tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-147401722024-03-08T11:39:02.604-08:00Oh, PleasePrematurely curmudgeonly 38 year old woman goes to law school. Hijinks ensue.Unknownnoreply@blogger.comBlogger147125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-14740172.post-10992764686295903122007-10-09T19:24:00.000-07:002007-10-09T19:30:32.207-07:00Chock full o' koansThe thing you think is keeping you from learning is the thing you need to learn.<br /><br />Before you start writing, it always feels like it's too early to start writing.<br /><br />(Alternately: It always feels like it's too early to start writing before you start writing.)Unknownnoreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-14740172.post-1172359211790583582007-02-24T15:17:00.000-08:002007-02-24T15:20:11.810-08:00Same name, different locationMost of what I want to write about lately, I don't want to write about for strangers. I've created a new friends-only blog at livejournal. (Just substitute "livejournal" for "blogspot" in the URL.) <br /><br />If you're a friend or friend-of-friend or longtime reader: <ol><li>Create an LJ account (free)<li>Email me and tell me your account name.<li>I'll add you to my friends list there. </ol><br /><br />We'll see if this unlocks any deep-held musings...Unknownnoreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-14740172.post-1170115234800724232007-01-29T15:54:00.000-08:002007-01-29T16:00:34.813-08:00Trendwatch: Small FruitI predict that small fruit will be a trend in the coming years and months. Apples and oranges do not need to be 4 inches in diameter. Bananas do not need to be of Jeff-Strykeresque dimensions. Small fruit. Watch for it.Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-14740172.post-1169873800209132462007-01-26T20:55:00.000-08:002007-01-26T21:09:42.536-08:00Ballard VignetteMe: The hipsters are freaking me out.<br />S: Activate your disdain centers!<br />Me: I already have!<br /><br /><b>Special Guest Blogging from S: Description of Disturbing Hipsters at La Carta Oaxaca</b><br /><br />they stood, together yet alone, tragic. hip. pale. emaciated. she: clad in a striped wrap dress and a plaid parka, 80's era chrissie hynde hairstyle. you know, black. layered but overgrown. hanging past her eyebrows and crowding her cheeks. also with the impish face, overwhelmed by the sheer volume of the hair, bored, unfocused, expressionless, disaffected gaze. he: striped button down shirt and no jacket. black oblong-framed glasses. same disaffected gaze. brown hair, neither short but long. "textured" with "product." cultivated sense of unease.<br /><br />ohplease says: i feel bad, because we used to have punks to make us uneasy, but now we only have hipsters. it seems like a loss. i am sad for our culture. oh my god. it's like i'm hillary clinton, speaking about hipsters.<br /><br /><b>/guest blogging</b><br /><br />S: I feel like my hair might be kind of hipster-like.<br />Me: No, it's not. It's sui generis.<br />S: [?]<br />Me: That's a term we use in law school. It means "its own thing."Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-14740172.post-1167643061178435542007-01-01T01:11:00.000-08:002007-01-01T01:17:41.176-08:00My entirely non-unique blog conundrumPart of why I haven't been blogging is that 2L year is excruciatingly boring. However, Mike pointed out that's probably still worth blogging about. But I've also not been writing because I feel like most of the things I would write about now (my hideous fall quarter classes, my wacky law firm's wacky Christmas party, the most annoying woman in law school) would easily serve to identify me, and I'm not sure if I'm OK with that. This wasn't an issue 1L year because the 1L curriculum is pretty much identical everywhere.<br /><br />So I dunno.Unknownnoreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-14740172.post-1167642615780922172007-01-01T00:46:00.000-08:002007-01-01T01:10:24.846-08:00That goddam Mike tagged me with a meme......and since I've just drunk an entire bottle of champagne, I'll oblige. <br /><br />(BTW, I've finally figured out I don't like champagne--too yeasty. I prefer prosecco.)<br /><br />The meme is "FIVE THINGS YOU PROBABLY DON'T KNOW ABOUT ME," which reminds me of "Two truths and a lie," which my old work team used to use as an ice-breaker. I once "won" two truths with the following statements:<ul><li>I was music direcctor at my college radio station. <li>In high school, I was vice president of the math club. <li>[Some forgettable, yet seemingly in-character lie that I honestly can't remember right now.] </ul> Everyone thought the math club thing was the lie, because (1) Who's that big of a geek? and (2) What the hell math club needs a vice president? Little did they know...<br /><br />Anyway, 5 things you probably don't know about me, but which are entirely in character:<ol><li>I spent my New Year's Eve at home, alone, cleaning madly, throwing things away, and drinking an entire bottle of champagne by myself. However, due to my solo drunkenness, I still have laundry to fold. <li>I like fruitcake. I especially like fruitcake with champagne (or prosecco). My favorite part of any fruitcake is the candied citron, and some years, I make my own fruitcake, which is surprisingly expensive what with all the liquor and candied fruit. I have a vague intent to some year make not only my own fruitcake, but my own candied fruit. This would require starting the fruitcake process in August or September. <li>I can squaredance. <li>I know all the words to "You're So Vain." <li>I kind of want to go skiing. For the first time since what? 1988??