Well...it's been a while since I posted. I was afraid nobody was interested in my blog, but then I received a veritable plethora off comments from my friend Jenny (who is appreciative of shout-outs, so there's another one for you, sweetness), so I guess people actually do read this big piece of crap.
Last week some organization, club or something had a meeting at lunchtime. I didn't know or really care about what they were selling, but when I saw the pizza being delivered to the room, I decided in fact I was interested! I'm so sad...but really, free food is too good to pass up.
So off I go into the meeting, which it turns out was for this organization called Equal Justice Works. Can you guess what they do? Of course. It's an organization that encourages public service law (actually I'm not sure if it's law only, or public service in general).
Let me interject here that I really never had that idealism that so many law students have, or that we are told so many law students have. I never had that "I'm going to save the world!" mentality - and frankly, I don't know too many of my peers who do. Maybe they're too embarrassed or something. I think for me, my age has a lot to do with it.
Sorry - another interjection here, within the 1st interjection - I'm sitting in class, and my prof has to be the most technologically challenged man in the history of technologically challenged men. Nevertheless, he shows powerpoint slides every day. A few times over the semester he's had to call the computer person from the library to do something that was likely very simple but which h couldn't figure out.
So just now, he was in the middle of these slides - no one is paying any attention - and he stops, I look up and he's trying to fix something on the screen. He's asking for help, no one is answering, so I speak up and ask, "What are you trying to do?"
He says, "I'm trying to get this off the screen." There's nothing on the screen that we can see. He continues, "it says s-v-c-h-o-s-t-dot-e-x-e." Yeah, I can tell at this point that this computer novice is probably scared shitless at a window that says this. I look around, no one cares.
So, I run down and look at the screen. Sure enough, it's a dialog window that isn't showing up on the overhead projection, but is on his screen. I tell him, "Just click 'ok'."
"I can't," says he. Poor, poor man. He is confused at the difference between the touch screen and the regular screen. So I click ok on the touch-screen with my fingernail (as good as a stylus, I've found), and he proclaims, "GENIUS!" I hope I get extra credit.
Anyway...where the heck was I? Oh yeah. I'm not idealistic.
So I'm in this presentation, where they tell us that Equal Justice Works has a fellowship program, where you, the newly graduated lawyer, make a 2-year program in some area of public interest law. I didn't think much of it, until this weekend, when I realized, hey, maybe I am idealistic, at least in one specific area of interest - Intellectual Property! I may write a different post about some other transpirings that happened in that respect.
But, walking back from the store last night (between the 1st and 2nd periods of the Wings awesome series-clinching defeat of the disgustingly inept and dirty Flames) I had an idea: I could work for 2 years for the Electronic Frontier Foundation, a.k.a. EFF, and travel the country defending people from lawsuits for file sharing. The logistics of this proposal are, admittedly, ambitious (understatement). How do I argue before possibly every federal district court? Do every one pro hoc vice? Or actually get licensed before every court? Or get licensed before only each court in which there is a case? I don't know...
The other part of what I'd like to do is to speak at Universities in regards to organizations like the RIAA demanding that they give up their students information - IP addresses, stuff like that. Basically, I want to defend people - as part of a bigger organization, as part of a bigger plan by that organization. Also, it might be a great way to get my foot n the door at EFF, who are concerned with so many of the issues that I am.
Ok - super long post that has taken me a long time to write. More later.
Monday, April 23, 2007
Saturday, April 7, 2007
Nothing Happened Last Week
Well, what a week it has been. I'm not sure if I should break this up into multiple posts, as there are multiple subjects to be discussed here. I guess we'll see.
One week ago today, hot partner and I argued before members of the Supreme Court of three different states.* It was pretty fucking awesome. We lost, though. I prefer to think of it as "they won," 'cause they really did a fantastic job. The dude who did my issue was particularly fantastic - and I'm happy for him, even though I don't particularly like him. He comes into play a little later this week, too, but I digress.
Hot partner dropped the ball on one question. It was a question the answer to which we had discussed about a week and a half earlier - bottom line, she should've known the answer off the top of her head. I have about a a fraction of 1% of regret about this specific instance, though. She did her best, and she rules in so many other ways that it is an easily forgivable offense.
