Post-Punk Laptop Rap

If you liked the Chronic-WHAT-Cles of Narnia rap, you might also enjoy stuff by MC Lars, who in the singles he has up on iTunes sings about taking Intro to Statistics, discusses his stockholm roots and extraterrestrial hip-hip influences, and gives a rap rendition of Poe's The Raven.

Change

What this country needs is a new perspective on women in the workplace, with child care subsidies, and a GI bill for parenthood that awards tuition or pension credits for years spent raising kids. We need universal health insurance. And wage subsidies for low-income workers. We should leave illegal immigrants alone, but crack down on the companies that hire them. And no American household earning less than $100,000 a year should have to pay income taxes.

And these are the ideas from the conservatives.

UPDATE: Oops. A cursory search shows that lots of other people wrote about this already. Which shouldn't be surprising, seeing as it's dated November 14. Looking back, I read some of those posts, but never the whole article. But ... er ... you should.

Entourage

My brother got the Entourage season 1 DVD for Chistmas. You should really watch this show. Adrian Grenier plays a breezy movie star so believably you'd swear he'd been one his whole life. And Jeremy Piven steals every scene his in as the cutthroat agent. I wish I could give you a real link, but you'll just have to pick it up at Blockbuster or netflix instead. Seriously, you should.

Post Post Dated

I was tired of my welcome message to employers taking up the whole frist screen, so I've moved it back to its original place. Or time. Or whatever. In a new bit of Blogger gamesmanship, I've been trying to push that specific entry up the results page by Google Bombing myself like this:

<a style="text-decoration:none" href="http://tsinister.blogspot.com/2005/12/welcome-prospective-employers.html"><span style="color:white">Trevor Austin</span></a>

If you've got a blog with a white background, I'd be much obliged if you stashed that link down in one of your entries. Cheers.

The Morning After

Christmas is over and all the shopping and feasting and skiing is done and it hits me: I don't know a single thing about Civil Procedure.

And I'm not being melodramatic here. We sent in practice exams, and the comments on mine read:

I would have been able to give you some helpful comments if you would have put some effort into this.

Many paragraphs were untouched, save for a single word in green next to them in the margin, "wrong". Don't believe the hype; the biggest difference between law school and undergrad was the shift from quarters to semesters. But man! What a shift. Around week nine I had totally checked out. We should have had our finals and started to forget things by then. Free up space in the ol' noggin for new material. Why were we still learning?

So now I have two weeks to teach myself the subject and prepare for a handwritten in-class final. I've got my Glannon's E&E and transcripts of the Arthur Miller lecture series, so hopefully that will be all i need. I refused to bring my casebooks home for the holidays, and I won't open them again if I can possibly get away with it.
Trevor Austin

Hard Hat Zone

Do you have a Stanford yearbook from the class of 2005? Open it up to page 20.

That's me, as the face of student life.

Oh yeah.
Trevor Austin

Double True

I should spend time away form the internets more often, if every time I go something as great as the SNL Chronic-what?-cles of Narnia music video comes out. While I don't think it will save the soul of hip-hop, it is pretty funny.

UPDATE: You can download the music video for free from the iTunes store.
Trevor Austin

Merry Christmas!

And don't give me any of that "I haven't accepted Christ as my personal savior" crap. What does baby Jesus have to do with reindeer and light-up trees, egg nog and a fat man in a red suit? That's right: nothing. Now go be merry, dammit. Me, I'm gonna go watch a movie. Maybe get some Chinese.
Trevor Austin

Downtime

This is vacation. I'm going skiing in Mammoth. No updates until at after Christmas, at the soonest. See you all in time for finals.
Trevor Austin

'08 Roster Changes

New additions include HLS 1Ls Kami and PBB, plus an SLS 1L, named SLS1L, of all things.

WhyLaw is movinbg up and out of the legal profession, and to a new home at Charismatic Megafauna, which I'm keeping on the Class of '08 roster, just because I can.
Trevor Austin

Nine Planets Without Intellignet Life

In the far future, where declining fertility rates have wiped out the last humans, how do the robots that inherit the galaxy deal with existential dread? Apparently, with alcohol.

I'm happy because I just found Nine Planets Wihtout Intellignet Life. Look at this one here about incompatibilism.
Trevor Austin

Grinch, Esq.

Slate is running a competition to find the nastiest trick a lawyer has ever pulled (or at least is willing to anonymously admit to) in order to deliberately spoil the holidays for opposing counsel. As is so often the case these days, I'm both appalled and amused. I'd like to add an entry of my own, on behalf of the law school here: scheduling final exams the first week of January. Spend the birthday of your savior outlining contracts, spawn of Satan!
Trevor Austin

Op-Ed

New this week: political and cultural commentary from Professor Torts and Professor CrimLaw.
Trevor Austin

On Taking Risks

Have I mentioned before how much I love Kazu Kibuishi's Copper? Of course I have. And this month's comic is exceptional. Go take a look.
Trevor Austin

Hype

Saw this card today on PostSecret.
Trevor Austin

Welcome Prospective Employers!

Update 6/9/09: Trevor is now self-employed. Prospective employers are out of luck!

I write here under my own name, and fully expect you to find this place. It's on the first page of Google results, so frankly I'd be a little disappointed if you didn't. First, a little disambiguation: I am not an Irish tour guide or a British metal-detecting enthusiast. I am also not the actor Austin Trevor. He died in 1978, so that should be a tipoff. Second: this writing is often hasty. That's the nature of the medium. It is not representative of my scholarly or professional work.

I use this space primarily as a creative release, a place to stash random bits of humor and thoughts that I'd otherwise daydream about. I use my real name precisely because it makes me accountable for what I say here; since nobody stays anonymous, I figured it would be better to only write things I'd be willing to attach my name to for everyone, employers included, to see. If the teeming masses in the wilds of the internet want scathing insider tell-alls, they know where to find them.

All of which is just a circuitous way of saying please still hire me. I don't use the names of my professors, even when they're public figures, so you can certainly be Summer Employer for the purposes of this site. I look forward to working with you, and congratulate you on your prudent exercise of due diligence.

First Time For Everything

Man, I didn't know you could even get lightning in a snowstorm.

It's A Perfectly Legitimate Pastime

[Solicitor General Paul Clement] reminds the court that "NYU for three years had a policy of excluding recruiters from the state of Colorado" because of its anti-gay amendments. NYU wanted to exclude seal clubbers, too, but they all applied to Harvard.

From Dahlia Lithwick's piece on the Solomon Amendment. Also: "The law schools have no case."

Medulla Oblongata

If you've already sued someone for something, you're barred from suing them some other way over the same event by a doctrine called res judicata. I've been muttering that to myself for half an hour now. It sounds like an especially inventive way to inflict great cruelty, like an especially nasty curse or strikingly exotic feature of some terrible parasite.

"To make his nest, the male of the species will begin to bore into the eyeball of the host by secreting a caustic solvent through the globular proboscis of his res judicata."

Regressive Television

"Was that just an ad for Jake in Progress?"
"Yeah, why?"
"I thought it was canceled. With prejudice."

Oh Shit

My hopes of being able to pull a Blachman and pass the bar with little studying and even less stress have just been dashed. Why? The former dean of Stanford Law School just failed the California bar.

Pretty!

Dear 42.379964˚N,

Thanks for the snow. All is forgiven.

Trevor

Enough

I can make peace with the cold. I can deal with rain and snow. But the sun setting at four? That's just bullshit. A week full of writing memos, letters, and resumes and I've had it with this whole damn latitude.

God I'm homesick.

Raison d'Blog

I've never seen it put any better than by a guest at Brian Leiter's place:

It should be obvious, but I'll say it anyhow: the point of my blogging is to entertain people who are procrastinating.

Consensus

Former Yugoslavia is a messy place, but according to youth leader Veselin Gatalo, "one thing we all have in common is Bruce Lee." Word via BoingBoing.

Fe-Man

I love these quizzes. I don't usually post the results, but I always take them when somebody puts up a link. So thanks to Jake.
Your results:
You are Iron Man

Iron Man 85% Superman 70% Catwoman 70% Spider-Man 60% Green Lantern 60% Supergirl 60% The Flash 50% Hulk 50% Robin 45% Wonder Woman 35% Batman 35%

Inventor. Businessman. Genius.

Click here to take the "Which Superhero are you?" quiz...

Bad Fortune

According to my fortune cookie, "The first blow does not fell the tree." So basically, Tao Garden is saying I hit like a girl. That's the last time I ever get Chow Fun from them.

Merry Christmas

I don't know about you, but where I'm sitting, Thanksgiving is over. I'm not some kind of wacko who lives by his home time zone even if thousands of miles away. Which means that it's now Christmastime, and will remain so until December 31. And I'm happy about that too, because Thanksgiving is kind of crap. I spent most of it right here working, and only ate with a handful of California Club refugees, huddled arpund a trash can fire upstairs. But now that it's The Most Wonderful Time of the Year™ I can prowl the town, sharply admonishing anyone who looks insufficiently cheerful. "Smile!" I hiss at them, "It's Christmas!"

Actually today was pretty nice. After dinner a few of us went to see Casablanca down in the square, and when we got back someone had made fresh apple pie. I'm going to sleep happy, to dream about being Humphrey Bogart. And eating pie.

Free Pie

I like to think of myself as an independent, strong-willed sort of person and am always distressed to be confronted with evidence to the contrary. I already knew I was affected to an absurd degree by the weather; a sunny day puts a spring in my step and rain will make even the best news sound disappointing. Today at lunch I discovered another lever on my attitude: food. Learning that the Hark was giving out free pie with lunch made my entire morning. Really, I'm still elated.

