Students get no respect whatsoever. It was very annoying to get a cancellation voicemail just as I was stepping into the restaurant. Unless your office is right next door, you must know at least 30 minutes ahead of time you're not going to make it. Also got a text message asking me to eat in or take out anything on the menu & to put it on his tab (must be a regular)! What do you think I did?

Contracts Exam

Recap: 3hrs 40 minutes. 3 essay questions. 26 multiple choice questions. Closed book. Thought it was a very hard exam. My problem was the time alloted (Prof includes an extra 10 minutes for prayers!)

Essay I. 75 minutes. Was a 2-part exam with the first part dealing with preliminary negotiations & if one of the parties sued for breach what the result would be & why. Second part dealt with a contract being made after the preliminary negotiations. Problem was with performance so one party sued & the other countersued for breach. What result & why. There were so many issues it took me about 2 hours to complete the question instead of Prof-suggested 75 minutes.

Essay II. 45 minutes. Dealt with Seller's remedies. Agreement was for sale of sausages where the Buyer didn't cancel her order & refused to accept the goods. Sued for breach & the other party countersued to get the deposit back. I was hard-pressed for time so I didn't have ample time to look carefully at the UCC (which was provided by Prof) so I sort of did it from memory. Prof likes direct quotes but just didn't have time since I was compensating for the extra time I took in Essay I.

Essay III. 35 minutes. This was a policy question. We had to pick one of two questions. First one had to do with Emotional Distress damages & why it's difficult to get them under Contract law. Second one had to do with Parol Evidence Rule and Contract Interpretation & how the Courts want to move towards the strict Williston approach. Discuss how this is good/bad & which you prefer. I went with the 2nd one. Had plenty to write but again, had to rush to make it for multiple choice questions.

Multiple Choice: 1 hour. Ridiculous. There was a reason why he gave only 26 of them. These were the most complex multiple choice questions I've ever read. Probably half of them required damage calculations & the rest had fact patterns that you needed at least 3 minutes to understand(& this is pretty fast reading). And then all the choices given were plausible so it was just daunting. Didn't help any that I only had 45 minutes left when I began this section. The upside was that no negative points were being given for wrong anwers. So I ended up bubbling about 5 questions w/out reading because I ran out of time.

Totally stoked this class is over! I hated the Prof's teaching style altho' he did give us quite a few laughs. He never called on me the entire year so he gets brownie points for that too!

March Madness is here & my bracket is off to a rocky start. Four of my teams have lost so far - Texas Tech, Duke, Gonzaga & Georgia Tech. I have Ohio State losing to Tennessee in the round of Sweet 16 & Kansas Jayhawks winning it all.

Spring break is Mon 3/19-Fri 3/23. I have a brief due Mon 3/26 so will be hitting the books towards the back end of next week.

Nothingness

I got yet another settlement notice today from Equifax. It's a class action settlement that will be final sometime in June although I'm not sure what the suit was about. A few years ago I requested a copy of my credit report & my FICO score from Equifax. I'll be getting 3-6 months of free Credit Score Watch once the settlement is final.

Today was the late Oliver Wendell Holme's birthday (a supreme court justice) & so as an ode to him, my Contracts prof brought to class noise makers, birthday hats, & miniature cakes for everyone and then he conducted us as we sang Happy Birthday to Justice Holmes. It was fantastic. I haven't had such a good laugh in a long time. Turns out the Prof is an accomplished musician & conductor...who knew!

A year ago this weekend, I (along w/ good friend J) visited Moritz as a prospective student. Everyone we met associated with the school was really great & to return the favor, I'll be visiting with the prospective class this weekend. How time flies.

Other activities planned for this weekend: I'll be moving this summer so I'm going to look at a townhome nearby; I'm getting new speakers installed in my car (belated christmas gift to myself); I'm going out Saturday night for a few hours; and of course studying for the Contracts exam.

Property

is kicking my a$$ royally! This past week we've been talking about Future Interests & Rule of Perpetuities (don't worry...I don't know what those words mean either). I've gone through 4 classes w/out having a clue about what we're talking about. You realize how much you don't know when you get called on to explain something which made complete sense at home the night before but now in front of 80 students, all rational thoughts completely escape you. I have a new found respect for probate attorneys.


Contracts exam is next Friday & I'm worried! This is a year long class (5 credits) & the final is cumulative. It's then added up to last semester's grade & averaged. Problem: 1st exam is worth 20% of the final grade so this exam is a whole lot weightier. Amount of material we've covered this semester is astronomical & difficult. On top of that, I have to draft a contract & turn it in on Monday which is worth very little towards the final grade but is taking a lot of time. Don't forget Legislation, Constitutional Law, Legal Writing, and Property are still going on.....& on.....& on.....&....

