First Day of School

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

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...