It's a bit worrying that my whole outlook varies wildly with minor changes in the environment, but on the other hand, I did get free pie.

This Stinks

Someone stole my deodorant out of my caddy in the bathroom. This raises two important issues.

(1) What the hell? You're paying tens of thousands of dollars to be here and you have to steal my toiletries?

(2) You do realize I rub that thing all up in my armpits right? Becuase, that's what they're used for.

Some people man.

McCain 2008

On NBC's Chris Matthews Show yesterday, David Brooks said conservatives had warmed to John McCain, and Matthews said he'd heard the same thing. ... Let's see. Conservatives are for McCain. Liberals like McCain. Centrists love McCain. Doesn't that mean McCain might, er, win? Who's going to vote against him? In a general election, it seems like McCain would come close to being elected by acclamation! It will take all the genius of the American political system to make sure he isn't on the ballot. ...

Care of the often brilliant Kaus. Emphasis in the original.

79-63

Man, the whole UC system seems to have our number this year.

Cal-Stanford Postgame Report in Two Words

Basketball Season!

HLS Admissions Blog

I met Toby Stock earlier this year and was impressed enough to volunteer my time with the admissions office. He's doing a lot of new and interesting things to make the process more transparent for applicants (and hopefully thereby convince them to come here). The latest effort is the HLS JD admissions blog.

Overheard in Cambridge

Who do I have to sleep with to get on Law Review? Because I hope it's you.

Watching the Big Game in Boston

Gradute from Stanford or Berkeley? Attend but drop out? Just like PAC-10 football? Have an inexplicable urge to meet me in person? Come join me and Boston area Stanford/Cal alumni groups and watch the 108th Big Game this Saturday at 7:00 pm Eastern at:

Hurricane O'Reilly's
150 Canal Street, Boston
Across the streeet from the Fleet Center, by North Station.

Go Cardinal.

The American Constitution Society

The ACS often seems like the Second Sex of law school political groups, defined in opposition to the enormously (monstrously?) influential Federalist Society. "It's like FedSoc," the student staffing their table during admit weekend told me, "only liberal." So I went to their regional conference last weekend to see what they were really all about. It helped that it was all of ninety yards from my room, and they promised free breakfast and lunch.

One of the ways I describe myself politically is to say that I'm a "cynical liberal." A son of self-described yellow-dog Democrats, I agree with the general values and principles. But i don't agree with all of the left's specific policy prescriptions and certainly not all of its methods. I usually can't talk to passionate partisans for all that long at a stretch, because picking a side first leads too easily to sloppy and dishonest thinking. And in general while I'd like for government to help to make people's lives better, I'm as suspicious of its actual ability to do so as anyone who's suffered through the DMV. I've read my Burke. I was even a libertarian for a while, but I got over it. All of this horrifies NeoTokyo, who put up an impassioned defense of picking a side, even if only by hairstyle.

So my favorite part of the conference was an informal Big Ideas hash session over breakfast, where the attendees argued about what being a "Progressive" really means, beyond a list of policy positions. Someone suggested liberals needed their own version of the Contract with America, laying out a core set of beliefs, with strong intuitive appeal. Half-jokingly, I had to point out that as liberals we don't do contracts; we do entitlements. "We don't talk about Contracts with America," I argued, "we talk about The America You Deserve."

My favorite take was from a 1L here who said that it's about making formally enumerated rights substantive. "Wow," I thought, "there you've got your political and jurisprudential theories all rolled up into one! I like it!" Of course I didn't think all those big words, but writing them out sure illustrates the problem of boiling progressivism down to a snappy slogan.

In the afternoon I went to a strategy session on mission statements, where I was exposed for the first time to the general ACS mission statement:

(ACS) is one of the nation's leading progressive legal organizations. Founded in 2001, ACS is comprised of law students, lawyers, scholars, judges, policymakers, activists and other concerned individuals who are working to ensure that the fundamental principles of human dignity, individual rights and liberties, genuine equality, and access to justice are in their rightful, central place in American law.

There's some good stuff in there, and I'd probably never heard it before only because it's buried at the bottom of that paragraph. I like the emphasis on putting the principles in their "rightful" place, embracing the idealism of America's founding instead of cynically focusing on our shortcomings. If that's what it means to be a progressive, sign me up.

The Network of Polyphemus

From Joseph Bellacosa's dissent in CBS v. Ziff-Davis 75 N.Y.2d 496:

CBS chose - for business reasons it knows best - to complete its significant acquisition at the impressively high agreed price with its cyclopean eye wide open.

Tonight's contracts cases have a distinct Homeric flavor to them, no?

Posner on Homer

It is not over now. But with damages having been fixed at a relatively modest level by the district court and not challenged by the plaintiff, and a voluminous record having been compiled in the summary judgment proceedings, we trust the parties will find it possible now to settle the case. Even the Trojan War lasted only ten years.

Emphasis added. From 916 F.2d 1174.

The Section Six Slander

Someone wrote this hysterical satirical newsletter about students and professors in our section. I can't take credit for the authorship, but I scanned my copy from class and I have to pass it along. Click on a page to open it full-size in a new window.

UPDATE: I've taken this down. Apparently at least one employer based part of a hiring decision on it. That's just not cool, and I won't allow it. If anyone actually in section six wants a copy, just ask me in person and I'll send you one. The rest of you have demonstrated that you can't be trusted with the funny. I'm very disappointed.

A Question of Status

Today at mediation a woman announced in court that she didn't want to have a session with us, because, "we're just college kids."

Please ma'am. We're professional students. I haven't been in college for at least ... uh ... four months now. So there.

It's Big Game Week

Some friends directed me to this brilliant gonzo documentary. Underground at Cal.

Rockstar

We all know I love dressing up to go drinking, so showing up at a 3L's rock star theme party was a foregone conclusion. Of course the tattoos I drew all over my arms in sharpie are still there this morning, and it wasn't until our third possession in this morning's flag football game that I remembered I was still wearing eyeliner. That stuff is surprisingly difficult to wash off. But now I know how Steven Tyler feels when he wakes up in the morning. Old.

Achewood and Other Comics

Achewood used to appear in The Daily. I never really got it. I think that's because so much of the strip's (brilliant) humor comes from knowledge of the quirks in the remarkably well-developed characters, something that doesn't come out from sporadic reading. You may want to check out the Wikipedia entry first.

Dinosaur Comics has a similar brand of humor, and Brigadier General John Stark has the same fixed-panel structure that tries to get it all done with the writing. I can't draw, so I sympathize.

Herpes Insurance

Like so many good stories, ours takes place in Texas. A man known to history only as G.W. (I know what you're thinking, but I had it checked out and it's not that G.W.) is at a nightclub, where he is celebrating his thirtieth birthday. He has herpes. No symptoms right now, but it's there. He picks up S.S. at the club, and they go back to his place. He doesn't tell S he has herpes, and they have sex. Happy birthday G!

G wakes up the next morning to find open sores on his penis. Dammit! "Uh, S," he says, "you should consider having a long-term relationship with me. After all, I think I may have just given you herpes."

S does not think that is a good idea.

S sues G in Texas state court. Lucky for G, his homeowner's insurance covers him from most kinds of liability. Unfortunately, he isn't covered if he intentionally causes harm. State Farm offers to supply G with a lawyer. Seeing a conflict of interest (if he's found to have injured S intentionally, like by giving her herpes, his insurance company doesn't have to pay anything) he finds his own instead.

Now for the fun part: G settles with S, who promises to waive all damages in exchange for a one third cut of a lawsuit G plans to file against the insurance company. So now G and S, to whom he gave an incurable venereal disease, are on the same side against State Farm insurance. S argues that even though he elected not to share his sexual history, G didn't harm her intentionally. State Farm argues that its own customer goes around trying to spread the virus. The arguments are close, and the case is appealed al the way up to the Texas Supreme Court.

After much deliberation, the case is remanded down to lower courts to resolve some factual controversies. Should G have known he was contagious even if he didn't exhibit symptoms? There weren't Valtrex commercials playing every goddamn minute back them to let people know these things. On the one hand, G was a doctor, and probably should have known something about herpes. On the other, he was only an optometrist, and everyone knows they aren't real doctors.

Find the whole story at State Farm Fire & Casualty Co. v. S.S. and G.W., 858 S.W.2d 374 (S.C. Tex. 1993).

Sober Discussions of Serious Issues

Learn all you ever needed to know about Intelligent Design and the US torture policy over at Fafblog. Excerpt:

Q. Why am I being not-tortured in this non-prison?
A. Because you're a dangerous terrorist and an enemy of the United States.
Q. Ah! How'd you find that out?
A. You told us, right after we started torturing you.
Q. You also got me to say I was a duck.
A. Ducks are dangerous terrorists and enemies of the United States.
Q. And to think I never knew! Who told you that?
A. Some duck we tortured.

Separated at Birth?

Maybe it's just because I just saw them back-to-back on TV, but aren't these two a whole lot alike?

  Denny Crane             John McCain

[Update] For the moment I'm most concerned with the similarities between McCain and the Boston Legal character, not Shatner himself. Part of it is certainly that mischievous smile. But it's the whole package. Both have a short, stocky build with a round head, with broad cheeks and a strong forehead. Both are pugnacious, outspoken conservatives with a reputation for saying exactly what's on their minds and causing trouble. Both have a sense of spectacle and clearly relish the media spotlight. Though thoroughly lovable, both may be just a little bit crazy. But good crazy.

Don't Say Dildo in an Interview

Go read this right now.