Double Standard?

American Idol has allowed Antonella Barba (right) to stay on the show even after racy pics of her were posted on the internet. Frenchie (left) on the other hand got booted off the show in 2003, once topless photos of her surfaced on the web. Idol's justification is that Frenchie got paid to pose for her photos but Barba didn't (supposedly her friend posted the pics). Weak. I think if Barba makes it past this week, Idol will really be put on the hot seat. Tune in Thursday Fox 9/8c.

Update: America to Barba: Hasta la vista baby!

"Stephen Colbert's Americone Dream"

The new Ben & Jerry's ice-cream flavor.
Bringing balance back to the freezer!

Movie Review

Babel: B+ Interesting story although I should've watched it as soon as it made it to the theatres before it was publicized during the award show season. Felt like I was one step ahead the whole time.

Breach: A- Really liked it. I remember following the real life spy story back in 2001 when Robert Hanssen got caught & was surprised I was engrossed the entire time even though I knew what the outcome would be.

Crystal Ball Prediction

Rudy Giuliani will win the 2008 Presidential election!

Democratic primaries: As much as Hillary has critics and as much as people like Obama, Hillary will win the democratic primary. Obama may have some good buzz about him & that's all hunky-dory. However, whether or not we want to admit it, America is not ready for a black president. It has nothing to do with his inexperience in the political scene. I think that a person of hispanic heritage will be president long before a black candidate. When people are standing in that voting booth making their selection, reality will set in & they'll vote for Hillary.

Republican primaries: I thought McCain had this one in the bag since Giuliani was pro-choice and pro-gay rights & there was no way he was going to get the evangelical christian vote. That was until I saw Giuliani on Larry King explaining away where he stands on these issues. "Larry, I am pro-choice but I am against abortion..." He supports a woman's right to choose but he is personally opposed to abortion. Brilliant. He can have his cake & eat it too. He won't be accused of being a flip-flopper since he's still pro-choice & he'll now appeal to the christians since he's personally opposed to abortion. He also said, "...I will only elect Judges who will interpret the Constitution without legislating from the bench..." That will calm the GOP who were worried that he would be electing liberal judges. McCain's experience as a war vet is not going to be a big factor either since Giuliani saw NY through the aftermath of the 9/11 attacks. That's why Giuliani will win the Republican primary.

National election: Rudy Giuliani (R) v. Hillary Clinton (D). It'll be fairly close but Giuliani wins.

Vice President: My crystal ball is hazy on this one. Dems: I don't think Hillary will make Obama her VP since he's a rockstar in his own right & she wouldn't want anyone stealing her thunder. Also, Hillary will already have most of the black vote so I don't see Obama helping her in any way. John Edwards wouldn't work since he made an unsuccessful run as VP with John Kerry in 2004 & if he couldn't help Kerry, how is he going to help her? How about Gov. Bill Richardson? New Mexico Governor, he's hispanic & he was a former American Ambassador to the U.N. He'd appeal to some hispanic voters & his experience in international matters would help her. It won't make a difference in the big scheme of things though. GOP: If Giuliani could get McCain to sign on as the VP then the election won't even be close. No recalls will be necessary.

Animal Affinity

Lately, I've been hearing something scurrying around in my roof (no apartment above me). It's been going on for months but didn't think nothing of it until the pitter patter of feet increased. I'm now thinking that there's got to be a mouse & it must be keeping some company! What's the potential of it/them falling in through one of my air vents? It seems like animals have an affinity for me.

Take last year for example before moving here. I got up to take a shower one morning & just as I stepped into the tub & got the shower going, I noticed a gecko (in the shower stall) tracking my every move. After the customary quick bolt out of the shower, I decided that since it was on the wall, I needed to finish showering so I could make it to work. So I'm showering gingerly, taking great precautions not to startle the gecko & guess what happened? The damn thing fell into the tub w/ yours truly in it. That was it....I was done.....so much for my 20 seconds of bravery. G had to come all the way to my house to terminate it & when he got there, you guessed it, it was nowhere to be found. Fast forward to that evening when I got home. I entered the shower & as soon as I turned on the faucet, what came flying out of the drain? The darn gecko!

Comforting Embrace

Air Force Chief Master Sgt. John Gebhardt, of the 332nd Expeditionary Medical Group at Balad, Iraq, cradles a young girl as they both sleep in the hospital. The girl's entire family was executed by insurgents; the killers shot her in the head as well. The girl received treatment at the U.S. military hospital in Balad, but cries and moans often. According to nurses at the facility, Gebhardt is the only one who can calm down the girl, so he has spent the last several nights holding her while they both sleep in a chair.