</ol>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-14740172.post-1165821645638446442006-12-10T23:14:00.000-08:002006-12-10T23:20:45.653-08:00Magical elves will write my exam!I have two take-home finals in addition to my two in-class finals, and I've now been working on one of the take-homes for four days. I actually have been working. I worked on it for 7 hours on Thursday, 5 hours on Friday, 6 hours yesterday, and 7 (so far) today. My only prayer at this point is that magical elves will write my exam. (Can the elves turn on my computer, or do I have to leave it on for them?) <br /><br />My real hope, of course, is that the procrastinator's panic will set in, but my friend R has noted that all of our panic thermostats seem to be out of whack this time around. I'm trying now to just outline as much as I can so that when I can finally write, I won't be wasting time looking stuff up. <br /><br />And it strikes me that actually, that's my usual law school writing process. Assume there will be horrible procrastination, but do enough advance work so that once the panic sets in, you can take advantage. <br /><br />I'm going to start thinking of it that way.Unknownnoreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-14740172.post-1165004409787090772006-12-01T12:17:00.000-08:002006-12-01T12:20:09.810-08:00Evidently I really believe it's going to happen now.I just called my insurance weasels to increase my liabililty coverages. I take this to be a sign that I really do think I'm going to be a lawyer now. To worry is to believe.Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-14740172.post-1164755700581415802006-11-28T15:14:00.000-08:002006-11-28T16:04:46.216-08:00When a man knows he is to be hanged in a fortnight, it concentrates his mind wonderfully.(Apologies to Dr. Johnson.)<br /><br />I got done with OCI about a month ago, and I'm finally feeling like maybe I understand something in some of my classes. But it's been ugly, and I've been avoiding work a lot because starting behind and feeling like I'm never going to catch up is stressful, unpleasant, and somewhat overwhelming. So it's a gross, anxious, unproductive cycle of avoidance. <br /><br />However, see the title. Finals here start December 11. So I've moved into "teach yourself law in two weeks" mode. The past three days, it's been Trademarks, and I should finish my outline tonight. Indian Law is next. Those are the two classes I have regular 3-hour finals in. In Patents and Antitrust, I have take-home exams, and frankly, I have no fucking idea how to prepare for those. I'm hoping once I'm done with my Indian Law outline, I'll have some kind of momentum and I'll be able to figure things out. <br /><br />(For now, we will ignore the fact that my Bluebooking assignment for Law Review is due next week, and that the prof I'm doing research for is (finally) wrapping up his article and needs me to review a bunch of stuff. Urgh.)Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-14740172.post-1164755492185563482006-11-28T15:05:00.000-08:002006-11-28T15:11:32.200-08:00Surprisingly effective, but not particularly classy.Those of you who know me may recall that my kitchen has no heat. Or maybe you don't. Anyway, no heat in the kitchen. <br /><br />We're having a bit of a cold snap here, so drafts from the unheated kitchen have been making the living room miserable. My solution? Hang an old wool blanket in the kitchen door to block the draft. I figured this would help a little.<br /><br />I was wrong--it's totally effective! It's something like 72 degrees in the living room and 38 in the kitchen. Yeah, it looks trashy, but wow!<br /><br />Blankets: they do a very good job of keeping things warm. Who knew?Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-14740172.post-1163646146076677362006-11-15T18:55:00.000-08:002006-11-15T19:06:04.956-08:00Flake Coconut MacaroonsWhat are you going to do with the egg whites left over from the Rizogalo? I suggest this. <br /><br />1 1/4 c sugar<br />3/4 c water<br />3 egg whites<br />3 cups UNSWEETENED flake style coconut (the kind that's like shavings about 1/4" wide)<br />Electric mixer<br />Candy thermometer<br />Big bowl (Big. I would like to emphasize big.)<br />Saucepan<br /><br />Using electric mixer, beat egg whites until they form stiff peaks. <br /><br />Put water and sugar in saucepan on medium heat until sugar is dissolved. Then turn to high and cook to soft ball stage (230ish degrees).<br /><br />Start beating the egg whites again and slowly pour the sugar syrup in as you do this. The egg whites will get stiffer and start to climb the beater blades and the bowl, so a bigger bowl is better here. <br /><br />When sugar syrup is beaten into the egg whites, fold the coconut in. <br /><br />Spoon little blobs out onto baking sheets. You can butter the baking sheets if you like, but the macaroons will come loose once they cool whether you butter the sheets or not. <br /><br />Bake 10-12 min at 325 degrees. <br /><br /><b>CHOCOLATE VARIATION</b><br />Bake half the macaroons as-is, then fold 6 oz cooled melted semisweetish chocolate into the remaining dough. Spoon out and bake as above.<br /><br /><b>Wait. Why is it worthwhile to do the whole candy syrup thing and inevitably burn my damn fingers?