(You know where this is going right?)

So then he repeats the instructions for the late-comers and I decide, what the hell, I’ll take a look at the summons.

“You are instructed to report to 60 Centre Street.”

I am at 71 Thomas Street.

Oh, hell.

So I gather my things and head for the back of the room passing rows of correctly-placed jurors because I just had to sit in the front. My face burned because I knew what they were thinking. I had gotten up right after he told us to make sure we weren’t at the wrong courthouse so it was obvious I was in the wrong place. I didn’t look at anyone’s face as I ran past security and out onto the street.

“60 Centre Street?!” I half asked, half shouted at the cop on the street corner. He said make two rights and walk four blocks and I’d be right there. As soon as I was around the corner I’d forgotten what he said. I consulted my street map and figured out that I should be heading west from where I was. I immediately started walking east. By the time I figured out that West Broadway and Broadway weren’t the same thing (I hate downtown), I gave up and hailed a cab. Seven dollars later and I’m two courthouses down from the correct one. (Seriously, New York? No fewer than four courthouses in the same vicinity?)

I recognized this courthouse immediately as the one Alexandra Cabot is always heading down as she rejects plea offers from defense attorneys. But I had no time to admire it as I was ridiculously late. So I get through security and find my way to the fourth floor jury room. The Welcome to Jury Duty movie has already begun so I dropped my things, collapsed into a chair, and listened to Diane Sawyer tell me about the important role I was about to play in our justice system. The movie was in dire need of an update; when Ms. Sawyer told us about litigation in popular culture, the screen switched to a clip from Perry Mason. Yeah, I’m not sure who he is either, but judging by the glasses and haircuts, I’m going to guess he was the Sam Waterston of the 70s.

Anyway. So after the movie was finished there was a lot of waiting around. Then the juror wrangler took attendance. There was more waiting around. Then she called off a bunch of names including mine and sent us off to Room A where we were to be questioned by some attorneys. There were about 30 of us in the room but they said they were only going to question the first 16 and only question the rest of us if they couldn’t find a suitable jury among the first group.

Since I wasn’t picked (and wasn’t even questioned) I can tell you that the case was a civil suit being filed by Linda Stasi against the city. Apparently she tripped over a police barricade a few years ago. I hadn’t heard of her. I thought it was strange that she was in the room with her attorney and the city’s attorney while the jury selection was going on. She didn’t say much. (Although she did tell the city’s attorney how to pronounce her last name – something her own attorney was doing incorrectly.)

After they selected their jury, I was free to go. I went back for my second day of service and was dismissed by noon. Even though I did nothing but wait around, it was not all for naught. I discovered that the lunch place across from the courthouse stocked Coke Zero Vanilla! So on my way home, I bought a bunch of cans of the stuff and schlepped them back uptown. I’ve been absolutely wired for the past 12 hours, but it’s worth it. Coke Zero Vanilla!

I know last time I said that my next post would be my last, but I feel like I should end on a more meaningful note than my newfound love affair with Coke Zero Vanilla.

So stay tuned.

Exams went pretty well, apart from some minor technical difficulties that lasted for a few panic-stricken minutes. About an hour after finishing my con law exam, I got an email saying the exam file did not upload successfully. But that panic didn’t even come close to how I felt during my property exam when my netbook decided it didn’t feel like loading the exam software. They started the exam without me and then I had proctors trying to help me re-download the exam and re-run the program. I was terrified they were going to tell me I would have to hand-write the exam. That really would have been the end of the world as I knew it. There would be no way I could write a coherent exam by hand. I would fail for sure. But fortunately, my computer got over its bout with PMS and decided to work third time around. They gave me compensatory time so it didn’t even matter in the end.

It really feels incredible to be done with 1L. It went by ridiculously fast. I can remember one year ago looking at the glossy brochure that came in the admission packet. Every now and then I would flip to the last page and stare at the fresh-faced CLS grads decked out in their blue robes looking happy and accomplished. I couldn’t wait till that day. I still can’t. But now instead of it being three years away, it’s only two.

