True Blue Love...

• Is sticking by your team's side even if they had a rough season
• Is being proud of all of your school's traditions, whether it be academic or less known sports (go soccer for UCLA's 100th championship!)
  
• Is making time for a game even though you have finals right around the corner
• Is decorating your tree with Bruin paraphenalia
• Is knowing that you can make the long distance relationship work by watching the game with wings and friends when you can't be at the Rose Bowl
• Is calling, IMing, receiving a dozen calls and IMs from Bruins, all over the nation to celebrate.
  
• Is being so excited, you knock over your bottle of coke on the capret.
  
• Is being slightly jealous that you could not be there to celebrate with fellow Bruins, but knowing that this is about the school- not about you
• Is acting classy, even to those Trojan friends of yours weren't before, because your school doesn't have an inferiority complex
• Is planning to wear your extensive collection of Bruin gear all week to finals.
  
• Is beaming with joy all night when your team finally does what everyone thought was impossible...beating USC
  

Our Case Files

As I was playing around on CNN instead of studying, I saw this article about the Supreme Court took a case about a kid who held a 14 foot banner saying "Bong hits for Jesus," at an off-campus but debatedly school-sponsored event. They will have to decide whether the school infrindged on his 1st amendment rights by suspending him for the banner. The case is interesting, it is relevant more or less to our everyday lives, and its why the law can actually be fun.

I honestly think one of the things preventing law school students from getting sick of the thousands of pages of reading that we have to do is that the cases that we read are usually very interesting. Cases can be interesting in different ways.

First there's the "wow, that's really bizarre, you can't make that" kind of interesting. For example, there was a guy who had an unexpected epilectic seizure while driving, crashed into a construction site that had a kettle with 400 degree boiling hot liquid enamel, flew in the air, got splashed by the enamel, burst into a ball of flames, somehow survived, and sued the constructiion site owners. (He won)

Then there's the "that's just really funny" interesting. We read a case where an ex-husband retained nude pictures of his wife, and pictures of the two of them having sex. He made photocopies of the photographs, put her name and address, and distributed it around the neighborhood. (She sued and won a lot of money). Speaking of scorned lovers, there was another woman who woed her seperated husband to Florida saying that her mother was dying, she was leaving the country, she loved him, and needed to see him. When he arrived at the airport, she met him with a police officer and served him papers for a lawsuit. (No, you can't do that).

A lot of the interesting cases were the "hey, that's relevant to my life" cases. Compuserve tried to sue a company that was sending out junk mail for "trespass the chattel" because all of the junk mail was slowing down the whole system and causing compuserve to lose business. (Compuserve got the injunction). And you start to wonder if the junk mail in your inbox should be legal.

There's many more interesting cases but my mind is so numb from studying that I won't try. I can't wait though to see what cases criminal and constitutional law bring next semester. And as I'll be wrapping up my constitutional law class, the Supreme Court will be ruling on the "Bong Hits for Jesus" case and I can see if I agree with them.

PS: If anyone can tell me why exactly someone would hold up this sign, besides just being a punk, please let me know. It doesn't even make sense to me.

A Last Lesson

As we were reviewing civil procedure today, our professor wanted to point out to us how far we had come and how much material we had covered. We read over 450 pages of a Civil Action, over 600 pages of A Documentary Companion, about 500 pages of our casebook, over 35 federal rules, over 25 federal statutes, and over a dozen ethical rules. This isn't the type of "reading" like in undergrad where you read the abstract and skim over the rest. This is reading, perhaps even multiple times, highlighting, taking notes, and briefing.

Despite probably being the most work-intensive class, I think everyone's favorite class in our section is civil procedure. It might not be the most interesting, but our professor is amazing. It's funny because when I first started law school I would talk about my other professors. One who was top in her field and used to clerk for a Supreme Court Chief Justice, and the other, a Harvard grad who was also the top in his field. And while my civil procedure teacher does also have an impressive resume, what makes him so great is that he is a good teacher. And you don't need to go to top ranked law school or clerk for the Supreme Court to be everyone's favorite, and most effective professor.

Interestingly enough, that was the gist of message to us was today, as we wrapped up the review session. He gave us the same advice that he gave his daughter when she was preparing to take her first law school finals: there's more to life than these grades. First semester grades are not indicative of how you will do in the rest of law school, and how you do in the rest of law school isn't even indicative of how you will be as a lawyer. That's because tests measure how well you can take a test; they aren't always the best measure of actual understanding and certainly they don't factor in one's character.

Some people might consider these "don't worry about grades" pep-talks as cliche or even self defeating. But to me, they are perspective from people who have seen and experience so much more. Its easy for so many of us to get wrapped up in getting the top grades because as law students, that's what we've been doing our whole lives. But it is good to get a reminder from someone you respect that you are more than a letter grade or class ranking.

With fatherly advice like this, there's no surprise that this is the professor who probably gets more gifts from his students than all of the other professors. Just like the many classes before us, our class was happy to buy another tie to add to the probably 100+ funny tie collection (he wears different funny ties to correspond to each of his lessons).

And what did he wear for the final class? A Star Trek tie and he told us to live long and prosper. I'm glad he ended with something funny because as he was wrapping up his speech, there were definitely a lot of people holding back the tears. You'll always hear the stories about the professors who are so mean that they make their students cry; I feel so fortunate to have had a professor who nearly brought his students to tears because he was so inspiring and he taught us so much.

