Holidazed

I'm off to Sacramento today to spend time with the parents for Xmas. I think we have finally convinced Dave Gibbs to host a NYE dinner party (with me cookin), so I'm driving back on the 30th I think.

I made an hilarious Xmas Novena candle for my friend Dave Puketza and his family. I spend every Xmas Eve with them and we play guitars and sing songs. So I pasted a photo of his family on the candle and then made myself and our friend Blu into little "angels" around the edge. And of course, glitter-glued it. It's perfectly kitsch and awful, and yet glorious simultaneously.

Will spend two days in SF, getting a hot stone massage, going out to dinner and seeing som old friends. And hopefully shopping a little (always love Fillmore St).
Looking forward to some relaxation and sleeping in.

HAPPY HOLIDAYS!

Not remotely entertaining...

Well, I'm finally 1/2-way done with law school. Barring failure of any of exams.
And these last two are definitely contenders.

Just when I thought it couldn't get worse than yesterday's IP exam.
It did.
Tonite's open book Entertainment Law exam was a bit of a racehorse exam and much harder than I thought it would be. The multiple choice was really insane and took a lot longer than I had hoped, leaving me only about and hour and 15 minutes for the essay. I didn't even totally finish the essay portion, but hopefully blabbed enough on Parts I and II, that my meager offering of Part III will come out in the wash. But dang. It was rough!

At least it's over.

When I walked in, this girl said she was totally impressed with my uber (OCD) organized tab structure on my casebook, my supplement and my notes. It's my weird way of feeling like I'm in control of something when I feel utterly out of control of everything. I feel like I should sell my books with the tabs in them! Too bad I hi-lite the crapola out of all my books and the bookstore won't take them back!

I wore my brand new eBay-purchased Juicy sweatsuit in green to the exam. It's lovely. It's definitely a fake, but it's a daarn good fake, so I don't mind that much. The reason I love the Juicy suits so is the fit and the feel and this has both. You honestly wouldn't know it was fake unless you checked out the tag, which has the letters stitched a little too close together, the tag isn't anchored quite right and the interior wash tag is missing a tiny size marker. But other than that, they did a good job.

I sort of can't believe after all the trademark infringement reading I've done that I am supporting the black market. However, there is just no reason a velour tracksuit should cost $140. So sue me. Oh, wait, you could. I claim "consumer confusion."

Went and had dinner with my friend Bridgette and her nice friend Jon and he PAID for my salad and cocktail! Awfully nice since he had just met me.
I am exhausted and going to go snuggle under my covers until the gardeners start using the power blower tomorrow morning. Then I'm going to the gym and hopefully a yummy steak dinner at Taylor's with Sheridan.

Then Thursday, I'm driving to Sacramento with kitty in tow. Whee.
I'm just so excited to be half-way DONE!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Huzzah.

Well, THAT sucked!

I would like to be able to tell you my IP exam was easier than I thought it would be. It wasn't. It sucked from beginning to end. In fact, the 5th essay question about something we spent like 20 minutes on in class and, honestly, I didn't spend my time studying. Unfair Competition. Yeah, that sums up the whole damn exam, honestly. I have a feeling I got a big fat ZERO on that question. Or maybe 1 point.

I felt like the multiple choice were easy, but thanks to his gross caveat where you could potentially get a negative score on it...I'm not too sure. Turns out there are only 10 people who remained in the class. Everyone seemed at freaked out as I did about this exam. But the curve does strange things when you are only dealing with 10 people. I have bad feelings about this exam.

Coulda been worse. At least I didn't look at ALL the exam questions and think "huh?"
And...at least it's OVER.
I have to take a nap now and study for Ent Law tomorrow. Is it possible for it to suck worse than today?
Yes....yes, possibly.
God, I need a drink.

Bitch on Heels

Sorry for the bitchiness of late. I am just so freakin exhausted and I truly think that my IP professor is a dick. I mean, in addition to making a code-based class CLOSED BOOK, he didn't even provide any practice questions and the entire exam is essay (no multiple choice).

I have been studying since 10 a.m. this morning and I feel like I can't remember anything.
I've been doing the practice questions in the Emanuel's because it's all I can do.
My back hurts, my neck hurts and I'm freaking out about this stupid exam.