Clever Perspectives

Best two pieces of advice I've heard here so far:

(1) The secret to legal writing is not to obsess about getting the format precisely right, it's assuming that your audience is busy. I had philosophy TAs tell me that the key to good philosophy writing was to assume that your reader was both dumb and mean, and then write so that they still can't misinterpret you. Even if they try. Legal writing is kind of the same. Once you keep in mind that though the person reading your memo is probably very smart, they have to get through it really fast, the whole structure makes a lot more sense. Just think about the last time you read ... well just about any legal scholarship. It was horribly written, wasn't it? Ever read a Posner opinion? Don't be that guy.

(2) The secret to making networking non-awkward is to not just call people up and ask them for a job, but to call them up to ask for advice. Lawyers have notoriously big egos, and would probably love nothing more than to regale wide-eyed you with war stories. People love to give advice, because it makes them feel important. So this is a great way to get lots of great info about how to find and land a job, without feeling like you're a mooch begging everyone you know for help.

The Mission

One of the books we're reading for a seminar of mine is YLS dean Anthony Kronman's The Lost Lawyer, where he complains that lawyers have become the kinds of amoral mercenaries you see them portrayed as on TV. It's long on everything but solutions, and the only bit of advice he offers students is to seek out private practice in small towns and backwater legal markets. Our professor siad he talked with Kronman about how Yale's loan repayment play was working, and the dean was delighted to report that most participants had hung out a shingle in small towns in Vermon and stuff like that.

The professor asked Larry Summers what he thought of this. The answer: "We don't want a penny of that money to go to neighborhood lawyers in Vermont! We're trying to run this goddamn country! Er, to train leaders. Yeah. Leaders."

This account comports with my experience.

Technical Difficulties

I was just watching Matrix Reloaded on TBS in the common room, when suddenly the picture cut out. They claimed it was for one of those emergency boradcast things, but really I think it's just that Monica Belucci was more than our old Sony could handle.

I Could Get Used to Autumn

Today was cool and wet, with a gray sky and light fog that kept the grass wet through the afternoon. Back home, this would be perfect weather to stay inside with something hot to drink. But strolling around (to our flag football game, and to check a source in the B-school library) I kind of liked it. It was calming in the way that some authorities based on tradition could be, with the stately confidence that This Is How Things Are Done. And the trees really are very pretty.

Football

This is the first Stanford game I get to watch this year, and it's only on because we're playing USC. So it's a little disheartening that all I get to see is the systematic dismantling of my alma mater. Right now, at halftime, we trail 44-7. Actually, the team looks like they're playing well, they just look outmatched physically by the Trojans. One bright spot: the announcers debating at length whether the Trojans' kicking game was their "Achilles' heel."

But yeah, 44-7. At halftime. Basketball season?

You Have Too Much Stuff

You will not read truer words today than these by SF Gate columnist Mark Morford:

The cure is simple, so graceful that it will make you feel lighter and healthier and good the minute you start, and of course you can start right now and you don't even need any drugs or wine or nudity, though those always, always help.

This is what you do: You throw stuff out.

Read the whole thing here. Thanks to Boing Boing for the link.

You Know the Bar You're At Sucks

When the there's a line out the door to use the men's room, and the ladies' in completely empty. Sign of a bad ratio, that is.

Torts: A Synthesis

Professor Torts has a very theoretical, highly unorthodox curriculum. We don't learn much doctrine, "because it's easy, and not that important." It's taken a while, but the themes of the course have started to coalesce. I think it goes something like this:

Much American law is founded on certain assumptions about humans and how they make decisions. Specifically, people have sets of preferences that are relatively stable, and their decisions are made in a way that reflects those preferences. The critical Torts scholar should be concerned about this for three reasons.

First, because the influence of this model is widely unacknowledged. It is rarely made explicit, and is so deeply embedded in the culture that its influence can be hard to recognize. To the extend that discussions about the law don't address it, they cannot explain important features of legal rules. The model influences what sets of legal rules are adopted in ways that aren't accounted for by other theories.

Second, because this received model of human psychology is deeply flawed. People's decisions are affected to a remarkable degree by situational forces - the environment they are in when their choices are made. Either people's preferences (which even in the received model they may not entirely be aware of) contain maxims like "defer to authority" that don't square with traditional understandings of what people want, or their preferences are not very stable across environments. There is apparently a wealth of research to back up these empirical concerns.

Third, because the rubric of choice legitimizes unjust outcomes. People don't mind when bad things happen to others because of their own choices. Our moral sensibilities are only aroused when someone suffers misfortunes they don't deserve. The received model causes us to over-attribute the causes of harm to the actions and choices of the victims, leading us to under-compensate them. This is unjust.

Now for some reason he's been dancing around laying this all out in one go, and it frequently gets cloaked in inflammatory language like, "[the received model] is a collective lie we tell ourselves," but set out like that it doesn't seem all too incredible.

Let's Make a Deal

Word on the street is that in his spare time, Professor Contracts brokered some huge commercial transaction, and when it was done his compensation was in the high eight figures.

Research is Killing Me

I have the workload here mostly under control, and I'm staying on top of my reading. But it seems like every minute I spend on legal writing, or worse yet, practise research exercises, translated directly into sleep debt. So right now the library reference has moved itself right up to the number one spot on the old Enemies list. A regular chart-topper.

And contracts before nine. Tomorrow's going to be a very long day.

Judicial Term Limits

Today the federalist society sponsored a debate on a proposed term limits for supreme court judges. FedSoc co-founder Steven Calabresi argued in favor of a constitutional ammendment naming 18-year terms, against BU lawprof Ward Farnsworth. In my humble estimation, Steven got schooled. Thoroughly.

Casebook Quote of the Day

I love it when judges try to get all poetical in their opinions.

Although the past decisions hover over the issue in the somewhat wispy form of the figures of a Chagall painting, we can abstract from those decisions a clear and simple rule.

Matthew Oscar Tobriner, on living in sin. 18 Cal. 3d 660, 557 P.2d 106 (1976)

Casebook Word of the Day

Administratrix: (n) presumably the female form of administrator. Perhaps with whippy/leathery overtones.

Bob Atkinson Redux

A classmate showed her mom what I wrote about the Gonzales v. Oregon moot, and it turns out she used to work with Atkinson, whom I compare favorably to Zorro. Naturally, she passed the column along. I don't seem to have embarassed him too thoroughly, and he passed on some helpful words, the gist of which is that at least law school isn't as hard as the Army's parachute school. So that was nice.

Snow: False Alarm

Today it's back to sunny blue skies, with green grass and temperatures in the mid-sixties. Maybe the whole daylight savings thing made the weather go haywire. I took these pictures this morning.

Costume Update 2

I look like this:

A few people misinterpreted it as Giant Chicken instead of Tibetan Monk, but all in all I was happy. My neighbors and I demonstrated our immensely superior creativity, sweeping the awards at an impromptu costume contest. I didn't win, but placed second behind a hallmate dressed up as a bombed-out smurf, a la that UNICEF ad.

Winterfall

The first snowman of the season!

It's Snowing

This is ridiculous. I was wearing a t-shirt outside two days ago. It's October, dammit!

Google's Cathedral

George Dyson on visiting the company's campus:

My visit to Google? Despite the whimsical furniture and other toys, I felt I was entering a 14th-century cathedral — not in the 14th century but in the 12th century, while it was being built. Everyone was busy carving one stone here and another stone there, with some invisible architect getting everything to fit. The mood was playful, yet there was a palpable reverence in the air. "We are not scanning all those books to be read by people," explained one of my hosts after my talk. "We are scanning them to be read by an AI."

Link.

Costume Update 1

Hallmate Cory, in his mask, really looks like batman. You'd be amazed.

Tabloid Gossip

Is Jennifer Aniston dating Swingers and Wedding Crashers star Vince Vaughn? I can only say well done Vince. Well done.

Halloween

I had two requirements for a costume this year: it had to have bright colors, and involve a big hat. So when I saw a bright orange faux-velvet curtain at the thrift store, I knew there was really only one option. After some work this afternoon with a neddle and thread, and the high-capacity stapler in the computer lab, I now have the loudest Tibetan monk costume ever made. Hopefully, pictures to follow.

Socratic Target

Yesterday morning in Contracts the professor tried to cold-call me. It didn't work of course, since I'd been out all night and slept through class. So this morning I was public enemy numero one. I was called upon to expound upon Travelers Insurance v. Bailey for about half an hour, and even the valiant efforts of the butt-savers in the third row (who have styled themselves the rodeo clowns of contracts class) could not shake the prof. But I kept my cool, and I think I handled things well.

Two reasons for this: one, contracts is my favorite class, and the one I think I understand the best, and two, after hearing that I was called on in absentia, you better believe I read carefully last night.

Record Column: Dead Letters

My third piece. I held off on posting it because I thought is was a weaker effort, but a pair of classmates said some very nice things to me today, so I figure I'll put it up. Plus, my legal writing prof called me out in class today for writing it, so now I suppose it's a matter of record.

I used to think I knew how to write. I thought I could craft a sentence, build a paragraph. I was even so bold as to think I could turn the occasional clever phrase. Mere hubris. Fortunately I have been shaken free of that complacency. It's not like I forgot how to spell, or to type, or to scribble lines and curves out into words on a page. I had the mechanics down. Or at least some of them. What I had yet to learn that writing - good writing - is all mechanics. It should have the clean, shiny finish of nineteen-fifties aluminum, smelling like diner countertops and freshly-milled airplane parts. Rap your knuckle on it, and it should ping.

My prose, in contrast, laid about in a kudzu sprawl. I foolishly thought this made it more interesting, that the twisty and knobbly bits served some purpose, even if I couldn't articulate it. Writing was meant to be organic, to spread of its own accord, driven onward by indirect but irresistible forces of nature. It would latch improbably onto the sides of mountains, cling resolutely to windswept deserts, pry up paving stones and sidewalks, driven by an unknowable will. At most, it could be guided, pruned, gently encouraged to grow in a certain direction. But when you got down to essentials, to late nights and missed deadlines, it was always a wild thing, beyond control.