</b><br /><br />The candy syrup makes the meringue base firmer. It holds up under the coconut and makes the resulting macaroons nice and fluffy.Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-14740172.post-1163476451934692352006-11-13T19:45:00.000-08:002006-11-15T19:08:44.913-08:00Rizogalo (Greek rice pudding)This is outstanding, and relatively easy. You need to stir it frequently to keep it from scorching, lumping up, or forming a skin, but if you're kind of puttering around the kitchen anyway, it's no biggie. <br /><br />1 cup water<br />3 cups whole milk<br />3/4 c rice<br />3/4 c sugar<br />1 slice lemon peel<br />3 egg yolks<br />Cinnamon<br /><br />Put the water, milk, rice, and sugar in a heavy saucepan over medium-high heat. Stirring occasionally, let boil, then turn down to a low simmer. <br /><br />Simmer for 35 minutes, stirring about every 2-3 minutes (just often enough to prevent the pudding from forming a skin). <br /><br />Add the slice of lemon peel (about a 1/2" x 2" slice)<br /><br />Simmer for another 10 minutes, stirring every few minutes. Taste to make sure the rice is cooked through. Simmer a little longer if the rice isn't done. <br /><br />When the rice is cooked through, whisk the egg yolks together, then stir them into the pudding. Stir constantly as the egg yolks thicken, about 5 minutes. <br /><br />Remove lemon peel. (NOW--you don't want it to get too lemony.)<br /><br />You're done! Serve either plain or with a dusting of cinnamon.Unknownnoreply@blogger.com5tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-14740172.post-1163135535368242412006-11-09T20:36:00.000-08:002006-11-09T21:29:52.126-08:00How is that wacky New York Times bread recipe?Yesterday, the NYT published a recipe for no-knead yeast bread. The idea is that you make a very wet dough and give it a long fermentation, and that the magic of fermentation causes the glutens to develop and do their thing just like they would if you kneaded it. Then you bake this very wet dough in a preheated covered pot, essentially creating a little high-humidity oven like the fancy bakeries have. Some total genius baker named Jim Lahey figured this out and decided to tell the world.<br /><br />Here's the URL for the article: http://www.nytimes.com/2006/11/08/dining/08mini.html<br /><br />I was inspired. I went to the store and got some yeast and some whole wheat and rye flours and tried this thing. <br /><br />And...<br /><br />It's actually really good. It develops a nice, hard, crispy crust. It has big holes in the bread just like fancy bakery bread. Awesome! <br /><br />The recipe, as reinterpreted by me:<br /><ul><br /><li>3 c flour (I used 1 1/2 c whole wheat, 3/4 c dark rye, 1/4 c wheat bran, 1/4 c coarse corn meal, and 1/4 c 10-grain cereal)<br /><li>1/4 t (that's teaspoon, baby) instant yeast<br /><li>1 1/4 t salt<br /><li>1 5/8 cups water<br /><li>6- to 8-quart covered pot (cast iron, ceramic, Pyrex, or enamel--like a dutch oven)<br /><li>Plastic wrap<br /><li>Non-terry cotton cloth(s)</ul><br />Combine ingredients in a large bowl, stir it all up, cover the bowl with plastic wrap, and set aside in a warm (70 degree) room to do its thing for 12-20 hours. I let mine go for more like 22, and it was fine.<br /><br />Lightly flour a work surface and put the dough on it. You may have to scrape the dough out of the bowl. Also, because it's been fermenting for so long, the dough may smell slightly of butyric acid (the smell formerly known as "vomit"). This will be especially pronounced if you used rye flour, as I did. Anyway, flour your hands well (really well), flatten the dough, and fold it over itself a few times.<br /><br />Let the dough blob "rest" for 15 minutes.<br /><br />Sprinkle a cotton cloth (flour sack towel or t-shirt) with flour and put it on a flat surface in a relatively warm room.<br /><br />Flour your hands again and form the dough into a ball. Put the ball smooth side up on the floured cloth. Drape another cloth over the top of the dough ball.<br /><br />Let the dough ball rise until more than double in size. Just assume this will take 2 hours. <br /><br />After 1 1/2 hours, put your empty pot in the oven and heat to 450 degrees. (The pot needs to heat for at at least half an hour.)<br /><br />When the dough ball is ready, remove the hellishly hot pot from the oven and gently transfer the dough ball into the hot pot. It doesn't really matter whether the dough ends up right side up or upside down. The baker dude says you should put the ball ugly side up. <br /><br />Put the pot back in the 450 degree oven and put on the lid. Bake with the lid on for 30 minutes, then take the lid off and bake for another 15-30 minutes.Unknownnoreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-14740172.post-1162876847306019592006-11-06T20:42:00.000-08:002006-11-06T21:20:47.383-08:00OCI, the conclusion.Anyway, in the end, I got a job through OCI, and I'm all happy with it. <br /><br />Total hours expended on OCI (18 applications, 8 screening interviews, 4 callbacks, 1 offer*): about 100. This does not include a day's decompression time for each callback interview. <br /><br />Here's my OCI advice:<br /><ul><li>Buy a suit you like, and that expresses your personality. (Yes, such a thing is possible.) Because if you have to spend hours wearing something you hate, it will suck. <li>By the 18th or 20th time, your answers to questions like, "Why did you go to law school?" will not be fresh. Accept this. </ul>That's it. <br /><br />And yes, there is a post to be written comparing OCI and dating via the personals. <br /><br /><br /><br />*The first offer I got was from the firm I liked far more than the others. I contemplated it for a few days, then accepted and called the other firms to let them know so they could cross me off their list.Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-14740172.post-1162874202024775312006-11-06T20:23:00.000-08:002006-11-06T20:36:42.036-08:00Strong-Ass Ginger ToddyIf you have a cold, and you drink a couple of these, you will soon feel much better. <br /><ul><li>Fill a coffeecup about 1/3 full of brandy. (Delicious, yet moderately priced, Presidente Mexican brandy is an excellent choice.)<li>Add 2-3 T of honey. <li>Add 5-15 slices of fresh ginger.<li>Add a squirt or two of lemon juice (about 2 slices worth). <li>Add enough water to fill the cup to about an inch below the top.</ul>Heat the above in the microwave for 2-3 minutes, then top it off with boiling water and enjoy. Add more lemon, honey, or brandy to taste. <br /><br />I think the microwaving burns off at least a little bit of the alcohol.Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-14740172.post-1159410320979180492006-09-27T18:24:00.000-07:002006-11-06T20:38:31.320-08:00OCI (WARNING: May be pointless)I've been delaying writing about this, thinking "I'll just write about it when it's over and I have some perspective and know what happened," but tonight, after 1.3 beers, I decided "Well, that's a load of inauthentic bullshit. The only possible value of blogging is to write about what you're experiencing when you're experiencing it. Duh. Cowboy up, superannuated1(now 2)L!" <br /><br />OCI, for those who haven't heard me rant about it in the past few months, is On Campus Interviewing.* Most law schools have a deal where firms solicit resumes, then come on campus to conduct a nearly endless series of 20-minute interviews with second-year law students. If you get a job through this, what you get is usually a well-paid position for the following summer with an extreme inside track for a permanent job. The timeline is wacky: resumes/cover letters/writing samples/references go out in July, the brief on-campus interview is in late August or early-ish September, and 2- to 8-hour callback interviews generally happen over the next month. This timeline explains why 1L grades are so important: those are the only grades you have when you send out that resume in July.<br /><br />Most schools have some kind of "bidding" system for OCI, and most schools use some kind of online tool to manage the thing. Here, we had about 75 employers participating in OCI. You're allowed to apply to some number of them, and the online tool lets you upload your resume and other documents. You also assign each employer a "bid" number. At some schools, the bid numbers actually help determine which interviews you get. (Georgetown evidently has some system where the employer has very little (no?) input in who they interview.) Here, employers choose interviewees for most of their slots, and your bid number is only relevant if very few employers choose to interview you--in that case, the Career Office people will use your bid numbers to foist you on employers you'd like to meet. Rumor has it that sometimes the interviewer's behavior makes it completely obvious that they didn't really want to talk to you. Nice. <br /><br />Anyway, I did OCI. In July, I bid on 18 employers. We can bid on almost twice that, but I felt there were only 18 firms I was credibly interested in. In presentations the previous spring, the Career Office folks will tell you that you need to research each employer and do a custom cover letter for each one of them, blah blah blah. When you go in for advising the week before materials are due, the Career folks will just tell you to add more firms to your list. My cover letter is probably one of the worst things I've ever written. Hate cover letters blah.<br /><br />In September, I had 7 on-campus interviews. <br /><br />Now, I have 3 callbacks. <br /><br />[At this point, I became overwhelmed by the awfulness of OCI and ceased writing the blog entry. Update to follow.] <br /><br /><br />* Note: The following explanation will be stupid and obvious if you are a law student. This is because my imaginary audience for this blog is my friend M, who is not.Unknownnoreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-14740172.post-1156304957362875222006-08-22T20:40:00.000-07:002006-08-22T20:49:17.376-07:00Which fig ice cream recipe is the best? This one is.It's called "Miss Margaret's Homemade Fig Ice Cream," and it's located <a href="http://plantanswers.tamu.edu/recipes/figs/fig15.html">at Texas A&M's PLANTanswers</a>, a gardening site run by Texas A&M. You can trust southerners to have mindblowingly great recipes for high-fat foods. I'm going to check out the other recipes at the site for sure. Just FYI, you could probably omit the lemon juice (or half it), you probably don't need to whip the cream, and you need to cool the custard before mixing it with the figs. I did that by pouring it into a big Tupperware and leaving it in the freezer for 10 minutes. <br /><br />I suspect <a href="http://www.aaa-recipes.com/fig/figs17.html">this fig ice cream recipe</a> is also good, mainly because it claims to be an old Louisiana recipe, and because it calls for some vinegar, which figs need. It's also low fat. However, it requires cooking a sugar syrup to the thread stage, and that was just too much for me tonight.Unknownnoreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-14740172.post-1156233273297853222006-08-21T23:05:00.000-07:002006-08-24T21:12:49.503-07:0019 pieces of "advice" for entering 1Ls.Peer mentoring season is upon us, and like opinionated 2Ls everywhere (I think upward of 40% of my class has signed up to be peer mentors--this may be some kind of record), I have my list of things I did, things I wish I'd done, and ways I thought about the whole experience to keep myself sane. <br /><br />So in no particular order...