But since I just finished exams only today and haven’t really had time to adequately reflect, I’ll save the deep and meaningful reflection for my next – and final! – post.

I have jury duty next week. I postponed it once already so there’s no getting out of it this time. The last time I was called I was living in Massachusetts and I think it was really close to finals then too. I got out of it by telling them I had family members who were in law enforcement. Hopefully that works this time around too. I actually think I would really like to do jury duty, but it never seems to come at a convenient time, does it?

After the writing competition is over, I have one whole week of vacation before starting my internship. I’m not going anywhere, but there’s plenty to do in the city. Item number one is to repair all the friendships that have suffered as a result of my falling off the face of the planet for the month of May. So many calls have gone unreturned and emails unanswered. Most of my friends are not law school people so they don’t really understand what I was going through. As readers here know, law school exams are unlike anything and if you’ve never experienced them you can’t really understand. So I didn’t really bother to try to explain. I just let them know I’d be off the map until late May.

Congratulations to everyone who finished 1L. ☺

I came out of the con law exam feeling spent but pretty good overall. Ever take an exam and have one of those moments where you map out your whole answer, feel awesome about it, and then realize – oh holy crap, I completely forgot this Incredibly Important Thing? Yeah, I had one of those. At first it was like – whew! That was a close one! Then it was like – well, Jesus – if I had forgotten THAT, I’d be fast-tracking it to C+ land. And then it was like – well what the hell else am I forgetting??

Crim law was a different story altogether. I had certain expectations going into the exam, which was probably my first mistake. Based on the past exams I thought I had an idea of what to expect, but I was wrong. The questions weren’t exactly unfamiliar, but I expected the layout of the exam itself to be different. What’s more, there wasn’t a suggested time limit for each question, which threw me for a bit of a loop. It has been my experience so far that professors generally put suggested time limits for each question and that signals which questions are weighted more heavily than others and thus where you should spend the bulk of your time. Without time limits, I can only assume the questions are weighted equally which terrifies me a bit considering I spent way more time analyzing two questions than I spent on the other. They also had more parts so I find it hard to believe each question could possibly be weighted the same.

I walked out of that exam feeling completely and utterly spent. I walked back home practically zombified. My mind was blank and I felt incapable of higher thought. I got into my apartment and sat down at my computer and couldn’t really remember the walk back from school.

I hadn’t planned to, hadn’t wanted to, but I ended up taking the night off and curled up in bed watching a few stupid movies.

My approach to exams this semester is the exact opposite of what I did last semester. Last semester I was attentive and present and engaged in classes and by the time finals rolled around, I wasted a lot of time and didn’t study very hard. This semester I tried the opposite approach. I skipped a lot of class, hardly ever volunteered, and kept up with the reading in only half my classes. But now that exam time is here, I am studying my brains out. Literally.

I’m completely isolated. I hate studying at the law school (I know, I’m a broken record on this point) so now that I have my air conditioner installed (thanks Dad!) I’ve been holed up in my apartment for days on end emerging only to take an exam or print something. I made a bunch of food before classes ended and subsisted on that, but now my fridge is running on empty. I’ve tapped into the emergency rations – canned soap, oatmeal, and a box of raisins I didn’t know I had. I’m out of soda except for a half a bottle of Diet Stewart’s Root Beer, which I’m saving for when I need a jolt of caffeine-infused happiness.

But it’s almost over. I can see the end in sight.

Take today for example.

My usual policy toward the law school building is to avoid it at all costs. Go to class, come home. Spend as little time there as humanly possible. But occasionally, my need for print outs forces me back to school. In addition to my printing needs, my apartment was too sweltering hot to stand for a day of studying so I decided to pack up some snacks, a water bottle, my computer, and my crim law book and make a day of it at the law school.

