DONE!

So, as many of you who read this will already know by the time you do read this, I am done. DONE! I had my last exam (Civil Procedure II, source of Marticles and Casablanca jokes, and the most horribly amazing bowling joke ever) this afternoon, and during that time, Maine legalized gay marriage. All in all, a good day. The writing competition starts tomorrow evening, but no work will be done on it until Friday, because tomorrow evening will be a great big damn celebration when everyone, rather than a few others and I, has finished their finals. So, this has been an interesting (school) year, and many new things have happened. This will be a mildly contextless retrospective, mostly for my own memory, but for the selective edification of those who can read between lines well. (2 hours later) No. Scratch that, it would have been, but it consisted mostly of realizations that I'd had while here over the last nine months. So... meh.

I've still got the writing competition left (to get on a journal), and I have plans to go dance in a fountain in Millennium Park this weekend, which will be awesome. The weather has turned rainy now that I'm done, despite being gorgeous while I was occupied. Stupid weather. Anyway, I don't seem to have much more to say, despite my grand intentions. So here, for you, is a quote:

"The common law is not a brooding omnipresence in the sky, but the articulate voice of some sovereign or quasi sovereign that can be identified." 244 US 205, 222.

Concert! (Because I'm a bad law student)

So, tonight I went to a concert. My ears are not ringing, though by all rights they probably should be. It was a percussion quartet of former Northwesterners (I found out, at the concert--I'd found the thing itself on Chicagoist), and it was really kinda awesome. Tonight had a political theme--e.g. the first piece, called 'Speak Softly' involved four large sticks of varying lengths, and drum sticks for each of the four players. Carrying of (and banging on) big sticks ensued. Another piece was rhytmically in unison, called The Worker's Union, and written by a socialist who wanted to apply the concept of socialism to music. It could be played on any instruments, so long as they were loud; pitches were similarly nonspecific. One of the instruments was the soundboard from an upright piano, another was a marimba (I think--I'm not up to snuff on my percussive instruments), another included a small set of drums including a bass drum sideways on a stand and a set of plumbing pipes and was rounded out with some metal kitchen containers, and the last was a glockenspiel--which, incidentally, are much fucking louder than I'd thought they might be. There was a little Q&A session afterward, during which time I found out there was a reason I'd recognized the girl in front of me (particularly her scarf and bun): she had gone to Carleton. So that was a bit trippy. I walked the 3ish miles out there, and took the El back, and now I need to get back to Con Law.

I have no legal quote for you today. My apologies.

So. I suppose I should update people on life.

I mean, I do have this blog thing, I might as well put it to at least some use. It is late afternoon on a beautiful saturday, and I am inside doing really quite little. I don't know why. I should be outside doing something, or at least outside in transit to somewhere to do something. But I'm not. I'm here, updating my blog.

It's been an eventful couple weeks since last I posted here: I finished up my brief, I had spring break (yay for couchsurfing in MPLS, yay for geekery, yay for pleasant bus-rides with internet built in, and yay for a grocery bag full of books for $3.81), I came back and played far too much of video games (which, incidentally, is not to say that I will not continue in that vein, or that too much is, in fact, enough--it's not), and classes started again. Russell was here for the last day and a half, which was quite nice: I enjoy operating the Carleton Chicago Crash-pad. Apple crisp has been delayed nearly a week at this point, but will probably be made today. Mmmmmmm pyrex dish full of apple crisp.

Finals are coming up. That's really all I'm prepared to say on that subject at this point in time. I have a leadership retreat (because I am the treasurer to the gays and the singers for next year--OUTLaw and Habeas Chorus. Shit if I know how that came about) next weekend, which should be interesting if nothing else. The following week will be oral arguments based on the counterfactual hypothetical issue for which we wrote our briefs all this term. Hopefully it will be of the good. This weekend has been DANL (Day At Northwestern Law, aka Prospie weekend, etc.), which means 1) Prospies--including a girl from St. Olaf I met, and Lindsay (one of Jeff's paras from Sidley, and one of the rather few of my coworkers I liked), 2) Wigmore Follies, to which I was obliged to go and dragged Russell along. I was worried, because last year's was... not of the good. This year it was fantastic, even if I wasn't as aware as some people think I ought to have been of the whole Terminator context (Russell educated me afterward). Everyone could sing, the dance numbers were well done, the acting and plot were both quite good. The jokes were both on point and rather pointed, but not barbs outright, so it was well done.

In other news, gay marriage. It's been legalized in Sweden on April Fool's day (props to Laura for being the only person to actually gull me), and yesterday in Iowa BY A UNANIMOUS COURT. Kinda awesome. Read the opinion in class, for the most part, which was very well written. Varnum v. Brien: http://data.lambdalegal.org/in-court/downloads/varnum_ia_20090403_supreme-court-decision.pdf Also, Camilla Taylor--one of the two lead counsel on the case for Lambda Legal--is an adjunct prof. at NUSL, teaching the Sexual Orientation and the Law class, and is evidently going to be having a party next week to which all the gays are invited. So that should be entertaining.

Also, would be having lunch with Lucy tomorrow, except that her conference is on the South Side and she has not sufficient time to get away to meet me between classes, so I will not get to see her or meet her boyfriend, which is a sadness. But, on her LJ today, she put up a somewhat mysterious post, which said only "My friends, I love you." With a link (labeled 'more'): http://www.obsessedwithconformity.com/obsessed_with_conformity/2009/03/in-the-name-of-love.html So, in the spirit of her post, and her link... my friends (and to my knowledge, all of my readers are my friends, because it's unlikely I have readers whom I don't know), I love you.