<br /><br /><b>1. Oh good lord, you do not need to brief every case and highlight in 4 colors.</b> I briefed the first four cases in Torts and that's it. I underlined in mechanical pencil, because I have a fetish for those. I flagged the issue, rationale, test, holding, etc. (wow, I can't even remember that damn acronym anymore) by scribbling "Issue" or "Holding 1" or "Lookee, yet another 4-factor balancing test" in the margin. The tools who write those "how to succeed in law school" books are...tools. <br /><br /><b>2. You do need to pay attention in class. Maybe.</b> Wireless = huge distraction. Try to avoid getting sucked into instant-messaging and reading blogs and whatnot during class. Especially if you learn well from listening, paying attention in class can save you a lot of time and confusion later. And frankly, half-distracted web surfing is not good recreation. Work when you're working, play when you're playing. Multitasking is bullshit. <br /><br /><b>3. Experiment with your study techniques and pay attention to what works for you. </b>Half of the game of 1L is learning what you need to do to learn this crap. If you can use your first set of finals to do that, you'll be in great shape. Try different things. Buy different study guides. Learn what works for you. Also, understand <a href="http://superannuated1l.blogspot.com/2005/12/why-do-commercial-study-guides.html">the purpose and limits of commerical study guides.</a> Basically, if you don't use study guides, you'll probably have difficulty extracting the doctrine from the cases you read. (Or difficulty managing and internalizing the vast amount of it.) But if you rely entirely on study guides, your reasoning will lack suppleness and beauty. Yes, they grade on this. <br /><br /><b>4. "When the student is ready, the teacher will appear." </b>Some dumbass entitled hippie types think this means that when you're ready, the Universe will bring you a really fantastic teacher. No. What it means is: if you want to learn, you can learn from anything. As I recall, this proverb arises in Buddhism in association with some story about a frustrated enlightenment-seeker who's been trying this guru and trying that guru and no guru is perfect enough, whine whine whine. Eventually the guy despairs and just sits on a rock and meditates. After several years of this, a crazy abusive homeless person (allegedly a mendicant monk) comes along and hits the guy on the head with a shoe, at which point the guy suddenly achieves enlightenment.* Law school pedagogy is a lot like this. <br /> <br /><b>5. An outline should not be 65 pages long. Nor do you need to start it before late November.</b> For me, an outline needs to be a boiled-down, scannable version of the course. If your exams are open book, it's a waste of time to flip through some massive, wordy outline. If your exams are closed book, you will never fully internalize a massive, wordy outline. The LONG version of my Contracts outline was 14 pages (it included references to the UCC and Restatement). The short version was 5. My Torts outline was 32 pages, with a big font and lots of white space. Also, it's a waste of time to start your outlines earlier than late November. You don't know what you know, you don't know what you don't know, and you definitely don't know what's important. You'll just spew out a bunch of crap that's useless later. <br /><br /><b>6. Buy Chemerinsky's treatise for Con Law. </b>It's a model of clarity, fairly well-indexed, and actually makes the subject more meaningful, rather than sucking the meaning out of it like many study guides do. <br /><br /><b>7. Stress is like a computer virus in your brain.</b> Stress consumes processor speed. It's like you've got some loop running in the background, chewing up RAM. I have been amazed at how much easier and more pleasant it is to get things done when I don’t stress about them. Trust me. I've lived this from both sides. In high school I was an overachieving valedictorian stress monkey who lived on No-Doz and slept 4 hours a night. Not stressing out is like having superpowers. It's like having some kind of hyperdrive at your fingertips. Really. Manage your stress. (Which brings us to the next topic...)<br /> <br /><b>8. Stress is physical. Stress is biochemical. Respect the organism. </b>For me, managing stress is largely about the physical, biochemical cycle. Lack of exercise, crappy diet, and lack of sleep = stress. If you have an exercise routine, keep it up, even during finals. If you don’t have an exercise routine, get one. I suggest yoga. <br /><br /><b>9. Embrace confusion. It's OK to be a complete fucking idiot. (And a waste of energy to pretend you're not.)