I found a table toward the back of the building and set up shop. After a few hours of outlining, I decided to go upstairs to the computer lab, print some sections of the Model Penal Code, and head home. I downloaded a giant chunk of MPC off Lexis and immediately took to deleting the pages I wouldn’t need. It was a laborious but mindless task but when I was finished, I had an MPC I could print so I wouldn’t need to constantly flip to the end of the casebook during the exam. I pressed Print and went to the releasing station but couldn’t find my name. After a few minutes of staring dumbly at the screen I noticed the torn piece of notebook paper on which someone had scrawled: Printers Don’t Work.

I sighed audibly, packed up my things and headed to the law library. Downstairs in the media center it took three tries to find a computer that worked. Once I had one, I pulled up my adulterated copy of the MPC and pressed Print again. I looked at the release station and saw a familiar sight: a handwritten, hastily-scrawled sign that read Printers Don’t Work.

A bubble of rage formed in the pit of my stomach as I tried to calmly gather my things. I could feel my face contorting as I quickened my pace to escape the law school as fast as possible.

I can deal with the stress, the monotony, the utter futility of law school. I can deal with the harsh-as-hell grading curve that means little actual difference between an A- and a B+. I can deal with the smugness, the arrogance, the general air of self-satisfaction.

But what I cannot deal with is the absence of a single working printer anywhere in the law school during FINALS.

I don’t know what exactly it is we’re paying for but I’d gladly trade in a few Yale-diplomaed, SCOTUS-clerkshipped, and otherwise sterling-credentialed law professors for a couple of WORKING PRINTERS DURING FINALS!

These are the things that drive an otherwise well-adjusted law student to the breaking point. Everything about law school is hard. But keeping us in printers and paper (and staplers for that matter!) shouldn’t be.

End of rant.

So anyway. My oral argument went fairly smoothly. We had two alumni judges – one from 1991 and one from 1977 – and a volunteer 3L judge. I thought both my partner and I and our opponents all did pretty well. Afterward, they had a reception for everyone in the lobby of the law school. It was a nice way to wrap up.

Last night CLS faced off against NYU Law in our annual Deans’ Cup game. It’s a basketball game and the proceeds benefit our respective public interest law centers. Although we lost, it was definitely one of the most fun times I ever had at a law school event. It didn’t look like too many NYU students bothered to make the trek up to Morningside Heights, but the ones who did show definitely brought the trash talk. I saw signs ranging in temporal relevance from the current (“We may be #6 but at least we still get laid!”) to the timeless classic (“Suck it, Columbia”). Of course there were various signs about what activities they claimed to have engaged in with our collective mothers the night before. One sign impugned the manhood of the CLS men reading: “Columbia girls, for a real man call xxx-xxx-xxxx!”

Since I was sitting on the CLS side, I couldn’t really see if we had signs of similar snark, but I would hope so. The guys sitting behind me provided endless entertainment with their shouted epithets. But when the faculty game began at half-time it got really ridiculous. I think one person shouted: “NYU! Your law review articles suck!” But that was about as nasty as it got for the faculty game. Our faculty beat theirs by one point.

It was definitely a fun time but it also signaled a sort of last hurrah as the time has come to really buckle down and get to work in preparation for finals. One of my classes ended early so that helps lessen the load. Although it really doesn’t matter because I never did the reading for that class anyway. I would say that for two out of the four classes, I have to teach myself the entire semester’s worth of material to myself before exams. I tell you, the Socratic Method works. Without it, reading doesn’t happen. People like me really need The Fear in order to stay motivated.

All right, the eyestrain is giving me a headache. Farewell for now.

And then I got about 3/5 of the way through my opening and everything proceeded to fall directly out the window. I expected to at least get through my opening before being peppered with questions so that definitely threw me off. I did not hit the vast majority of points I intended to because I was too busy fielding questions. I felt like I was clumsily scrambling to try to make my points but apparently it wasn’t noticeable and I was shocked that my feedback included the words “calm” and “articulate,” because I felt anything but.

