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June 26, 2006

If I’d skipped the lecture, today would have been much better ::
narrative, personal, vermont — No Tags
5:30 pm

I woke up at 3:30 AM to the sound of rain on the standing-seam roof. It was a downpour without any wind, it was like a constant stream of water that comes from a shower head. It was nice to listen to for a while, but it wound up keeping me awake for about an hour. I got back to sleep and woke up just before 7. The alarm clock was blinking 1:17, so the power had gone out at some point. I laid in bed dozing, listening to the rain, seriously contemplating skipping out on this morning’s bankruptcy lecture. But no, I thought to myself, I need to get up and see the lecture. I understood bankrupcy only in the most general terms, and the extent of that knowledge came from what my Corporations professor incidentally mentioned during a somewhat meandering lecture.

Turns out I should have stayed in bed, because the bar review people sent along an old version of the video that didn’t match up with our handouts. So we spent most of our time totally lost—like he’d refer to hypotheticals that were just not there, then he would skip one to two-page sections of the lecture notes. So these bar review people tell us that they’re going to send up the CD’s of the lecture by the end of the week, and those will match up with the notes. Guh.

Notwithstanding that, things are generally moving along pretty well. I got my car back today after it was in the shop for almost two weeks. (Fuel line leak, then a brake line rupture; the real problem is that my car has 200,000 miles on it and needs to be retired.) Now, after a day of bar study, I’ll be heading up to Higher Ground to see Devotchka with Josh, which should be fun. I know Josh only through the Internet and through friends, but I feel like I know him personally. One of those weird things about spending as much time online as I do. I’m looking forward to spending a little time on the road for the first time in ten days.

June 24, 2006

Study hard + hard to study ::
legal photos — No Tags
9:13 am


study hard+hard to study
Originally uploaded by Mitamada.

It’s been a while since I posted a law-related photograph. This is like me, studying for the bar.

New home ::
narrative, personal, vermont — No Tags
9:05 am

So I’m sitting here in the local coffee shop, drinking espresso and getting caught up on Internet. One of the strange things about my new place is that I have no Internet there—for the first time in four years or so, I actually don’t have at least a 1Mb line going into the house—which means that I have to make certain adjustments to my surfing habits. So far it’s working out OK—I get up in the morning, grab my ancient Power Book and head either here or to school and, well, do exactly what I’m doing right now. And another benefit? I’ve been forced to break my old bad habit of screwing around online until just before I go to bed, which always made sleeping difficult.

More generally, I’ve quickly grown accustomed to living in South Royalton over the past few days. There’s a lot of stuff to appreciate. Like for example: when I go out biking, I do it only for the exercise, and not as a method of getting myself to school. (I don’t know why, but in retrospect relying on my bike to get to school created a certain level of stress for me, even though my bike is now more reliable than my car). Also, being so close to school means that I don’t have to spend as much time picking and choosing all the books and other things I’ll need to have with me for the entire day. If I forget anything, I just have to walk up the street. Oh, and this town is full of people I know in some capacity or another, which made it feel like home even before I moved here. And as this photo shows, the evenings here can be overwhelmingly beautiful. It was a strike of good fortune for me to wind up here like I did.

I know my time in South Royalton will be brief, but it’s nice to think of this as my new home.

June 22, 2006

Weird new phase ::
personal — No Tags
9:54 pm

As Jessamyn not-so-obliquely mentioned on Librarian.net, we decided to break up last Friday. Things have been quiet around here mostly because I’ve been dealing with the fallout from that experience, all the while trying to study for the bar. But I’ve also been more than a little trepidacious about talking about it, mostly because I dread the emotional reactions from the people I tell (“are you OK?” Yes. “Are you sure?” Yes. “It’s been almost five years that you’ve been together!” I know how long it’s been). It’s been a weird few days, to be sure, but I’ve been mostly handling it OK; I stayed with Rick and Sarah Sunday to Wednesday, and beginning last night I’m subletting a friend’s apartment in South Royalton. I’ll be living with minimal stuff while I spend all my time on campus (ostensibly) studying for the bar. (Note: I’m taking the advice of one of my friends who a couple years back took the Vermont and New York bar exams back to back, who told me that I shouldn’t start getting stressed out about the bar until after the Fourth of July. Sounds good to me! Where’s the whiffle ball game at?) I’ve also found a lot of support from from a variety of people, including family, to be expected, and from friends, which has been particularly great.

