This morning, I got the first serious slap in the face that the term is very near its end. I left home without my lip goo. Luckily, I noticed this less than a block from home so I turned around and got it (it is impossible to live in SoCal without lip goo on you at all times). Then, as I was getting off the freeway by the school, I realized that I had forgotten my lunch, too. In fact, I hadn’t even packed it into its insulated bag. I hadn’t even put the pieces together (fruit, powerbar snack, nibblies, etc.).

Sigh.

My brain is already mush. Not a good sign.

I couldn’t help but think about Dad today when Prof. Smythe taught us about title recording systems and how to do a title search. I got the feeling I was the only one enjoying the class, but that was because I remember Dad trying to show me how to do searches years ago.

I’m surprised how much I like Property. I had expected that to be one of the least interesting courses in law school. Go fig. Of course, it’s not just about real estate–there is personal property too. And there is a certain amount of weird property “calculus” that I like doing, because the problems are like puzzles. If, for example, a lessee assigns to another who then subleases to someone else, who can sue whom if the rent doesn’t get paid? And why?

Then again, I enjoyed figuring out future interests in Property 1 too. Signs of brain damage, I’m told.

Made it through the Oral Arg. okay. Was told I had a great opening (yea!) but that I had some problems with my demeanor–seems I come off as, well, a bit “hard” when I disagreed with the court, according to my professor.

I think it’s just because I didn’t wear high heels and a more feminine blouse. Even though the prof is a woman I think she finds strong women “bitchy.” I mean, she actually said that because of my natural physical demeanor, I had to be careful. What–I’m tall(ish) and in okay shape so I have to act like a featherhead? I dunno….

She tried to say it all in a kind way, but it has bugged me. I guess I need to see some video to tell for myself.

Still, I’m glad my opening went over so well. I was a bit unsure about it. I was afraid it might have been too “spun” at the beginning, but apparently not. Whew.

So, I’ve got to go read my Torts…

…and finish my beer.

Here at CWSL, every 1L must participate in at least one competition–the Appellate Oral Argument. It’s done for a grade in our Legal Skills 2 class, and it is also a chance to get asked to join a summer class that makes you a potential candidate for one of the school’s Moot Court teams.

Me, I’m not interested in being on one of the teams (travel on top of school and, soon, work? No thanks), but I do want to do well for the grade, of course. And there is also a bit of ego here–some of my classmates have been a bit snotty (young males mostly) so wiping the floor with them would be a cherry on top. I’m a bad Buddhist, yes.

Anyway, my “opposing counsel” and I have offered to do ours in class today (others will do them after school, more privately). I don’t have a fear of speaking in public, so the trade-off of getting it done early and having to do it in front of 20ish people was an easy choice.

The case is the same one for which we are writing an appellate brief, so we know this material well. At least we should. I have my notes as the instructor has suggested and I have gone over the record a billion times, so I think I’m set. One small problem: I keep choking on my teeny opening! I was literally waking up last night in a sweat about it. It’s not long at all, but I flub bits almost every time. Grrr! Most likely, no one but I would notice the flubs (the meaning is all there), but still.

The way it works is that we’ll give our opening, then get hit with questions until time is called. Then the student should ask for addition time to briefly conclude (like 2 sentences). Seven minutes total…no big whoop. I look at it like legal Jeopardy. I just hope I don’t answer in the form of a question, or drop the occasional obscenity which seems to be happening more often lately. Hmmm.

So, think good thoughts around 1:20pm PDT today. I’ll be first up since I’m arguing for the appellants.

Here in San Diego, there is a family-owned grocer that is fantastic to go to for its produce. The prices are always amazing and the variety is usually quite large too. It is rare that the quality isn’t good as well.

This store is owned by a Middle Eastern family and many of its shoppers are from that region, as well as other non-US places. The canned goods are often from Poland, Russia, Turkey…you name it. You can find some really unusual foods there, as well as walk out with a couple of bags full of produce for less than $10.