I’m really glad we got the chance to practice before the real deal. I’m feeling much more relaxed and ready.

In other news, I had a brush with the law in Starbucks today. Well, not really. Apparently, a customer was causing a disturbance. Even though he was about 20 feet away from me, I was only alerted to his disturbance when the police walked in. First there were four, then six, then seven (!) of New York’s finest in the Starbucks to deal with one unruly customer. Now, I’m as pro-police as you can get, but I have to wonder, what with the imminent budget cuts and all, why it required seven officers to arrest one man who, from my vantage point, did not resist arrest even a little bit. They seemed to be talking to him for a very long time before applying the cuffs and escorting him out and at a few points he raised his voice a bit, but if he was causing a disturbance, it certainly wasn’t noticeable at my end of the store.

I just think the NYPD should allocate its resources better. I appreciate that there are a lot of officers patrolling my neighborhood, but there was nothing going on the coffee shop that required SEVEN officers to handle. If they’re bored, they should stand outside CLS and wait around for some random thief to wander in off the street and wander out with a student’s laptop as has happened several times this year.

But I’ll save my campus security rant for another day.

On an administrative note, Arrogant Slacker doesn’t live here anymore. Apparently his contract ended. But if you love him or love to hate him, fear not. I hear he’s blogging over at that other site now. So it’s down to Chicago_1L and me. For my part, I’ll try to step up the posting in an attempt to make up for the slack. But I’m finding it harder and harder to say something new about law school each time so if anyone has an idea for a post or if any 0Ls out there have any specific questions – about law school in general or CLS in particular – that would be welcomed also.

Take care.

I.

Am.

OVER IT.

I am so sick of the tedium of being a law student. It never ends. It’s like being in undergrad again except about a hundred times less fun. In college I was content to be a student because I didn’t know any better. I didn’t really take it seriously either. I pretty much just hung out with my friends all the time and relished being out on my own away from my eagle-eyed and over-protective parents. Yeah, the pressure was high and the word was hard, but it just made the Real World seem that much easier in comparison.

The student life is just not for me. I know, I’m a broken record at this point but guess what? There is just nothing new to say about law school anymore. I’m over it. I have ZERO motivation these days. Exams don’t scare me anymore because I feel like professors just throw darts to decide grades so why get all worked up over them?

My oral argument is in a week and a half. We have our practice argument this week. I have no idea what to expect. I guess I’ll just wing it.

I did have fun at a dinner I went to last week. A bunch of us bid on a dinner with a professor at the PILF auction last month and after a lot of scrambling to find a time convenient for all involved, the dinner finally happened. We went to this hole in the wall barbecue joint in the lower east side called Georgia’s Eastside BBQ and had such a fun time. (And by hole in the wall, I mean hole in the wall: the place was so small it didn’t even have a bathroom. You had to use the facilities of the bar next door if you had to go.) There were five of us plus the professor and her husband and they served us enough food to feed a small nation. Afterward, we got cupcakes at Sugar Sweet Sunshine Bakery. Once we were full of food, the authority figures left and the rest of us spent the rest of the evening at a bar hanging out and sharing our various high school personas. If our group is representative of the CLS class of 2012, then about 60% of the class is made up of slackers, 20% is made up people who work hard, and the remaining 20% is made up of people who do well by accident. (I suspect the self-proclaimed slackers exaggerated their slacker-ness somewhat, though.)

Anyway. April is an exciting month. The day after my dreaded oral argument, we have Dean’s Cup. For the uninitiated, that’s our annual basketball game against NYU Law. Proceeds benefit our schools’ public interest law foundations. I’m excited – I think that will be a fun time. I’m also planning to go to Boston for a weekend this month. I haven’t been there in about two years and I miss it. My birthday is also this month. I’m not sure if I’m going to do anything special for it though. It’s kind of at an inconvenient time and 26 isn’t really a landmark year.