Yesterday Jessamyn and I met for the first time after the break-up to talk about what our post-relationship life will look like, and that has done wonders for the both of us in terms of feeling comfortable with this decision. Here’s a rundown of the facts: she’s staying in the house in Bethel, I’ve moved to South Royalton. We made a deal that I won’t stop by unannounced, and that I would under almost no circumstances go into her room. This is of course a little strange, since it used to be our room, but as I told one of my friends in email, I think it’s a good rule because it stops me from falling back into the old habits that the both of us had developed over five years of being together. The last thing I think Jessamyn or I want at this point is to find ourselves in some grey area where we’re broken up but I’m still coming and going out of her life as before.

So, I’m not going to get into the details here, in part because they would come off as mostly unremarkable to most people, and because, well, I’ve never been one for delving into histrionics or, for that matter, the emotional details of my life. If you’re really interested, so interested you can’t stand it, email me. Or if you want to just drop a line and say hi, you should feel free to do that as well. I’d love to hear from you.

June 15, 2006

Morlocks, Eloi, and the impotently angry: a day of bar review ::
personal — tagged and
9:18 pm

I’m pretty sure it’s because I’ve stepped up my bar review efforts in the past few days, but I’ve become increasingly intrigued by the long, sometimes convoluted narratives the bar examiners develop for the test. On two separate occasions, lecturers have suggested that the examiners are on illegal drugs when they write these questions; one lecturer suggested they were on LSD, while today’s lecturer insisted it was cocaine. No matter the drug, the end results are sometimes interesting, sometimes downright nutty.

Here’s a particularly good example. One question involved a woman who owned two dogs that barked constantly while she was away at work all day. In a not-too-veiled reference to the Time Machine, the woman’s next door neighbor, Morlock (yeah, that’s right), worked at nights and slept during the day. The dogs’ incessant barking drove him to madness, during which he “came to her front door with a tape recorder and an electrically amplified bullhorn. He started playing a tape of the dogs barking putting it at full volume and amplifying it with the bullhorn” [emphasis added]. This of course causes the woman (whose first name is Wanda and whose last name just has to be Eloi) to freak out, slamming the door in Morlock’s face. And of course, this being a torts question, “[t]he door struck the bullhorn and jammed it against Morlock’s face, knocking out two of his teeth.” Youch.

At times the examiners approach something approaching humor. For example, while describing an altercation between two boaters, one examiner wrote about the first boater “rais[ing] his middle finger in the timeworn salute of the impotently angry and shout[ing] a few well-chosen references to [the other boater’s] anatomy and ancestry.” Of course, I just want to know what, exactly, such a “well chosen reference” might be, that can taking into account both anatomy and ancestry.

More generally, I think all this suggests I should get out more.

June 13, 2006

I am not a leper ::
weird, personal — tagged and
2:37 pm

I had no idea that, in the world of defamation, a plaintiff had an automatic right to damages if the she is able to show the defendant (inaccurately) asserted to a third party that the plaintiff suffered from a legally recognized “loathsome disease.” Here, by loathsome disease, I mean a disease that would cause people to generally think less of the plaintiff. What’s particularly weird about this is that there are two such recognized diseases: one is “venereal disease” and the other? You guessed it: leprosy.

I write this just to let you know that I am not a leper. [Update: oh, and you shouldn’t infer that I have a venereal disease, either. Because I don’t.]

June 11, 2006

Old science fiction covers ::
books, photos — No Tags
4:10 pm

More Than Human
Originally uploaded by finn.

So, while procrasting yesterday, I posted a photograph of my vintage science fiction paperback collection (small though it is). This got Finn talking about his similar love for science fiction covers. He then posted a couple of photographs of the cover for More than Human. (Here’s the other cover). He also found an interesting bit of information about the artist who did work for Theodore Sturgeon’s books:

Richard Powers’ cover, painted in his proto-psychedelic style, luminously illustrates Sturgeon’s themes of childhood and transcendence. The faces and bodies of all six outsider characters are contained within the image of a single upraised hand reaching for the stars. MORE THAN HUMAN (1953) was the first of many Sturgeon novels and short story collections with cover paintings by Powers. Others include Caviar (Ballantine 1955), E Pluribus Unicorn (Ballantine – different covers for 1956 and 1965 editions), The Cosmic Rape (Dell 1958), and A Touch Of Strange (Berkley 1959).

