Archive for October, 2009

As I mentioned, I had a mini-reunion with some college friends the week before last. I was out four nights in a row and subsequently fell behind in torts and contracts. I debated whether I should just try to cram extra hours into the days in order to catch up or else just do my best to stay current and worry about learning joint and several liability when it comes time to cram for exams. I chose the latter. There’s just so much going on right now and before I know it, it’s November 1 and I’ll have to add summer job searching to my never-diminishing plate of obligations. The work just keeps piling on and even though I JUST turned in my first memo assignment, already our second has been assigned. First memo rewrites are due about a week before the second memo (twice the length of the first one) is due. This second (and last) memo is an open universe type memo (outside research required, for the uninitiated) and promises to be a bigger time suck than the last…

But I’ve still made time for fun! Last Thursday there was a joint CLS/NYU Law bar review at a place in Hell’s Kitchen. I had a great time mingling with our Village counterparts. They were really friendly and outgoing. I even met a fellow Wellesley alum; that’s always fun. I think initially the NYU students who showed up vastly outnumbered the CLS students, but things evened out somewhat as the night wore on. To be honest, I didn’t see a whole lot of cross-school intermingling. For my part, I hung out almost exclusively with NYU students until the latter part of the night. But I think that was more the exception than the rule.

The weekend was pretty fun as well. A friend who I haven’t seen in months had a dinner party (I’m such a grown up) at his upper east side apartment Friday and we followed up dinner with drinks at some local bars. And then my parents were in town Saturday and we had a late lunch. The weather was bad, but I gave them a tour of the law school and the (far more impressive) undergraduate campus. At my mom’s insistence, we checked out the cathedral church of St. John the Divine. I walk by that thing all the time and now I understand why the tourists flock there. Inside, it’s absolutely breathtaking. The Brooklyn Philharmonic was in there rehearsing for a free show that was slated for later that night and we got to listen while we roamed in and out of all the little chapels housed inside the cathedral. I highly recommend to anyone visiting NYC just step away from the Empire State Building and make your way uptown to check out the cathedral. Also, the Seinfeld restaurant is just around the block.

In other news, I made a rather significant purchase last weekend. In an effort to stave off law school-induced inertia and to promote healthiness, I bought a treadmill. It cost a crap-ton of money, that’s for sure, but it was far cheaper than a yearly membership to a New York City gym that I’ll probably never visit. (Don’t even bring up the CU gym; it’s NOT an option.) I figure it’s well worth it. It’ll be easy to keep up with and I can even read while walking. I also think that in the next few weeks, I’ll be seriously in need of the extra endorphins. Finals will be here before I know it.

My entire scholastic career has been focused on doing as well as possible while, at the same time, exerting as little effort as possible – why else would I major in Political Science? During my first few weeks at HLS, I felt intense peer-pressure to up my game and sacrifice my awesome lifestyle to keep up with the reading, briefing, outlining, and/or going to class habits of my colleagues. Then I realized what I knew all along, I am smarter than these clowns.

Even at Harvard Law School, my LSAT is in the top 5%. Stop reading and think about that last sentence. Understand what I’m saying? Yeah, I dominated that shit.

And I may be a shitty writer, but when an entire semester’s worth of material is condensed into a 2-4 hour long exam, we will all be shitty writers. More importantly, our grading system is fucking stupid. 90% of each class gets a pass or a high-pass. If I have one HP and the rest Ps as a 1L, biglaw is a lock for my second summer.

So I’ve stopped reading and briefing for all but one of my classes (Ks obv). I have a ton of hand-me-down outlines that this group of 2Ls who think that I am their friend gave me, all of which cover exactly what we are going over in class. I figure I have my one HP on lock and given my incredible, inconceivable, unimaginable intelligence, I don’t see why another one or two won’t fall my way – and even if they don’t, I’m set for life anyway.

Best of all, my fuckstick classmates can’t complain about this post as it should make them feel even more confident about their potential law school success. You can all spend 30+ hours outside of class studying every week, and I’ll spend 10. Just don’t blame me when we perform exactly the same on our exams, blame law school.

So what am I doing with all my free time? Last week, despite it being cold as balls, I went to Boston’s shitty zoo (Franklin Park) with another male 1L (it was only slightly gay). I don’t really know what possessed us to undertake such an endeavor, I suppose it seemed better than going to class. The zoo, as should have come across when I called it shitty, sucked.

Fortunately, I had a handle of Jim Beam in the trunk of my car – so we went back to my car and began drinking with the perhaps misplaced hope that the sauce would direct us to our next destination. A discussion of women quickly revealed that the other 1L had not felt the female touch in a long, long while. I proposed I feel any normal Harvard Law student would, “Let’s go bang some Wellesley chicks.”

Now look, I’m not from the area, I always thought Wellesley and Harvard were like next door to each other, I had no idea I was proposing a 30 minute drive. You can imagine how nervous I was when I had to take my eyes off the road to pour Jim Beam into my mouth as we drove down 90. It was terrifying. I’ve since begun storing a plastic cup in my car, for safety.

It was 4 in the afternoon by the time we made it, both of us were slightly drunk. I forced my friend, let’s call him Matt, to flag down a campus cop and ask where we could park. He directed us to a lot and made us fill out a form, which required me to list who I was visiting on campus, “Tera Patrick”.

