Constitutional Law

Six years ago, my AP history/ government teacher told me to keep my copy of the constitution he had given us because I had become "quite the constitutional scholar." Ever since then I couldn't wait to take constitutional law. I took a class pseudo con law class at UCLA, but had a horrible professor. This time around, I had a much better professor.

After reading over 155 cases from Chemerinsky's 1560 page constitutional law casebook (yes, the book is as thick as it looks), I will be embarking on my con law final, my first one of this semester.

I'm scared. Not because I don't feel like I understand it; I actually feel like I know the basics really well. I just have very high expectations of myself for this subject. This isn't property or civil procedures, subjects I weren't familiar with before law school.

It's like when there's a catering challenge on top chef, the chefs with experiences in the catering business really want to excel. Or I'm like Kayne, the pageant dress designer from Project Runway, with the pressure to win the Miss America dress challenge. You just want to do really well in something you love and you're allegedly good at.

Strangely enough I'm not stressed out (yet) about it, I'm just a little nervous. I'll be fine, I just want to be done with all these finals. A girl can only study for so many hours.

Breaking Bread Together

My friend once joked that the people could work to end racism by having more multicultural children. "People will see that if God didn't intend races to mix, he wouldn't make their babies so attractive. World Peace through cute babies." Though I am a major proponent of cute babies, my theory of achieving world peace is through food.

Probably one most unique things I went to at UCLA was a Ramadan breaking fast with members of the Jewish Student Union and Muslim Students Association. It was just nice to see two groups who are probably have the most heated political differences and discussions come together over really good Middle Eastern food. Later down the road, these groups later came together to work on getting Kosher/Halal food in the dining halls for their respective communities.

I randomly thought about this subject because I took a study break today to try my hand at making empanadas. I've been craving them all week after Alex randomly mentioned them and had some dough in my refrigerator, so I thought I'd put my iron chef skills to the test. My little baked pockets of ground turkey, onions, olives, hard boiled eggs and raisins (pictured right) met my roommate's approval so I was happy.

Anyway, making these pockets of goodness made me think about all the other cultures that have similar foods. Indian samosas, Chinese Dumplings, Italian Calzones, Polish Pierogis, and Vietnamese have Ba Te Xo (stolen from the French words Pate Chaud, which also probably means that the French brought these little meat pies in puff pastry during colonization. I don't care, they're still amazing and I made 100+ for my mom's work party last year, left).

Really, it's a brilliant idea. Putting food into these neat, compact, and easy to carry edible pockets. The more ethnic food is different, the more it is the same. And maybe if everyone realized all the similarities there were and how tasty everything is, we'd achieve world peace.

The More the Merrier

When I ran for student government exactly 2 years ago, I was part of one of our school's two major political parties, or as we called them "slates." The slates pretty much dominated the elections every year. Then I found out that a third party was running. I was angry. Who did these people think they were? Not a bit of student government experience or involvement in any major campus organization. Coming in wearing chicken suits (this is not an actual picture of them, just a google search) and not knowing the major policy issues.

In the end, this third party put 2 of the races into a runoff, made us spend a whole lot more money and time, and cost one of my good friends that I was running with his election (Nader style). Frustrating? Absolutely. But would I ever bar these third parties, whether joke candidates or the Ralph Naders, from running? No.

Before I joined a slate, I was actually the campaign manager for my friend who ran for President as an independent candidate. I'm sure the two major parties hated him for it, but he had a real message and helped realign the slate I later joined. And though it was hard to take the people in chicken suits who I ran against seriously, buried underneath their feathers and stupid jokes was a message that people embedded in student government (and the major slates) were taking themselves too seriously that they needed to start having more fun and listening to the students.

So when I was watching the Democratic Candidates For President debate today, I had to remind myself not to be as dismissive of some of the candidates. While some of the candidates who have no shot of winning (primarily Congressman Kucinich and former Senator Gravel) said some pretty ridiculous things sometimes, they also had some really good points. Most importantly, they challenged some of the frontrunners to confront the harder issues.

As a Democratic party loyalist, primaries pain me, especially with a lot of candidates. I hate seeing candidates (particularly good frontrunners) just beat up on each other and waste millions of dollars. But as a citizen in general, I know the importance that this primary process plays. And I know how important it is to theoretically open this up to everyone.

I highly doubt I would ever vote for a 3rd candidate or encourage one, but it's a good option to have out there. In the end, as much as Dems hate Nader, Republicans hate Perot, and I hate candidates who run in chicken suits, we can't really, nor should we, bar these people from running. Maybe it means that we don't elect the best person every time, but our society is still better off I think.

If these third/minor/joke candidates decide that it's worth potentially taking away votes from a candidate they might like more and costing everyone much more money, then that's their decision. It's that whole freedom thing we believe in. I just hope that they use it to raise the level of discourse rather than do it for attention. Oh democracy.

Knowledge is Power

I'm one of those nerds who likes learning for the sake of learning. However, as I've been parsing through landlord/tenant, equal protection, and all other types of law for 12+ hours a day during this reading period, I realized that there's an added bonus to learning the law: empowerment.

I know it sounds super cheesy (but really, that's how half of these blogs come off anyway), but knowing the law, knowing how to apply it, or even knowing people who know the law makes you feel like you can take on a lot of wrong in the world- or at the very least protect yourself. Not that I particularly want to go sue-happy, but I feel like people can't take advantage of people intentionally or unintentionally if that person knows the law.