I cannot WAIT for this to be over.
There are only 16 people in the class, tho, so the curve will likely be INSANE. I have to pray that I don't fail...since I actually want to do copyright/licensing work someday. That will look great on my transcript, eh?

UPDATE: My professor posted on his forum site that he decided, after all, to give us 5 essay questions (whose answers should be approx. 1000 words apiece) and 18 multiple choice. So I feel SLIGHTLY better knowing at least there will be some multiple choice. But I still have the essay questions to contend with. oof.

Also, he included this LAME caveat re: multiple choice:
These multiple choice questions may be different from the ones you have done before — where there is only one correct answer per question. Here there may be several correct answers for a given question. One (raw) point will be awarded (a) for each correct answer circled and (b) for each incorrect answer not circled and one (raw) point will be deducted (a) for each incorrect answer circled and (b) for each correct answer not circled.

He also said that knowledge of the actual statute numbers is not "required" but he would like it. Which, I assume, translates into "extra points."

So tired...

I am tired of making IP flash cards.
I am tired of going to Staples and having notes and powerpoint slides bound.
I am tired of my back & shoulders hurting.
I am tired of trying to memorize the Patent Act, the Copyright Act and the Lanham Act since my professor is a sadist and won't let us have our supplement in the exam.
I am tired of missing my friends' bands play because I have to study.
I am tired of missing Xmas parties and dinners out for the same reason.

I am tired.

Well, lets see...

3 days and I have to learn an entire semester of BOTH IP & Entertainment Law.
Awesome.
I'm doomed.

One more...

One more down. Other than my computer having a freakout just before the exam started, it was fine. I was actually sort of worried because I was going thru my Flash cards this morning and was having the BLANK response to them. My brain was just totally overloaded, I guess.

But once I got into the exam and started doing the multiple choice, I was fine. I don't know that I kicked its ass or anything, but I felt fine about it. We always have this philosophical thematic essay question to write. Last nite, Robyn and I talked on the phone for about an hour about what we thought it might be regarding and how we could answer it. Hilariously, we totally predicted TWO of the question choices!! One on Carolene Products Footnote 4 and the other was on judicial discretion and how it makes for uncertain law. I called her after the test and we were laughing that he's going to read our answer (we both chose the judicial discretion one) and we will have similar answers. We weren't even in the same room for the exam, tho, so he can't possibly think we cheated. Can he?

Awesome. I felt really good writing it. I finished about 15 minutes early and while I could have written more, I felt 4 pages was enough and I had made some quality points supported by case law. He actually prefers if you are concise and on point with your analysis, rather than giving 15 case examples for a single point. It's a good thing I've had him before.

Now, I have got to get crackin on IP & Entertainment Law. I can't believe I have 4 days to study for BOTH of them. Luckily, there is some overlap (Copyright, for example). But OY. Since Entertainment Law is open book, I have a feeling most of my time will be spent on IP.

At least my two 4-unit classes are done done and done.
I think I'm going to NAP now. ::yawn::
I really need to go to the gym. But a nap is so much more appealing.

Free my Speech

Tomorrow is Exam #2 -- Con Law II. I gotta say that I'm not terribly fond of Loyola's decision to have my two 4-unit required class exams within a day of each other. The only good news is that all 2Ls (except the evening students) had the same schedule, so we are all in the same shitty boat.

I also have to be somewhat grateful for that heinous midterm we had just after Halloween because (a) I had less to study (b) this final is worth only 65% of my grade and (c) this final is only 2.5 hours long -- instead of 4 hours like the other classes.

I made my little case matrix and had it bound at Staples. I made my Flash cards. I had a freakout when I couldn't find the flashcards from my midterm, but dug them up. It is not 10 p.m. and I'm just starting to look at them. He said it would be 2/3 on post-midterm stuff, but who knows if he'll hold to that. He's weaselly, sometimes.

All the post-midterm stuff was 1st Amendment stuff which I find incredibly interesting and very on-point with what's going on in the world right now. Thus, it's somewhat easier to remember this stuff than the Equal Protection stuff.

My exam is at 9 a.m. which means I have to wake up at 6:30 a.m.
I'm having a hard time with vocabulary right now which worries me for my thematic essay. Oh, well.

Think Constitutional thoughts for me around 9 a.m. PST.

