Where finals are really finals...
I remember when a final exam was factored into your other grades for a class. I remember when a final grade was not based on just one test. So I will chance feeling old by saying, "Those were the good old days." Nowadays (read "In law school"), finals become the sole deciding factor, which makes this time of year a horrible time. It means relearning an entire semester worth of lectures and readings in order to ensure at least a passing grade. It means instead of school four nights a week for 3 hours, I spend at least 5 hours every weeknight, and more on weekends on schoolwork.
After that I will have 3 weeks off before starting my intersession course and then my last semester. I wish I could comment more but studying and creating outlines awaits.
I will drop off the face of the earth for awhile so don't feel offended if you don't hear from me. I will be done with my finals on December 14th. I hope everyone has a great couple of weeks.
Excuse me, Your Honor, what ever happened to justice?
Last night we got our motions for summary judgment back from our Professor. The class we are taking is a hands-on class, Pretrial Litigation, where we act as lawyers in a firm and work with a partner on a case. There are six "firms" in all, three defense teams and three plaintiff teams. Our Professor is the judge for the case.
A little history on this makes this story a little more frustrating for those involved. On the first day of class we were supposed to pick partners to work with for the rest of the semester. My friends Matt & Dave are in the class with me. The first day of class Matt leaned over to me and told me that he was going to be partners with Dave so I would have to find another partner in the class. Matt can be a little clueless as to whether what he says is rude. I just kind of smiled and thought to myself, "It's not worth a response since I don't want to be his partner." Matt is a very lazy guy and if he can get someone else to do his work he will jump at the chance. To make a short story shorter, I ended up with a great partner and will probably get an A in the class because we make such a good team and Dave ended up with Matt.
Tuesday night Dave told me that he got Matt's section of the motion and when he read it over noticed that not a single case was cited in his argument. This is pretty much a huge no-no in motions. If you discuss a rule, you have to cite to the case you got the rule from. Apparently Matt just stated the elements of fraud like they were the gospel truth and cited nothing as to where he came up with these elements. Then he went to discuss the facts of the case and how it applied to the elements with no other rules or applications used. This is not an acceptable motion on any level, not to mention it could be construed as plagiarism. None of this however compares to what the outcome of all of this turned out to be.
So we got our papers back and we are graded individually for the sections we did of our firm's motion. Matt ended up not only passing but getting a B-. Dave who had worked on everything other than the one argument that Matt kind of completed, he got 4 points lower. It would seem to me that even if there was a curve on the assignment, that Matt's should be the low threshold instead of the median grade. It would be an understatement to say Dave was upset. I really felt for him, he worked so hard on the assignment and this is what he got.
I think he should ask the Judge to recuse himself.
Life continued while I was playing Princess Peach?
Mario Party 7 came out last week. Mario games are a very strange addiction I have. They are a combination of the old me, the one who had to constantly be surrounded by friends, and the newer geek me, the one who is obsessed with the oddest things and has learned to love my alone time.
Nathan picked up the game for me on Thursday and we played together for a couple of hours that night. It is not as much fun with 2 players, you need 4 so the screaming and fierce competition begins. Friday night, I invited Aurora and Jasn over to play with Nathan and I. Now that was fun. Aurora and I killed them the first game, but the second game they killed us. Not to worry though, after a few weeks of intense training and calloused fingertips we will be unbeatable.
So I had this idea about Mario Party in general. I want to throw a little get together, maybe a potluck appetizer thing where we all get together and play Mario Party games. I have Mario Party 4 - 7. I need either 3 or 7 very commited people to play. In fact if 7 people are interested I can ask MattMatt to borrow his Game Cube and we can play two games at once on split screen. It makes the screen a lot smaller...but what better way to get my Princess Peach style geek on? John played in a High Stakes Mario Party game where the loser got nasty things dropped on them from a balcony. I'm just not that commited or confident. But we may be able to come up with something cool for the winners and losers. I am thinking of doing this sometime between Christmas and when I go back to school in mid January.
Comment if you are interested...
P.S. Mario Party 7 is so much fun...by the time Mario Party 10 comes out Aurora and I will be able to quit our jobs because of all the money we will be making as The Lordly Ladies Extraordinaire.
Maybe next time I will catch up on my life...
We Don't Need No Education...
Today was registration day for my last semester of law school. If I would have known how poorly evening law students were treated I would have never "planned" the courses I wanted to take ahead of time. Being last year law students, 4L's are given first shot to register for night classes, 3L's are given first shot at registering for day classes. Every year the school has visiting professors teaching two week intersession courses worth 2 credits. These happen to run during the day and have a VERY limited enrollment. Guess who gets to register for them first? The day students of course. This is ridiculous. They really need to allow all last year law students to register for these courses at the same time. Those of us who work full time can certainly beg and plead to come in half days for two weeks to take one of these courses. Like I did.
If for some reason I get the schedule I want to get, I will be taking one course during the intersession - Writing for Social Justice. Then during the regular semester I will be taking 3 courses - Advanced Issues in Intellectual Property, Advanced Issues in Employment Law, and Employment Law. The best news will be though that I will have all of my classes on my Monday's and Wednesday's - so less driving time across town. Now that I work around the corner from our house, I am cranky about the long drive to so-called civilization.
On another note entirely, I don't think people want to read my journal because the posts are so long. I have lazy friends. Oh well! I will keep writing my long posts for me, its probably better they don't read it anyway.
Friends Come and Go and Come Again
It has been over a year since Steve left for the military. Steve leaving was one of the hardest things I have had to deal with since moving to Las Vegas. He became such a permanent fixture in my life, that for a long time it was very difficult for me to really get things accomplished once he was gone. After several months, it got easier and I started hanging out with new people and spending more time by myself. I have seen Steve a handful of times since he joined the Army. In fact he is in town with Amanda this week.
