Week in review

Hi again. I've survived my first week of classes, and think that it went remarkably well, all things considered. I have yet to be on call--though only one of my classes seems to do things very strictly and thoroughly Socratic. That one class, though (property)... Ugh. It's with one of the least respected (by the students) profs, who is callously Socratic in his teaching style and possessed of the most derisive pair of eyebrows I have ever had the misfortune to see used for belittling students. I do not look forward to this class, even though the experience will be quite good for me. As for the rest, Crim's going to be a blast: not only is the prof awesome, but the material's pretty interesting, too (Murder and Cannibalism on the high seas! And the prof made unintentional cannibalism jokes a few times in class, then realized she "had to be careful with [her] food metaphors"). Contracts seems like it will be both good and slightly forgiving (which is good, as it's at 8:45 MTW, and most of you know the full extent of how well I don't deal with mornings). Civ Pro (Civil Procedure--motions and pleadings and the system of the courts and how to work the same, for those of you who aren't familiar) is going to be fun, I think--it's with one of the most respected--by students, faculty, and the legal community at large--profs in the school, who has a sense of humor so dry it's musty. It's great.

The readings are thick and almost as dense for digesting as philosophy--but unlike philosophy, they must be done in order to effectively survive class. This doesn't mean, though, that I'm absolutely dead (which is good, because this was only the first week). I spent part of a class last week setting up a gchat network with a few people in my section so we can all help each other out (mostly considering this eventuality for Property) when one of us is stumped and on call. We had to write a memo for CLR (the legal writing class, which, if I recall correctly, stands for Communication and Legal Research [or reasoning, I'm not actually sure, but think it's research]), which was due this evening--probably for the best as I won't have to worry about it through the week like several other sections.

As far as non-law school things go... I skipped out on a few social events earlier in the week. I made taco gunk for dinner a couple nights as I had an excess of Costco guacamole. I am beginning to get impatient for programs that provide free lunch to start up around campus so I can acquire the same. Thursday night, I ought to have had a could-be-date (still unclear on it), but Gustav saw fit to intervene, and I was cancelled upon--with good reason, I found out later. Storms, incidentally, are no exciting from 26 stories up. Disappointingly so. I didn't realize quite how bad it was until I went out into it to walk off my frustration (during which time, I sealed the fate of my street shoes, as they were drenched irrevocably, and have now begun to grow some sort of flora/fauna). I walked somewhere between three or four miles in an hour, and returned nearly fifteen pounds heavier in water than when I had left. It was unreal to see the waves along the lakeshore coming in and pounding on/driving up the concrete. That, and it's a very weird sensation to have wind driving rain up one's nose.

Boys, as is suggested above, continue to be stupid.

Friday after classes, I went on a spectacularly unsuccessful shopping trip to Target and Best Buy, during which time I found that Target had shit for picture frames and didn't sell camera battery chargers, and that Best Buy's selection of chargers failed utterly to fit the battery that came with my DSLR (evidently it doesn't fit the universal Canon charger. Never mind that I found a $15 one on amazon rather than buy their $50 version that wouldn't have worked). I went to the southern portion of the city for this, and wandered fairly extensively in so doing. Friday night, my friend Kathy took me as a guest to a party in my building hosted by a couple of JDMBAs, which was rather entertaining, if overly beery (read: I was drinking water for lack of other options, though they did have metric fucktons--a fridge, a counter and a sink full--of various kinds and qualities of beer). Afterward Kathy and I came back down here and played Gin Rummy and talked and ate chocolate until we'd had enough chocolate and were tired enough that the rummy fell by the wayside to talking. Much fun was had.

Saturday, I went and was a guinea pig (ie. simulation interviewee) for the Bluhm Legal Clinic's training session, where I pretended to be one Mr. Jackson a (straight) man who wanted to set up a guide business for the presumptive Chicago '16 games in the same fashion as was done in Beijing, and who was concerned that a (false--the arresting officer lied about the whole thing) arrest and conviction while a minor for possession and sale of a small amount of crack cocaine could complicate my business venture, who was in the middle of a foreclosure due to bad financial advice from a now-defunct mortgage company, and whose severely ill and undiagnosed due to her status wife was an illegal immigrant who came by way of Mexico and Brazil in her flight from Robert Mugabe's regime (we me over there two years ago when I was volunteering at a clinic for torture victims as part of my church's outreach efforts--did I mention I was a big part of my church?). All in all, I made them work to reel the information out of me, though not moreso than I would have if it were really me and really my issues, and it was lots of fun. Also, I was compensated with free pizza and $50 for my time. Sadly, though, I missed Flugtag. Saturday night I was diverted from my plans to investigate Charlie's (a gay bar with country dancing on some parts of some nights--hopefully it will be a suitable substitute for Remington's, despite the lack of Grace for a dancing buddy) in order to go with Kathy and a few others to the Hangge-Uppe, a bar/not-quite-club about a twenty minute walk north/northwest from here. It was interesting. Not normally something I'd do for fun, but it was entertaining, and there was a REALLY cute guy (well, there was a fair amount of eye candy, and a few truly ridiculous people who were fun to watch and make fun of while shouting in each others' ears to be heard) there, but nothing happened except for lots of eye-dancing. ::shrug::

Today I finished writing my memo, turned it in, went grocery shopping, and did my property reading (contracts and Civ Pro were already done). I watched a spectacular sunset that turned my apartment a deep orange for about twenty minutes, and read some more of Kavalier & Clay (once again, thanks, Mssr. Pechous).

I leave you with an excerpt from one of the cases I read tonight:

"...and anyone else is quite within his rights if he puts loving and fertile lovers in a play of his own, wherever he gets the cue." Nichols v. Universal Pictures Corp., 45 F.2d 119 (2d Cir. 1930), Cert. denied