outlining; desk attaching

right now i am pretty tired. finals are coming up and i have been studying very hard. possibly not as hard as last semester, and for not as long. it's spring, and that makes it hard to focus. i skipped an ultimate tournament this weekend, and this morning when i walked into the law school to make my way down to the windowless library basement, it was sad.

in the library, i usually study in a carrel that looks something like the one pictured here. that way, i have a minimum of distractions and can spread my books all over the place and just focus. the library is a pretty safe place, and one has to pass numerous security guards to get into the school and then into the library, so i have felt pretty safe using my precious laptop in there and leaving it for bathroom breaks, etc. however, one of my t.a.s recently had her laptop stolen, a disaster of quite immense proportions, so i decided the security efforts had to be redoubled.

my college-era laptop lock has been sitting in my locker all year, so i busted it out and brought it down to the library, only to realize that carrels like the ones we use have absolutely no poles or other protrusions around which a lock can be fastened. i sat there musing for a while, got to work, and finally decided that i absolutely had to go get lunch. i didn't want to do that without locking my computer (his name is Milton), and that's when a bright idea hit me. i looped the lock cord around the arm of my desk chair, below the desk, and through the small hole in the desk designed for power cords. i am not one to creatively problem solve when the problem has a physical/three dimensional component, so i was exceedingly proud of myself.

then i came back from lunch and realized that i could have just locked it to the chair without further maneuverings; it would probably be difficult to filch a laptop attached to a large wooden chair. the setup looked pretty sharp, though.

exactly

i know i'm not actually writing a lot in these blog updates; i'm trying to stay focused on studying, but at the same time the fact i'm studying makes me more prone to browsing the interweb.

i happened along this photo in a times article about isiah thomas's plans for the offseason, and it struck me as kind of perfect. there were many good things to take from the season--the success of the two young players in this picture certainly amongst them--but the knicks were somehow more heartbreaking this season than last, because at a certain point i think many fans believed they had a chance to make it to the playoffs, to be a fun and respectable team. though they may have maintained some of that respectability, the painful losses just kept piling up, and the season came to a close with nothing more than platitudes for the potential of next season.

i write only to tell you to read someone else's blog post

on the recent Supreme Court decision on "partial birth" abortions.

tragedy

it's hard to say anything meaningful in a blog post (though there are some interesting points being made on the tomog), but i just wanted to send out well wishes to everyone at virginia tech. there's no way to really explain or even comprehend a terrible event like this, so all i will hazard to say is that i'm thinking of the families of the victims, all the students and teachers at tech, and the family of the shooter who must be suffering their own bewildering grief right now.

swimming through life

today was a tired day. and it's kind of inexplicable, since i've been getting reasonable amounts of sleep for the last two nights. i guess things just piled up while i was preparing for icwa. but that's all over now!

anyways, in tax class this morning, normally my most engaging class (who would have thought?!), i could barely keep up with the class. it was like everything had to penetrate clear jello that was surrounding my head before i could process it and write it down on the old laptopper. ultimately i woke up, though, and was able to participate in class--just in time for the metaphor comparing capital gains and ordinary income to trees and fruits. it was enlightening i must say.

anyways, now i'm doing a little better, but still, it's been one of those days. just keep swimming, just keep swimming...

oral arguing

i have thought several times about posting this past week, as i prepared for my oral argument. this is the culminating exercise for my lawyering class, which is a series of exercises in which we pretend to be lawyers in a variety of situations--mediating, negotiating, interviewing clients, etc.--doing research and writing as we go. at most times the whole thing just feels silly, since we're dealing with actors and not people or issues. but this time, i was arguing an issue before a real judge. i am definitely not a public speaker, in fact speaking in front of people generally terrifies me, but i still wanted to have the judge not think i'm a complete idiot.

in the end, i decided not to post, because no one likes a whiner. so now i'm done!!!! and in celebration, i'm watching my treasured wednesday night shows. i didn't actually win the argument, but the judge gave me a lot of really positive feedback and assured me that it was really just a decision based on the facts at hand.

but whatever. it made me feel like an actual lawyer, i wore my pretty new suit + shoes, and now i can relax and...focus on outlining.

bumbumbumblebee, bumblebee tuna!

the thing about being in school is that there is kind of a painful amount of talk about the FUTURE. everything you do is in preparation for the FUTURE. if you don't complete this assignment or get accepted into that clinic, the FUTURE will be bleak.

if there's any argument for never going back to school, it's the freedom of not having to think about the 5- and 10-year repercussions of everything you do. you can just kind of assume that things will keep humming along and you'll find things to do until either you screw up badly, the economy tanks, you find a better thing to do, or the planet explodes. then again that might be a pretty bleak way to look at the FUTURE as well.

judging by the title i think i intended to write about something else, but my brain was just headed in a different direction.