Week 16 1/12/03

Whoa! I just finished my first week of the 2nd Quarter. I was thinking that the start of the 2nd quarter would be like the start of the 2nd semester in college. Wrong! They just jump right in with both feet. I’m writing my resume, cover letter, writing sample, doing reading for 5 classes instead of the 4 we had last quarter, and competing in two competitions (mediation competition and contract drafting competition). Yikes!

Before I launch into details of school, I’ll just mention that I had one of the best breaks ever. Though I missed not going home, it was really relaxing not to deal with airports, rental cars, 8 hour drives, 5 hour flights, etc. Cedar and I took pictures while we opened all of our great presents from you all. You can see those pics here. Our trip to our friends’ (Wolfe and Lois) cabin at Bumping Lake was REALLY fun. We cross-country skied, baked, cooked, ate, slept, played cards, chatted. See the pics. It felt like I was gone for a cabin2002/P1010146 week even though it was only 3 days. Cedar did wheelies in the snow with the Maxima. You should have seen the look of glee on his face. I thought it was fun too, but Cedar, well, he was like a kid in a candy store. Or a guy in a hardware store, or a guy doing wheelies in the snow . . .

This quarter the class we added was Property. (Two of our previous classes have reduced class time, but overall we still spend more time in class than last quarter). My professor for Property is Greg Hicks. He is a board member of the non-profit I worked for before I came to school (Center for Environmental Law & Policy). So far he has been a very good professor. He is organized, has a lesson plan that, so far, he sticks to, he is obviously really smart and leads interesting discussions, and he is very nice: he always says something nice to people after they comment, and at the end of each class he commends the class for a good discussion. What a change from my Torts professor. I’m a bit peeved with him right now. I (as well as at least some of my class mates) end up really frustrated at the end of Torts class. He rambles, has no plan or thread of cohesion, often he ends up talking way up in the ether about philosophy. I don’t mind philosophical talk here and there, but all the time? I feel very inadequately taught compared to the other sections who have different profs. He is a nice guy, and is trying to make the law school thing as unintimidating as possible, and I really appreciate his efforts at that. But I don’t think he is a gifted teacher. Oh well, can’t win ‘em all.

I had a small epiphany. Law school is like one of those 3-d posters, and the students are like the guy in Mallrats (the movie) who just can’t see the object in the picture. The professors are blabbing on about the sailboat that is right there in the picture, while you are staring at it thinking, “it looks like static to me.” Deep thoughts by Ali.

So, I’ll update you on the grade situation. Overall (and so far), I’m happy with how I did. I got a B+ on my BLS paper. I was a little disappointed because writing was something I considered myself relatively better at (than say exam taking). In other words, I was expecting to do the best on my paper. I think because of the relatively strict curve (only 2-3 “A”s allowed in my class of 22 for BLS), and the fact that my prof didn’t like my thesis was why I didn’t do better. And B+ really isn’t bad, it was just the class I had the highest hopes for. For the legally trained, it was actually my Rule that my Prof didn’t like. We had to formulate a rule from about 10 cases, none of which used similar criteria. Rule formation was very hard: I’m not sure I could have done better on that because it seemed what I lacked was the ability to prioritize like a trained lawyer would (no kidding, that’s why I’m in law school!).

The surprising thing so far was Contracts. I learned on Friday that I got an A on my exam. I was very pleasantly surprised! I just assumed that I would be better at writing than I would at exam taking since I’d never taken a law school exam before. Color me wrong. Needless to say it was a really nice confidence booster. Now I just have to figure out what I did so I can reproduce it for the exams that matter (90% Oh My God!).

I haven’t gotten my Torts or Civ Pro grades. I’ll tell you about it when I do.

This week my friend Aviva and I are competing as a pair in the mediation competition. It should be fun: a little acting (you pretend you are a person with a problem the organizers of the competition make up), a little strategizing, a little emotion. (Sounds like a movie trailer). I’ll let you know how that goes and my thoughts on that process next time.

There was some sad news today. Cedar’s grandmother, Canny, died. She was 95. Her being 95 doesn’t help the fact that she was a wonderful person that the world is now without. We’re sad even though we knew she could go at any time. She was just so neat, and she was such a presence. I know I will miss her very much, I can’t imagine how hard it is for those who were closer to her. Death and grief are just what they are I guess.

Stay tuned for more frantic raving about the craziness of law school.

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