We spent over an hour being harassed by the random campus cops until we dropped the HLS bomb on a group of super pale, slightly cute females, who immediately began covering for us. They took us to an empty open bar called ‘Punch’s Alley’ where we tried to buy them drinks but the bitch at the bar walked over, carded the non-purchasing, underage girls, and asked us all to leave.

The girls then snuck us into a dorm-room, where we spent the next three hours finishing my bourbon. I fooled around with the cutest of the bunch but was too drunk to keep the party moving, if you understand what I’m saying. Matt got some tail, though he has since begun dating the girl, so I don’t know if I want the credit for that particular hookup.

Also, though this seems to slightly contradict the early content of this post, I’ve been digging this lately:

I sat down an hour ago with a large cup of whiskey truth serum to write this article. The post became more and more disconnected the more (and more) I drank. Don’t misconstrue this an apology, it’s only an explanation, you judgmental fuck. HIGH FIVE!

Ok, so first off, I’ll address a few things brought up in the responses to my last post:

With respect to the rigor at Chicago, I can’t really speak to the rigor here as it relates to other top schools since I never went any place else and don’t really keep in close touch with anyone else at top schools, but it seems that the rigor comes into play most when talking about 2L and 3L years. I am fairly certain that 1L is tough, confusing, challenging, etc. across the board at most, if not all, top institutions and even probably at most “not-top” schools. But here, I think the rigor is most present and difficult to handle since Chicago is really known for being pretty …. heady, I’ll say. That is, the Law School takes a certain pride on developing lawyers for more than just the practice of law. It seems, instead, that theory is king at Chicago and that is probably best embodied by our unique “Elements” class.

Though I described this class earlier as what I thought would be akin to an Ethics course, so far it has been nothing like that. This class instead focuses on topics such as sociology, philosophy, economics (another staple of Chicago’s teaching regime), history, etc. and how they relate to the creation and enforcement of our legal system. Though some of our other classes introduced us to a particular field of the law with some theoretical discussions (such as a discussion on the justifications for punishment in Crim) Elements is entirely focused on the theories of justice — why do we adhere to the English common law system, what are the holes in the system, when is it appropriate to apply strict principles in law-making or decision-making and when is it better to apply malleable standards in this process, and the big question: WHY?

This class is by far the most frustrating for me and my more senior colleagues (2Ls, 3Ls, and the like) just write off this confusion by saying: “Yup. That’s the problem with Elements. You either you get it or you don’t.” I have a real problem with that statement and I just can’t accept that it’s that simple. But anyway, this is why Chicago is typically viewed as one of the more intellectually rigorous “top” schools — this emphasis on legal theory. But again, as for 2L and 3L years, I can’t speak to that yet.

Now, to focus on my classmates, I’m not sure why someone would think that this place is at all “unfriendly.” It’s a pretty small school so most everyone knows everyone else, which might not be the case at a larger place like NYU or Harvard (please don’t construe this last sentence as me bashing either of those schools because they are, obviously, both highly regarded institutions). Like most schools, we have Bar Review every Thursday and so far it’s been absolutely packed. Just about everyone I know makes it out and we all have a blast together. Moreover, Wine Mess every Friday provides more opportunities for socializing (i.e. boozing for cheap) in the Green Lounge. So not only are you having fun with all your classmates while getting a little saucy at school, but this event almost certainly bleeds over into a fun-filled night of going at in Lincoln Park or some other fun area of Chicago.

Overall, everyone here is really very friendly. Yes, there are a few gunners and yes, sometimes the Chicago “nerd” stereotype is pretty prevalent, but I would argue not overly much more so than at other top schools.

With regards to the less social (read: gunners) that is a topic for another day, but I would like to impart some …. counterintuitive? … thoughts about gunners when the time is right. I also have some thoughts to put down about our recently assigned memo. But for now, it’s Friday night and the feeling’s right (insert falsetto: Oh what a night!) so look to those topics some time in the near future.

As a last note, I’m sorry to see IvyLife go. But it sounds like this person made a very rational and calculated decision and that was: law school was simply not the right place for them at the time, which is fine. You will be sorely missed IvyLife, all the best.

Cornell is a special kind of cruel.  Just when things get unbearably chaotic, there is this week long “fall break.”  Only, it’s not really a break, at least not for 1Ls.  Instead, we are advised to spend the week barricaded in a library cubical furiously outlining in an attempt to somehow prepare for finals, which loom ever-nearer and ever more frightening.  Well, I tried that, but my work ethic just isn’t what I hoped it would be.  I ended up goofing off, bumming around town, and trying my damnedest not to think about anything law related.  It felt AMAZING!  Therefore, I think it is official–law school is not for me.  I don’t fit in.  It’s not my crowd.  There are some really cool people here, but overall we come from different worlds and I really don’t give a damn about any of the things they seem to care so much about.  This was a huge mistake, and it feels SO GOOD to admit that to myself.  I’m leaving, and I’m never looking back.

Sorry to bail out on the blog, but I think there are far more entertaining writers out there.  In fact, there are three much more entertaining writers right here.  And I’m sure there will be an even cooler replacement for this failed attempt at “Ivy” life.  Meanwhile, I’m going to get my REAL life together, figure out just what to do with myself.  Call me crazy, but I’m thinking of buying a one-way ticket to someplace tropical, and never coming back.

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