Black Eyed Sneeze

Apparently, I am so tired that my dark circles have just decided to flaunt themselves like the whores they are. I actually woke up today and look like I have a black eye! I was up until 2 a.m. last nite working on my Con Law case matrix.

I took a break to print out my holiday cards -- which I want to try to send out tomorrow and to watch CSI: Miami. I don't like that one as much as the original, because I think David Caruso overacts. Definitely a graduate of the Willam Shatner school of acting. I used to watch it because of hot Rory Cochrane (who I've met before when he was chain smoking outside a bar with my friend Vince). But they killed him off last season. Some new adorable young guy took his place, tho -- whom CBS has not deigned to actually list on their website yet. Anyway...it was better than studying Associational Rights.

I could not wake up this morning, depite my jazzy alarm (I have this great jazz station on my clock radio which alternates between traditional bop-style jazz and swing jazz). Now I gotta get eatin and studying. I'm so brain dead, I will need a whole pot of coffee.

Hall of Whoville

I just bought these new Dr. Seuss stamps today. Is it just me, or does Mr. Geisel actually look animatronic in them?

Very Hall of Presidents.

Deathrace 2004

Well, I made it thru my 4 hour Evidence exam. It was pretty straightforward. There were a couple of questions that I truly did not know the answer to and just blindly guessed. A couple that I had to choose between two really good answers and I couple that I thought were ambiguous (and said so).

My prof sprinkled a few silly questions throughout the exam, so that you would have a chuckle here and there.
i.e. If this class were a movie title, it would be:
(a) Hard Day's Semester
(b) I still Don't Know What I Did Last Semester
etc.

Cute. Anyway, I'm heating up my leftover sausage pizza from last nite (I think I'm going to gain 15 pounds during finals) and gear up for Con Law. Gotta do that Case Matrix tonite for sure. BLEAH.

In other news, I have now lost out on a 3rd Tony Hawk-autographed skate deck for my Godson. At least the price keeps going down. I lost out today cuz some Cooz was able to overbid me by $4 after I left for my final. That sucks.

I'm gonna keep tryin. I have two decks left I can bid on. Then I'll have to come up with someone else. Anyone got a Tony Hawk signed skate deck they wanna sell me?

Ready as I'll ever be.

I studied all freakin day. I have my outline bound, tabbed (and gagged), my FRE tabbed and organasized and both my primary and back-up mechanical pencils filled with lead (like my brain).

Now I'm off to take a Lush-bombed bath and try to tire out from the Pepsi I had earlier.

I feel pretty OK about tomorrow but my tummy is doing flip-flops.
Think non-hearsay thoughts for me around 1:00 p.m. Pacific time tomorrow.

T-36

36 hours until my Evidence final. I still don't feel ready. I've been doing practice questions ALL day today (taking tiny breaks for Con Law) -- 170 questions answered thus far (combo multi choice and short answer) -- and I'm still only running at about 74% correct. That's not awful, but I really feel like I should be hitting at least 80% before going in. The good thing is that I am figuring out where my weak spots are. The bad thing is that time keeps on slippin slippin slippin into the future and I still need to print & bind my outline, reorg my tabs in my F.R.E. and take the REAL (4 hour) practice exam under practice conditions.

It's 1:30 a.m. now and I'm setting my alarm for 9 a.m. so that I can try to get as much done as possible and still get a good nite's sleep on Sunday nite. Up side: Exam isn't until 1:00 p.m. on Monday. Down side: I didn't even get my Case Matrix done for Con Law which makes me think I'll be doing it Monday nite after my killer exam and just CRAMMING all day on Tuesday for my Wed morning final. UGH.

I realize that there is a point I just have to let Evidence go. That might be at around 6 p.m. tomorrow. As lame as it sounds, I really want to watch the Survivor finale.

Did you ever know that you're my hero?

Well, with the help of Schteino, I have a presentable mini-outline prepared and ready to use. He helped me with the basics and then I added in a bunch of Rules we are responsible for as well as the California Evidence Code sections. He really is my hero.

I luckily am a mad "tabber" throughout the school year, so my Fed Rules are already anally tabbed. I just need to update a few of the tabs and organize them a little. Worse comes to worse, I always have my bound & tabbed notes. But that thing is just insane (and the size of a Russian manuscript). And I really hope I never need to consult it because, honestly, I doubt I will have time.