My Finals Pledge

Today was our last day of classes of the semester. No more lectures, no more reading. One would think that would be cause to celebrate. However, it hardly seems like the end when we have 3 review sessions, absured amounts of studying, and 3 finals in the next 2.5 weeks.

As unavoidable as stress is to my life, I'm going to try to stay as positive as I can. It worked for the past 16 years of my academic career, no point in changing things up now. I've devised a lifestyle gameplan to supplement my academic one. So *drumroll please* to kick off the reading period and my first law school finals ever, I'm making this pledege:

• I will take care of myself physically. I will sleep at least 7 hours a night, I will continue cooking my meals, I will avoid bad food, I will keep a supply of healthy snacks, I will try to incorporate as much physical activity as possible, I will stay hydrated, I will finally take my vitamins.
  
• I will take care of myself emotionally. I will call my family or friends if I need to talk to somoene, I will take little study breaks, I will not completely deprive myself of the things that entertain me like facebook, bad reality tv, IM, or blogging, but instead keep it in moderation.
  
• I will not whine too much. I will remember that I chose to go to law school, knowing that it would be difficult and that I would have difficult exams.
  
• I will not take out my frustration on other people, my fellow classmates (as eccentric as they can be) or people outside the law school bubble. I will remember that it's ok to be frustrated but trying to make other people feel bad accomplishes nothing.
  
• I will be honest with myself. I will not try to fool myself about how much I can accomplish in one day. I won't try to tell myself or others I understand something if I don't.
  
• Oh...and I will have fun once finals are over!

Since this is in writing, I'm hoping I will have more reason to follow it. My goodness, I think I just made a contract with myself...

"I'm Sorry"

When I see politicians, celebrities, and other people get on camera and say they're sorry, I wonder if they really mean it. "I'm sorry" seems to have joined the list of many other phrases that have been abused and lost their meaning, such as "I love you" and even "how are you doing?" Sometimes I feel like we say these things because we feel like we should, rather than that we mean it. How many times has someone asked you in passing how you are doing and then they are on their way before you can even give an answer (or how many times have you done this yourself?)

But I was reading an article last night in Newsweek about the importance both on the macro and micro levels of saying I'm sorry. It was saying that on the larger scale, even the most seemingly forced apologies like Michael "Cosmo Kramer" Richard's apology to the black community or Mel Gibson's apology to the Jewish community are important. Whether or not either men truly meant it, it still shows people that our societal norms do not accept this kind of speech anymore.

And on a micro level, sometimes it does help the apologizer and/or the apology-receiver. The article cited apologies from people who victimized others during South Africa's apartheid, and how it helped the victims gain closure.

I went to bed after reading Newsweek, not knowing that I would wake up and see an apology addressed to me. Someone that I had a political falling out with 2 years ago had apparently found me on facebook and wrote me a message apologizing for an incident that happened during the USAC elections when I ran.

I don't know how to describe it, but it really brought a smile to my face. There was just something about the sheer sincerity of the message. I hadn't seen or talked to this person for well over a year and as he pointed out, we may not even ever see each other again. He had no ulterior motive to make amends but did so anyway and I think that takes a lot of courage.

All too often, I think a lot of us try to justify perhaps some of our more dubious actions or just let things pass. Those two methods are much easier and provide a quick fix because it's hard to ask for forgiveness. Asking for forgivness means confronting others and even more challenging is confronting ourselves. But even though its harder, I've realized that its the only way to really move past things. I look at friendships where issues simply got swept under the rug without a real apology and things just weren't the same afterwards.

People might not forgive and forget, but they might forgive and remember the apology. I know that if I ever do run into this person again, I will remember that apology far more than the incident that predicated the apology. And I will also remember the lesson that it's never too late to say I'm sorry.

The Pressure Cooker

Yesterday morning, as my dad was driving my brother and I down the five freeway on the way to the airport, we passed by UCLA. Even though I graduated 5 months ago and only moved from Westwood 3 months ago, it feels like an eternity since I was there.

Out of all of the analogies I've heard about law school, the most apt is comparing law school to a pressure cooker. Not just because there's a lot of pressure, and there sure is, but the pressure gives you the effect of a lot of time passing when only a short amount of time has actually passed. (For you non-foodies, pressure cookers can reduce cooking time by 3-4x, read more here).

The amount you've learned (hypothetically) in a few short months of the semester seems like more than you learned in your 4-year undergraduate career. The short amount of time in law school can age your body years, or at least impair your vision that way. Not seeing your family for a few months seems like an eternity. And from the amusing stories I've read on facebook, having a relationship survive a few months of law school deserves a medal because it seems like much longer. I guess we law school students are hard to handle, maybe because we reach our boiling point more quickly...yes, I just made a bad cooking pun.

I'm sure the further I go along in law school, the more time will fly by much more quickly. But for now it seems like I've been this little law studying machine for an eternity.

Home Sweet Home

If I had a book of theories about the world, one theory would definitely be that travelling is intentionally horrible so that you appreciate your destination even more when you finally get there.

I've never really done the holiday travel thing but I definitely got the full experience this past weekend, especially the 3 hour delay coming home today. I tried doing some work but crowded airports with hyper active children running around and lots of grumpy travellers is not exactly the best working environment. While going home was well worth it, being back in my apartment is such a relief (yes, even with finals looming.)

After 12 hours on the road, I'm exhausted. Goodnight.