Where We're Going, We Don't Need Roads

A short list of things which are coming faster than fall semester grades:

• The presidential election
• Global-warming-induced flooding of the Eastern seaboard
• The next presidential election
• Jesus
• Duke Nukem Forever
• A new Ice Age
• Zoraster
  
• The Revolution
• Your Mom

1Ls Say the Darnedest Things

Overheard in the last week:

• (Regarding Dandelion, Foxfield, etc.) "I'm not sure I have time for all these mandatory extra activities."
• "But isn't [law review] a lot of extra work?"
  "No."
  "Oh, ok."
• "I don't think they actually drink while they play softball."
• 1L #1: "I'm pretty sure this the right classroom. [Gestures at plaque reading "Wright Classroom."
  [Pause]
  1L #2: [Laughs hysterically.]
  

Adorable. Also, 1L #1, you may want to check out the offer over at TJ's. And don't ever let anyone tell you that puns aren't funny. Puns are always funny.

Accomplishment

Things which I completed at roughly the same time:

• A turkey sandwich
• 1L year
• Every mission in Grand Theft Auto 2

Wicked Pissah

A short list of terms that I originally thought had 'R' sounds and were just being pronounced with a heavy Maine/Boston accent:

• Mt. Katahdin
• Loofah
• Salt 'N Pepa

Things I Learned This Week

• From a series of last-name-announcing cold-calls, I learned the extent to which one of my classes this semester is a veritable UVa Law Bloggers' Summit.
• Between Thursday and Saturday, I learned that random alumni lawyers take first-year oral arguments far more seriously than judges from the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals take the Lile Moot Court finals.
• Desegregation: good for schools, good for country clubs, bad for laundry.
• Thanks to my poor reading comprehension skills, I learned that it is possible—although not advised—to put on a suit, shave, drive to school, write an outline, and otherwise prepare for oral arguments in forty-four minutes.
• From minute forty-six to minute forty-nine, I learned that following the above plan will get you screwed when the judges decide not to interrupt and instead let you recite all of the facts. (I wish I were joking on these last two.)
• Finally, in an ironic twist worthy of O. Henry, I learned that dental floss is the most difficult item in the world to get unstuck from between teeth.

Lessons Learned From The Mock Interview Process

• If you can go the full half hour without breaking eye contact, they're required by law to offer you the job.
• When asked "Why do you want to work at this firm?" a good answer is "I'm impressed with the firm's excellence in my preferred practice area and simultaneous devotion to public interest." Some bad answers: "To be closer to you," "It has a funny name," and "I don't, why do you ask?"
• The interview isn't real; the need to wear pants is.
• While gender may be a social construct, the words sir and ma'am are not yet interchangeable.
• If your resume shows a GPA not reflected in your actual grades, don't check the box that says "Send my transcript to this employer."
• It's actually pronounced "noo' - klee - er"
• The "Experience" section of your resume isn't meant for your sexual history, no matter how impressive or extensive it may be. Put that under "Interests."

The Deal with Deals

They say you shouldn't go grocery shopping if you're hungry, because you'll buy things you don't need. I'd like to add that you shouldn't do any kind of shopping immediately after buying books for the semester. You walk out of Courts and Commerce, feeling good about yourself for having spent only $80 on 2 ¹/₂ lbs of paper full of someone else's highlights because it would have been $106 new, and suddenly your whole sense of value is off. Next thing you know, you're halfway to your car with a shopping cart full of lobster and you can't believe what a bargain those socks were at Brooks Brothers.

Other grocery-related thoughts:

• Whoever designed the newly-reopened Kroger at Barracks is insane. The refrigerated beer aisle is inexplicably also the pickles and mayonnaise aisle. Cheese and bread are distributed randomly throughout the store.
  
• Irrespective of the C&C effect, $2.06 for two pounds of sugar wafers is one hell of a good deal.
  
• I watched a guy in his late 30s stand in front the feminine hygiene products and actually hyperventilate into his shopping list for over almost a minute before picking up the biggest, pinkest package they had and moving on.
• The store brand slogan is "Try it, you'll like it." Look, Kroger, it didn't work for my mother; it's not going to work for you.
  
• I used the self-checkout machine. According to the receipt, my cashier's name was Ebony. I'd like to go on record right now in full support of racial diversity in self-checkout machines.
  

The Baby Jesus Wants to Rock (Rock!)

Thoughts upon hearing "Oh Come All Ye Faithful" on the radio this morning:

• Damn it, I've been trying to avoid Christmas songs.
• But this shower radio is so hard to tune, it's not really worth changing channels.
• Oh well, it's Christmas day and I've done a pretty good job so far, I guess there's not much I can do.
• Hey, this is actually rocking out pretty hard.
• You know, I never noticed how much this song sounds like "We're Not Gonna Take It."

Thoughts upon getting out of the shower, looking up the two songs to compare them, and discovering that I had been listening to this:

• . . .
  