The law, of course, cannot abide such unpredictability. Such imprecision. Words should whir and click. When they are forceful, they should clang. When they are soothing, they should buzz, or hum softly. They should certainly not be alive. The law has met living things before. They were messy and sticky and squishy. They gummed up the gears and left dents on shiny surfaces. It didn't go well. The law works best when things are good and dead.

The time came when I had to produce some words for class. Some hard, disciplined words quite unlike the ones I get in this garden the Record has given me to play in. I sat down to write, trying to think of straight lines and sharp corners. I tried to cram prose into little boxes labeled "Question Presented" and "Umbrella Paragraph." I stumbled through the instructions for assembling a CRuPAC, banging my shins on its odd angles. I tried building another and another, but each attempt felt as alien as the one before it. I pressed onwards, trying not to look back at the detritus I'd left strewn across the pages above. At some point I must have shuddered to a stop. Certainly no graceful finish, for I would have remembered finishing if I'd done it well. As it was, the whole experience was so disjointed, so full of abrupt shifts and brutal halts, that the last sentence felt no different than any that came before it. Exhausted, I sent the thing on its way and collapsed into sleep.

I put off looking at it for days, waiting until we had to produce them for class. And with good reason. It was hideous. I had at least made sure it was dead, a papery, frail, desiccated thing. But it also lacked any of the strength the law would demand. It sat in a crumpled heap in front of me, appendages awkwardly tacked on at odd angles, creaking and rattling as I poked it. I gazed mournfully at my classmates' creations. Sure, many showed signs of rough workmanship. One was smoking. But a few gleamed in the glow of laptop screens, bristling with martial focus. They were positively frightening. And they all down to the last one seemed to have a sense of direction, a hint of a useful purpose. Already the class was moving on to talk about refinements to be made. They earnestly compared notes as we were lectured on how to make everything cleaner, straighter, sharper.

I looked back at the jumble in front of me. I could see it was beyond salvage, that the more I hacked and sawed at it the more creaky it would become. I didn't understand the principles behind the design, the secret wisdom that informed the structure, but I could still at least recognize traces of it in my work. That would have to do for now. I sighed and gave the pile a desultory prod, one dead thing to another. It clattered sympathetically. "Don't worry," I whispered softly, "I'm sure the next one will be merely bad."

Trevor Austin wrote this column instead of a memo about summary judgment. If you don't want to do your work either, write him instead at taustin@law.harvard.edu.

The original is available here.

Yes, I Am A Scoundrel

Josh is entirely right of course. I am not one to be trusted. But he doesn't even know the half of it. Crashing another section's happy hour, I decide to accuse another student, a bona fide section 1, of being there under false pretenses. "What," I slurred at her, "are you doing here? This isn't your section!" So we argued for a few minutes about who was really the impostor. I don't remember all too clearly, but I think I may have won.

By the way, John Harvard's makes a really excellent house IPA. I recommend it.

The Best Defense Is A Good Offense

The class was giving Professor Civil Procedure a hard time today, asking lots of tough questions about federal jurisdiction, not letting anything slip by. Myself, I demanded to know XXXX. Prof. CP wheeled on me. "Okay Trevor, why don't you take us through the facts of the next case."
Score! I hadn't been prepared at all for Civil Procedure, but we'd read the case for Contracts, and just discussed it early in the morning. This was the one thing I was qualified to talk about.
"It's a slip and fall case. The plaintiffs went on a cruise and one got hurt so they sued the company for keeping the boats too ... slippery."

Semper Fidel

File this under Things You Don't See Every Day: A classmate, former USMC lance corporal, wearing an olive drab Che Gueverra t-shirt with matching Marine Corps hoodie.

I'm Too Sexy For This Blog

A neighbor tipped me off that over at the rough and tumble xoxo message board I'm considered, "cute in a geeky way."

Hell, I'll take that.

Sox Win

after 14 innings, the longest world series game ever played. Says a Chicago fan who watched the game with me, "I have a bunch of uncles in Houston I should call up and talk shit to. But they just survived a hurricane, so that wouldn't be cool. Plus, they're wusses."

Rainy Day Music

I've listened to "Bananna Pancakes" of Jack Johnson's latest at least five times today. I never really got into his new stuff before, but I'm giving it a closer listen now that I'm holed up in here.

Can't you see that it's just raining.
There ain't no need to go outside.

The Ingenious and Stylish American Woman

The Supreme Court of New York finds:

The purpose of this style change was to permit the purchase at individual prices of various skirts and blouses, which, when worn together, look like dresses, and yet at the same time can be worn separately with other garments – thus increasing the number, utility, and variety of the garments which the ingenious and stylish American woman, ever desirous of being variedly well-dressed, has at her disposal – and this, notwithstanding a limited pocketbook.

Weinberg v. Edelstein
201 Misc. 343, 110 N.Y.S.2d 806

Hi Mom

I know you're reading this. I have my ways.

Law Student Life Cycles

Last week (and by "week" I mean "Monday through Thursday") was so long and so busy that I wound up spending the almost entire weekend sitting around just to recoup. I didn't do anything more substantial than watch a movie or buy cold-weather clothes.

A lot of this is because I partied way too hard on Thursday, a practice that's already become a kind of law school tradition. It's our longest day, culminating in two grinding hours of legal writing. When that class gets out at five, there's nothing I want more than a cold beer. Luckily, the student council has stepped up to enable this addiction by putting a keg out on the lawn every week right at five. It's pretty much all downhill from there.

And now I'm back, tanned rested and ready, with my sleep-dep slate wiped clean and a new gym scedule all worked out. So what am I doing? Writing the second draft of the same millstone of a memo that dragged last week down. Here we go again.

Colbert on Centrism

In an interview with Fareed Zakaria on The Colbert Report:

"Isn't a centrist just someone who doesn't have the balls to be a fanatic?"

The Days Are Just Packed

My calendar for this week looks like a color-blind kid build a wall out of Legos.

Of course, after staying up late to finish the memo for yesterday morning, I keep sleeping through the top bricks.

Inside Admissions

The new (interim?) dean of admissions at the law school held a workshop for students tonight to talk about what kinds of changes should be made to the admissions program. There was free pizza and beer, so of course I went.

There was no talk of changing who gets admitted, except for a few trial ideas he had about how to weed out "the people you can tell are jerks in five minutes." Proposals for some kind of telephone interviews were hotly contested. Most of it seemed to focus on convincing admitted students to decide to come here instead of going somewhere else.

Now I was highly suspicious of this place until I got here and met a few living, breathing students (and saw that there weren't any that I reflexively wanted to stab in the eye), so I was delighted to see that he was trying to come up with ways to connect admits with students that they could see weren't part of some potemkin village. I think the best idea was luring current students into meeting admits with free food. There were other good ones about trying to get student groups to share what they do. He even wanted to try running a blog at the admissions office and experimenting with podcasting student interviews.

Best of all was spending most of the meeting soliciting ideas and feedback from us. Feedback like: give us a t-shirt instead of that ugly tote bag we can't carry anywhere. Or: yes, the admissions binder was really boring and not very helpful. Or: you know what would be great? Meetups with recent alumni in My Hometown.

So that was all neat stuff. If you volunteer to help with this retention-maximizing scheme, your title is Admissions Fellow. "Because it seemed like everyone around here was a something fellow. It sounds nice."

Also, I met an older student who lived less than a mile from my house in San Diego, right up the street form my favorite burrito joint.

First Mediation

"We're not here as judges, and we can't make rulings. We're just here to try to facilitate a dialog."
"Why?"

So that didn't go so well.

Memo: 8 Pages Too Long

Toy Memo The Second is about whether a lawsuit against a gun maker and distributor is likely to survive a motion of summary judgment. I want to send a short reply:

To: Fictional Parner
From: Fictional Associate Trevor
Re: Summary Judgment

They changed the statue this year, so anything could happen. But what does it matter what our chances are? We're suing them anyway.

But no. I have to write some 8-page memo about it instead. And you wonder why legal work is so expensive.

Justice

Even your gimmicky bullshit green jerseys can't save you, Notre Dame!

Dating Shows Are Good For the Soul

People on them always have their flaws cast in to high relief, but they're fallible in such ordinary, harmless ways. I watch Fog of War and get all depressed about how incredibly blind we are when countless lives are on the line, but you watch Next or Elimidate and start to feel good about people again. These are people who can deal with life on the appropriate scale.

Smoke Technology Here

Assorted magnetic poetry seen in the offices of the Lournal of Law and Technology:

"we need a copyright
on that tequila method"

"drunk students ask
what good is the law
without love"

"learn horrible
trade secrets"

Titles

"How come Lanchi's not in the facebook?"
"What name are you looking under?"
"Lanchi Ra."
"I don't think that's her last name."
"That's what it says on her door."
"That's because she's our RA."

Boston Legal

Is it the best show on television? It may just be.

"This isn't a meaningful life ... practicing law ... drinking Scotch at nine in the morning."

Legal Writing

I get back my first memo.

32.5/50.

A little back of the envelope calculation reveals that's a 65%, which is a solid Not Failing. Right on.

General comments:
"Your first draft was solid, but unfortunately, your second draft was largely unrevised"

Response:
"My first draft was largely uncommented-upon."

Now With 35% More Love!

Blogroll updated at right.