When Jasn left Las Vegas, it was because of me. Although it was also really difficult, we had stopped spending time together months before. Jasn moved backed to Las Vegas in May and for about 4 months we saw each other 5 days a week since we worked together. Now, we see each other every couple of weeks for a few hours.
My father was in the Army, a career officer. Every three years, our family moved somewhere new. I was born in California, we moved to New York, then to Maryland, then to Germany, then another place city in Germany, then to Maryland, then to a different city in new York. Then my parents separated the summer before my senior year. Then the moves with my mother started. We went from New York to Kansas, then to New Jersey, then to Florida (my mom had some other stops along the way, but these are the only places I had in common with her). After Florida, I stopped moving with her or following her. I went from Florida to California to live with my Dad and then 10 months later moved to Las Vegas.
To say that I have had alot of friends during the last thirty or so years of my life, is a gross understatement. Every time I leave a place, I have a best friend that I am certain I will keep in touch with forever. It never seems to really work out that way in practice. Basically it has progressed like this:
- Maryland - Erin W. - She was my best friend from nursery school through 1st grade. She lived down the street from us on base. We did not keep in touch while I lived in Germany.
- Germany - Tabitha - She was my best friend from 2nd through 4th grade. We wrote letters back and forth for a few months after her family left Germany (they left before us). After that I never heard from her again.
- Maryland - Lora T. - We were best friends from 5th grade through 7th grade. We kept in touch on and off until around 10th grade. We even had a few shared vacations, the summer before 9th grade. While I was in 5th grade and back in Maryland, my father found out that Erin W. was still living in Maryland. Our families got together for the day and that was the last time I saw Erin. Our families just didn't seem to have much in common - there was no big issue - we just never got together after that.
- New York - Maureen O. - We started out hating each other. Well, I hated her - she thought I was stuck up. We met in 8th grade, we became best friends in 9th grade and stayed best friends for quite some time after that. I think we lost touch some time during Maureen's sophomore year at UCLA. Again, there was no problem or anything, we just got otherwise occupied with life. Every once in awhile I will find her email address or where she is working currently and we share a few emails. A year or so ago, she was living in Chicago, working for a law firm.
- New York - Tom - We met the summer before my 10th grade year and dated for 3 months and 10 days (the exact time definition of forever). He was my first love. Then it ended tragically. Maybe not really tragically, but it was tragic for me at the age of 14. We didn't talk for quite some time in teen time. I think it was about 4 months. Then we started hanging out together again. After that we were pretty much inseparable. We had our drama, it was difficult being best friends with a guy during high school. It just wasn't really accepted then - we were constantly the source of rumors and gossip. We lost touch for about 3 or 4 years. This was not really losing touch actually, one of his girlfriend's couldn't handle our friendship, so he basically chose her over me. After that though, the friendship was never quite the same. I didn't really trust he wouldn't leave again, and he tried way too hard to constantly try to prove to me that he would not. It was not a good combination for a healthy relationship. The whole thing ended horribly and it took me a lot longer than even I realized to get over it.
- Kansas - Vicky - We met at work. We worked together as waitresses at Chi-Chi's - a Mexican restaurant. She was so much fun, and so incredibly forward. If anyone wants someone to blame for my lack of internal filter, blame Vicky. If I ever had a shell - it shattered into tiny pieces then. Our friendship was filled with lots of fun, lots of craziness, lots of men, and lots of tequila. Then I moved away. She is the only person I still occassionally share emails with from Kansas, well her and her husband. Mostly it's just Christmas cards and birthday emails now and then. Although come to think of it, I haven't heard from them in the past two years I think.
- New Jersey - Maritza - She lived across the hall from me in the dorms at Kean, then we lived together my last year. She was an amazing person, and a real girl. She is a teacher somewhere, married to a P.E. teacher. I think she may still live in upstate New York. We stopped talking after her mom said if she had me in her wedding she wouldn't go, so Maritza told me I couldn't be in the wedding or come. It really wasn't us being mad at each other. I understood she had to do what her mother wanted, but it just made things very tense. Up until then, we had kept in touch the entire time I was in Florida, California, and the first two years or so I lived here.
- Florida - I didn't really have a best friend in Florida. If I had to name one it would be my brother Rich. We spent alot of time together and talked about everything. I had alot of good friends, Kerrie, Rachel, Alex, Steve, Mike, and John - but none of them really seemed like they stood out as my best friend. I obviously still keep in touch with my brother, so he really doesn't count. :)
- California - I didn't know anyone in California - it was just me and my dad time.
- Nevada - That's where I am at now.
I don't really know how things are going to go from here. I would love to say that Steve and I are always going to keep in touch even though he has moved. I would love to say that Jasn and I will always keep in touch if I ever leave Vegas. I know I will try. It just never seems to happen. I think that's why sometimes I have this weird feeling around Steve - its that feeling that should be buried - the one that says three or four years from now you might not even know how to get in touch with him. I get a similar feeling with Jasn from time to time. It's a little different though - it's just a feeling of distance - although I don't know why it's there.
The weirdest part about it, is that right before I am about to see either one of them, I get a little sad. Each time Steve leaves it hurts less than the last time and each time I drop off Jasn after dinner it bothers me less than it might be weeks before I see him again. Please don't misread this. I don't care for either one of them even a little bit less than I used to, nor do I think our friendship is any less strong at this point. It just seems to be some type of coping mechanism I have acquired over time. Some part of me that I have no control over, that just clicks on and off as it sees fit. I wonder if I have discovered some sort of mental disorder...