• Twisted Sister got back together to record a Christmas album?
• . . .
• . . .
  
• Awesome.
• Good to see Dee Snider still looks exactly like Sarah Jessica Parker.
• With a little more make-up, he'd be a dead-ringer for Moulin Rouge-era Christina Aguilera.
• Hey J.J. French, I'm not sure grinding up on the guy's wife is really in the Christmas spirit.
• Although he seems to be taking it pretty well.
• Yeah, let him play the drums, it'll make him feel better.
  
• Oh good, a happy ending. You see, chubby newlywed guy, it is a wonderful life.
  

Now all we need is for Eddie Van Halen and David Lee Roth to put aside their differences (again) and crank out a 2-disc Hanukkah box set in time for next year.

Recruitment

A small sample of statements made by Professor Crim during class in the presence of visiting undergrads and their parents:

• "Ah, see I didn't know that's how you made methamphetamines. I just know when I'm experiencing really good methamphetamines."
• "You know wives never listen to their husbands."
• "When I got back from Amsterdam, if I had anything left over from my trip, I wouldn't have made it through Dulles."
• "So, let's say they catch the Charlottesville serial rapist. Not the local police, they're never going to catch that guy."*

*Note to prospective students: To the best of my knowledge, said rapist has not appeared since 2003, which is a long time in rapist-years. He has probably moved on. Charlottesville is still very safe. Please do not make the male-to-female ratio worse than it already is.

Law School Makes My E-Mail Weird

A sample of contextual ads that I've gotten in Gmail in the last week:

• "Kegspediter System - A controlled process for the return of empty kegs to the brewery."
• All kinds of first aid and emergency equipment. These are only funny once I realized they were triggered by the hypothetical fact pattern in my Torts midterm.
• "Crave Frat Brotherhood? - crave.honda.com - We feel your crave. Other people do too. Check out more craves."
• "Insanity Testing - Search for Testing Resources and Info. Find What You Want Now."
• "Daddy by 2 chix - cool daddy-to-be tees for the man behind the belly!"
• Several dozen sites advertising admissions information and pre-written personal statements.
• "Miss Your Grandkids? - New laws guarantee grandparents rights in every state - learn more!"
• "Free Insanity - Get a Free Insanity. Offer Expires Today!"

These Guys Are Neat Guys

There's a lot of talk about how law school is just like high school, and in a lot of ways that's true. Still, I say it's an exaggerated stereotype, so here are some positive ways in which UVa Law differs from my high school:

• Students allowed to leave school for lunch.
• No football player making out with his cheerleader girlfriend on my locker between every class.
• None of my high school teachers drove one of these.
• Speaking of lockers, cherry wood > cherry red.
• There's no band, the jocks have passed their glory days, and the goths sold out long ago, so pretty much everyone is part of the same "Nerd/Prep" clique.
• Students allowed to cut across the courtyard.
• No Less smoking in the bathrooms.
• The Mormons have kids and the skanky girls don't.
• Much less animosity between rival schools (that is, no one has driven down here and spray-painted "Penn Law" on the side of the building).
• My girlfriend who lives 100 miles away actually exists.

Things I Learned This Week

• From my sectionmates, I learned it's possible to freak out over an hour-long, ungraded midterm.
• From the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation, I learned that most people still don't understand what "Every Breath You Take" by the Police is about.
• From Federal Circuit Judge Randall R. Rader, I learned that his Irish Foxhound will eat just about anything you throw at it.
• From my Legal Research and Writing Professor, I learned you should never plan to spend your breaks any place where you can't access Westlaw.
  
• From Dahlia Lithwick, I learned that she's a writer instead of a speaker because she can't put four words together without sticking "uhh" between them twice.
• From Virginia Delegate Robert G. Marshall, I learned that gay people can't maintain committed relationships and that they support pedophilia.
• From two Virginia undergrads, I learned how to stage a very small-scale and ineffective protest.
• From the Cavalier Daily, I learned how to use careful camera angles and irresponsible reporting to misrepresent a small-scale and ineffective protest as neither of those things.
• From a British Columbian visitor who found this site by searching, I learned that my second post ever is the ninth result for the Google query "sex with unicorns."
  

The Novelist

Questions I had for John Grisham on Thursday after he spoke about The Innocent Man :

• Why did Mitch get away with cheating on his wife?
• What was the deal with The Brethren?
• Do you know Rachel Weisz?
• Did anyone at Doubleday read The Brethren before agreeing to publish it?
• Do they start writing the scripts after you finish the books, or before?
• Speaking of scripts, please defend Christmas with the Kranks. We'll wait.
• Are you aware of the existence of The Brethren, a nomadic cult also known as "The Garbage Eaters?" If so, was that your inspiration?
• I understand you've given this law school a lot of money. I've recently begun a similar practice, and before I continue I'm wondering if you've found it to be worthwhile.
• Did you know it's okay for authors to skip a year?
• Were you heavily medicated for the majority of 2000?
• No, seriously. You wrote a book about three judges who orchestrate a mail fraud extortion scheme from prison until they accidentally catch the secretly gay senator who happens to be running a rigged campaign for President under the guidance of a puppet-master director of the CIA who is concerned about a fringe element of the Russian military in which they all get away with it at the end and no one called you out on it?
• Have you had any substantial opposition on the new book from death penalty proponents?