'We refuse to encourage couples to settle their disputes with fire.' 88 T.C. 677, 683

Also, http://www.endicott-studio.com/cofhs/cofinstr.html
My favorite bit:
"dragons have one soft spot, somewhere, always;
hearts can be well-hidden,
and you betray them with your tongue."

Holy shit.

First. I just got back from a three hour dinner with various law students and George Takei. To those of you who do not know, he is Mr. Sulu. Oh god. It was amazing.

Second. Sunday didn't happen, more or less. That is because,

Third. Saturday night was Barrister's Ball (aka Law School Prom). I escorted Bergy's delightful sister (Christy) first to Mal's pre-party, which was awesome, and then to the Ball, where--because we were early--we took a stroll around the area, chatting. She is very good people. The Ball itself was fun. I danced with most of my friends, most frequently with Bergy and Christy. I was be-tuxed, with my dad's reversible red-or-black bow tie, which they sent because they couldn't find mine. Bergy was in a white tux with a pink vest and pink bow tie, and was disappointed that no white top hat could be found to complete his outrageous outfit. Post-Ball, there were traitorous shoes in the rain and then games at Bergy's until six in the morning. Then I went home and finished reading a book, finally closing my eyes at a bit before nine.

Fourth. Watchmen. Awesome. That is all, because I"m sure that some of you have not seen it, and I will not spoil things for you.

Now to finish my Con Law reading and go to sleep. I expected to be home... about two hours ago. Then I would have worked on my brief. Oh well. The sheer AWESOME of having become George Takei's impromptu informant on how Prop 8 and the arguments concerning it worked was so worth that.

Also, this needed sharing

Reproduced by the same dude as brought you Mayo v. Satan and Associates:
http://kevinunderhill.typepad.com/Documents/Fisher_v_Lowe.pdf

A piece of logic, for your consideration.

I'm starting from the amusing philosophy of Bishop Berkeley (after whom, incidentally, UC Berkeley and the accompanying Bay Area city were named), namely that to be is to be perceived. For X to exist, it must be perceived by something. A thing can perceive itself, but only while consciously doing so--thus, while sleeping, one cannot perceive one's self. Thus, given that the conscious organisms of creation cannot observe all things at all times, there must be some Prime Watcher (read: God) whose duty it is to observe all things and generally keep creation running at all times. Thus, God must be, and must never sleep (for if he/she/it slept, then God would cease to be for lack of being perceived), and therefore must be--having existed for so damn long--the most sleep-deprived entity in creation. Thus, to be sleep deprived is to be like God. Therefore, law students, as a whole, being nearly terminally sleep deprived as a general rule (there are execptions--Bergy--to this rule), must be really quite close to God.

Therefore, law students are Godly.

Yeah, I suppose I do need to post something here

Even if it is a post telling you all that very little is going on in my life except school and staving off sickness (where is Nik and his witchery when I could use it?). In any event, yes. School. It takes my time. I am now next year's treasurer for Habeas Chorus (hah. Haha. Hahahaha. Yes, you heard me right: I'm the treasurer of an a capella group), which ended up being settled because even though I had been challenged to a duel for the presidency (and, as the challengee, got to choose weapons, and offered my standby that I think I stole from Max--handgrenades; one pace), I decided I didn't care as much as she did. JR, our new president, offered to buy me several drinks by way of thanks--I told her to buy me a book instead. So Neal Stephenson's Anathem should soon be mine.

As for the rest, there has been dancing. A reasonable amount of it. There has also been an unreasonable amount of CLR. I won't even get into the contract drafting module except to note my incredulity at the knowledge of that woman (ista femina, for those who know the significance of it) actually had clients and didn't either garner their intense scorn or send them screaming from her office. But yes. Writing a brief kinda sucked. Also, fuck FCRA. Fuck it with a stick. We are not friends, it and I (clearly).

It is winter, in Chicago, which means that it's cold (except, not really. And there's no snow. I'd now like to register another complaint at the weather. It's been snowing at my altitude tonight, but I know that it's rain at street level, so I'm disappointed), and that the whole world is sick, and illness cross-contamination is becoming pandemic. So, I begin to fear I may be laid low by the microbial cohorts. Also, I wish I had time to write. It's getting to that time again where sanity will need preservation by way of words.

Upcoming things: writing the other side's brief, which will suck more, because it's a full brief (I really hope it's only one argument, but fear it may be both, which might kill lots of my classmates); planning a LARP alla murder mystery party (not of the 'lightning bolt... lightning bolt... lightning bolt... sleep!' variety) with Bergy; part of spring break up in the cities (the bus tickets have been bought. I arrive in MPLS ~8, I think, on the 16th).

For the rest, boys are dumb, books are happy (I stayed up until 5:15 AM this past saturday reading The Name of the Wind, by Patrick Rothfuss, which may have become--about ten pages in, and moreso as the book progressed--my favorite book of the past several years, easily), and there needs to be snow on the ground. But none of these general things are new.

Torts quote: 'It was a snowblower. She put her hand in it. This seems dumb.' My muppet-esque (seriously--strong resemblence to Bert of Sesame Street) prof on a case we were reading for that day.

Post-script: satisfied, Max?