My Con Law prof is hosting a review session tomorrow and I'm deciding whether or not to go. The time I take to drive to school, sit in the review and then drive back, I could be doing practice questions. The problem is that I went to his final review last year and found it really UNhelpful. There are also some people in my class that I find abhorrent and I honestly don't want to see them again until they are tap-tapping on their keyboards with their big mouths shut (please note I just typed "shit" by accident...or Freudian slip).

I think, instead, I will finally get to bed and wake up tomorrow and begin doing practice questions for Evidence with breaks for creation of a new Case Matrix for Con Law. Sunday I plan on doing the Big Momma practice exam which is actually a prior year's final of 200 multi-choice Evidence questions and 4 hours and doing it under Exam conditions (which means taking one 3 minute break and gobbling a protein bar in the bathroom).

I will know more about my progress after the practice questions tomorrow and I STILL have IP & Entertainment Law hanging over my head (which I'm somehow going to cram into 5 days of studying after Con Law! ha! I'm a fool.). But Evidence is 4 units and worth the most GPA value. And it's kind of the hardest. So I feel like once this is out of the way, I'll relax somewhat.

I want to thank everyone who has been so supportive of me through all this. You've been amazing. And I couldn't have done it without you.
Gosh, I'm tired.

Elizabeth Kubler-Ross would be proud

So I realized I've gone thru the Kubler-Ross 5 Stages of Death and Dying with my Evidence Exam. I don't entirely remember what order these were in, but I'm pretty sure this is how I went thru them:

1) DENIAL -- The first few days of the reading period, I read (as mentioned below) barely any of my notes, didn't outline and did approximately 1 CALI exercise. "My exam isn't even that close!" I thought.

2) ANGER -- I hate Evidence! I hate it! I hate hearsay, I hate character evidence and I especially hate privileges!!!! See Evidence Made Me Cry post, below. And thanks to Schteino for helping to tourniquet the bleeding (and the heaving, racking sobs).

3) BARGAINING -- If I can just study for 2 more hours, I can watch Survivor.

4) DEPRESSION -- I have no reason to even BE in law school. I'm stupid. I'll flunk this exam and never get a job and my professor will sit around the dinner table with his family, guffawing about how ridiculous my exam was. (Please, note, that I love my Evidence prof...and in fact have this totally weird teenage crush on him...and he would likely not guffaw when discussing me -- not because he has a crush on me, but because he's a kind person. But it's a recurring dream I have. So I thought it should go here).

5) ACCEPTANCE -- I will do the best I can do. And if I fail Evidence, oh well. Maybe Prof Evidence will teach it again next semester. And we can talk about interesting books and authors after class, some more.

In other news, I've eaten an entire bag of Rolo mini candies. Which I believe is 63 grams of fat in toto. I ate them over a 3-day period. But STILL! Yum.

Evidence made me Cry!

I actually began sobbing last nite while studying. SOBBING! I realize I am PMSing and that during times like these, AT&T commercials make me cry....but still.

I thought I understood character evidence. Apparently, I don't. I did the fucking CALI exercises for it and I scored like a 53% overall. The more I did, the more confused I got. It's like character can't come in EXCEPT EXCEPT EXCEPT EXCEPT...which ends up seeming like it gets to come in an awful lot.

The example was about entrapment -- which I know nothing about because I haven't had Crim Pro yet (is that even covered?). And when I said evidence of the defendant's prior heroin sale conviction should not be able to come in beause it seems like the prosecution was using it to show that he was selling it again. It said it COULD come in because it showed a "propensity toward selling heroin." huh? How is this different from the robbery example where evidence of a prior robbery was NOT allowed in to show that the defendant committed this one?

The answer says it's because character is part of the defense of entrapment. But I felt like that was pushing it. Is it really? As I said...now I'm just totally confused. And feel like an idiot.

The Residual Exception

I continue to loathe the CALI exercises (literally screaming at the screen and pounding my fist on the table) and yet, like a crack addict, I keep reloading the pipe. Sigh.

Even though he's smarter than me and probably doesn't need the help, I'm sending positive Evidence ions to Schteino for his exam tomorrow morning. Won't you send them, too???