</b> I feel like this was one part of 1L that was easy for me, because in my prior job I basically had to learn a new client’s business every 4 to 6 weeks, so I had already learned to be pretty comfortable with my own unavoidable idiocy. The worst thing you can do when you feel stupid and confused is get stressed out about it—it saps your energy and makes your thinking less flexible. <br /> <br /><b>10. Law students are great. Be kind to each other. </b>OK, that’s not entirely true. Some law students are complete fucking tools, and you must learn to avoid them and their bizarro ego games and assorted other bullshit. But honestly, 90% of the people you will meet are fantastic, humane, fascinating people. Also, try to avoid obsessively talking smack about the freaks in your class. It's uncompassionate, and you'll feel shitty about it later. <br /><br /><b>11. Form a study group with people you like. </b>Yeah yeah, sure, you don’t want to form a study group with idiots, but revisit #9 above: it’s unavoidable. You are all idiots. So focus on grouping up with likeable folks. What I found most important about my study group was that the people were simpatico (in my case, basically a bunch of old farts), we were persistent, and we communicated well. Also, don’t be afraid to change the study group lineup as the year progresses. In my experience, 3 is the minimum functional size for a study group, 6 or 7 might be workable if you get along well, and 8 is probably too big. What should you do in your study group? Whatever you want to. Mine made shared outlines and did a lot of practice tests. <br /><br /><b>12. Cultivate at least 1 or 2 friends you can be totally, freakishly honest with. </b> The stupidest thing people do in law school is keep their problems to themselves as if everyone else isn’t going through the same fucking thing. <br /><br /><b>13. If you have <a href="http://superannuated1l.blogspot.com/2006/07/why-i-didnt-blog-for-about-gazillion.html">buttons</a>, law school will <a href="http://superannuated1l.blogspot.com/2006/03/i-am-annoying-shit-out-of-myself.html">push them</a>. </b>Although law school is basically just school, you are learning a bunch of difficult new things, you are pressed for time, it is stressful, it is competitive, and the instructional style is not…how shall we say…always particularly compassionate. This means that your shit will come up. Depression? Anxiety? Perfectionism? Fear of failure? Fear of success? Pathological self-deprecation? Overweening egotism as a transparent compensation for feeling like shit? Flashbacks to your emotionally abusive family of origin? Yes, all of this stuff was on parade this year among me and my friends. (Well, not so much the overweening egotism thing, but I chose my friends carefully.) Stuff you thought you got over a long time ago may suddenly float up out of your memory and hurt like hell. If this happens to you, rest assured that it’s normal. But don’t go through it alone. <br /><br /><b>14. Limit your study time. </b>There is a point of diminishing returns. Figure out where it is for you. For me, it’s between 40 and 48 hours/week. More than that and I’m learning less the more I work. I basically worked 8 hours each weekday, one solid day on the weekend, and that’s it. I didn’t work at night. I didn’t work all weekend. Also, do something non-law every day, even if it’s just exercising, reading a book, or watching TV. This all goes out the window about two weeks before finals, but before them, maintain some balance. <br /><br /><b>15. Do something fun over Thanksgiving. </b>Maybe you'll be feeling stressed and have some kind of desperate overachiever plan to hole up in the library, but don't do that. Cook dinner with friends and drink way too much wine. Go see stupid movies. Go to an island somewhere. Take a fucking break. A guy in my class borrowed a car, took a week off, and drove to Mexico three weeks before finals one term. Our professors were mystified, but he's on Moot Court Honor Board and a journal now. <br /><br /><b>16. Be irreverent. </b>OK, these last few pieces of advice are about power. There is, in law school and I suspect in the legal profession as a whole, a disappointing tendency to adopt a stick-up-the-ass attitude and severely punish minor transgressions and any manifestation of joie de vivre. Resist this. As far as I can tell, that crap primarily works to maintain power hierarchies by making you afraid to rock the boat. (And by depriving you of your own perspective, your own judgment, and your own sources of joy.) Don't succumb. Law deserves no reverence. Law is just a human creation. It was made up by guys (mostly guys) no smarter than you or I. (Except maybe Karl Llewellyn, who was a genius and a hottie to boot.) <br /><br /><b>17. (I can't believe I'm saying this, but...) Be entitled.</b> Again, it's about power. Maybe it's different at very highly ranked schools, but at my tops-in-the-region Tier 1, you're sometimes encouraged to sell yourself short. In particular, you get a lot of "realistic" advice about the job market that primarily makes you feel like you should be pathetically grateful to get a job, any job, never mind the hours, never mind the working conditions, never mind whether it's meaningful work. This is bullshit. Would it be good to enter the legal job market not knowing what's what? No. But it's also a terrible mistake to downgrade your expectations before you understand what your real options are. And it's also important not to take the screwed up shit as a given. I honestly believe it will be up to our generation of lawyers to change the legal workplace, because the current model is <a href = "http://www.collegejournal.com/salarydata/law/20060105-jones.html">unsustainable</a>. We won't be able to do that if we're convinced it's a privilege to be chewed up and spat out. It's not. <br /><br /><b>18. Don't trust people who try to scare you.