But first thing is first: anyone with experience have any advice for oral argument?

My oral argument is happening in mid-April and I’m not really sure what I’m supposed to be doing to prepare. All I’ve done so far is read my opponent’s brief. I’m not sure how I’m supposed to feel about the fact that I don’t recognize most of the cases he cited. We only have about three or four cases in common, actually. By Monday we’re supposed to submit three questions we expect the panel of alumni judges to ask us as well as three we expect them to ask our opponent. Having never done anything like this before, I really have no idea what I should expect to be asked. I expect my brief to have spoken for itself! At the very least, I expect them to have read my brief!

I’ll be so happy when this ordeal is over. A month from now, not only will the oral argument be behind me but classes will be as well and I’ll have just begun exam period. It’ll also be around my 26th birthday. Last year, I decided that I wasn’t going to get any older than 25. I figured that this would be the year I officially start lying about my age. But I’ve warmed to the idea of 26 and have had a change of heart. 26 will be a banner year for me. 1L will be behind me and I’ll have adjusted to this whole law school thing.

Let’s see, what else is going on…oh! One of my best friends from college is coming out to New York from Chicago in a couple weeks. She’s the one who graciously donated her couch when I flew out for Northwestern’s admitted students weekend last year. She showed me around Chicago and I came to appreciate what an awesome city it is – that God-awful deep dish pizza aside. She’s a PhD candidate in neuroscience at Northwestern so maybe I’ll subject her sciencey brain to a law school class or something.

It’s gotten cold in New York again. I’m back in hibernation mode. It was really beautiful during spring break and I foolishly convinced myself it was going to stay that way. But I think my superintendent shut off the heat again for the year because my studio is functioning like an icebox.

I’ve begun outlining the courses. I can’t believe it’s that time again. This semester seems shorter than last somehow. There are just four weeks left of class! Four weeks, then exams, and then 1L is over.

I’m getting ahead of myself. Four weeks still translates to a lot to do.

The computer labs were packed all day. Printers were in pieces scattered on the floor. Staplers were…well, they’re always broken. But by mid-afternoon I had four printed copies of the brief and dropped them off about an hour and a half before the deadline. And just like that it was out of my life forever! At least until the time comes to start prepping for oral arguments. But I have no plans to even think about that for the next two weeks.

Things are starting to get fun again. I won two free tickets to a new Broadway show that’s opening on Thursday, I’m going to a restaurant opening next Tuesday, and my mom and dad are coming to the city next week. Next week is spring break and I’m staying in the city. The weather has finally started to get spring-like so I’m planning to spend a lot of time outdoors. Many of the restaurants in my area have opened up their sidewalk cafes again and I can’t wait to get sushi in South Street Seaport while sitting outside and sipping peach saketinis. New York is awesome.

Another sign that spring is practically here is the throng of admits milling about the law school. They’re easily recognized by the folders in their hands and name tags clipped to their shirts. We had our first admitted students days last week. I’m not involved in any of the admissions activities so my interactions with admits were limited to the few of them who happened by my table during the PILF auction.

Oh, that reminds me. A brief PSA: To any 0Ls who plan to visit Columbia, this question will not be well received: “I got into Harvard and Yale…so why should I come to Columbia?” Apparently it isn’t common knowledge that that is a really obnoxious question. And any student who represents Columbia in any official capacity will probably not tell you you’re a d-bag for asking. But I don’t represent CLS. If you ask that question, you are a d-bag. And please, for the love of God, DON’T come to CLS.

It’s kind of crazy to think about the next class coming in and being finished with 1L year. I’m looking forward to 2L year but sometimes my Facebook friends who are 2Ls have some scary status messages about 2L year actually being worse than 1L. I had always just assumed 1L year was the hardest and that 2Ls who were overburdened brought it upon themselves by taking too much on. Any 2Ls care to comment??