Merry Christmas!

Man this has been a hectic past couple of days. I think the worst thing about having finals end only 3 days before Christmas is the fact that since we law students don't have any time to shop for gifts while studying, we're forced to get all our shopping done at the last minute (the worst time to do it). In past years, I would scoff at the people who were out on Christmas Eve doing "last minute shopping." "Should've done it earlier," I would say. Last night, standing in line at Borders just before closing time, with gifts piled up to my chin, I reached a sort of understanding.

Target looked like it got hit by a tornado, especially the toy and electronics sections. The mall was jam-packed with people, and the lines everywhere were out of control. Drivers are also especially bad this time of year. I think its because they're too busy thinking about the people left on their lists to notice other cars... or other people. Yesterday for instance, I almost got hit three times. One of those times I wasn't even in a car.

Anyways, I'm glad that Christmas is finally here. It's like the shopping day off. Come Monday, it's going to be nuts again as people return stuff and go post-Christmas bargain-hunting.

I learned my lesson this year. From now on, I'm doing my Christmas shopping in August.

Home For The Holidays

Welp, after a good 5 hours of traveling (walking -> bus -> BART -> AirBART shuttle -> airport -> airplane -> car), I'm finally home for two [measley] weeks of vacation. The nice thing about Christmas vacation in post-high school education is the fact that there's no homework during the vacation. You can just relax and not worry about having to finish a paper or read a case or something.

Well... okay there is one thing I have to worry about. Starting December 1, we plucky law students are allowed to send letters to potential employers requesting jobs for the upcoming summer. Most people I know put off the stress of sending out dozens and dozens of resumes and cover letter until after finals. Now that finals are over, the stress doth rear its ugly head once more.

Alright enough with the bitching. This whole employment application thing shouldn't be too bad once I get the hang of mail merge. Postage is gonna be expensive like a muther though...

[---]

Wait a second... it took me five hours to get home? Shit... And I took a plane too. I should've just hitched a ride with someone driving down. It would've spared me the inconvenience of having to walk to the bus stop in pouring rain... or being squeezed in the back of a place to the point where my butt fell asleep...

Free At Last

I haven't left my apartment for 4 days. That's right- for almost 100 hours, I've seen nothing other than the walls of my little 1000 square-foot piece of Berkeley heaven. Granted, it's been raining like a mofo these past couple of days and so I wouldn't want to go outside even if I could, but still its the principle of the thing.

I got home after running some errands on Saturday, and I immediately dove into learning everything there is to learn about criminal law. Prof. Westen's final is a take-home final, and so after we download it from the school server, we have 24 hours to write up our answers and upload it back to the server. Not too bad, assuming that you've studied. As of Saturday, I hadn't studied. So for 2.5 days, I stayed in bed, with my laptop in my, well, lap, reading Westen's memos and outlining, leaving my covers only if I needed to use the bathroom. Then, yesterday at 1:40pm, I took a deep breath and downloaded the final. 24 hours later, I've written over 3000 words, proofread it, and uploaded it back to the server.

Holy moly, I guess I'm done with finals.

I think my first act as a free man will be to do my laundry (free men require clean underwears). Then maybe I'll actually leave my apartment building. I should check my mail.

Contracts Final Tomorrow!

About 60% of it is going to be short answer and multiple choice. There's only going to be one essay question. How weird is that? Everyone is freaking out about the non-essay section too.

I remember a time when students greeted multiple choice questions with a sigh of relief, while essay questions were to be feared. Not anymore. In law school, essays = chance to bullshit/grab partial credit points. Take that away from us, and we're left with the prospect of answering questions that might actually have *gasp!* a right and a wrong answer...

CivPro Final Tomorrow!

Finals Weeks = Final weeks...

...of my sanity.

Before coming to law school, plenty of people told me "you need to save your personality and your social life to disk before you enter law school, and then reboot it when you graduate."

I guess the point of this cumbersome and somewhat technically incorrect analogy was to emphasize the fact that law school would take up every single waking hour of your life to the exclusion of friends, fun, and frivolity.

After coming to Boalt, I quickly learned that this wasn't necessarily true. I had plenty of fun and my share of frivolity, with plenty of studying time to spare. I'm convinced that whoever said that you couldn't have a life in law school was obviously not a Boaltie.

But now that finals are around the corner, I'm realizing that there may have been some truth to that saying, at least during finals. Every single day this week I've been waking up early, going to class/review sessions, then outlining in the library until my brains fall out. Each day, I've gotten home no earlier than 1:00am, only to go to bed and start again the next day. I haven't had time to call friends, email, blog, or even cook dinner. To everyone who I've been meaning to call: Sorry! Chris will be back in a few weeks.

So here I am, on a Friday night, in the library. *Looks at watch* Shit! I gotta get back to work!

[---]

P.S. if you see any new blog entires, the likelihood is that I already had them pre-written and pending in Blogger. Just one more reason why I like the Big B better than Xanga...

THIS Is What I Came to Law School For

Today in contracts we learned whether or not you have to pay that squeegee guy who comes over to your car when you're stopped at a traffic light and squeegees your window without your request and then expects money for it.

Turns out that his expectation of being reimbursed for his "benefit conferred" isn't legally enforceable because there was no bargain or negotiation for the exchange. They even have a name for these types of people: officious intermeddlers.

So pretty much, if you don't pay him, he can’t sue you for the money. He can still probably break your window though.

Finally! Some practical knowledge!