Advice From the Bench

There was a judge from Alabama in my mediation training class, and he was every inch the kindly southern gentleman. We had an impromptu happy hour to celebrate completing the program, and he asked all of us about what we wanted to do with the law. Interestingly, he advised us to stay out of criminal law, warning us that we wouldn't find it intellectually challenging enough. You'll get bored after a year, he warned, because the cases rely so heavily on statute and are all more or less the same. Civil law would always be more varied, because, "There's no end to the kinds of trouble people can get themselves into."

Grand Challenge Won

It looks like three entrants in this year's DARPA Grand Challenge actually finished the course, racing 131 miles across the mojave desert without any human control. Stanford'e entry, Stanley was among them. That's just so damn cool.

A Calling

A handout from the public interest center on landing a job at the US Attorney's Office says they sometimes frown on assistant DAs because of their "shoot from the hip style."

Perfect.

How Continental

"So that window, it is closed?"
"Oh yes. Closed."
"Oh well. C'est la vie."
"I thought that was one you wanted closed."
"It was."
"Ah."
"Ah."

Seventy-Seven Inches of Trouble

"Trevor, can you break into Paul's room for me?"
"Sure, why?"
"My booze is in his fridge, but he's not here."
"Are you sure this is your booze?"
"Yes."
"Okay then. No problem."

Selling the Sizzle

Great Post today over at the Barely Legal Blog about following the rules, and knowing when to ignore them.

Don't Hire Me To Kill Anybody

I believe I am only the second person in my section to be eliminated from our assassins game. Lacking even the most elementary levels of foresight or awareness, I was caught with my guard down less than 24 hours after the game started. A stone-cold killer I am not.

Real Life Problems

Went to mediation for the first time today. Would say more about it, but Emily already has a better roundup than the one I was going to write.

Really, I was more comfortable with the made-up problems on Boston Legal.

A Modest Proposal

Let us leave little marks on a piece of legal scholarship where sloppy or careless professors get their citations wrong. Something small and discreet, but still embarassing to have sprinkled all over the page. Give them some incentive to get their own sources right.

Never Completed, Only Abandoned

I'm trying to edit a toy memo I wrote for Legal Writing. We didn't get any specific feedback on the rough drafts, so I'm not really sure what to change. I should have written an obviously bad first draft, if only to give myself easy things to do now.

The Opinions of Stangers

This showed up in my mailbox this morning, and it has completely made my day:

Re: "Suddenly, This All Makes Sense"

I was searching for sentences for a vocab assignment when I ran across your article (the word I was looking for was "edifice"). I felt it necessary to compliment you on your writing. So, compliments it was hilarious, well written, and enlightening. You are well placed at Harvard. You have a wonderful voice.
Regards,
[person I don't know]
P.S. As you are on your way to becoming a powerful and scary attorney please know that I cited your work-don't sue me

Whee! I always have been a sucker for flattery.

Suddenly, This All Makes Sense

This is my second column to appear in the Record. I'll put up a link when the online edition comes out. You can get the original online here/

I’ve only just gotten here, but I’ve already got this law school thing figured out.

They told me law school would be hard. They told me that material would be dense, the teaching methods opaque, and the participation mandatory. They told me I’d be struck dumb when called upon to answer even simple questions. They told me I’d have no idea what was going on.

Here in my third week, a lot of the above has been accurate. Not that things have been as bad as you might think. I don’t usually have a very good idea what’s going on in my life in general, so law school was unexceptional in that respect. I was used to being oblivious, so cold-calling was never traumatic. The worst a professor can do is make you look like a fool, and I long ago made peace with me foolishness. By now I’m used to having discussions head off in directions I don’t anticipate and events follow internal logics I can’t fathom. This happens to me slightly more often in foreign countries with different customs and languages I can’t understand, but really not all that much less in America.

So imagine my astonishment when, mere weeks into my tenure, the experience suddenly and miraculously fell into place. I was in the Ames courtroom, dividing my attention between the moot court session I’d come to see and the refreshments table under constriction right in front of me. I tore myself away from the promise of crunchy vegetables and creamy cheeses to recognize that damn, this guy from Oregon was really good. At once, enlightenment flashed through my brain. Arcane rituals and senseless incantations had sudden sense and meaning. The shimmering filaments of a grand edifice arced across what had been a dark and murky sky, revealing a grand design breathtaking in its scope and beauty. It was like being struck by a Zen master, but with less bruising. Everything made sense.

Law school is weird because judges are jerks.

How could it not be so? Here was this earnest Oregonian, earnestly defending the sanctity and the compassion of his homeland, and the quintet facing him weren’t polite or even merely skeptical; they were being mean. He could barely make it through a sentence without terse interruption. Counsel, they would stab, doesn’t your argument contradict this lengthy list of cherished precedents? Counsel, aren’t you contradicting yourself to argue as you do? Counsel, we are confused by this train of thought, could it be that you are full of it? Counsel, wouldn’t you agree that you are in fact a moron?
But Bob Atkinson bravely disagreed. He hung in there and stood his ground, and refused to let his argument be derailed. He deftly turned aside every challenge, patiently reasoning his way around and over every pit and trap the judges could lay. He was magnificent. Even a Zorro or D’Artagnan couldn’t have challenged five opponents at once, and no pack of movie villains ever had the determination or coordination of this nefarious judicial panel. I was entranced. It was then that I came to understand.

Clearly if any person was to stand against a judge, they would need preparation. And only the highly developed vagaries of law school could truly prepare one to meet this judicial menace. Cold-calling wouldn’t merely terrify us into doing the required reading, it would sharpen our reflexes and toughen our spirits. Studying casebooks full of unrelated opinions would teach us to improvise, able to get by on the barest rhetorical essentials. The sheer weight of those tomes would lend us endurance and fortitude. Feeding us a steady and unvarying diet of pizza and keeping us stocked with a constant supply of alcohol would give us the hearty spirits to laugh in the face of adversity.

Even the parts of school that appeared to belittle or infantilize us were in fact part of our rigorous regimen. Requiring us to sit in assigned seats would instill an unshakable sense of duty by giving us a post we could not abandon. Making us tote around little name tags like children in the first week of the third grade would teach us humility, so that a judge could never defeat us by exploiting our hubris. One especially wise professor of mine denies us bathroom breaks. I now see that this isn’t just an outrageous encroachment on my autonomy, but that it will teach me discipline, and control of my body and my unconscious. No doubt later in the semester I will gain mastery over my heartbeat, my emotions, and my fears.

This sudden enlightenment has changed my entire perspective, and now I can dedicate myself again to the study of law, but with renewed faith and vigor. Everything that once gave me pause now only strengthens my resolve. In the fullness of time, I will no doubt come to understand the even hidden purpose behind First Year Legal Research and Writing.

I'll Be In My Trailer

Go watch this amazing and hilarious remix trailer for The Shining.

Big thanks to Amber of Prettier Than Napoleon for the tip. I think her post is a sly reference to this hilarious anti-trailer for the Seinfeld documentary Comedian.

I Heart Television

Today's strip at PvP is all too true. The only one of those show I didn't watch this week is Smallville, and that list doesn't even mention must-sees like The O.C., Laguna Beach and Sweet Sixteen.

Awesome

In my inbox just now:

Instead of meeting at our regular class time and place, our class will attend the following event:

The Practice of Judging: Compartative Perspectives

Location: Ames Courtroom, Austin Hall

You are invited to a panel discussion on "The Practice of Judging: Comparative Perspectives" with Justice Stephen Breyer, Justice Antonin Scalia, The Right Honourable The Lord Rodger of Earlsferry, and The Right Honourable The Lord Scott of Foscote. The panel will be moderated by Elena Kagan. September 28, 2005, 11:00-12:15 in the Ames Courtroom, Austin Hall. All are welcome.

This is a required class activity, in lieu of our regular class meeting. The room will probably fill up, so it will be a good idea to arrive early to find a good seat.

To provide you with some background on comparative courts and judging, I'm preparing a required reading assignment. It will be available this afternoon -- both for pick-up and on iCommons. Tom Potter will e-mail you when it is ready.

It is unusual to have an opportunity to interact with Supreme Court justices. Doing the reading on comparative judicial review may help you think about questions you could ask the justices, if you have an opportunity to do that.

I look forward to seeing you at what is sure to be an interesting program!

Best wishes,
Prof. [Civil Procedure]

Fresh Blood! Perspectives!

Ah! This post by frequent citations reminds me that I found a NEW BLOG by a classmate!

[Edit] Did I say say "a" new blog? That's not right! There's another one too!

[Edit 2] Did I say two? Better make it three.

It also reminds me that I have to clean up my links. Ugh. Get back to you when this blasted Legal Writing assignment is done. Hopefully, before 10 am tomorrow.

We Have No Funny

There was supposed to be a meeting tonight for 1Ls who want to work on the Parody. I'd heard it was like something my undergrad did called Gaities and figured I'd drop by to see what the deal was. I guess they had hoped a bunch of us would come with stories about each other and ideas for sketches. But no. There was only me. The producer was the only other person there, so I talked to her for a bit. Then I went home to watch Arrested Development.

Pearly

After a long day of mediation training (more on that later) I tried to conserve brain cycles last night be watching "Survivor". What I want to know is, why are all the Survivors' teeth so white? Aren't they supposed to be stranded in the middle of Africa?

Also, we saw Waterboy, which is hilarious.

So Much for Sobriety

So I lasted four days. What are you going to do, sue me?

The First Temptation

Went to a Journal of Law and Technology (JOLT) open house last night to listen to the opening notes of the big firm siren song. All the presenters seemed enthusiastic about the intellectual challenge, the interaction with innovators, the constantly changing knowledge base. I want those things! And I want to trust these people.

But I'm pretty sure I shouldn't.

I talked to ambimb at the beginning of the year and told him that my biggest fear about law school was that I'd be socialized by the big corporate environment and wind up wasting my life working 80 hours a week in a job I hated, just because someone threw six figures at me and i couldn't find something I really wanted to wake up and do every day.