In other news, I took a break from Hearsay and CALI to watch America's Top Model. I really don't understand how Ann got this far. Who HASN'T seen The Matrix, for chrissakes? Does she live on an ashram? Or maybe she's Amish? That would have been a good reality show Amish's Next Top Model. They had that Amish in the City show...so why not?

I'm pitching that right now...hello, Rumspringa.

CALI-gula

Because I am lazy, I have not even started outlining Evidence yet. And the exam is Monday. What I have done is bind my notes and begin reading and highliting them at a snail's pace. I've also intermittently been doing the corresponding CALI exercises. Ugh.

First of all, I grouse at some of the chapters which are literally done in some sort of DOS-like shell interface. You can't resize the window and the answers are wonk. In the "Concept of Hearsay" chapter for example, one of the questions read:
In a slip and fall case where plaintiff said he was injured when he slipped on a banana peel, the plaintiff calls a witness who testifies that 15 minutes before the accident, he told the proprieter that there was a banana peel on the floor. Is this hearsay?

My only two choices were "Yes" or "No." "Maybe" was not an option. "Need more information" was not an option. "Need to know what it's being offered for" was not an option.

And I understand that if it's only be offered to show "notice," then it's not hearsay. But if it's being offered to prove there was a banana peel on the floor, then it is hearsay. Do you have any idea how it's being offered here? NO!!! You don't. And yet when I chose "Yes," it tagged my answer as incorrect.

This is not helpful. Add to the fact that there is a myriad of typographical errors that make you have to re-read the question 4 or 5 times and I'm not entirely sure why I'm wasting my time. The more modern CALI chapters seem better. And better-explained. I just don't need this sort of frustration when I'm trying to study inefffectively.

In other news, I watched the first two installments of The First Amendment series on Court TV. I actually only saw the last 15 minutes of the Al Franken one. It was marginally interesting, but I didn't really learn anything new in that one. I mostly just liked it because O'Reilly is portrayed as a tool. But again...knew that already.

The second one, Poetic Justice, was about the ex-poet laureate of NJ, Amiri Baraka and his incendiary poem, "Who Blew Up America." It was directed by Mario Van Peeples and obviously has an opinion of its own to present. I thought there was some good dialogue about art and content censorship. I convinced myself that watching these were school-related. Since Con Law II is all about the First Amendment, I somehow felt justified.

I also drug my sorry ass to the gym and worked out back and biceps. I realized that I should be taking advantage of my "free" daytimes and use the gym when thousands of muscleheads, yoga bunnies and children aren't. By 5 p.m., it's a zoo in there. I think I should schedule my studying around a 2 p.m. gym jaunt.

I added some T.Rex, Massive Attack, Patty Griffin and Beth Orton to my mp3 workout "tape." I really need to add some more stuff in there to mix it up, but that will probably have to wait until the new year.

I lost out on the bidding on a Birdhouse skate deck autographed by Tony Hawk. The auction was to benefit PFAW, but $265 is an obscene (see Justice Stewart) amount of money for this. I wanted it as a Xmas present for my 12 year old Godson who worships Tony Hawk. Oh, well. Over the summer, I had a date with this professional BMX dude who knows a lot of the XGames pros. I told BMXBoy about my Tony Hawk plight and he said he would "give him a call" and see if he would hook me up. He added the caveat, "No promises, since I was better friends with his ex-wife than Tony." Immediately, I thought to myself "EX-wife, eh? Forget the autograph, how do I get to date T Hawk?"
I assume it's poor etiquette to ask BMXBoy (who I had a date with) to set me up with his friend's ex-husband?

It would be nice, tho, to get that skate deck for my Godson.
And maybe a smoochie from my favorite Xboy.
Does that make his ex-wife an "ex-X-wife?"
ouch. that was awful.

Back to Party Admissions. Whee.

One Wish

If I could have one wish this holiday season, it wouldn't be world peace.
Or finding a cure for cancer.
Or legalizing gay marriage.
Or even making sure Nick and Jessica never host another TV variety show.
No...it would be to have elves come in the night and turn my Evidence notes into a proper outline.

Tho, technically, that sounds more like a gig Rumplestiltskin would cover. Spinning straw (notes) into gold (outline). I'm cool with that. As long as I don't have to give him my baby or anything, it'd be fine. Heck, I'd even go to dinner with the little man in return. And maybe even give him a goodnight kiss.

