![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
Apr. 20th, 2007
so, that's it. as of 11am today, i have no more class for this semester.
it's weird. i don't feel that release at all. i don't feel like the semester is over. it's not even a question of finals...i only have one final, which i have a lot of work to do to prepare for it, but it's still only one test over the course of two weeks.
it's my clinic. i'm done with all my clinic hours; i completed that requirement last week. but, i'm coming in all through finals, and will probably work almost as many hours as i did, per week, during school. i'm even coming in, most likely, during the week between when finals end and when i start my job--i didn't plan to, i planned to get out of town early that week, but it looks like i'm going to be able to try a misdemeanour case on may 10th. as little time as that's going to give me to get settled in chicago before starting my new job in chicago on may 14th, i'm going to do it. that case which is going too trial is my baby. i'll give no real details on it since these are the nice, public webbernets--but it suffices to say that it's a trial i should win unless the finder of fact is smoking large amounts of crack.
i did have such a crazy day in court yesterday--my voice is still hoarse from all the talking i did. not only did i set that case for trial on may 10, but i did three preliminary hearings, and argued a motion to dismiss. (i was ready to go on a fourth, but the witness didn't show up, and it had to get continued. that was a bummer, because i was so ready to go on that one.) it's so crazy...earlier this semester i was flipping out about doing one preliminary hearing, and yesterday i did three of them--one of which was pretty well off the cuff, since it was an add-on case that wasn't originally on the docket in the first place, and we didn't get the police report until less than an hour before the hearing. i'm still not very internally confident in my ability to do that off the cuff, but apparently i must be faking that confidence rather well, and asking the questions that need to be asked. this clinic, more than anything else i've ever done inside of law school or out of it, is forcing me to become more like a lawyer. i'm only sad that i can't do it again next year...it takes up all of my time, it stresses me out, but it's work that i enjoy doing, and i'm getting a lot out of it.
nothing else is really going on right now...at least today's friday. class is over, so all i have left to actually do is give a tour to an incoming student at 2:30. the rest of the afternoon, i'm going to veg out at school. maybe i'll colour in that hello kitty colouring book that my friend and i got last week--it's funny how law school makes us revert to being small children. i prefer to think of it as stress release, although i know that denial is a far bigger element of that reversion.
it's weird. i don't feel that release at all. i don't feel like the semester is over. it's not even a question of finals...i only have one final, which i have a lot of work to do to prepare for it, but it's still only one test over the course of two weeks.
it's my clinic. i'm done with all my clinic hours; i completed that requirement last week. but, i'm coming in all through finals, and will probably work almost as many hours as i did, per week, during school. i'm even coming in, most likely, during the week between when finals end and when i start my job--i didn't plan to, i planned to get out of town early that week, but it looks like i'm going to be able to try a misdemeanour case on may 10th. as little time as that's going to give me to get settled in chicago before starting my new job in chicago on may 14th, i'm going to do it. that case which is going too trial is my baby. i'll give no real details on it since these are the nice, public webbernets--but it suffices to say that it's a trial i should win unless the finder of fact is smoking large amounts of crack.
i did have such a crazy day in court yesterday--my voice is still hoarse from all the talking i did. not only did i set that case for trial on may 10, but i did three preliminary hearings, and argued a motion to dismiss. (i was ready to go on a fourth, but the witness didn't show up, and it had to get continued. that was a bummer, because i was so ready to go on that one.) it's so crazy...earlier this semester i was flipping out about doing one preliminary hearing, and yesterday i did three of them--one of which was pretty well off the cuff, since it was an add-on case that wasn't originally on the docket in the first place, and we didn't get the police report until less than an hour before the hearing. i'm still not very internally confident in my ability to do that off the cuff, but apparently i must be faking that confidence rather well, and asking the questions that need to be asked. this clinic, more than anything else i've ever done inside of law school or out of it, is forcing me to become more like a lawyer. i'm only sad that i can't do it again next year...it takes up all of my time, it stresses me out, but it's work that i enjoy doing, and i'm getting a lot out of it.
