Until Next Year...

Done!

My final exam was a 24 hr take home which I began yesterday at 10am & got done this morning at 7am. Only 3 questions but it took me forever to knock them out. Off to bed!

Business Associations Exam

Part I: 65 minutes. 25 multiple choice questions. Tested how fast you could flip through the statute book to find the answer within the alloted time.

Part II. 70 minutes. Essay. 3 page fact pattern about a board of directors that was involved in a shady deal. Some shareholders wanted to bring suit because the value of their stock was going down. Discuss what claims, if any, they could bring against the Board.

Part III. 5o minutes. Essay. Horrendous!

The weather over the past few days has been something else. Thursday was in the 60s. Friday night into Saturday we got about 6" of snow which wasn't too bad. Ventured out to Starbucks and there was practically no one on the roads. Saturday night it rained like only Noah can relate to. Today the winds were gusting at 35-45m/h & the high was frigid 31F. Just lovely.

But even worse than the weather are the local t.v. weather forecasters in Columbus. Last I checked, this is the Midwest. Snow & freezing rain is just what happens around here. So why do they feel it necessary to keep cutting into regular programming to give updates on the extra inch of snow that has fallen?! Very aggravating.

Employment Discrimination Exam

3 questions. Essay. 3.5hrs.

Q.1. 90 minutes. Guy had bipolar disease which had been misdiagnosed as clinical depression. He was a technician that fixed a computers in peoples homes. He had a manic episode & ended up erasing the hard drive of the customer because he thought they were involved in terrorist shananigans. He was fired & now wants his old job back after he was correctly diagnosed as having bipolar. Company he used to work for seeks your advice on whether or not to rehire him.

Q.2. 45 minutes. Television station is implementing a grooming policy where all males are required to shave their beard & females must wear makeup before they can anchor a show. It's concerned about losing its customers. George is a black male anchor with a skin condition that causes the skin to get infected if the beard is shaved off. Condition affects 60% of african american males. Andrea is a 45 year old female anchor who hates wearing makeup because she believes it stereotypes women & better yet, she's allergic to cheap makeup. She breaks out in hives. This allergy is found in 10% of the women. Both will be demoted to reporters in two weeks if they don't get with the program. George & Andrea have come for your advice on how to proceed.

Q.3. 45 minutes. Female workers complain to their supervisor that they don't think it's in the christmas spirit when their male counterparts say "ho ho ho." Supervisor goes to his supervisor & reports to him what the females are saying. Tells his boss that they have a potential claim of sexual harassment if the males don't stop with the ho ho ho business. Next thing you know, the supervisor to the females doesn't receive a christmas bonus, receives a poor job evaluation, and doesn't get a raise the next year. Supervisor comes to you for advice.

Last day of classes

was today. Yay! But now it's time to hunker down for exams which start next week. I decided to continue with my current job next semester since I really enjoy it & I'm learning an awful lot. It was dicey there for a while since they require a minimum of eight hours & I had to find a way to tweak my schedule for next semester to try & fit these many hours in two chunks. But worked it out.

What are the chances of getting the soles of your boots come off as you trudge in the snow on the same day & at the same time?! 1 in 1 trillion. But that's what happened to me this evening. I'm leaving work headed to my car, which is quite a hike, & then I feel like something's dragging the bottom of my shoe. Look down & sure enough, the soles of BOTH my shoes are hanging on by a thread of glue. Keep in mind there's 5" of fresh snow on the ground so these soles have no choice but to make it to my car. So at this point, picture me walking like I have skis on (dragging my feet without lifting them off the ground). Swish swash. But my shoes were having none of that. With about a block to go, both soles came off!! $#&%. Lucky for me though the 'casing' of the shoes was leather & it wrapped around all the way around the bottom so my socks didn't end up getting soaked. Didn't feel like it though. Felt like I was trudging through the snow barefeet.

Go Bucks! The LSU Tigers await an a$$ whoopin' come Jan. 7!

1/2 Price Books

After 3 semesters of spending more than $1500 on textbooks, I began searching for a way to get brand new books for a cheaper price. I don't buy used books because I get very distracted having to grapple with someone else's writings or highlighting. Amazon & half.com have great prices on used books but a brand new book costs the same wherever you buy it from. Or so I thought.

So after registering for classes for Winter '08, I noticed that the booklist was already posted for all my classes. Off I went to amazon to see how much the books would cost me so I could be mentally prepared come January. Ended up finding all my books (brand new) for half the price!!! I have 6 classes next semester & ended up spending a whoppin' $200 for all of them. How super is that? I guess the key was buying books early instead of waiting for the after-new-year-rush when everyone is looking to buy books online.

Not so rockin'

Remember how I thought my appellate brief rocked & that it would save me from my dismal oral argument, well my adjunct just emailed us our briefs back with his comments & he skewered me yet again! He thought my analysis was conclusory and shallow. Wah! I give up. Seems I cannot win with this guy so let's keep it moving.