Cars fell on Virginia

This state has an obscene number of custom license plates. I don't mean vanity plates (although it has far more than its fair share of those); I mean actual types of plates. As in, over 180 of them.
Some highlights, if you don't feel like going through the whole list:

• Bowler
• Tiger Swallowtail - State Insect
• Credit Unions
• Ducks Unlimited
• Family & Children Trust Fund (yes, four different plates)
• Fight Terrorism (also available for your motorcycle)
• Friends of Tibet
• Horse Enthusiast (the one that prompted me to look these up)
• Internet C@pital (pronounced "catpital," this one is my personal favorite; it's straight out of 1998 and has to be seen to be believed)
• Parrotheads (seriously)
• Unlocking Autism
• Virginia Society of CPAs (no word on whether this one comes with free "Ask me about my personality" bumper sticker)
• Love-a-Bull (technically this one's still in development, but I can't leave it off the list)
  

Week 1

Things that have happened in the first week of law school:

1. I missed my section's library orientation because I was reading for contracts / playing N.
2. During a peer advisor's don't-feel-bad-if-you-lose speech before section elections, I cheerfully pointed out that "four of these [five] people running are going to lose."
3. My bike was stolen the day before I planned to go out and buy a better lock for it.
4. I missed my research group's first meeting in the library because I missed when we planned on having it. On the bright side, I would have been of little use, having missed the orientation.
   
5. I successfully paid so little attention in contracts that I didn't even get the relevant jokes being IMed to me.
6. I had a full 250GB hard drive die with absolutely no warning.
7. I waited a very long time for a sandwich.
   

I also, however, got a card for a free sandwich because that one took so long. So all in all, law school is pretty sweet.

As a side note, Texas finally sent me a survey asking why I chose not to accept admission, the first conclusive proof that they are actually aware that I will not be attending. Now if only they hadn't already sold my contact information to every provider of student services in the greater Austin area.

Methods of contact undertaken by the other two schools that accepted me

Immediately upon acceptance
Georgetown University Law Center: Envelope containing standard congratulatory letter, small handwritten note at bottom.
University of Texas School of Law: Envelope containing standard congratulatory letter, postmark on outside stating "State of Texas, Official Business, Penalty for Private Use, WE'RE TEXAS." Leaves me unsure if last part is pride or a threat.

Winner: GULC, personal note is a nice touch and I don't need to be threatened by envelopes.

Week or so after acceptance
GULC: Letter encouraging me to attend. Packet with information about enrollment. Huge three-ring binder with approximately one sentence per page, addressing housing, student groups, and professors. Also contains keychain, CD, and about 50 sheets of notebook paper reading "Georgetown Law" down the side, apparently so the kid who sits behind me and to the left in class can know how important I am. Combined postage cost: over $9.00
UT Law: Letter granting me a substantial reduction in cost.

Winner: UT, money for school > money on postage.

Days before deposit deadline
GULC: Several e-mails reminding me of the upcoming deadline, including one giving 24 hours warning. Politely informs me there's no need to reply if I do not plan to attend.
UT Law: None.

Winner: UT, for trusting that I know what day it is.

Days after deposit deadline
GULC: Panicky e-mail that I should call immediately if I forgot to mail in deposit. Polite "farewell" to those of us who voluntarily chose not to mail in said deposit.
UT Law: Brusque e-mail that "confirms that our offer of admission has been rescinded and your place in the entering class cancelled." Signed "Respectully," the assistant dean of admissions.

Winner: GULC, for giving me a chance in case I didn't know what day it was.

Weeks later
GULC: Single follow-up e-mail with link to survey asking what it would have taken for me to choose GULC. Provided a chance for me to point out that an estimated $57,600/year total cost necessitates the offering of some scholarship money.
UT Law: Over a dozen (at last count) mailings to my home address completely ignoring the cancellation of my admission, informing this "future Longhorn" about all kinds of options for housing, meal plans, loans, and healthcare. At this point, I expect them to mail me a J.D. in three years in spite of no further contact on my behalf.

Winner: Tie, for reminding me in their own ways why I chose otherwise.

Items for sale in the impulse-buy section next to the register in the Walgreen's near my house

• Sugarless Gum


• Regular Gum


• Several magazines about Britney Spears


• Nicorette Gum


• Breath Mints


• Soap Opera Digest


• First Response Pregnancy Test