Ok I am a little cranky today. Yesterday was weird, maybe in a good way but I don't know. I'm not sure the LYM gets the whole V-Day concept really, but he was really very sweet and nice even though nothing particularly special happened. We'll see how the weekend goes I suppose.
Anyhow, I want to go home and spin and finish this Shetland I've been working on. But instead I have class all day, then aikido with the group I am less than enthused about, and I'll be lucky if I get home before 9. This semester is just brutal, but at least it's almost spring break. And I should have a reasonably relaxing weekend, even though I have iaido and kendo on Sunday.
The brown sweater of doom is getting there, the first sleeve is done and I have at least started the second one. Maybe I'll get it done over break, I can only hope.
Thursday, February 15, 2007
Saturday, February 10, 2007
Trial, feh
Just a quick note about the trial...
We did really well, made good arguments, the prosecution offered no real evidence. Our instructor said we did great, the other sides instructor said it was ok they lost since we didn't call the defendant and they had no evidence anyway.
The judge came out.
The judge ruled for the prosecution.
He did this because it's Legal Skills, and he thought we had to appeal to case. My instructor and I talked to him afterwards and he said in real life, it would have been tossed out on the motion to strike if not sooner. Yet we lost because it's skills, a class meant to teach up how things work in the real world. Feh.
I hate legal skills. It's the single most useless program at school. If it's supposed to work like the real world, the judges should rule like it's real world and not make mistakes on purpose so we can have an appeal (an appeal, I might ad, no one in our group needs to make for the purposes of the class).
It was very demoralizing and I felt really bad after, but god bless the LYM, he managed to make a fairly convincing argument that we won in every way that really mattered so that's something. And thank god legal skills is nothing like real life. I'm just so tired of everything about law school being set up so that you fail. No achievement seems to come without some absurd reminder of how inept you really are. We did good, we won, just let us have it already.
Anyway, I'm cranky now and have pretty well decided that I'm going to relax as much as I can this weekend. So while I wait for the LYM to get up (he's been sick, he needs to sleep) I shall knit and watch Heros instead of read Admin Law or something else. Maybe I will even finish this sleeve, that would be nice. I'm getting tired of looking at it.
We did really well, made good arguments, the prosecution offered no real evidence. Our instructor said we did great, the other sides instructor said it was ok they lost since we didn't call the defendant and they had no evidence anyway.
The judge came out.
The judge ruled for the prosecution.
He did this because it's Legal Skills, and he thought we had to appeal to case. My instructor and I talked to him afterwards and he said in real life, it would have been tossed out on the motion to strike if not sooner. Yet we lost because it's skills, a class meant to teach up how things work in the real world. Feh.
I hate legal skills. It's the single most useless program at school. If it's supposed to work like the real world, the judges should rule like it's real world and not make mistakes on purpose so we can have an appeal (an appeal, I might ad, no one in our group needs to make for the purposes of the class).
It was very demoralizing and I felt really bad after, but god bless the LYM, he managed to make a fairly convincing argument that we won in every way that really mattered so that's something. And thank god legal skills is nothing like real life. I'm just so tired of everything about law school being set up so that you fail. No achievement seems to come without some absurd reminder of how inept you really are. We did good, we won, just let us have it already.
Anyway, I'm cranky now and have pretty well decided that I'm going to relax as much as I can this weekend. So while I wait for the LYM to get up (he's been sick, he needs to sleep) I shall knit and watch Heros instead of read Admin Law or something else. Maybe I will even finish this sleeve, that would be nice. I'm getting tired of looking at it.
Friday, February 09, 2007
Nerves!
So today I have to argue a case in court for the first time ever. Not real court mind you, they won't let me at real clients like that quite yet, but Legal Skills court. Legal Skills is our practicum course at school, it's really pretty silly in many ways, not least of which is that it's a pass/fail class that takes up a huge percentage of your time, but there it is. Anyway, the point is, this afternoon I have my trial and I am really nervous.
Really really super nervous.
It should be ok. We are the defense in a criminal case, and there is no real evidence of any useful of conclusive kind, so all we have to do is not f* it up too badly and we should be ok, but holy crap I am still nervous. My head hurts and I don't wanna go. I have to go cross examination and closing arguments, both of which I seem to be better at than direct and opening, I think because you have to think on the fly and respond to what the other side has done more, but that's not saying a whole lot really. I know in my head this is all good practice and it will be good to have my "first" court appearance over with before I get out into practice, but the whole skills program is so contrived and so poorly executed that I don't think it really has the desired effect. Seriously, they give us dreadful cases and no evidence to work with and it's all quite absurd and in real life the cases would never get to court. But we have to argue it anyway. blegh.