nothing else is really going on right now...at least today's friday. class is over, so all i have left to actually do is give a tour to an incoming student at 2:30. the rest of the afternoon, i'm going to veg out at school. maybe i'll colour in that hello kitty colouring book that my friend and i got last week--it's funny how law school makes us revert to being small children. i prefer to think of it as stress release, although i know that denial is a far bigger element of that reversion.
in like, of
Apr. 20th, 2007 12:07 pmsometimes, when i'm really, really bored, and my train-wreck syndrome needs some serious satisfaction, i read fundies say the darndest things. it's funny, but in that really depressing way that makes you weep for humanity. it's a cesspool of quote after quote from people who pop off at the mouth (or, at the keyboard, as the case may be) about society's ills, hiding behind scraps of some faith that they've likely never thought seriously about or questioned.1
this post just about made my head explode. it was culled from christian forums, and it appears to be some person railing against the idea of voting for moderators on the message boards:
( read ahead for an epic tragedy of spelling, grammar, and syntax. )
***
1 admittedly, this isn't true of all of the quotes that people post on here. as with any bulletin board-type compendium, some of the postings are reasonable, even thoughtful observations and opinions from religious people, which were posted on the boards by militant atheists who have no respect for a person's choice to belong to a faith. it annoys me when such quotes are posted, and deemed funny or heinous. but, in the balance, there are far more thoughtless rants on that site than thoughtful observations...and it's the thoughtless rants that feed my train-wreck syndrome.
this post just about made my head explode. it was culled from christian forums, and it appears to be some person railing against the idea of voting for moderators on the message boards:
( read ahead for an epic tragedy of spelling, grammar, and syntax. )
***
1 admittedly, this isn't true of all of the quotes that people post on here. as with any bulletin board-type compendium, some of the postings are reasonable, even thoughtful observations and opinions from religious people, which were posted on the boards by militant atheists who have no respect for a person's choice to belong to a faith. it annoys me when such quotes are posted, and deemed funny or heinous. but, in the balance, there are far more thoughtless rants on that site than thoughtful observations...and it's the thoughtless rants that feed my train-wreck syndrome.
the shooter plays
Apr. 20th, 2007 01:07 pmit probably makes me a bad person, but i'll admit. i did it. my curiosity got the best of me, and i read the two plays written by seung cho, the virginia tech school shooter.
after reading them both, one overarching theme sticks in my mind. no, it's not violence, or disturbance.
it's the fact that he was an absolutely terrible writer.
the plays were just so juvenile. the stories were poorly paced...they jerked and jumped around, and neither story's plot flowed smoothly at all. they weren't interesting; they were actually quite boring. i finished them because they were short, and because i was curious, but that was it.
it was pathetic...were the plays a cry for help? that's the only explanation i can come up with for either of them. they were so full of profanity just for profanity's sake...and hatred for hatred's sake...and shocking lines just to show that he could, and did, write it.
maybe i'm overly cruel about them. maybe i should cut the plays some slack, since they were written by a college kid in a playwriting class. maybe i should be a little more sensitive, since the guy who wrote them snapped, shot over sixty people, and then turned the gun on himself.
i'll admit that they are important in shedding some light on the person who committed such a horrible act. but, they are not, and will never be, as important as literature. they're an ultra-violent, dramatic version of bad teenage poetry.
after reading them both, one overarching theme sticks in my mind. no, it's not violence, or disturbance.
it's the fact that he was an absolutely terrible writer.
the plays were just so juvenile. the stories were poorly paced...they jerked and jumped around, and neither story's plot flowed smoothly at all. they weren't interesting; they were actually quite boring. i finished them because they were short, and because i was curious, but that was it.
it was pathetic...were the plays a cry for help? that's the only explanation i can come up with for either of them. they were so full of profanity just for profanity's sake...and hatred for hatred's sake...and shocking lines just to show that he could, and did, write it.
maybe i'm overly cruel about them. maybe i should cut the plays some slack, since they were written by a college kid in a playwriting class. maybe i should be a little more sensitive, since the guy who wrote them snapped, shot over sixty people, and then turned the gun on himself.
i'll admit that they are important in shedding some light on the person who committed such a horrible act. but, they are not, and will never be, as important as literature. they're an ultra-violent, dramatic version of bad teenage poetry.