</b> There's usually something in it for them. They're trying to freak you out or lower your expectations or sell you something or make themselves feel better. Even if your school has moved beyond the old-school Socratic method, you will likely have at least one prof who takes great joy in fucked up chain-yankery. Ignore him. Likewise for any administrators, mentors, and peers who do the same.<br /><br /><b>19. It's not that hard. </b>It's just school.<br /><br />BONUS!<br /><br /><b>20. <i><a href = "http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0890897603/sr=8-1/qid=1156476255/ref=pd_bbs_1/104-4273904-7739904?ie=UTF8">Getting to Maybe</a></i> is worth reading.</b> But not before the 5th or 6th week of the term.<br /><br /><br />* I could be remembering the Buddhist fable wrong. Do you think?Unknownnoreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-14740172.post-1156123430416532392006-08-20T18:21:00.000-07:002006-09-11T17:21:59.610-07:00Well-behaved salmon burgersHere’s my conundrum: the salmon from Costco is about half the price it is at the PCC or Metropolitan Market, but the quality isn’t as good. It acts like it’s been frozen, or if not "frozen" by whatever technical criteria the FDA uses to define “frozen,” at least “kept at a very low temperature for long enough to rupture some of the cell walls and cause water to leak unappealingly between the flakes of fish flesh when cooked.” <br /><br />Hence, the salmon burger.<br /><br />My first round of salmon burgers was a total failure because I thought you needed eggs and bread crumbs to bind the salmon together. Au contraire. Those burgers were mushy and fell apart on the grill. What you need is this:<br /> <br /><b>For 12 salmon burgers:</b><br />INGREDIENTS<br /><ul><li>3 pounds “fresh” salmon filets<br /><li>¼ to ½ cup fresh shallots<br /><li>zest of ½ to 1 lemon, grated<br /><li>1 to 1¼ t salt<br /><li>1T brown sugar (or less)<br /><li>3T mayonnaise<br /><li>whatever spices you want: 1t cayenne, a bunch of paprika, some thyme, some rosemary—one or all<br /><li>Food processor<br /><li>Big bowl </ul><br />To prepare:<br /><ul><li>Peel the shallot, chuck it in the food processor, and pulse until finely diced<br /><li>Take the salmon off the skin, cut into 2-3” chunks, and put half in food processor with the shallot and pulse until ground, probably about 15 seconds total. <br /><li>Put ground salmon/shallot mixture in big bowl, then grind the other half of the salmon in the food processor. Then put that in the bowl too <br /><li>Add lemon rind, brown sugar, mayonnaise, and spices to the ground salmon. Stir until evenly mixed. </ul><br />Testing the flavor: <br /><ul><li>I suggest you under-spice the mixture, cook one burger, then correct the spices in the rest of the mixture. </ul><br />To form the burgers: <br /><ul><li>Oil your hands with olive oil and form patties. Make sure each patty is well coated with oil.<br /><li>Stack in a Tupperware in the fridge or freeze individually, then stack together after frozen. </ul><br />To grill:<br /><ul><li>Put about ½ t olive oil on one side of the patty, put that side down on the grill, grill 5-7 minutes at medium heat, coat the uncooked side with olive oil, flip, and grill 3-5 minutes on uncooked side. </ul><br />On the grill, these behave pretty much exactly like hamburgers--they don't stick, they don't fall apart, and they tend to draw up a bit.<br /><br />If you freeze the burgers, you can grill them without defrosting. I do 10 min per side with my gas grill on "low." <br /><br />This recipe would probably work well with frozen salmon, too.Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-14740172.post-1155363925184090162006-08-11T22:51:00.000-07:002006-08-11T23:26:57.200-07:00My anal-retentive Kung Fu is powerful.OK, I wasn't going to write about this, but my geekiness has overwhelmed me. <br /><br />Some background: I was an English major in college, and went to grad school in English, and taught freshman writing for a gazillion years, but it wasn't until I took a tech editing job in 2000 that I started doing things like catching typos and usage errors in the New Yorker and the New York Times. I found this...strangely exhiliarating. <br /><br />Anyway, I assumed that it would take me several years to come up to anal-retentive editing speed in law, but earlier this summer, I was shocked to find a pretty critical punctuation error in The Bluebook (18th Ed.). The error is this: the correct abbreviated citation for the Federal Supplement (where Federal District Court opinions are published) is "F. Supp." or "F. Supp. 2d". However, The Bluebook, on page 195, in T1, the easy reference table, gives "F. Supp 2d" as the correct citation. THERE'S SUPPOSED TO BE A PERIOD AFTER "Supp"!!