Ponce Upon A Time

Holy Shit

2009-09-19T21:02:00.007-04:00

I went on the email record with D-Bake and Vargo and said a UW win over #3 USC today would be the biggest win since humbling Miami at home in 1994. Boy am I glad I didn't jinx it.

Holy shit, it feels good to root for a winning team. It's been a while. In oh-eight the Sonics were stolen, the Huskies didn't win a game, the Seahawks were broken, and the M's lost 101 games (that's bad).

Wish I could have been there to rush the field. I would have been celebrating more than just a college football win.

Law School Goes

2009-09-13T20:37:00.013-04:00

"Courier" is the required font for legal documents, so I thought I'd use it in this post to give it an air of authenticity. Or maybe it's confirmation of my law-school conformation. Lame! I'll just use it today to be ironic, and then it's back to a different font for the next post. Something revolutionary, like Times New Roman.

Anyways. Law school is going. I haven't mastered a really important technique, which is: getting ahead on reading assignments over the weekend. That will come with time. The workload seems to be about 2-3 hours to prep for each class session. Do the math on a three-class day, and that's up to 9 hours of prep which cannot all be done the day before. Hence, getting ahead on the weekend when free time avails itself.

The classroom experience hasn't been very intense because none of my professors are into the hard-core Socratic Method. Each typically assigns a few people to be the experts in the next class, so you know when you are going to be called on. Even though talking in front of 80 people isn't really my thing, I'm still looking forward to my assigned days. They haven't happened yet.

Even though I've got way less free time, I'm enjoying the newness and intellectual challenge of law school. It HAS lost a bit of its new car smell, and I'm starting to appreciate the 3-year grind I've embarked upon, but it sure beats working. Not sure if it's a good or bad sign that Priya and I have come up with a name for our next cat, if that ever happens: Tortfeasor. His nickname'll be Feasor.

On the home front...well we went to Savannah with Sara and Dan for Labor Day Weekend (hence, not getting ahead in schoolwork). We sat at the pool, ate good food, watched football, went to the beach, drank adult beverages. This weekend, I volunteered at the cat adoption center and watched football when I wasn't reading cases.

Tomorrow is our 6-month wedding anniversary: a mini-milestone! (A milepebble?) (A kilometerstone?)

My Schedule

2009-08-31T12:13:00.000-04:00

My goal is to treat law school like a day job, and I've been successful so far. With my first class every day at 10:30, a frequent approach is to wake up around 7:30, drink coffee, read the news and check email. From about 8:00 to 9:30 or so, I do schoolwork or go to the grocery store, then head to class. Aside from a lunch break, I spend my time between classes in the library, and shoot to be home by about 7:00 for dinner. I have typically had a bit more work to do at home after dinner, followed by a TV show or something with Priya and in bed by 11:30. Tues/Thur are my heavy classroom days, so Mon/Wed are heavy schoolwork days in preparation.

Monday
10:30-12:00 Legal Methods
2:00-3:15 Contracts

Tuesday
10:30-12:00 Civil Procedure
12:30-1:45 Legal Writing, Research, and Advocacy Program (LWRAP)
2:00-3:30 Torts

Wednesday
10:30-12:00 Legal Methods
2:00-3:15 Contracts

Thursday
10:30-12:00 Civil Procedure
12:30-1:45 Contracts
2:00-3:30 Torts

Friday
10:45-12:00 LWRAP
12:30-2:00 Torts (some weeks this class is cancelled)

Saturday
Trying to use Saturdays for schoolwork

Sunday
Trying not to use Sundays for schoolwork

Happy 1st Anniversary to Elizabeth and Graham!!!

First Day of School

2009-08-24T07:45:00.000-04:00

Today is my 21st first day of school, going back to preschool (actually 24 if we include my school years as a teacher!). I think that's a big number. But - I'm still anxious and a little nervous, anticipating what it will be like in law school.

I should have two classes today -- Legal Methods and Contracts -- but my Methods professor is out of town, or something, this week. So, I begin at the more-than-reasonable time of 2:00pm in my first Contracts class. In preparation for day one, we had a 17 page reading assignment that took a few hours to read, understand, and brief. The case we read was Shaheen v. Knight, in which a patient sues the doctor that performed his vasectomy when he and his wife subsequently have their fifth child. He does not allege negligence, just a failure to fulfill a contracted guarantee to make him sterile. Shaheen is suing for the amount of money it will require to raise his new child. The court reasoned that, while there was an enforceable contract, the costs involved in raising a child do not constitute damages. So, no damages were awarded since it was decided he had suffered none.

My classes will usually include two Sections of students, which totals about 80 people. The long-dreaded Socratic Method will be employed, and we'll be cold-called for answers to questions and general intellectual pestering by the professor. It'll be stressful for the unprepared.

Summertime

2009-07-30T18:33:00.000-04:00

First off, welcome to my blog! The goal here is to allow you to keep tabs on me in a new way.

Second off, happy 32nd birthday to me. It's been a day of shopping with Priya and getting ready to head out of town tomorrow. I bought a cheap Dell laptop today that I'm hoping gets (me) through law school in one piece.

What a summer I've had so far. Fresh Prince would be proud. I gave myself a little more than six weeks between quitting my job and starting law school at Emory in August, and we are at roughly the halfway point. My last day at work was July 2nd, which feels like eons ago now; my first day of law school orientation is August 19th. What a treat, to give myself a proper summer vacation. Here's what I've been doing:

Roadtripped to Michigan with vargo to visit his hometown, see Detroit, and relax at his aunt/uncle's lake home in northern Michigan.
Flew to Boston to drink beer, watch baseball, and catch up with Tyler, Brian, and Miguel.
For the past two weeks now, I've been farting around at home and it has been great. I have:
gone to bed early and awoken early
watched a movie a day
hiked 13 up-and-down miles near Amicalola Falls with Kevin Lynch
tried my hand at tennis with vargo (difficult - helps to start young, something neither of us did)
read This is Your Brain on Music, Columbine, and am halfway through A Civil Action
spent a day with Robert
watched entirely too much of the Tour de France (next year is going to be nuts when Lance and Contador are on different teams)
took care of some household projects, like emptying the buffet and flipping it over to dislodge the item preventing the opening of a drawer
helped Kevin build a compost bin with vargo, and mowed his backyard (since I have no lawn to mow, friends sometime benefit from my pent-up homeowner energy)
grew a beard (started well before quitting my job, actually)
finished Season 4 of The Wire and started Season 5
trained to volunteer at a cat adoption center (two hours of playing with kittens goes by very fast). To start, I'll be doing two hours every other week.
tested a couple of bicycle routes to Emory
attended a Gwinnett Braves AAA minor league baseball game
and of course supported Priya's bid to pass the Bar exam by holding down the homestead and offering shoulder massages. (update: Priya is DONE!! Hard to believe her three year indoctrination to the law has come to a close.)

Tomorrow, Priya and I vacate to the West Coast. We're spending 5 nights in Seattle seeing family (looking forward to meeting Henry Ford the dog, kayaking with papa on Lake Union, seeing Pat and Ginger's Africa pictures, melting in the unseasonable weather, and staying with Liz and Graham). Then we head south for 5 nights in San Francisco (the city at the top of my "American Cities I Don't Know But Would Like To" list) followed by 3 nights in Sonoma. Very much looking forward to this, and since it's Priya's post-bar trip and my pre-law-school trip, we've got license to splurge...