Thanksgiving

Today is Thanksgiving, and no studying at all.  I feel a bit unmoored without having any studying to do-actually I have a lot to do but chose to take the holiday off. I made turkey dinner for family and friends and now feeling the pull of my books.  First, things I am thankful for.

Laptop computers and blankets.  Electric lights and central heat.  food to eat, sunshine on my skin, freedom to choose.  My brothers and my sons.   For love that I never knew existed, for the pain that comes with loss and for being fully a part of life.  For law school and my new friends.

Grace and mercy in full measure have been mine this year.  For this I am grateful and full of thanks.

coalescence and chickens

Each week there is further evidence that we are becoming an entity.  This weekend I got emails from two people in the class and a phone call from another.  We grow weekly more comfortable with each other and more familiar with each other's idiosyncrasies.

There is another gardener in the group, good to know.  I need to balance the law in my mind with dirt in my fingers sometimes, and it even helps to just talk about it.  I have decided to get chickens this spring, after the house is stucco'd.  Life marches on, and while many things may wait a while, I find I can't just stop for 4 years but must fit things in where I can.  Projects moving along, albeit a little slower than they used to.  I just can't imagine waiting to have chickens for 4 years, nor can I imagine not gardening.  The beds will be smaller and the harvest lighter but there will still be dirt under my fingernails and eggs in my kitchen.

play

'Play is whatever is done spontaneously and for its own sake.'  I got this from my cousin's blog, it is a quote from George Santanaya.  So I guess I play at law, or at least at learning the law.  Aside from any economic considerations, I study the law because I love to.

I also love to garden and keep chickens, and travel the world.  I am still not sure how to assimilate all of those in one direction but I think time will bring me to that.

Uncle?

At what point do you say Uncle?  Work, school, study, housework, family, relationships.  Everything wants a piece of me.  Sounds like I’m whining and I don’t mean to be.  After all, I chose this, with full knowledge of what it would mean-or at least as full as I could know before actually doing it.  I can’t complain to anyone else, most of them think I’m crazy for attempting it.  Which I am.  Crazy.  But that was established long ago.

Mid terms loom and we are all madly trying to find more time in the day, better ways to study and retain the black letter law, take practice exams so we are ready for the real thing, and alternately thinking we are doing ok or sure to fail miserably. 

I’m pretty sure we’re being set up to fail by our Torts professor, who is entertaining and funny and knows the law but has waited until now to schedule 2 make up classes, and will of course show no pity in testing on all this last minute stuff.  Cognizant that we were in a hole in that class, I have been reading ahead and am close to finishing all the reading for the semester.  However, if I waited and read in line with the classes, I’d be in trouble now.  Also he gives us no ideas about the exam, nor does he give us solid black letter law definitions or elements cleanly laid out.  So we have no idea what to expect.  Well, we have an idea, there are a lot of sample tests out there.  But each professor has peculiarities and hot buttons, and I want to do more than pass-although that alone is a worthy goal- and so I want to know what he expects and wants.

time well spent?

Dynamic conversation tonight in class, but it means we are yet further behind in Torts.  That would be ok except it was a one person show, not an engaged class, and the logic and rabbit trail became absurd eventually.  So, the issue:  what is the most appropriate use of class time?  In particular, at this time of the semester.  To determine that we must consider the rule:  In order to practice law, one must pass the bar.  In order to pass the bar, one must study the law.  In furtherance of law study, one must pass one's classes.

The holding:  while extemporaneous dialogue and debate are often useful and enriching, it is incumbent on the professor to retain control and to measure the benefit to the class when a discussion arises, and to cut it off timely when the best use of time for the class is not to continue.

words and humpty dumpty

"A word is not a crystal, transparent and unchanged, it is the skin of a living thought and may very greatly in color and content according to the circumstances and the time in which it is used" Justice Holmes

"when I  choose a word, it means just what I chose it to mean-neither more nor less"  Humpty Dumpty

I have always been fond of careful use of words, to better express the exact meaning and intent.  Of course, when one is in a hurry, or perhaps knows that they have just one short opportunity to speak, often they use the wrong words.  Maybe that is why I like writing so much.  It affords an opportunity to get it right that oral communication does not.  Additionally, sometimes in the heat of the moment, we truly believe that our words at that moment accurately describe our view of something, whereas upon further reflection, I often find that what I said is not what I really think after all.

"'rerum enim vocabula immutabilia sunt, homines mutabilia" Words are unchangeable, men changeable.  (quoted in Wigmore on Evidence).  What difference does it make if the words are unchanged in their meaning or our understanding varies with our own intellect, experience and circumstances?  The result is the same.

countdown to midterms

Just a month to the first midterm exam.  The stakes are high, although not as high as they will be at finals time.  Some professors use the midterm results only if they help our grade, and some use them regardless.  Either way, it will be a good gauge as to how our test taking skills stack up, and what black letter law we do and don't know.  So we can decide from those results how hard to work, and what to change, during 2nd semester.  Our grade is entirely based on the midterm and final exams, nothing else.

Which means...all the hours of briefing cases for class is largely so as not to be humiliated in front of everyone.  I've stopped typing briefs, and am now book-briefing, in an effort to leave more time for studying the black letter law, and theoretically for practice tests.  I'm making some progress on the black letter law, but clearly need to redouble my efforts in this month.

Meanwhile, things at work are at fever pitch, and I don't know at this point who will be left standing when the smoke clears.   I worry sometimes.

what I need to know

res ipsa loquitur, sed quid in infernos dicet?

sine qua non = without this, nothing

post hoc ergo propter hoc = it happened after, therefore because of the preceding event

parol evidence rule

Erie doctrine

there are many things to be said, and most of them true.

order and paradise

The law is a means to an end.  It is not the law because it is the law, but because it is adapted and adaptable to establish and maintain reasonable order.

Right now I'd settle for order in my life!  Or even in one part of it.  Planting trees and moving fences, not enough time to study but I really need a pedicure.  And then there's work.  What a circus it is just now, and no end in sight very soon.  One person really angry at me, no make that two.  Things could be smoother.

And then again, they could be worse.  I live in paradise.