It's a stressful start to a rather long weekend. Today is my trial, then I am off to the LYM's. Tomorrow we are going to my neighbors 30th birthday party, then Sunday there's an all day self-defense clinic. Somewhere in there I have to read for next week. Gah. Good luck with that. I am sorely tempted to just say to hell with it and really take the weekend off, but I sort of feel like I've been slacking as it is. Of course, I am a little behind, but only in one class, and once this trial is over my schedule will go back to something passably normal, so probably I am due a little bit of a break. We'll see I guess. Right now I just want to crawl under a rock and hide until this is over.
Hmm. Just realized, tonight will be the first time the LYM has seen me in full lawyer-drag. It's been nearly a year that we've been doing whatever it is we're doing and in all that time he's never seen me in a suit. Funny.
Really really super nervous.
It should be ok. We are the defense in a criminal case, and there is no real evidence of any useful of conclusive kind, so all we have to do is not f* it up too badly and we should be ok, but holy crap I am still nervous. My head hurts and I don't wanna go. I have to go cross examination and closing arguments, both of which I seem to be better at than direct and opening, I think because you have to think on the fly and respond to what the other side has done more, but that's not saying a whole lot really. I know in my head this is all good practice and it will be good to have my "first" court appearance over with before I get out into practice, but the whole skills program is so contrived and so poorly executed that I don't think it really has the desired effect. Seriously, they give us dreadful cases and no evidence to work with and it's all quite absurd and in real life the cases would never get to court. But we have to argue it anyway. blegh.
It's a stressful start to a rather long weekend. Today is my trial, then I am off to the LYM's. Tomorrow we are going to my neighbors 30th birthday party, then Sunday there's an all day self-defense clinic. Somewhere in there I have to read for next week. Gah. Good luck with that. I am sorely tempted to just say to hell with it and really take the weekend off, but I sort of feel like I've been slacking as it is. Of course, I am a little behind, but only in one class, and once this trial is over my schedule will go back to something passably normal, so probably I am due a little bit of a break. We'll see I guess. Right now I just want to crawl under a rock and hide until this is over.
Hmm. Just realized, tonight will be the first time the LYM has seen me in full lawyer-drag. It's been nearly a year that we've been doing whatever it is we're doing and in all that time he's never seen me in a suit. Funny.
Tuesday, February 06, 2007
Yay me!
So it's 19 degrees outside, and the school has the A/C on in the lecture rooms. WTF?! The run the heat all summer and the A/C all winter? Sick bastards.
Aside from freezing, things are going ok. I got offered a job for the summer with the firm I'm interning with, things with the LYM are lovely and moving in a positive direction, and my overall outlook has improved quite a bit. Ok, yes, I did get my class rank, and it was not good, but I didn't have a minor break down about it and it's really not bothering me in the least. It helps that I got offered the job before I read the rank email, but still, I'm pretty proud of myself for not bursting into tears or something.
Anyhow, things are insanely busy but classes are going ok, they are mostly interesting, my stupid mock trial thing will be over Friday, and while financial aid is being slow as hell about getting me money to live on for the rest of the semester (seriously people, when I say I have no food money, does that sound to you like going even slower with things is a good response?) I'm ok. Stressed, yes. Hysterical, not so much. And this is good.
I have sadly little knitting or spinning progress to report. I have so much reading to do that I don't seem to have much time to knit at all. Hopefully that will change some after my trial is done, maybe spring break. I really want to finish the brown sweater I've been working on forever so I can do some baby gift for a classmate who is having a little boy over the summer. I think I know what I want to knit for him, I just need to get something off the needles before I will let myself start something new. Tonight the LYM and I are going to go have dinner to celebrate my job offer, maybe I can knit some this afternoon. We'll see. The weekend is going to be insane so it might be better to try to get ahead on the reading.
Aside from freezing, things are going ok. I got offered a job for the summer with the firm I'm interning with, things with the LYM are lovely and moving in a positive direction, and my overall outlook has improved quite a bit. Ok, yes, I did get my class rank, and it was not good, but I didn't have a minor break down about it and it's really not bothering me in the least. It helps that I got offered the job before I read the rank email, but still, I'm pretty proud of myself for not bursting into tears or something.
Anyhow, things are insanely busy but classes are going ok, they are mostly interesting, my stupid mock trial thing will be over Friday, and while financial aid is being slow as hell about getting me money to live on for the rest of the semester (seriously people, when I say I have no food money, does that sound to you like going even slower with things is a good response?) I'm ok. Stressed, yes. Hysterical, not so much. And this is good.
I have sadly little knitting or spinning progress to report. I have so much reading to do that I don't seem to have much time to knit at all. Hopefully that will change some after my trial is done, maybe spring break. I really want to finish the brown sweater I've been working on forever so I can do some baby gift for a classmate who is having a little boy over the summer. I think I know what I want to knit for him, I just need to get something off the needles before I will let myself start something new. Tonight the LYM and I are going to go have dinner to celebrate my job offer, maybe I can knit some this afternoon. We'll see. The weekend is going to be insane so it might be better to try to get ahead on the reading.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)