For example, my friend had a problem with a leak in her apartment. She complained multiple times and the apartment kept saying that they would fix it. After asking my property teacher for some hypothetical advice, my friend sent her landlord a picture of the leak and a formal letter mentioning "implied warranty of habitability" and deducting rent payments and her building came to fix the leak the next day. She didn't have to sue or come even close, but just demonstrating that she knew the law whipped her landlord into shape.

Understandably, not everyone can or wants to go to law school. I just wish everyone had access to legal advice (the good kind, not where lawyers abuse their own power and try to take advantage of others). I also agree with Justice O'Connor that every kid should have a copy of the Constitution and know their fundamental rights. It's just so little, it can fit in your pocket. (Right- Senator Robert Byrd- WV, an alum of my law school and model of pocket constitutions). You don't have to say it, I'm a constitutional nerd. But I was already told that in high school by my AP history/gov teacher.

My Own Care Package

In the past few weeks, I've been surprised and thrilled to receive care packages in the mail. Alex sent me a cookie bouquet for making law review (right), my mom sent a bag full of extra dark chocolate as a belated Easter basket/study sweets, and then Alex sent me another box of goodies with trail mix, smarties, bubblebath stuff, etc. as a finals survival kit.

Taking the lead of my loved ones, I realized now is when the time I also really need to take care of myself. I'm usually good during the year, but I know that for others and myself, finals is a time when it's easy to let ourselves "slip." Staying up late, eating food that isn't good for ourserlves but we might justify as convenient, drinking too much caffeine, not cleaning because we say we'll do it after. It's all very easy to justify in our heads.

If my allergy induced sickness has taught me anything, it's that now's not the time to make excuses and let myself go. I thought sitting around and resting would help me feel better, but it didn't and I felt guilty for not working. So I vacuumed and dusted my apartment in an attempt to reduce the sneezing. Wow, even in a "clean" apartment, it's disgusting to realize how much filth accumulates. Then I made a really good and healthy dinner, drank copious amounts of lemon/ginger tea (left, I highly recommend), and got a good 10 hours of sleep on my newly washed silky sheets.

At first I was hesitant to take time out to clean and make a gourmet meal for myself, but I've gotten a great return. I feel much better today and feel like I've even increased my productivity. That makes me feel even better, becuase we know how much I love to be productive.

Last of the First

Today officially concluded my last day of classes for my first year of law school. Whereas in elementary school we would get a party for the last day of classes, in law school we have professor evaluations and impending finals. At least the professors usually give a nice little speech about hanging in there and the noble field of law, then we applaud. There's a little sense of closure admist the dread of taking tests that determine your whole grade.

Though I'm not completely done, I still think it's safe to say that I like law school and so glad that I went (maybe it's actually more telling that I'm saying this in the thick of finals prep rather than when I'm done and all the pressure is gone).

There might have been days when I was confused, stressed, or just bored, but overall, I'd say I enjoyed my classes, even contracts and property weren't that bad. It's probably because I'm one of those nerds who actually likes going to class and as my LSAT instructor told us, law school is one of the best educations that you can get.

Even just taking the foundation classes, I concur. People were right when they say that after starting law school, you look at the world differently. Yes we see lawsuits everywhere, but I also think that we just have a better grasp of how the world works and we might analyze things more. After being a political science major, it's also nice to gain some knowledge that will be practically applied, like how to file a motion.

Maybe law school's not for everyone, in particular people who aren't ready to commit to working a lot. But when people do ask me if I like it and recommend it, I say yes. I don't know how unique my experience was compared to others, but I "survived" my first year of classes and am somewhat excited to tackle another two. But for now, I'll just focus on surviving finals.

Something in the Air

You know what's worse than feeling sick when the weather's bad outisde? Feeling sick when the weather's beautiful outside. Oh, and when finals are right around the corner.

My allergies aren't usually that bad, but I think this weekend's dramatic spike in temperature to 80, along with walking back from school (a nice 2 mile walk past people's gardens and lawns), and to church this morning (another mile through pollination) has led to more sneezing, sniffles, and sore throatness than I've felt in a while. The whole school's afflicted too.

Moral of the story: law students are not supposed to enjoy the great outdoors. This is the punishment I get for not being in the library.

I'm going to go to bed and get some meds tomorrow. I will not let the allergens win.

Ageism

While I was at UCLA, the vast majority of students around me were within a plus or minus range of 4 years from my age. Every once in a blue moon, there would be an outlier, but overall the age concentration was very dense. Even though I knew in my head that law school would have a much larger range and I would be on the tail end of the younger side of the spectrum, I tend to forget.

The other day at dinner all my friends mentioned something about being 25 and called me a baby when they realized that I was but a mere 22 years old (but going on 23!). I personally don't feel like 25 is that much older than me but anything above it is because it's on the cusp of the plus or minus four year age bracket I'm used to.

See, I have this theory that you don't really feel a height difference for people plus or minus 5 inches from your height because your eye levels tend to be pretty even. But if someone is more than 5 inches shorter than you, they feel short; and if someone is more than 5 inches taller than you, they suddenly feel tall. For example, being 5'7, I don't really feel much shorter than my friends who are 6' tall. But as soon as they go up to 6'1 or above, I feel short. I don't know if there's a psychological phenomenon for this, but I swear there must be something about how far someone is out of your range for you to actually recognize it.

I digress. My point was that now I'm realizing that there are all these people who are like 27, 30, 33 years old that I never realized were that old because I assumed everyone at school was my age or at most 25. But there older people, people who are married, have kids, have real apartments with real furniture. Just further along in life. As much of an old soul as I am, I've been feeling pretty young lately. I guess that's not such a bad thing.