OK, so I probably should have spent more time studying yesterday. But what a nice interaction to brighten an otherwise dull day.

June 10, 2006

Rainy day songs ::
music — tagged , , and
4:09 pm

Bleah. Some days just never get off the ground. If you know what I mean, let me recommend a soundtrack:

June 9, 2006

All bar exam, all the time ::
legal — No Tags
7:19 am

From my Technorati links page I found the 2006 Bar Exam blog, which is full of the many tales of bar study. It’s a much more focused blog than this one here, so if you want to get a real sense of the overwhelming nature of preparing for the Worst Exam Ever, check it out.

June 8, 2006

Bio Jet ::
vermont, legal photos — No Tags
9:07 pm

Bio Jet
Originally uploaded by gjs.

There was a biodiesel conference at VLS today, but us bar review students weren’t invited. But there we a lot of veggiemobiles parked in the lot—this Jetta TDI was one of the better ones I saw.

June 6, 2006

More new music: The Little Ones ::
music, vermont — No Tags
2:33 pm

Here in Vermont we’re having a few days of warm temperatures and light wind before we get back to what is becoming the all-too-common days of torrential rain. I’ve grown accustomed to this Pacific Northwest-like weather over the past few weeks, and, like citizens of Seattle and Portland have been doing for years, I now deeply appreciate any chance I get to go outside and not be wet, cold, and shivering. Today is just one of those days of respite, and I’m trying to enjoy it as much as I can, considering that I have a bar exam to study for.

Music by The Little Ones provides a perfect soundtrack to a day like this. This morning I found, by way of the KEXP Song of the Day podcast (iTunes link), the song Lovers Who Uncover (mp3). I now cannot recommend it to you enough. It’s upbeat and dense sound, with two guitar lines, each playing simple chord progressions, floating over a fast-paced drum beat. And they come together to produce a sound that is both tense and in-the-moment. When I hear the song, I can’t sit still, I need to go out walking and appreciate the day. Nothing makes me happier than that today.

But what can you compare them to? Imagine, if you will, the child produced by a love triangle involving Built to Spill, Clap Your Hands Say Yeah, and The Shins. Here you have the next generation of a sound that I can only hope continues to evolve.

June 4, 2006

All hail Sherman Park! ::
personal — No Tags
9:39 am

I woke up this morning to an email from my dad pointing me to story on the Milwaukee neighborhood of Sherman Park. The story follows one family who moved to the neighborhood in 1973 to raise their children; those children are now coming back to the area to discuss the effect the neighborhood’s diversity had on them throughout their lives. This got me thinking about my own experience growing up in the neighborhood (46th Street between Sherman and Locust, between 1976 and 1989; Google Map) and the effect that experience had on me as an adult. More than anything, I now place a premium on diversity—not only in terms of race, gender, religion, or sexual orientation, but also in terms of the ideas that a diverse group of people bring to the table. As on of my law professors was fond of saying, diversity always raises the dialogue and makes the group (whatever that group may be) work better. What’s interesting, too, is how positive the experience has been:

Sherman Park in the years when it evolved from all white to today’s 75% African-American population was a showcase of what was possible when people of different races chose to live side by side.

I don’t have too much to add to this. It’s just nice to be reminded now and again of the uniqueness of where I’m from.

June 1, 2006

Calvin Johnson plus guest singer ::
personal, photos, music — No Tags
6:58 pm

Calvin Johnson plus guest singer
Originally uploaded by gjs.

This is what happens when I study for the bar: I review old photos and put them up on Flickr. This one is from a Calvin Johnson/Microphones show I saw with Jeremy back in August, 2001.

And lest you think this is the only trip down memory lane on this site between now and the time I take the bar at the end of July, don’t worry—I have lots of archives to go through.