Frequent Citations

Arrived And Out Of Touch

My summer has started, and I am without internet access at my studio--promises to the contrary notwithstanding. Computer training was yesterday, so this is my first chance to let you know that I arrived safely, I'm trying to settle in, and soon I hope to tell you more about the drama that is my life.

Done And Beginning

Boy is all graduated now, with a fancy gold tassel and special diploma and everything. He looked so handsome, of course, and pretty darn relieved to be done with it all and moving on to college. It turned out to be a gorgeous day with absolutely perfect weather. TFL and I rode the bike up to dinner, so I even got a little bike ride in before leaving today.

Which I'll be doing in about an hour. My bags are mostly packed, including a few pairs of shoes, and I have my flight number and lease and keys which finally arrived, yay. It's really hard to believe, and feels unreal, but off I go to the Big City to work in the Big Firm.

It's tough to leave the family when I haven't even seen them much for the last couple of months. We played cards for a while last night (instead of finishing the paper, yes, and I don't want to talk about it) and it was great. It's good to remember sometimes that we all enjoy each other's company.

Maybe they'll come visit.

Pounded

Oh. Boy.

Bankruptcy is over, the nightmare begins. I wrote and wrote and wrote and I have no real idea of what I said, and I didn't cite the code anywhere near enough, and I do not feel good about this exam. So that's fairly stinky, and when I emailed it in I didn't: I forgot to attach the exam. I realized immediately and resent it with the attachment, but that will be a nice little addition to my nightmares and paranoia for the next month or so. But that was my last 2L exam, and now I just need to write start finish this paper.

Yes, I still have a paper to write. And stuff to clean out at school, and bags to pack, and Boy to see through graduation. I'd best get busy, now that I've had my nap.

But to all my classmates: congratulations! We're now 3Ls!!! On our way to slackerdom, if we weren't there already. Or so we all fondly believe.

Sleeeeeep and Bankruptcy

Last night I got a whole six hours of solid sleep in clean sheets. So nice!! So I slept in, so I'm not going running this morning. But today is my last day to learn Bankruptcy: I'll undoubtedly be doing much pacing while I'm trying to parse the Absolute Priority Rule out of 1129(b)(2)(B)(ii).

I'll be trying to remember to ask if it's a railroad. Is the property a seat on the Chicago Board of Trade? Is this Local Loan and the lien doesn't pass through, or is it Carrerra (Carerra? Carrera?) and it does?

Maybe it's just Moore v Bay--obscure.

Two Down And I'm About Out

One exam was identical to the practice questions the professor had handed out, and one exam was the old-fashioned closed book and no notes and no computer type. Both were brutal in their own special ways, but now all I have left is Bankruptcy on Saturday.

My head is aswirl with fraudulent conveyance and automatic stay and preferences and priorities. I have bits and pieces but nothing has really gelled. Worse, just when I think I've got something down it goes all wonky and I end up with more questions than I started with. My Code book is getting quite frayed, my table is awash with printouts and highlighters, and all I want to do is curl up and take a nap for about 3 days.

The keys to the place I'm taking for the summer never arrived, so that's a big worry in the back of my mind.

And Boy's graduation is this weekend and as far as I know, nothing is planned.

This would all be more fun if I didn't feel so totally ill. At least I didn't actually throw up during the Public Land and Resources exam this morning, so I'm grateful for small mercies. And my parents are arriving today so that will be wonderful--people will get fed!

Where's My Overdrive?

I need to study faster. Much, much faster.

And maybe blog less.

PSA: I have cookies. GirlChild baked last night. They're the good  kind too. (Ok, they're all the good kind.)

I Know Better

I do it anyway. I just finished consolidating my notes and briefs for Bankruptcy, and it's 3:30 am. Which means my sleep schedule is screwed up for the week, yes. That is very bad.

But I get in these modes where I cannot stop until it is done. Now, it's done. And really comprehensive, and I'm beginning to get a glimmer of what's going on and how things are fitting together. Now I need to read it 60 times, and add more stuff, and then make a 1-2 page chart for the class of steps to take through a problem. Then I have to practice on old exams. I would have nearly enough time to do all that before the exam on Saturday.

Except that I need to go over the cases for Rhetoric and Race. I also need to finish the case chart for Public Land, and make sure I've read all the cases, and memorize all of it. That's impossible, so let's say I memorize the most important third plus a random sampling of factoids.

And then there's that little paper that's been my nemesis for a while now.

I'm going to bed. Tomorrow, I finish Public Land, write 10 pages, and make sure all the bankruptcy cases are in my head. Not the Code, but at least the cases. Egad.

Bagpipes: Loudest Instrument Ever

I was sitting at my computer with my noise canceling headphones on, working on my case chart for American Law of Rhetoric and Race (phenomenal if sometimes stomach-turning class, if you ever get the chance to take it). A song by a Scottish band was ending, and I heard some bagpipes at the end of it, and I thought, huh. I don't remember bagpipes at the end of this song.

And then the bagpipes kept going, but the next song was starting, and I have my Nano on shuffle, so... This was odd.

I should say that it was after 11 at night. And the windows were closed.

So I took off my headphones, and the bagpipes were still playing. Uh... I walked back to look out at the neighbor's yard, and sure enough--there was a bagpiper, piping away. He played for nearly half an hour too.

I heard a (possibly apocryphal) story once about a village in Spain that kept the Moors away by playing bagpipes, which scared the living daylights out of them. What did the Scots do, to create something so incredibly loud? And yet, somehow it makes you start to tap your toes. 

The Pirate Look

The student government put on an end-of-the-year BBQ yesterday. For some reason they decided to go all out and had not just high-quality burgers and brats, but also salmon, tuna, and steaks. I think they were keeping the steaks for themselves and I don't blame them, and I was happy with my burger. Of course, I was hungry enough to eat almost anything.

Two of the guys doing the grilling were wearing very pretty earrings of the type you might see on a five year old girl: long, bright, and plastic. The third guy had them beat, though: he was sporting  a tiara. It was quite the look.

It was more fun to watch them than it was to look at my distressingly long and still incomplete Public Land and Resource case chart.

Mom First, Student Second

Today I missed the last half of my last Roman Law class, sat in traffic for an hour, waited another hour for dinner which turned out to be shoe leather and cotton balls, and missed at least 4 hours of time that could have been spent memorizing cases for that blasted Public Land exam.

Instead I endured all that to see Boy go up on stage at his school's honors banquet, and go up again, and again. I ended the evening holding  a program stuffed with a sheaf of awards. He got more than anyone but the valedictorian and saludatorian. Because of the way the grading systems between his high schools differed, there was no way for him to compete even for top 10 placement, but the universal agreement is that he would have been in the top 3 at least. He established himself as a force to be reckoned with in the classroom.

But we told him, as we started the long car-ride back home, that his academic success was nice and we were happy that it got him into a great university (he's going to the best school of anyone in his class, aside from the one who's going to West Point) but what really made us proud was seeing him with his classmates, smiling and shaking hands and clapping backs and generally being a well-liked member of an intense and competitive group of guys. He came into St. All Boys with the understanding that the community of men it builds is at least as important as the considerable academic opportunities it provides, and he worked hard to become a member of that community. As a transfer student, what he achieved was remarkable.

Roman Law I was able to attend 7 1/2 times, but tonight's banquet could only happen once. Good job, Boy.