But it's all done now. Like I said, it was a kick-ass experience - I even got some nice personal comments from some of the justices (Supreme Court Justices! that rules). Hey, for those of you that know me, and hot partner, please don't let it be known that I wrote this stuff. I know there's 3 of you (at least, or at most; who knows which) who read this who go to school with me. I'd never get over it if she read this. But does this keep me from writing it? No. Probably because I've been drinking.
So, that happened. And then I remembered I had other classes I was supposed to be reading for. I was so happy that the competition was over, but now I realize I have so much to do to make up for how much I put into that damn thing. Get this though, too - hot partner is EIC of Law Review, so she's probably spending twice as much time as I am at school. Actually I know she is, 'cause she keeps sending me submitted articles to read, including a 113-page article on how the 14th Amendment has been too widely expanded all these years, and it all started with Justice Fields back in the day. 113 pages??? Are you freaking kidding me?! No, she wasn't. But, to her credit, hot partner/EIC up and read it herself till late Friday night. It's not like she couldn't be out there livin' it up.
(I just remembered I was supposed to write something for our school newspaper, and I forgot. The guy who goaded me into just logged into IM, and I hope he doesn't message me with a reminder. I guess I'll whip that out before we're back on Tuesday. Sorry 'bout that, dude.)
One of those classes I've been ignoring is one taught by a brash young new professor, whom most of us dislike on one level or another. I actually think he's a pretty good prof - arguably one of the smarter profs we have here - but I know a lot of people think he's not a good teacher. Anyway, during and after this much ballyhooed competition, most, if not all, of my professors, past and present, gave me some sort of "way to go" or "attaboy." I expected that - most of these profs are good, nice people. None are what I would consider a friend (unlike in undergrad); there is a sort of disconnect between a law student and his professor (there are exceptions, of course; see, e.g., law students house-sitting for sabbaticalling prof).
So, after so many profs had patted my back, I sort of expected the same from this prof. But no. Nothin'. Well, that's not entirely true - I think it was the day of the semifinals, we happened to be in the can together, and he said, "well, you're rolling along in (name of competition here)." I think I said, "yep." What do you sau to that? It wasn't a compliment, a congratulations, a giving-of-advice, it was a "look, the sky is blue." A statement of fact. Gee, you're too much, I'm blushing.
So, as a result of this, I've decided to boycott voluntarily speaking in his class. This is the kind of class where people generally don't talk, save for a few. This is generally due to many factors - the difficulty of the material, the oft-incomprehensibility of the questions. Well, I am no longer one of those few. It feels a little immature and childish to be doing this, but I always come back to thinking, "fuck him." It feels good to think that for some reason.
Oh, and my intramural softball team went 0-5 this season. It's a little unbelievable, frankly. We have some good athletes on our team, or at the very least we are comparable to every other team we played this year. For 4 of those losses we were up early, then pissed away the lead. Very frustrating. The final loss came to the team headed up by the guy mentioned above who co-won the competition, the less-than-likable one. There's another member of their team who is also highly disliked by some members of our team, and for very good reasons - I have thankfully stayed clear of that drama, and stayed friends with both him and those members of my pitiful team.
So, at the beginning of the season, we siad, "if we win only one game this season, it has to be this one." So what do we do? Get ten-runned, game over in 31 minutes. Fuck. I wanted to go back out drinking (the game was at 11pm - and yes, most of us had been out beforehand), but everyone was so depressed that we all just went home. Fucking ridiculous - or inane, if you will.
*I guess I'm still trying be anonymous here. Really, I just don't want some future employer to find this; also, I don't want the peers I shit-talk to find it either. Also, Harriet Myers shouldn't find it, 'cause that bitch can be scary when she gets mad.
One week ago today, hot partner and I argued before members of the Supreme Court of three different states.* It was pretty fucking awesome. We lost, though. I prefer to think of it as "they won," 'cause they really did a fantastic job. The dude who did my issue was particularly fantastic - and I'm happy for him, even though I don't particularly like him. He comes into play a little later this week, too, but I digress.