The problem is, as much as Seth loves it public defending, or any other criminal work, doesn't feel like me. What if the kinds of things I want to do are the exclusive province of Soul Grinding Legal Factory, LLP?

Demographics

Of the ten candidates running for three slots on the ACS board reserved for 1Ls, only three were women. All ten were white. Hmm.

Bob Atkinson is a Baller

This afternoon I saw Bob, Assistant Attorney General for Oregon, argue in a moot court to prepare for his oral arguments before the Supreme Court. As you might guess form the title, I was pretty impressed. You have to be insanely good just to hold your ground up there. The exchanges went like this:

"It is Oregon's position that -"
"Counsel, isn't it true that your arguments are complete bullshit?"
"No, your honor. We argue that -"
"Counsel, you're not very smart, are you?"
"I disagree, you honor. I -"
"Moron."
"We believe that pursuant to rule 703 in the -"
"Counsel, wouldn't you agree that you're ugly, too?"

Soul Man

My section had a movie night and somehow we watched the "ridiculously unfunny" SOul Man. This violated my stated No Law School Inspired Media rule, but there was free pizza.

Regret

I'm not sure how I got home last night. My memories are only fragmentary, but I still remember saying a few truly awful things, which only makes me more nervous about what I can't recall. I don't know what it is about school here, but I haven't drank in moderation since I came - I'm either stone sober or fall-down drunk. That's really not okay. I'm worried.

I'm writing this down here so I'll remeber, and hold myself to these words. No alcohol for a month. We can talk about this again on October 18, and we'll see if it's just the start of school, or if i should just give up drinking all together.

Dead Tree Media

I have a column in the law school newspaper. It is for the career issue, but is emphatically not about careers in law. I think this my first ever publication, so that's fun.

My editor tells me that this, my inaugural publication, is the jobs issue. That's something of a problem. I just got here, showed up all bright-faced and blissfully ignorant, and I don't know anything about anything. I still live in wincing fear of "non-traditional" students with their professional lives and civic accomplishments, to say nothing of the casual, offhand mastery of the 2- and 3Ls. I can't say anything useful to these people; my proudest moments in the workplace came when I was a carnie.

Now, it was only for brief while -- more of a stint than a career -- but I definitely spent a long string of hot summer days hard at work at the county fair. I was, I can say with some pride, a carnie. I slaved to prepare the signature dish at the venerable Australian Battered Potatoes booth. In fact, the Australian Battered Potato was the only dish we served, no doubt to preserve brand identity in the cluttered county fair concessions market. The customer could only opt for a slathering of ranch dressing or nacho cheese sauce, or in extreme cases both at once.

Cousin to the Bloomin' Onion, your Australian Battered Potato is a kind of mutant french fry, the sort of thing you'd find in a puddle of glowing ooze among talking turtles and their rat-man sensei. A single piece is bigger than your hand, a flap of potato cut lengthwise to resemble an orthopedic insole and then deep fried to quadruple its thickness. Pre-sauce, it could be tempura fit for ten-foot samurai or an oil and starch scale model of a pockmarked asteroid. Preparing merely a few for consumption might have been a job for one skilled cook, but our stand was situated up front and on the main thoroughfare, which ran directly from the creakily whirling steel of the Fun Zone to the entrance and the open-armed welcome of the statue of Don Diego, spray painted gold for the occasion. Great herds of people rolled by, and we moved product by the plateful, as fast as hurried hands could shovel out steaming heaps of potato and gather up wilted fives and ones in damp bushels. We had a team. We had a process.

Only a small team out front wrangled with the throng, taking orders and distributing plates. This freed up the inside of our cramped trailer as the factory floor, where the real work was done. My turf. It was hot and loud inside; the cramped room we proudly toiled in was full of boiling oil and hard metal surfaces, of hustling bodies and shouted conversations. The space was full of potato: you drank it in with every breath, and your skin slurped it up from the air. But things were best when it was busy, when we were taking a hundred orders an hour and the team hummed with energy. When orders were scarce, we felt dejected and unloved, our talents wasted on an indifferent world.

On bad days you'd be a slicer, feeding whole potatoes into a battering machine that spit out flaps of potato with the slap slap slap of bare feet on wet sand. Acidic juices would sting your fingers, eating through flimsy latex gloves that were crumbling apart by the lunch break. Pigpen to the slicer's Charlie Brown was the flourer, giving each slice a powdery dusting so that batter will stick. He would end his shift caked in a flaky clay of flour and sweat, an apparition out of Shakespeare. These were jobs for sturdy, dependable types, with stout hears and steady minds. He who does it well may take pride. But the true masters of the operation worked the fryers.

There were two cooks working back-to-back, each toiling above two deep pools of bubbling, frothing oil. Soybean, I think. The fryer slapped potato slices through a bucket of batter and fed a steady stream of them to the boiling maws before him, pausing only to scoop out finished pieces with a heavy wire basket. It took nerve and a deft hand to do this well -- potato slices haphazardly slung into the vats, splashing scalding oil all over the trailer and its crew, forcing the cooks to lay them out in a smooth casting motion, all but caressing the oil's surface. Then the slices glided in as smooth as Olympic divers and piled up as quickly as painters' brushstrokes. Such mastery did not come easily, and I have faded scars where ugly blisters once testified to my hard-won skill.

Once fetched from the fryer, newly-crispy slices were doused with salt and drowned in the appropriate sauce. The customer's heavy-duty paper plate had to be supported by two hands lest it buckle under the sheer mass of the assembled foodstuffs. There was enough starch and grease to kill a small mammal, a one-step recipe for artery cheese. But the crew has been made stronger, and it knows it can eat with impunity. It is metal, unstoppable, a machine. It has lived the potato, and mastered it.

Trevor Austin encourages you to share your employment stories with him at taustin@law.harvard.edu. He is currently a 1L, and in a previous life was a rhinoceros.

First, Let's Kill All the Tariffs?

Can W really be serious about his proposal to eliminate all tariffs and subsidies? Because that would be kind of great. Super, even.

Hat tip: Donklephant.

Underground Movements

There were only fifteen minutes left in Contracts, so I was alternating between anxiously watching the clock and staring out the window. Suddenly, I saw a dull flash outside, and waited completely still for twenty seconds before hearing the thunder's unmistakable rumble. By the time class was over, campus was under a full-on rain storm. Dressed for another 80-degree day, I took the tunnels home. I may not walk outside again for months.

Seth Abramson

just happened to be a speaker at a panel on living with our loan-forgiveness program. He works as a public defender in New Hampshire, and is every bit as passionate about it in person as this blog post would lead you to believe. All of these public interest lawyers they have come and talk to us are pretty damn inspiring. I fully plan on following some earlier advice, focusing on finding a job I can love and letting the rest work itself out, and it's increasingly looking like doing public interest work is the way to do that.

Prof CivPro Lays it Down

PCP: "So the due process clause of the fifth ammendment only applied to actions by the federal government. State governments could do what they liked."

Gunner (blurts out): "But didn't the fourteenth ammendment extend those protections to cover the states too?"

PCP: *glare* "Do you want to come up here and teach?"

Vonnegut on Stewart

"You're tremendously popular with all the right people."

Everyone watching TV with me kept reverently silent for the entire interview.

I imagine when they put stuff online, including Vonnegut's latest, "A List of Liberal Crap I Don't Want to Hear Anymore," it will go here

Your Senator May Be Reading This

Well not this, obviously, but some blog. I only saw about 30 seconds of the confirmation hearings today, and it just happened to be where Roberts was asked about a post on the Volokh Conspiracy. I know if I was Jim Lindgren, I'd be a lot more stoked than he seems to be.

Why I Am Not A Textualist

A lot of the rules that determine who has standing when were just made up by the courts at one point or another. These seem more like guidelines, and can be contravened if the Legislature says so or if a given court feels like it. But apparently there are some kinds of standing issues that Congress has no power to change, because they are grounded in the constitutional authority of Article III. Scalia argues for the majority in Lujan v. Defenders of Wildlife that Congress can't empower just anybody to sue if they won't have a legitimate "case" or "controversy."

Of course, Article III isn't very specific on this point. How did we decide what counts as an allowable "case" or "controversy?" That's right. The court made it up. Only earlier.

Professor Civil Procedure had been shooting down gunners all morning and just snapped at Unfortunate Student who brought this up in class, but near as I can tell the best reason for why some standing issues count as constitutional and some are merely procedural is: "Because that's how we've been doing it, and it's been working out okay. It doesn't have to make sense."

Limits

We just got cable in our dorm lounge, which is about 13 feet away from my door. Watch now as my productivity asymptotically approaches zero.

Reinforcements

A student from New Orleans who was a 2L at Loyola moved in to my hall yesterday. Real friendly and laid-back guy, seems remarkably unconcerned that his hometown is underwater. First thing he wanted to know from us was whether LSU beat Arizona State.

Meet The Press

A reporter from the Yale Daily News just called me up out of the blue to ask how I felt about my school having (or being about to have) 5 justices on the supreme court.

"No one cares."
"No one cares?"
"Well, the administration will joke about it sometimes, but the students certainly don't."
"Oh."
"How did you get this number, anyway?"

Reunions

All of a sudden I have this vibrant non-law-school social net.

I saw CM and Josh yesterday, and we talked for a bit about public interest work and changing one's anonymity policy from "token attempts" to "screw it."

Later I met up with a friend from high school (poor fool is taking a practice LSAT right this minute), and ran into someone from my dorm last year on the way there. When I got home, I had e-mails from two other old classmates telling me they're in the neighborhood too. And I'm going to spend most of today trying to track down a certain native Bostonian before she has to head back out to California for school.

