the cracks in the sidewalk

The end of a week away from work and school, time to get back on the merry-go-round. I'm not quite ready but of course that doesn't matter.

I saw shifts in some relationships more clearly this week, I wonder if it was because I was free of the usual daily focii, with less to cloud my vision? Some of the changes were a little painful and sad. And I don't know if it's that I can't fix them, or if it is that I'm unwilling to do the hard work involved? Or somewhere in between, perhaps. And what does this say about me? Did I learn to walk away too readily or is it part of who I am? Nature vs nurture.

That writing contest is looking a bit unlikely at this point. So much time would need to be invested, and where will I come up with it? More to the point, what is there that I'd want to give up to make this happen? It might be time to let this one go.

Summer classes start tomorrow, and mostly they will be with students who are not in my class. This may be good, but I will miss the comfortable knowledge of each other, and the ease that goes with that.

Yet another peel of the onion...

ketchup or catsup?

I took this week off between spring finals and the commencement of summer classes as vacation from work. I am so far behind on everything else in life, I decided to stay home and get my life back in order.

It turns out it's veeerrryy hard to cut knee high grass with a lawn mower. But it can be done, I can attest to it. Snail heaven in there! I tried giving the snails to the chickens but they don't seem to know what to do with them, so I'm back to squashing them. I go out of my way not to kill things normally, but for snails I make an exception.

Now that I've earned some fun, I'm going to finish the Paul Theroux book I'm reading, and plan this year's garden. The rest of the chores will wait one more day.

today and tomorrow

Second year is officially a closed chapter. All that remains is to see the results. But it will be about 5 weeks before we get the grades, so moving right along...

I think we were all feeling such a huge sense of accomplishment last night. Each of us has worked hard this year to survive all that school and life has challenged us with, and last night was all about celebration. And a little about tequila. But mostly celebrating with friends who can really understand what this has cost us, because they too have paid the price.

Tomorrow there are chores, bills to pay, reading to do for summer classes. Today is a day of thanksgiving and celebration.

They keep moving the finish line

The last part of the race is the hardest mentally, and I'm feeling that same lethargy now. Only tonight and tomorrow to study, for the final on Thursday. And it's hard tonight.

Doesn't help that I started my day at 4:15 this morning, worked from 6-5, with an hour off to go to the doctor. I know that this is not the time to start whining, just keep putting one foot in front of the other. But of course I'm whining anyway. Still moving though.

good fences make good neighbors

Easements, restrictive covenants and equitable servitudes swim in my brain today. I'm fine with each one independently but there seems to be significant overlap between them all. One could say that an easement is the right of nonpossessory use of the land of another-until you get to negative easements. A negative easement looks an awful lot like a restrictive covenant.

And a restrictive covenant and equitable servitude seem to have only privity and possibly the form of remedy as their distinctions. If I make an agreement to maintain and repair a bridge that provides access to our properties, it is a covenant which burdens my land and benefits yours. We have privity at inception so there is horizontal privity. If I convey my land, but not the same estate, then the subsequent owner is not in vertical privity. So are they not required to maintain the bridge? But if this is an equitable servitude, privity is not required. However, equitable servitudes are generally negative-an agreement not to do something.

What is the difference between an easement implied by plat vs implied reciprocal negative easement (technically an equitable servitude?)

I can promise to cut your grass (covenant). I can agree to let you pick the fruit from my orchard (profit). We may agree together not to allow mobile homes on our properties (equitable servitude). You may give me deeded access to the lake which your property abuts but mine does not (easement). I may say that as long as we are neighbors, I am fine with you using the badminton court when your kids come home (license). You may agree not to plant trees on the side of the property so that I don't lose the morning sun (negative easement or restrictive covenant).

If you own a large parcel of land and subdivide it, but reserve for yourself an easement over the lot you sell to me, that is an express easement by reservation. If instead I have the landlocked parcel and you grant me an easement for access that is an express easement by grant. If you do not grant me an easement but the prior occupant of my lot used a road through your land, and there is no other legal access to my property, I may be able to obtain an easement by necessity. Or if that driveway has been in use, and the other way out is not reasonably usable, I may be able to get an easement by implication by prior use. In that case, the easement is permanent, whereas the easement by necessity would only exist as long as I do not have other access. The difference is between strict necessity and reasonable necessity.

There are many ways to say I will, or I will not. And even if unsaid, your actions may imply such an agreement. Being neighborly may cost you.

the striving

Who is rich, he who is satisfied with his lot.

The Talmud. Taken from a post and comments at: http://www.fastcoexist.com/1679633/the-world-happiness-report-explains-what-makes-people-happy#comments

What does it mean to be happy? And is this a worthy goal? I say I do not seek happiness. I view it as such a fleeting feeling, effectively unattainable more often than not. Am I just kidding myself or playing a semantics game?

Yoda quote: You will find only what you bring in.

What we strive for either does not exist or it is inside us all along.

unmoored

Sitting here high above the river, whiling away the afternoon studying civil procedure, and feeling contemplative and peaceful. One of the benefits of middle age is that I recognize both the beauty of this moment and its fleeting nature. Here this moment, gone very soon. So I'm grateful for this moment.