However, I generally avoid the butcher section. It just wigs me out way too much. You might understand why from these pics:

I had my annual with my GYN today (before anyone gets the wrong idea about this post, I’m fine). She’s a spaz in some ways, but she’s thorough and straight-forward and she takes the time to answer questions even when they are not in her specific specialty (like the “any suggestions for adult acne?” I asked her today–she took 10 minutes to answer!). As she does every year, she asked if there were any changes in my life, health, etc. and when I told her about law school, she was so enthusiastic, I about fell off the table! She asked about my personal life (well, she is a GYN, of course) and then took my BP. It was its usual 108/65 or so. She said how amazing that was considering the amount of stress I must be under. Then she looked at my weight and noted that I had lost weight from the previous year (I should hope so–I had never been as heavy!). Again she said that made me unusual (in a good way) since most (80%) of her patients in my age bracket put on weight every year now.

So, I’m a smart, healthy, (mostly) fit, somewhat acne-plagued, successful, stress-filled, middle-aged woman. Joy.

The stress from school is mostly manageable. Today we had Torts and, as opposed to last Friday where I felt mostly lost even though I had read the cases, I only flubbed on one point. In fact, I think I understood things better than many of my classmates. Hope so.

Tomorrow is CivPro and Legal Skills and Property and Torts tutoring. I know I’m ahead of the game in Property these days because we’re talking about buying real estate and having been through the process once, a lot of the info is redundant. Legals Skills will be talking about Oral Arguments–no big whoop. Civ Pro is a pile of learning, though–Discovery rules. There is a lot to know there. My book is filled with margin notes.

Then tomorrow evening there is a workshop for the Oral Advocacy competition we have to participate in as a part of Legal Skills. I should be home by 9 or so.

Thursday I’m going to an APA/ASMP photo event. Another late night. And an appointment during the day to boot, and Contracts and Contracts tutoring.

Friday it’s Torts again, and Property and Property tutoring. Then I think I shall collapse.

If this is success, it sure is a hell of a lot of work.

And acne.

Holy crap! I have my first final in 40 days. Saturday, April 18th. When did that happen? Yipes!

I realized that it had to be creeping up since we’re getting down to the meat of our appellate brief in Legal Skills 2. That’s just fine with me…getting that thing done, I mean. I would like to get a really good draft done asap so that I can concentrate on the oral advocacy part of the class. I have to be prepared to argue my case in front of “judges” in competition with my classmates on March 23rd.

Then, of course, there is all the prep I need to do for my substantive courses too. Just learning the rules of joinder in CivPro will take some time. It’s deceptively simple–but remembering which rule applies where and which one needs subject matter jurisdiction and/or personal jurisdiction gets easy to mess up. For example, FRCP 18(a) says that you can join just about any claim after the original one, but in reality there are plenty of times when that just won’t work. Or, if you don’t join 13(a) compulsory counterclaim, you can’t bring it up later. Tricky stuff to get right.

Contracts has been mostly about breach this term. It seems mostly straightforward, except when it’s not. Same for Torts. And Property has its calculus of privities in assignments and subleases…and variances and special exceptions in zoning. And don’t get me started on CCRs.

But all this will have to take a brief pause over the weekend. Saturday night is the Barristers’ Ball. It will be on a boat in the bay much like my wedding. Basically, it’s the law school prom. I never went to my high school proms, but I’m going to this one.

No tacky limos, though.

In my Legal Skills 2 class yesterday the prof showed one student’s work (anonymously) as an example of a not too bad way to approach the structure for the outline for our appellate brief assignment. That student has been in law school since August and in that time has been exposed to the same amount of learning I have, including reading case upon case. That student is also taking Torts 1 now, and is probably just finishing with the section on statutory per se negligence (if you break a law related to the accident, you are negligent just for the violation alone, with some specific exceptions).

So imaging my shock when I looked up and read something about student speech being limitable on school grounds “per say.”

Seriously?!? After more than 6 months of law school (more if s/he did summer enrichment) and reading the phrase “per se” countless times in cases, the student actually wrote “per say” on the assignment? How is that possible?

Then again, a CivPro 2 student yesterday also kept saying “descendent” for “decedent” in a case (no wonder she couldn’t figure out the plaintiff was a widow).

I don’t get it. I don’t get how so many of these kids still seem not to have even the basics down yet. And they don’t seem to have much intellectual curiosity either. In Property 2 on Friday the prof was trying to get us to think about the bigger question of “What is the law?” but most of the class didn’t seem to get it or care (of course more than half were facebooking or something else online at the time–I don’t get why they do that during class either).

Me, I enjoy the classes and would love a deeper discussion on some of these bigger questions. But I’m of a different generation, I guess.