I was really worried when I got here that I would lose touch with all my old friends and get sucked into a tiny little law school bubble, so I'm going to take these developments as signs of my uncanny sanity in the face of that threat.

Real Men Study Law

or so said Jack Roberts, father of current nominee to be Chief Justive of the Supreme Court. Full commentary on this, "one of the unlikeliest four-word sentences in the English language" over at Bruce Reed's excellent Slate column, The Has-Been.

I for one need a t-shirt of that.

Stamina

Tonight, as we reflect on a long first day back at the dorm:

A: "Is it bad that I'm already looking forward to the weekend?"
B: "It's Tuesday."
A: "..."
B: "And we had yesterday off."
A: "..."
B: "I feel the same way."

Civil Procedure

Best exchange of the class:

Professor CivPro: "But who makes the rules? This isn't a monarchy, we don't have a king, so who's the sovereign?"
Wisecracking Student: "Dubya?"
*nervous laughter as crestfallen Prof looks down at desk*
General Mumbling: "We The People?"
Prof CP: "Oh thank God. I thought I was going to cry."

Initiative

Two farsighted students in my section started taking up Katrina donations right when school started, and got our section leader (Professor Torts) to match contributions up to $1,000 dollar-for-dollar. The law school has also pledged to match any contributions by students or staff, making for a 4x multiplier that really gets even students to open their wallets. They made an announcement this morning at the end of Civil Procedure that they had collected just over $600 from students so far and wanted to reach a thousand by the end of the day. Professor Civ Pro announced she'd follow Professor Torts' lead, and I think they had a full box by lunchtime.

This is what they're talking about when they tell you your classmates are the most amazing part of the experience.

Naming Policy?

What do you guys think I should do about writing about professors?

I post under my own name and generally make no effort to hide my identity, so I'm always working under the assumption that whoever I write about will be reading this and know who I am (and that I'm writing about them). But I'm still not sure whether to go ahead and use professors' names - it makes things more transparent and possibly more useful to readers, but still feels a little funny. I like the Professor Subject convention.

I ask because I sat next to Professor Criminal Law at dinner and over the course of discussing how we researched schools he mentioned that he scrupulously avoids student blogs because he doesn't want to know what students may be writing about him.

Makin' it Happen

Tonight Professor Contracts made us arm wrestle. It was the Dean's welcome dinner for my section, and Professor Contracts spoke to us for a bit. We're going to play a game, he says, and has us move around the table to sit next to someone about our size. Get ready to arm wrestle - you get one point each time the back of the other person's hand touches the table, and the point of the game is to maximize the number of points you get. No talking, eyes closed.

So of course the trick here is to reciprocate, since you don't care how many points your "opponent" gets and you just want to burn through as many cycles as possible. I can't tell my partner about this plan, but I throw the first round and luckily am strong enough to quickly overpower him on the second and fourth, and they we're off to the races. When the exercise is over a couple of other pairs have had the same idea, and we all each have double-digit points, when almost everyone in the room has between zero and two. Moral of the story, intones Professor Contracts, is cooperate, don't compete. So I thought that was really cool.

Sleep

After a full week of sub-six hour days, I finally crashed and didn't wake up until this afternoon. And I don't even have a ton of work yet - it's mostly just a blur of introductions. Once again, I have been made painfully aware of just how bad I am at learning names. Just when it starts to hit you that 570 really is a lot of people, all the 2 and 3Ls start showing up, too. I ran into Bad Glacier in a volleyball game at one barbecue, and we trounced the opposition.

Safe and Sound

A close friend of mine was a 1L at Tulane and I still haven't been able to get a hold of him, but tonight I was finally able to talk to someone who has. He's okay; he made it out to Virginia before New Orleans went underwater. Still doesn't know what he'll do about school now, but I hope that will work out. Right now, I'm just thankful he's all right.

Big City Life

Today in my inbox:

CRIME ALERT
Armed Robberies
Cambridge Street, Cambridge

On Friday, September 2, 2005, at approximately 2:15 AM a male graduate student
reported to the Harvard University Police Department that he was robbed twice
while walking down Cambridge Street from Inman Square towards campus. As he
walked near Cambridge Hospital, he was struck in the head from behind and
knocked to the ground. When he looked up he was surrounded by four males who
demanded his cell phone, I-POD, and wallet. The victim complied and the
suspects walked away. As the victim continued walking on Cambridge Street
toward campus he was approached by a male who asked for a cigarette. The
victim gave the male a cigarette and continued on. The male then approached
the victim from behind and placed a knife to the victim’s throat and demanded
his money. The victim informed the suspect that he did not have any money as
he was just robbed. The suspect searched the victim and, finding no valuables,
let him go. The victim then proceeded to the Science Center where he reported
the robberies to both the Harvard University Police Department and the
Cambridge Police Department.

Jesus. I walked down to Inman square for dinner yesterday.

First Impressions

Today was the first day of orientation. It's going well so far, mostly touring the campus and picking up papers and buying books. Had a brief class with Professor Torts, who's my section leader. He called on people randomly but it didn't seem like a big deal. We discussed the McDonalds obesity case, so tonight's welcome to law school movie will be Super Size Me. Haven't seen that before, though honestly I'm just grateful it's not Legally Blond.

Arrival

So I got here alive. All set up now. Met some nice folks. I'll get all orientation-schmigelated tomorrow, so we'll see how that goes.

Radio Silence

Okay, that's it. I'm packing my computer up now. Quick vacation to Tahoe with my college buddies, and then straight on through to Orientation. Talk to you again on the 30th, at the soonest.

Songs of Experience

I'm no professional critic, so this review is as much about me as it is about dgm's musical selections. I'm sitting here packing and thinking about moving out of my parents' house, and pretty much never coming back. This summer was probably the last extended period of time I'll ever live here. So there are certain messages that I am, well let's say "ready to hear." But what else do you expect from a blog? And maybe the mix I got is more thought-provoking than the collection of noise I mailed WhyLaw.

The mixtape "Songs I Never Get Tired of Listening To" opens like a firework sent up into an empty night sky. It starts off with a burst of energy from the Black Eyed Peas, and their exuberance fans out into whimsy with the charmingly old-school Rappers' Delight. From her writing at Sunny Side Up, dgm looks to be a big Jason Mraz fan, and the album's mood begins to mellow early on when he shows up with a sweeping Tonight, Not Again that for some reason recalls Tracy Chapman. The Foo Fighters classic Everlong deepens the bittersweet mood with their ballad about joy shout through with foreshadowings of loss. The Beatles ease us the rest of the way down with slightly plaintive calm as the final embers slowly fade out.

Maybe it's just the emotional space I'm in as I sit here packing to go away, but I hear the album as being about emotional maturity, about finally growing up. Except for Dinner Bell. I can't make head or tail of that song, so I'm skipping it here. We get some velvety ruminations on ambiguity from Nat King Cole and a dose of worldly cynicism from Liz Phair. One of my favorite tracks is from Joni Mitchell; California is about homecomings, but also new beginnings. It makes me homesick without even having left yet.

Sittin' in a park in Paris France
reading the news and it sure looks bad
they won't give peace a chance
that was just a dream some of us had
Still a lot of lights to see
but I wouldn't want to stay here
it's too old and cold and settled in its ways.
Ah but California ...
California coming home

We get a gently updated Fur Elise, where I hear a statement about the enduring value of classical beauty. Also, it reminds me for some reason of the Gypsy Kings cover of Hotel California from The Big Lebowski. Maybe Mark Knipfler is singing about living up to your destiny, and Willie Nelson is certainly singing (in one of my other favorites, which almost made in onto my mix) about how some decisions can't be unmade. We hear more about dealing with loss and sadness form Natalie Merchant. Finally, I love the contrast between the desperate confusion of What's Going On and the ultimate embrace of all this difficulty and complexity in Life Is Wonderful. What does it mean that I see the final synthesis in the work of someone as young as Mr. Mraz? Can't be sure about that. But that's okay.

Track List

Pump It Up - Black Eyed Peas
Rappers' Delight - Sugarhill Gang
Tonight, Not Again - Jason Mraz
Everlong - Foo Fighters
Blackbird - The Beatles
Mona Lisa - Nat King Cole
Dinner Bell - They Might Be Giants
Rockville - REM
Shitloads of Money - Liz Phair
California - Joni Mitchell
Fur Elise - Galaxy Trio
One Tree Hill - U2
The Letter - Natalie Merchant
Sailing to Philadelphia - Mark Knipfler
What's Going On - Marvin Gaye
Mammas, Don't Let Your Babies Grow Up To Be Cowboys - Willie Nelson
Life Is Wonderful - Jason Mraz
Change Is GOnna Come - Gavin DeGraw

Thanks dgm!

Unhappy, Unhealthy, Unethical

I just finished re-reading Patrick J. Schiltz's "minor classic" about lawerly quality of life: On Being a Happy, Healthy, and Ethical Member of an Unhappy, Unhealthy, and Unethical Profession. It's all very good advice, and certainly a shot in the arm if you catch yourself losing perspective, but something about it bothers me. Schiltz graduated magna cum laude from law school, where he was an editor on the law review. He clerked for Scalia, and wound up teaching at Notre Dame. I don't care how happy he is today, he doesn't get to use himself an example of how to do it right. We all know teaching's a great gig if you can get it, but how many people realistically can?

Imperial Ambitions

I still enjoy blogging here, but It's just not enough for me any more. My spirit chafes at this restriction. Making words appear on your CRT or LCD is just the beginning - towards the ultimate goal of global domination, I'll be expanding into a variety of new media, including gaseous concussions and inked tree pulp. Long-term, I'm looking to move into laser moon-etching.