I've done worse.
For less.

Hunting the Great White Chicken Tender

You'll be happy to know I finally finished that E&E reading for Con Law. I also printed out all of my notes for both Con Law and Evidence (and spell-checked them prior!) and bound them with bulldog clips until I can get them bound up proper at Staples. I've learned that the $2 it costs to get that little nylon comb put on them is the best value around. No more notes flying everywhere as I attempt to outline my class in 48 hours. And worse comes to worse...I just circle stuff in the bound notes in red pen and flag the pages with the post-it tabs.

My friend Jeff was flying in from Fort Lauderdale and asked for an airport pickup. Asking your friend who is studying for finals to pick you up at LAX on a Sunday nite is an ENORMOUS favor. You might as well have asked me to clean your bathroom with my tongue at 6 a.m. on a Monday morning. I tried to give him some guilt about it and then I remembered that Jeff has been a truly amazing friend -- bringing me kleenex and Gatorade when I was sick and always giving me left-over schwag from awards parties. So, karmically...I owed him.

I checked the Delta website and it said the flight was running mostly on time, but would be about 10 minutes late. There is also this uber cool graphical flight tracker thing that my mom uses which shows you the flight path (and approximate location) of the flight. The flight was supposed to land at 6:10 p.m. and by 5:15 p.m., the little graphic was over Phoenix.

I drove out to the airport and arrived at around 5:50. I always wait in the Burger King parking lot that's near the back entrance to the airport and tell people to call when they've picked up their bags. It saves me from driving in circles around LAX and is also handily near trash food, if I feel peaked. I began listening to Studio 360 on KCRW. It was on Moby Dick. They had that dude who plays the Grandpa on Gilmore Girls reading bits of it. Also interviews with Laurie Anderson, Frank Stella and a pretty wack Ray Bradbury. It was a pretty interesting lil radio piece.

In college, when I was in the Theatre dept., one of my favorite directors did an ensemble piece of Moby Dick. It was all very improv and collaborative and the end result was pretty incredible. So incredible that the troupe ended up taking it on the road to various Fringe festivals around the globe. In one of those strange turns of fate that always seem to happen to me, right after I moved to NYC, I met Moby at a party. Yes...that Moby. This was before Play came out and he wasn't so famous yet that he could still eat a brown rice salad at Dojo without being recognized. Anyway...he took me out on a couple of "semi-dates" which were interesting, if not slightly bizarre. But he's actually a sweet person. And always was very kind...and weird.

The Theatre troupe was performing at the NY fringe festival and I found out about it. I actually drug Moby along to see it. I liked the irony of that. Moby contends he is the great grand-son of Herman Melville or something. His middle name is supposedly "Melville." All I know is that whenever he phoned, it said "Richard Hall" on my caller ID. But I digress.

So while I sat in the rain in the Burger King parking lot, listening to Studio 360, I kept phoning the Flight Information line. Literally every 5 minutes, it would say "The flight is in the air and above Whittier. It will be landing in 6 minutes." and then another 5 minutes would go by and it would say, "The flight is in the air and above Malibu. It will be landing in 4 minutes." This continued with the flight being "in the air" above every conceivable Southern California city for the next 30 minutes. The flight was now officially 30 min late. And I was hungry...listening to all this talk about hunting the Great White whale. So I pulled into the drive-thru and ate 5 chicken tenders (w/BBQ sauce) and drank an entire medium coke. And then Jeff finally called at 6:45.

So I navigated my way through the sea of drizzled Wally Park shuttles to the Delta terminal and picked up Jeff. The traffic wasn't too bad on the way home, so at least we got back quickly. I was slightly peeved at having to waste all that time in the Burger King parking lot when I could have been reading the hearsay rule. But then again, my Evidence notes don't come with chicken tenders.

Or Moby, for that matter. Moby was vegan. I assume he still is. He would've been disgusted with my chicken tender-munching self.

But I think Melville would have approved.

25 pages in 2 days

I'm pathetic.
No, really.

I just can't seem to GEAR up for studying at all. I did need to do laundry desperately yesterday...since I was down to the 3 pairs of underwear I reserve for emergencies which will not entail an encounter with any member of the opposite sex...including my doctor.