Photo courtesy of David W. Gilmore Jr./U.S. Air Force

What is "Chicken"?

This is my contracts class & that at the very front is the prof dressed in a 'chicken suit'! It was hilarious. He did it because we were talking about contract interpretations & the case on the docket was Frigaliment Importing Co. v. B.N.S. International Sales Corp. which deals with the issue of what the word 'chicken' means.

10 Things That Drive Me Nuts

1. People who don't update their blogs regularly. There needs to be a "blog will be taken down after 7 days of inactivity" clause that all blog engines should impose.
2. Women with uneven nails. Clip them....they'll grow back you know.
3. Cars that won't move over when I'm trying to merge onto the freeway.
4. Typos
5. Grocery carts with one bad wheel which you only discover after you've made it all the way to the back of the store.
6. The big animated pop up ads that crop up every time you go to a web site. They fill up half your web page & the kicker is that they hide the "x close" button so that you have to actually look at the ad for about 5 seconds.
7. People who talk when class is in session. If you have something to say, share it will all of us that way I don't have to miss out on 15 seconds of what the prof has to say.
8. Women with chipped nail polish. There's a wonderful little liquid called acetone that works wonders for this problem.
9. When I'm at the grocery line & the person behind me is stepping on my heels. Coming closer to me won't make the grocery bagger go any faster.
10. People who drive while tapping on their brakes sporadically.

You're Hired!!

I got the summer job!

Not-So-Home-Work!

My last class yesterday was Property which the prof decided would last 2.5 hrs to make up for the snow days last week. It was about 4:45pm so I read up for Contracts & Legislation & decided to take my Constitutional law & Property books to read at home. Got home about 7pm, ate dinner while watching t.v. (was supposed to be only 30 minutes). Next thing I knew, it was 10pm & I hadn't cracked open a book. Started reading for Con Law which was a massive assignment & soon it was 11pm. Decided to watch the news & after 40 minutes, was back to reading Con Law. Got done at 1am & it was nighty night. Had Property homework been done? Nope. That was ok, I'd skim over it at lunch (which is now today).

Lunch time comes & by the time I'm done eating & chatting, it's time to go for an interesting meeting (the school always invites people to come & speak so I always attend whenever I think a speaker is going to be interesting) which takes up the rest of my lunch break. I toted around my Property case book & didn't even open it. Classes resume & when Property rolls around, I am completely lost. We're talking about Covenants which are horrendous & the fact that I didn't do my reading makes this horrendousness go up exponentially. So I take a few notes every time something sounds logical hoping it'll all come together after I go back & re-read what I was supposed to have read yesterday, right after I read what is assigned for today. Realistically, not gonna happen.

An aside: During lunch, my friend had brought some sopapillas & put them on the table for us to partake. They looked delish & everyone was wolfing them down except moi. Why? Because they had been sprinkled liberally with sugar on top & I don't like very sweet things. It didn't go unnoticed for very long that I wasn't feasting on the delicacy. I should've stuck to my guns but silly me found myself reaching for one. The darn thing was so big...I had to really focus with every bite not to have a gag reflex. Can't remember the last time I had to eat something so unpalatable.

I See Dead People!

That would be Meridith on Grey's Anatomy this past week. The last 2 episodes about the ferry disaster have been a perfect example of a cliff hanger gone wrong. The little girl that stared & didn't talk was weird, Izzie & her 'I believe' speech made me want to gag - why would she say that she thinks George & Callie are wrong for each other? She came off sounding like a petty bitch & frankly I'm starting to think she must have the hots for O'Malley since she keeps bringing it up.

We all know that Meredith won't die (show is called Grey's anatomy) & the flat line at the end of last week didn't fool anyone since the preview of the next episode showed them still working on her. Sloppy. If she dies though, I hope she doesn't incarnate as the narrator like they have it on Desperate Housewives. Maybe the show will be called O'Malley's Anatomy. The person that needs to get killed off is Izzy...have you noticed that her character on the show is sounding more & more like her real self when she talks about Isaiah Washington? Wouldn't miss her one bit if they got rid of her.

The problem for Grey's is that people are watching shows like '24' where the drama is non-stop & un-predictable. So when you watch Grey's attempt at suspense, you can't help but notice the amateurish result. The writers need to stick to the personal story lines of the doctors & focus on trying develop their characters in the most interesting way possible.