No Red Friends or Blue Friends

As I mentioned before, my friends Faith and Ryan are in town visiting. Even though Faith was the President of the Bruin Republicans, a lightening rod position at the liberal bastion of UCLA, she was a uniter and not a divider. That was evidenced by the eclectic group of people who came out to dinner last night to see F&R. In Faith's own words . . .

"we met our group of over achieving student government politicos from out west at cafe asia. where they really do serve food from all over asia. mowgli had his native indonesian and i had japanese. lauren had thai and doan had something from singapore. everyone gave it two thumbs up. it was nice to see the people i adored and hear what they are up to these days. the lefties out numbered the right wingers. a famous blogette, the unions, some law school nerds, lawyers, and the unemployed. represent."

We were also supposed to have a street matador/model/soap opera star that Ryan knows at dinner, but alas he did not show up. Much sadness.

Some people might think the political demographic of this table would lead to huge political arguments. (final count, 7 liberals v. 6 conservatives/ libertarians. We were all in Bruin Dems or Bruin Republicans. And the current jobs range from AFL-CIO activists to Ashcroft's personal assistant.)

Some others might even wonder how we are all friends at all. Cliche, but true answer: we are more alike than we are different.

Sure, we share a love of politics, which led most of us to be involved in student government politics and life in DC. And yes, most of us will be lawyers (final count: 2 incoming law students, 3 current, 1 grad, and 1 practicing attorney at the dinner). But even beyond that, we have "normal people" things in common. Whether it be love of Bravo-reality tv, world travel, or all things UCLA. We can talk about politics civilly (at least most of the time), but we can talk about other things too.

I am always sad when I see people automatically separate themselves from people of different political ideologies, because they are losing out on what could be some great friendships.

How to Lose Friends & Alienate People

You know that scene in Mean Girls when Lindsay Lohan imagines that she lunges across the cafeteria and attacks Queen Bee? Or that scene in Election when Reese Witherspoon hears tribal war cry music when she see Chris Klein? Yeah, that's the feeling that some of us have in my bar review class have against some irritating classmates.

They exude the type of behavior that you would probably find annoying after being with the same people for a few months in law school. But since BarBri classes are with the same exact people four hours a day, five to six days a week, it gets to you a lot faster.

In particular, we have a "that guy" in our class. Loud, obnoxious, tells bad jokes, and thinks he's funny. He turns around in class every five minutes, stares, looks for people he knows, and winks at them. Same routine, everyday. The worst is that when you are looking straight at the lecturer on the screen, he seems to think you are looking at him. No, you are the one turned around! Stop winking!

My roommate and I joke that one of us is going to snap one day, climb over three rows of desks, and attack him Mean Girls style. And then we would make it onto "Above the Law," the legal gossip site for being "The Girl Who Couldn't Take It Anymore." Provocation, we would argue! A reasonable person would have snapped too!

If you ever find yourself in a bar review class, or another stressful environment, here is behavior I have witnessed that you should avoid unless you want to become that person:

• Make fortune tellers, you know those things you made when you were in elementary school, and play it while some people are trying to pay attention.
  
• Tear the perforated pages out of your workbook for two hours straight. You could not wait until you got home? Everyone can hear you, even if you try to do it only when the lecturer is speaking and not pausing.
  
• Retype all the text from your workbook onto your laptop typing really, really loudly. I was honestly concerned that this guys' keys were going to pop off, he was hitting them so hard. I pray that I do not have to sit by him during the actual bar exam.
  
• Sit by the aisle, put your bags in the narrow aisle ways, take the longest to leave at the end of class, and create fire hazards. It is like the people who sit at the front of the cabin who take forever to get their luggage out of the overhead compartment.
  
• Bring smelly snacks. Tuna fish? Not good for a classroom with no ventilation.
  
• Yell and flip-off cars multiple times outside the law school building whose tires are just a little over the crosswalk. Dude, we are all stressed, but do not take it out on random bystanders and make all law students look crazy.
  

(And just in case you are concerned, I am okay, not too stressed out, and do not plan on attacking people in class. I just had to catalog this since Alex wants me to write a book about law school characters.)

Thick as Thieves

The Smeets in town + eating shawarma (my new favorite word) + Real Housewives of New Jersey finale = great way to beat the June gloom and BarBri blues.