At times like this I wish I could capture somehow this feeling so that I can bring it back when life presses in hard. But alas, my humanity gets in the way and I forget, or at least forget to remember. Still, right now I can see forever, and all is well. That water rushing over the dam has no thought for from whence it came and where it goes. It just goes. I am incapable of such mindlessness nearly always, save rare occasions.

It's one of the things I find enticing about foreign travel. I am suddenly sitting in a place I've never been, where no one knows me, no one knows where I am, and the noise and language surrounding me are foreign to me. Then, just for a bit, I can slip the skin of self awareness and constant interpretation of the goings on around me. I can float, and let go.

inching forward

Well, you knew that euphoria wasn't going to last, didn't you? Still, managing to hang onto calm, just barely. I'm in the exam room, all set up. Going to go hide out in the place I go to be alone here at school, and listen to some music. Either I know it or I don't, and cramming now will just confuse me. Onward ho!

the world is my oyster

The eve of the first final for second year, and I wake up feeling like a kid on Christmas morning-where in the world does this come from? I have always enjoyed test situations, but in law school they have a different aspect of stress and an overwhelming incapacity to be prepared. So why this now? I am more prepared than I expected to be, but that doesn't quite explain it either. Nevertheless, I'm going to ride this wave of confidence and-amazingly-joy-for as long as it lasts. Off to work for 6 hours or so, hoping to leave around noon, and then I'm spending a short time on some mundane errands. After that, perhaps a short nap and immersion in all things Evidence. Let the games begin. Tomorrow will bring its own ills, today I will wallow in this good thing.

sandpaper

It's a little like a rock in my shoe when I'm running, or underwear that won't stay put. Or maybe the sunlight that glints off the neighbor's hood and reflects right into my eyes. And I know that tomorrow this will seem trivial, and so I'm going to just breathe today. Tomorrow the rock will be gone, or I'll take action to remove it.

second year exams

This week's classes were all spent reviewing and preparing us for the exams, which commence in two days time. I suppose this is typical, but at this point in the year, the professors have spent quite a bit of time with us, and having suffered through law school themselves, seem to take a little pity on us. They don't ease up on the exam, nor the grading. But they do seem to feel an urge to help us prepare for the battle. All urge us to read old exams, each talks about what approach they want to see, and all of them answered questions put to them on various topics from the course. I may be wrong, but I think this is the biggest exam season we'll see until it's time to sit the bar. First year felt big, but had less content that we were expected to have mastered. And everyone tells us that after this year, things change materially. Less substantive law classes for sure, somewhat less work, and perhaps more time to follow the rabbit trails. I look forward to that, but first I must earn my way in-by surviving the next two weeks.

can you see the face of Mary in that rock?

I struggled with the distinction between a Thayer presumption and a Morgan presumption for some time-not actively, mind you. Just when it came up. And now that the Evidence final is a week away, it seemed like a good time to clear up my confusion. It's interesting where these moments of clarity can strike. I was sitting in the taco shop, looking at the different presumptions that California has codified in each category and I decided to work through some from each group to try to see what was different. Well, hells bells, there it was, so simple all along! A Thayer presumption requires that the opposing party offer some evidence that rebuts the presumption. Once rebutted, the presumption disappears, like it never existed, and the jury is never even told of its prior existence. A Morgan presumption, on the other hand, is a bit tougher to get rid of. It requires proof, not just evidence. One must prove, by a preponderance of the evidence, that the presumption is rebutted with countering facts. Even then, it is for the jury to decide which facts are the most likely to be true; they are instructed to find for the party favored by the presumption unless by a POE the rebutting facts are shown. I'd read those same words at least a dozen times. I don't know why I never saw the face in the rock before this time.

it's irrelevant

It's a funny thing, the things that trip you up. For some reason, the concept of relevance gets me hung up. I keep trying to fit it to the non-law use of the word, and that just doesn't fit. What's relevant to my everyday life is not the same question as whether an item of evidence, or testimony, is relevant. Having a tendency to prove or disprove a disputed fact that is of consequence to the matter being tried. It must be probative and material. The questions are close, on the surface. An example may help: when considering proffered testimony on a matter that has been properly stipulated to by the parties, then the testimony, while it may bear directly on the matter at hand, is legally irrelevant, because it is not a disputed fact.

brought low

Some lessons are more painful, more costly than others. This week I learned yet another costly lesson in humility. I fear it has cost me too much-so why was it so hard to learn, I wonder? This law school journey has uncounted, surprising implications in my life. I'd read of such impact in the lives of others who undertook law school. But they were mostly 25, and full time students. Not yet fully formed, susceptible to all manner of suggestion and pressure. Well. It turns out that at 52, some of the same things can happen. And I am not so very proud of how I've handled it. I owe my class in general, and some people specifically, an apology. Unfortunately, I do not think I'll get that soul cleansing opportunity. Rather, I will have to dig my way out, day by day. I don't like who I have become this year.