Also, I got the Magic Cookie Mix CD in the mail from dgm at Sunny Side Up. I'll write up a review after I've listened through it a few more times.

Revenge Fantasy

Cary Tennis writes this wonderful advice column over at Salon - in fact, he's the only reason I go over there at all any more. This recent entry (you'll have to watch a brief ad) to a wronged lover who has to keep seeing her ex socially is especially entertaining. In recommending she make a scene (can you see why I love this?) he writes, "It is obvious by now to anyone walking by that a performance is occurring that is well-rehearsed and worth the price."

It always interesting how a group of strangers milling about will sometimes suddenly and uniformly stop being a mere crowd and become an Audience. It's something Terry Pratchett writes about a lot. How old and how deeply embedded is that switch that dissociates the viewer from the immediate action and says shh! Don't disturb! Now we're watching. Do monkeys do this? Do fish?

ETA: Bullshit

Why does the box to The Seven Samurai say it's 141 minutes long when the movie actually clocks in at three and a half hours?

Syracusan!

I just got back from a very entertaining production of The Comdey of Errors at the Old Globe. The play is mostly just one mistaken identity joke told over and over again, so I was happy to see all the ways the production had livened it up. Some things were simple: the opening narration to set the premise was illustrated with a Punch and Judy style puppet show, and there was a lot of slapstick and mad dashing about crammed in wherever it would fit. But other things make you really appreciate comic acting, and how it's distinct from simply having funny marterial. That same worn joke about identical Dromios and Antipholuses (Antipholi?) is funny over and over again, when told with the right tone or expression.

Overheard at Dinner

Adult: "Now I'm a pretty smart girl, but I can't read those Harry Potter books."

Hometown Pride

JD2B links to a Forbes magazine ranking that argues Baltimore, Minneapolis, Columbus, and Sacramento are cooler cities than my very own San Diego. In the next issue: "Who Makes the Best Crack Pipes? A Definitive Guide."

Kung Fu Monkey

I'm saving this for personal use.

Homework: Big Macs

I got a letter today from my section leader, who teaches torts. He says hi and gives us a case to read. It's Pelman v. McDonalds, where the burger chain is sued for making people fat. I like that he'd choose something that we've probably heard about to use as an introduction. Plus, it's only 8 pages, so that's nice. I should be able to read that much in 2 weeks. Maybe.

Bovine Resurrection

Apparently when you switch schools on the facebook, it kicks you out of all your groups. I was upset to see that I had lost my affiliation with such organizations as "People Who Are Probably Going to Hell" "I jeWISH I was Jewish!" and "I Just Tried to Ford the River and My Fucking Oxen Died."

Fortunately, the latter has a local chapter. I feel a bit better now.

What This Country Needs Is More Cowbell

Is Christopher Walken really running for president?

I can't tell if this is a joke or not, but honestly I think it's great either way.

Link via Donklephant.

My Bias Exposed

I don't know about Brian Leiter, but when I hear that Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez called America, "the most savage, cruel and murderous empire" the world has ever known, my reraction is most likely to be: "Wow. Hugo Chavez is an asshat."

Red Tide

The second red tide bloom of the summer in my patch of ocean is happening right now, so the other day we went swimming out at midnight to check out the lights. It was as bright as I'd ever seen - you could see the breakers lighting up from over a mile away. And once you got in the water it was amazing. Every movement in the water produced a swirling cloud that glowed bright blue, and every splash lit up the night. We threw handfuls of water into the air, watching as every drop landed with a brilliant flash. Fish would leave lightening-blot trails in their wake as they darted away from us. The whole face of a wave would light up as it broke, so bodysurfing was like riding liquid glow-stick. Being inside a curl, with glowing water surrounding your head, was completely surreal. When we got out, we could slap our boardshorts and leave handprints that would shine for a second and then fade.

So yes, the red tides may be toxic, but if you're careful not to swallow too much water, it can be really amazing.

Advice to Law School Applicants 2: How To Write A Personal Statement Without Having Done Anything Special

Before we leap in here and I share my personal statement with y’all, a quick word about licensing. As the sidebar notes, this work is licensed under a Creative Commons NonCommercial Sampling Plus 1.0 License. This means you, the reader, are free to use it for non-commercial purposes with attribution. So if you want to send Dream Law School parts of my statement and tell them I wrote them you’re within your rights, though that would be a bit unconventional. What you are not allowed to do is try to pass off my writing as your own. Which you wouldn’t want to do anyway, because it would be stupid. After all, if you can find this place, adcoms can too. So you won’t . Good.

They say the personal statement is an applicants opportunity to distinguish him- or herself from the pack of students. My problem was, I wasn’t all that distinguished. I didn’t have an impressive list of extracurricular activities, or a distinguished record of community service, or a resume full of leadership positions. In college I studied hard and then I played hard, and didn’t do much in between to round out a resume.

So I didn’t have a compelling story to tell for my personal statement. What I did have was advice from the Personal Statement chapters of the How To Get Into Law School Books that I read sitting on the floor in Barnes and Noble, and my buddy Mike, who braved the investment banking/management consulting interview gauntlet and made himself its master. Naturally, Mike proved much more useful, and would go on to help me through three drafts of my statement before he pronounced himself “too invested in it” to be an objective judge. You just can’t stress enough how important it is to get a reader (preferably several!) who will see your essay strategically, asking what you’re trying to accomplish with it and evaluating how effective you are.

Since I didn’t have a good story to tell, I figured I’d just talk about myself. Tell the admissions committee what kind of person I am. What makes me tick. In a flattering way, of course. After some serious brainstorming and soul-searching, I came up with something I wanted to say. I’m all about solving problems, fixing things, getting results. This is pretty central to my interests and personality. So I scraped together a few anecdotes that related to this theme, and a few different expressions of it. Then, lacking an obvious intro, I leapt right in and wrote a draft:

I am a pragmatist, a problem solver, and engineer at heart. The most important question to me when I encounter a problem is “what can be done about it?” I want testable hypotheses from academics, and proposals for action from politicians and protestors. I hate fatalism. I love to hear “here’s what we can do better.” I’m impatient. I don’t like to cry over spilled milk.

There is little I find more intellectually satisfying than working out a strategy to solve a problem or accomplish a goal and then watching my ideas succeed in application. While morally there’s nothing more frustrating that continued conflicts with obvious solutions, what bothers me intellectually the most are problems with no apparent answer. This temperament extends beyond academics; it’s more generally how I approach the world. I’m correspondingly wary of ideologies, factions, and theoretical frameworks. I believe in hybrid vigor, convergent evolution, and political Third Ways. I like problems I can get a grip on, and accordingly have little patience for intrigue or Byzantine political machinations. The personality traits I most admire and seek out in others are honesty and forthrightness.

I think there’s something charming about the ad-hoc, the Jerry-rigged, the inelegant but crudely effective. I was talking to an Australian, who traced his country’s mutual animosity with New Zealand to a fateful cricket match, where the Kiwis needed the equivalent of a home run to win the game, and to prevent this, the Australian bowler rolled the ball aong the ground rather than pitching normally. Apparently, this was considered by Aussie and Kiwi alike to be sneaky, dishonourable, and unmanly play. My reaction was to applaud the sound strategy – a tea and crumpets analog to intentionally walking Barry Bonds.

At one point towards the end of my freshman year, students from my second-quarter introductory CS class who had won class programming contests were invited to eat lunch with the professor at the faculty club. The winners of the other contests had come up with fiendishly clever ways of making programs we’d all written for assignments run faster or use less memory when doing math on very large numbers or other computationally intensive tasks. I had done something rather different. One of those programs ran a simulation on a ten by ten grid where very simple programs called critters could move about and turn other critters they came across into copies of themselves. I won a tournament of custom critters by designing programs that would seek out and clump together in the corners of the grid, where they would be protected on two sides and could literally watch each others’ backs. This strategy required very carefully written critter programs to carry out, but what made my critters more successful than the others wasn’t that they better exploited the hardware they were run on, but that their strategy let them better take advantage of the rules of the game they were competing in.

Focusing on the task at hand is just as much about ignoring things that don’t matter as about obsessing over results. As such, I’m not naturally competitive, and am always on the lookout for ways a game might not be zero-sum. I swam competitively and played on the water polo team for four years in high school, but I never had the competitive spirit, the burning desire to crush the opposition, to be better than they were. It was more important to me that I do well, than that I win. Now I play water polo pick-up games in a PE class and to this day I’d rather lose a well-played game to friends and players I respect and come out grinning than to win a win a violent grudge match by throwing elbows at people I can’t stand. I like to think that lets me focus more sharply when there really does have to be a winner and a loser, and it’s certainly better for my sanity in the meantime.

When the time comes to unwind, I find myself impatient with tragedies and melodrama, where characters are doomed to misery, or worse, doom themselves to it. I take a road trip up to Ashland every year for the Oregon Shakespeare festival, but no matter how beautiful their speeches, I still get angry at Juliet and Romeo. I’m a sucker for a happy ending. My favorite books and movies are all comedies, and I have a dry sense of humor that I have been advised not to attempt to exhibit in this statement.

I’m making a conscious effort to keep it snappy. Keep your sentences short. I wanted something readable that wouldn’t bog down an admissions officer, and the blunt style plays well into my theme. I was hoping clean, spare prose would be refreshing to weary essay readers. Not entirely successful at this. Still, I’m especially proud of the finish there, which remains unchanged throughout the revisions.

And of course there are revisions to come. There are some obvious flaws (like: what’s the CS paragraph for?), and plenty of places where the language can be tightened and the sub-themes sharpened. But this post is too long already. I’ll talk about revising later.