Hot partner dropped the ball on one question. It was a question the answer to which we had discussed about a week and a half earlier - bottom line, she should've known the answer off the top of her head. I have about a a fraction of 1% of regret about this specific instance, though. She did her best, and she rules in so many other ways that it is an easily forgivable offense.
But it's all done now. Like I said, it was a kick-ass experience - I even got some nice personal comments from some of the justices (Supreme Court Justices! that rules). Hey, for those of you that know me, and hot partner, please don't let it be known that I wrote this stuff. I know there's 3 of you (at least, or at most; who knows which) who read this who go to school with me. I'd never get over it if she read this. But does this keep me from writing it? No. Probably because I've been drinking.
So, that happened. And then I remembered I had other classes I was supposed to be reading for. I was so happy that the competition was over, but now I realize I have so much to do to make up for how much I put into that damn thing. Get this though, too - hot partner is EIC of Law Review, so she's probably spending twice as much time as I am at school. Actually I know she is, 'cause she keeps sending me submitted articles to read, including a 113-page article on how the 14th Amendment has been too widely expanded all these years, and it all started with Justice Fields back in the day. 113 pages??? Are you freaking kidding me?! No, she wasn't. But, to her credit, hot partner/EIC up and read it herself till late Friday night. It's not like she couldn't be out there livin' it up.
(I just remembered I was supposed to write something for our school newspaper, and I forgot. The guy who goaded me into just logged into IM, and I hope he doesn't message me with a reminder. I guess I'll whip that out before we're back on Tuesday. Sorry 'bout that, dude.)
One of those classes I've been ignoring is one taught by a brash young new professor, whom most of us dislike on one level or another. I actually think he's a pretty good prof - arguably one of the smarter profs we have here - but I know a lot of people think he's not a good teacher. Anyway, during and after this much ballyhooed competition, most, if not all, of my professors, past and present, gave me some sort of "way to go" or "attaboy." I expected that - most of these profs are good, nice people. None are what I would consider a friend (unlike in undergrad); there is a sort of disconnect between a law student and his professor (there are exceptions, of course; see, e.g., law students house-sitting for sabbaticalling prof).
So, after so many profs had patted my back, I sort of expected the same from this prof. But no. Nothin'. Well, that's not entirely true - I think it was the day of the semifinals, we happened to be in the can together, and he said, "well, you're rolling along in (name of competition here)." I think I said, "yep." What do you sau to that? It wasn't a compliment, a congratulations, a giving-of-advice, it was a "look, the sky is blue." A statement of fact. Gee, you're too much, I'm blushing.
So, as a result of this, I've decided to boycott voluntarily speaking in his class. This is the kind of class where people generally don't talk, save for a few. This is generally due to many factors - the difficulty of the material, the oft-incomprehensibility of the questions. Well, I am no longer one of those few. It feels a little immature and childish to be doing this, but I always come back to thinking, "fuck him." It feels good to think that for some reason.
Oh, and my intramural softball team went 0-5 this season. It's a little unbelievable, frankly. We have some good athletes on our team, or at the very least we are comparable to every other team we played this year. For 4 of those losses we were up early, then pissed away the lead. Very frustrating. The final loss came to the team headed up by the guy mentioned above who co-won the competition, the less-than-likable one. There's another member of their team who is also highly disliked by some members of our team, and for very good reasons - I have thankfully stayed clear of that drama, and stayed friends with both him and those members of my pitiful team.
So, at the beginning of the season, we siad, "if we win only one game this season, it has to be this one." So what do we do? Get ten-runned, game over in 31 minutes. Fuck. I wanted to go back out drinking (the game was at 11pm - and yes, most of us had been out beforehand), but everyone was so depressed that we all just went home. Fucking ridiculous - or inane, if you will.
*I guess I'm still trying be anonymous here. Really, I just don't want some future employer to find this; also, I don't want the peers I shit-talk to find it either. Also, Harriet Myers shouldn't find it, 'cause that bitch can be scary when she gets mad.
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