It was very appropriate that our good friends Ryan and Faith were in town this week because yesterday was the table-flipping, screaming-match finale of the Real Housewives of New Jersey.

Faith and I are fellow reality-tv junkies, particularly if its on Bravo. Instead of waiting for her to watch it in Arizona time so that we can discuss, as I usually have to do, I got her commentary live. And instead of Alex rolling his eyes at me in DC and Ryan rolling his eyes at Faith in AZ, the boys got to commiserate together. The only person missing was my roommate, who appreciates the amazingness of these shows as well.

Oh how I will miss our favorite Mob Momma . . .

And Theresa. This is one of my favorite moments from the series, aside from the finale of course.

It is just like we got to know the Jersey Girls and now they are gone (at least until Season 2?) Faith, roommie, and I will have to find a new way to fill our Tuesday nights since we will be devoid of the Housewives of OC/NYC/Atlanta/NJ for the first time in as long as I can remember.

Little California

One of the very few good things about taking the California bar is that you get to take a class with all Californians. It gives you a sense of home and there's some camraderie. Everyone wears flipflops even if it is pouring rain outside- usually Rainbows. People rock Laker gear and talk about games going into overtime. And you know a good chunk of the people came went to UCLA, Berkeley, or U$C for undergrad because 1) they wear sweatshirts from those respective schools in our freezing cold classroom and 2) it looks like UCLA, Berkeley, or U$C demographically speaking . . .

Helen: do you know adam p.? he was a [student government] person. he is in your barbri class
me: i've heard the name through you but i don't know him personally. that's funny. where did he go to school?
Helen: GW. he is short, jewish and has a lisp :)
me: which describes like...half the people in my class
Helen: funny when i asked about you, and said you are an asian girl he said the same thing
me [simultaneously]: the other half are asian. it's just like ucla

(and before anyone wonders how I know people are Jewish . . . I have definitely heard more than a few people talk about J-Date.)

Riot

Reading the news this morning, there were two dominant images: people rioting in Iran and people rioting in Los Angeles. In Iran, I get. People are understandably furious about probable election fraud in their recent Presidential election.

LA, on the other hand, even if much smaller in scale, I do not understand at all. The Lakers win, and people take to the streets just like they do every time the Lakers win championship. They even had a commercial that came on after the game that said "Celebrate Responsibly." It's sad that it is not even surprising anymore.

What compels people to riot out of happiness and celebration? I remember being dumbfounded when I heard stories about how students were burning couches, which ultimately led to a car being burned, in Westwood after UCLA beat USC. And I remember being shocked seeing the images of chaos in San Francisco created by people celbrating Obama's win. (Despite not being happy with the people of California for passing stupid evidence rules, this is not targeted at the state. I am sure celebratory rioting happens everywhere-though thinking about it, it seems more prevalent in California.)

I could think of no possible situation where I would simultaneously ecstatic and have the urge to burn something or destroy someone else's property. Even if you're drunk or in a mob, I still don't get how that would be your gut reaction would be to riot.

This is amongst many of the reasons why criminal law would be difficult for me. I would be too fixated on figuring out why people did what they did instead of prosecuting or defending them.

(Both pictures courtesy of the LA Times)

No California Love

While all my California friends are celebrating the Laker's championship win, I am not feeling as much of the LA or Cali love.

All day today, I've been review evidence- the first subject where we have to learn the California law. While I have a pretty good grasp of the federal rules, I am just starting to learn how California is different. I made chart of differences . . . and it was 7 pages long. sigh. That pretty much means California is the opposite of, or has an exception to, every federal law.

My frustration is not really amount the material of information I have to learn, but really how stupid the California law is. California's deviations away from federal law just seem completely arbitrary. Sometimes it screws over the accused, sometimes the party bringing the case. You just never know.

The bigger picture is that this is what happens when you have bad governance. When you have term-limited state legislators passing new laws relating to evidence based on the hot news story (thanks for bringing us the "OJ rule" California). Or when you have the public voting on rules of evidence (thanks for bringing another horrible Prop 8- this one doesn't have to do with gay marriage but rather changing all the rules for criminal cases). Evidence is hard enough for many law students to understand; not to sound elitist, but how are non-lawyers supposed to be savvy enough to know how to change it.

Can we just have that big earthquake so we get a fresh start and end this direct democracy experiment?