And I also needed to go to Trader Joes and Gelsons because I had no real food to speak of.

What I didn't need to do was shop for Xmas presents online for like 2 hours, watch Medical Investigation or look up old boyfriends in Google. I literally made it through about 15 pages of the Con Law E&E before getting so tired, I just had to go to bed.

Today, I've managed to read another 15 or so pages. I've also listened to This American Life, talked to my mom on the phone, shopped for more Xmas presents, looked up more old boyfriends and taken a shower.

Oh...and updated this blog.

I guess I better finish that E&E now. ::sigh::

Last Days

Yesterday was my last day of classes. Pathetically, I couldn't even drag my fat ass out of bed to make it to IP. SAD. It's wholly my fault for going out on Wed nite to Sweethearts of the Rodeo at Molly Malones. I haven't seen my country rock friends in ages and decided to go.

It was nice to see Shilah and Bryson. Travis Howard was there, looking like a thug instead of the southern hottie he truly is. But that boy can still give me the shivers just by touching the small of my back while talking to me. shivvvvvver He also told me my hair looked excellent and that I looked "like Farrah Fawcett." ha. Lucinda showed up and played about 4 or 5 songs. It's always nice to see and hear her. She really is a queen of alt-country. And she was wearing her cute eyeglasses.

Anyway, this made for a late evening drinking Jack Daniels and listening to country rock and by the time I got home, I would have gotten 4 hours of sleep before IP. So I made the executive decision to sleep instead. I worked my last day in Career Services, as well. I'm trying to get a law clerk position for next semester, so I've informed financial affairs that I wll not be doing work study next semester. The good thing was always getting to see the job postings before everyone else.

Now...there's nothing left but the studying.
And, well...the crying.

I'm Not As Dumb as I Thought

My Con Law prof posted the aggregate scores for the midterm.

Turns out I still scored in the 70th percentile, even with 20 pts.
Out of 102 students, only 31 people scored higher than me. 7 people got the same score. So I actually did better than last year, even with the same score.

This raises my spirits somewhat as I begin studying for the final.

The Final Furlong

Well, tomorrow is my last day of actual classes for Fall 2L. It's my long day, so entails IP, Con Law II and Entertainment Law. And I'm stressed.

I think I got precisely the same score as I did last year on this prof's midterm. The good news is that despite me doing average on the midterm last year, I rocked the final and ended up scoring in the top 15% of the class. Not saying I will do that again. But it gives me hope. It's weird because I obviously understand the black letter and am one of the people in class who constantly participates in discussion about relating the law to modern times or other cases. I don't think I could have studied any harder than I did. But every year, I get an average grade. Hrmm. I try to assuage myself by thinking, "In the real world, no one asks you to IRAC something in 1.5 hours." Or at least I hope they don't.

I think the class that has me the most concerned is Entertainment Law. IP has me concerned slightly, too, but as long as I can memorize factors and basics from Patent, Copyright and Lanham Acts, I will be all right. But i have NO idea what to expect in Ent Law! There is some crossover from IP which may be my saving grace, since I will already have memorized those bits. I have IP and Ent Law on consecutive days. BLEAH. Dec 20th and 21st respectively. I dunno. I'm taking lots of homeopathic stress meds to combat my anxiety.

Today we don't have class because they are holding the Cal bar swearing in at our school. I slept for 9 hours and it felt grand. I am planning on going to the gym and then off to Sweethearts of the Rodeo at Molly's in order to have one final fun nite before I disappear for the next 3 weeks into the study hole. I always feel like Fall semester is more difficult. Maybe because of all the holidays and it seems like it's over more quickly. I don't think it is, technically, but it just feels like it. I also think you take the first 2 weeks of the semester just to combat your summer lethargy.

I still don't have a summer job which is adding stress to my already mountainous pile. I did interview with a licensing firm on Monday for a possible part-time position next semester. But they weren't sure if there would be anything. I garnered the interview thru Graham in Career services. Turns out he helped this fellow get the job HE has and he sort of owed him one. Great guy and I think the job could be fun and cool. My friend Gilda already works there, so that would be additionally swell to have a friend in-house. Think good thoughts. He said they would be making their decisions for Spring semester before Christmas. I could really use this.

If I don't get it, I'll be surfing Emplawyernet for a clerk position. Who knows where I'll end up?