I truly enjoy my Gender & the Law class but for some reason I am unable to think critically on issues that the prof raises. This is like an undergraduate class where there's lots of theory & you just put your 'regular' thinking cap on to analyse feminists' take on different issues. Sounds easy enough but for me it's been a struggle. I much rather rules-based classes (most law classes are) where all I do is apply the rules to the matter at hand. Thank goodness it's a take-home exam. I'll need all the time I can get to get over my inability to think like I used to in undergrad. And here I was thinking I was getting smarter. Not so sure anymore.

5000 Calories

is the average number of calories that a person consumes over Thanksgiving. That would be me. I had a few friends over yesterday & we had a potluck thanksgiving so there was lots of good food, dessert, & wine. Dinner was about 6pm & from there we just relaxed & had a good ol' time. Since we were still up & chatting at 6am this morning, we decided to brave the crowds & hit the mall. The mall turned out to be rather empty which was surprising but appreciated. Mostly just browsed but we did buy a few things though I think the bargains will get better as christmas draws closer.

Plug for McDonalds: Their coffee is fantastic!

Week in Review

Went to church this morning with some friends. The singing was fab & so was the sermon. The parking though was autrocious but the church activities more than made up for it.

I had an interview this past Friday. My last interviewer was a total cynic. His boss was supposed to be the original interviewer but he had other things to do so he had this guy do it. He turned out to be the most interesting of all the people I interviewed with. It started out somewhat shaky since he had these 5 cookie cutter questions the office had given him to ask, "well let's get this crap out of the way & then we can start the real interview..." After that, we had about a 30 minute conversation on what we'd both done in the past. He'd been practicing law for about 30 years so he had alot of war stories to tell.

My oral argument for my appellate advocacy class was rough. We had 3 judges including my adjunct, who does appellate work in employment law & this was what my case was about. So anytime I answered a question, he'd have a ton of followup questions which I didn't seem to answer to his satisfaction, "...Counsel are you telling this Court that..." The rest of the judges just sat there & let him have at it. My opponent wasn't given as hard a time which I thought was unfair on very many levels. This oral part is 20% of the grade & the brief 80%. I thought my brief rocked so hopefully it'll save the day.

Go Bucks!

Rose Bowl here we come!

Update: Who needs the Rose Bowl when you can get the BCS Title game?!

No School Tomorrow....

thanks to Veterans Day. Got lots done around the house today. I took down some old vertical blinds in the kitchen & put up some drapes. Drapes in the kitchen you ask? Yup. They give the kitchen a very nice country feel to it. Then I went down to the basement & got out my christmas decorations. I usually put them up after Thanksgiving, but since I had all this time on my hands, I figured why the hell not. So got that done & everything looks lovely. Let's hope tomorrow will be just as productive to make up for all the non-studying today.

Ho Hum

This is straight off the Democratic Candidates Debate. Hillary Clinton gets on my nerves royally! She can't give a straight answer if her life depended on it. I love Dennis Kucinich & Joe Biden. Kucinich believes in UFO's & he cops to that. Ask Sen. Biden what he'd do with the toys coming from China & he says "as President I'll shut them down, all of them." No double talk just telling it how they see it. Seems straight answers only come from those who have no shot at winning.

Ask Hillary if the sky is blue & she'll answer "it depends." JUST ANSWER THE DOGGONE QUESTIONS! Enough politics already. Let us know where you stand instead of worrying about how the republicans will use your answers today to attack you tomorrow.

Goat Political Move of the Week

New York has passed a law that will give illegal immigrants drivers' licenses. This is all fine and dandy except that these licenses will be clearly marked to show that they are not valid federal IDs. In other words, everyone they show that D.L. to will know that they are illegal immigrants! This is where New Yorkers hard earned tax dollars are going towards: paying these politicians to pass idiotic laws that further put illegal immigrants in the cross-hairs of the police department ergo the BCIS. I think it'd be even more idiotic if an illegal immigrant went and got one of these driver's license. They can't show these when applying for a job because the employer will know they aren't authorized to work & if they get pulled over they can't show this license because the police will haul them to the nearest detention center faster than they can say hasta la vista. Way I see it, this is a conspiracy to get these folks out of the shadows & back to their countries. Literally.

Vigilant Neighbors

Friday morning, about 3am, I was at home watching episodes of Bionic Woman on the web. Then I heard a crashing sound. Wasn't very loud, just loud enough for me to turn off all the lights, run upstairs & look out the window to see if my car was getting broken into. No way I'd have heard it was I asleep. Anywayz, turns out I was looking out the wrong side of the house. I noticed a swirl of lights filtering in through my drapes on the front end of my house. So I ran to the window, peeked out & noticed about 3 police cars. So I threw on a jacket & went outside to see what was going on.

Guess who was standing outside?! The ENTIRE neighborhood!! Don't these people have jobs to go to in the morning?! Turns out a drunk driver flipped his car & that was the crashing noise I heard. But I guess my neighbors are a little more proactive than I am. Me, I carefully assess the situation....from a distance....& then proceed with caution. Them, they jump into the fray & damn the consequences. Turns out as soon as they heard the noise, they went outside to help the drunken driver get out of his flipped car & called the police. Makes me all warm & fuzzy knowing that my neighbors don't sleep at night. Neighborhood Watch at its finest.

Update: Jim the appliance guy came out yesterday & fixed my washer. Turns out it was the door sensor and not the timer. Jim wanted to make sure that it was the timer before he went out & got one so he tested everything else he could think of & sure enough, the door sensor turned out to be the culprit. It ended up costing about $100 less than it would've cost had it been the timer. Gotta love Jim & craigslist.

Bitching & Moaning!

All things water are going wrong in my life right now. Sunday I loaded up my washer & went on about my business. Came back to put the laundry in the dryer & found my clothes still swimming in water. Fished them out hoping this would fix the drainage problem but that didn't help. So I went to craigslist & found Jim the appliance guy. Jim comes out to my place today (I've been lucky no one from craigslist has turned out to be an ax murderer) & diagnoses the problem to be a bad timer. Long story short, $150 for the timer + $50 for labor. Jim says to get back to him in the morning with a decision on whether he's going to be installing the new timer or whether I'll be ditching my washer & getting another one (used of course). Hmm.

School has become a mo fo. Journal stuff is due this coming Monday. I'll be spending my whole weekend (night & day) in the library poring over the most boring article I've ever read. Then an outline of my student note is due in a couple of weeks. I haven't began doing any type of research for that but I'm sure I can whip up something the night before. Unlike most of my fellow journal staff members, I am not trying to get published (but would be totally stoked if they picked my article for publishing). I'm just going to make a good faith effort to get the darn thing done so I don't get thrown off the Journal.

Then I'll be spending all of next week on my Appellate Advocacy brief that's due Nov. 3. I would have called in work this week & next if I didn't have my car & washer falling apart on me. Then we have to make oral arguments, in front of a panel of judges, after turning in the brief, the week of Nov. 6. We had practice arguments this week, with 3L's acting as judges. I thought I killed my opponent & happily surprised myself that I wasn't nervous at all. Let's hope that carries over for my real argument. Classes have kinda sorta taken a back seat since I have all this other stuff to get done. I read as much as I can over the weekend & what I can't get to...oh well. I'm thinking about dressing up as "Sleeping Beauty" for halloween. It falls on Wed next week so maybe I can sleep through all my classes. Think my professors will get it?

Then the weather is not helping out. It's been pouring for the past 3 days. Gloomy nasty weather. Can't wait for thanksgiving break. To give thanks & to catch some zzzzzzz!

Nothingness

Remember my quandry about getting the washers of my car working, well after some soul-searching, I decided to go with Tuffy. I took my car there for an oil change about a month ago (I had a great coupon) & loved the manager of the shop. Fast forward to today. They took my car back & after about 20 minutes, here goes the Manager: "Come on back & I'll show you what we're dealing with."

Turns out the mechanic I had originally taken my car to to try & figure out the washer problem, had cut the airbag wires & connected them to the wires running to the washers & I was lucky that the airbags hadn't deployed while I was driving. So Tuffy had to fix that mess before they could begin trying to figure out why the washers weren't working. What did this mean? $$$. So I gave them the go-ahead but only to fix the wiring problem. An hour later, the manager came back & I'm like oh snap here we go again. "Well I don't know how to explain this but my guy rewired your car back to how it should be & guess what, your washers are working! I can't explain how that happened but it did." So $135 later, my car is wired up properly & the washers are back in business. Good times.

I'm really enjoying my new job. My work mates are great & the one person I truly disliked quit last week. Doesn't get better than that. And the work is great too. It's fairly busy but when we have downtime, we can do our school work or surf the web. Not to mention we don't have to dress up. Like McDonald's I'm lovin' it.

Stephen Colbert will be on Meet the Press this Sunday. You have to catch that. It's bound to be hilarious now that he's in the running for the Presidency.

Public Service Announcement

Click here to see if your wireless phone service qualifies for a discount, either through your employer or through your school. I am an existing AT&T wireless subscriber & still got a 20% monthly discount through my school. Definitely worth checking into. Enjoy!

Fall Break

Yipee! School is out until Oct 15.

Quandry

My car's washer fluid is not coming out when I pull the lever to clean the windshield. So I went to a nearby mechanic at the local gas station (yeah I know....what was I thinking) & he told me he thought he knew what the problem was. $95 dollars & 4 hours later, he couldn't find the problem since he ran out of time but told me to bring the car back. So I asked the question that begged to be asked, " . . . are you going to charge me for additional labor to continue trying to figure out the problem?" Yup. Now what's a girl to do? Do I cut my losses & go to the dealer; do I ignore the problem since it doesn't affect the running of my car; or do I take it back to Dufus the mechanic since he said he was close to isolating the problem? Hmmm.