<br /><br />(For those of you who aren't law geeks, this is like finding a they're/their error in the Chicago Manual of Style. The only reason The Bluebook even exists is to tell you the correct fucking citation format, preferably in the easy-reference tables at the back of the book.) <br /><br />Anyway, I had a similar moment this week when I found a substantive error in West's U.S.C.A. (United States Code, Annotated). One of the case summaries had an extra "not" in it, making the summary say the opposite of what the case law says. Thanks to my current obscene level of intimacy with the case law on OSHA whistleblowing provisions, I actually noticed this. And sent an email to the West editors. It's fascinating (but not surprising) that the vast editorial enterprises of West and Lexis Nexis make mistakes like this. <br /><br />As a recovering perfectionist, I find this kind of thing comforting. It's not personal. There's a certain level of error that's inevitable in the system, and you're only as good as your process. <br /><br />I'll probably have something more to say about this after I read that New Yorker article about Wikipedia.Unknownnoreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-14740172.post-1155361007218812822006-08-11T22:22:00.000-07:002006-08-12T00:54:44.110-07:00Yes, my fig sorbet does kick ass.The figs are ripe! The figs are ripe! <br /><br />After months of waiting and about a week of my elderly Greek neighbor Poppy rattling her jury-rigged soda can contraption from 5:30 am to 9:00 pm to keep the squirrels away, the figs are suddenly ripe!<br /><br />I'm always at a bit of a loss for what to do with these figs. I think they're green turkey figs. They're not all that sweet, and while I love their texture, I don't really like them plain. Last year I made a fig cake, which was good, but not outstanding. However, I had a feeling that the ice cream maker would solve all my fig problems, so when I first bought it, I went on an epic Internet search for fig ice cream and sorbet recipes. (Those of you who know my obsessive research skills understand exactly what this means.) <br /><br />Tonight, fig sorbet<br /><br />INGREDIENTS<br />About 6-10 large green turkey figs<br />Simple syrup*<br />2 small limes<br />1/4 c or so pink wine**<br />1/16 - 1/8 t balsamic vinegar<br /><br />METHOD<br />Peel the figs, put half of them in the blender, mash the other half in a big bowl. (The point of this is to keep enough whole fig seeds to give that crunchy fig texture, but have enough smooth puree to make the sorbet hang together.) <br />Add the fig puree to the bowl of mashed figs.<br />Add balsamic vinegar and the juice of the limes. Taste.<br />Add simple syrup until the mixture tastes just a little too sweet.<br />Throw in a few splashes of pink wine. Taste. Add more simple syrup if needed.<br /><br />Freeze in ice cream maker for 20 minutes. Taste. Add more simple syrup, pink wine, or balsamic vinegar if needed. Freeze 5 more minutes.<br /><br />*SIMPLE SYRUP<br />It's simple. It's sugar. It's syrup. For sorbet, use a 1.5:1 ratio of sugar to water. Heat until the sugar dissolves, pour into a jar or something, use. <br /><br />**PINK WINE<br />Those of you who know me, I'm going to have my First Annual Rosé Wine Tasting Party sometime between late August and mid-September. There will be drinking of pink wine and stumbling around my tiny yard, and it will be awesome.Unknownnoreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-14740172.post-1155360102629392222006-08-11T22:10:00.000-07:002006-08-11T22:21:42.646-07:00Rock on, my badass sister.We have now reached the time of year where on Oh, Please we blog about spiders.<br /><br />This year, there is a big spider that lives on my gas grill. She spins her web between the leg of the grill and the little wooden countertop area on the side. She doesn't hang out in her web--she lurks in the corner, tucked behind the tubular steel of the grill leg. <br /><br />Last weekend, S and C came over both days to help me prep and paint my house. (Yes, this is a carryover project from last summer.) On Saturday, I grilled a big salmon filet, and part of it fell onto the lava rocks, where it has been attracting lots of yellowjackets, three of whom Ms. Badass Spider has now trapped, killed, and wrapped up for future consumption. <br /><br />I don't know what kind of spider this Ms. Badass is. The big yellow yard spiders generally hang out in the middle of their webs, rather than lurking behind a support, so I don't think she's one of them. She also seems more brown/black than gold/brown. But she does spin a very symmetrical web. <br /><br />In other spider news, this morning I disturbed one of the crazy Giant House Spiders (see last year's August archives) amongst the clothes pile on the floor of my bedroom.Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-14740172.post-1154327508058566832006-07-30T23:09:00.000-07:002006-07-30T23:31:48.073-07:00Cult of the Mole PeopleSo,* despite my less-than-stellar spring quarter, I made <a href ="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Law_review">Law Review</a> and decided to accept the invitation, largely because it opens doors with employers, and I feel like being kind of an odd-duck second-career person, I need that. Also, I'm an anal-retentive freak and enjoy editing.<br /><br />Orientation was Saturday, and I'm concerned I may have joined a cult. I'm blocking some of it out right now, but what I do remember is that every weekday, there is free breakfast and lunch available in the Law Review office. Because, you know, why would you want to leave campus or go hang out with your other friends or have some fucking balance in your life when instead you could spend all of your time in the windowless Law Review office? <br /><br />Did I mention it's windowless? It's windowless. <br /><br />Fuck.<br /><br /><br />*What percentage of my posts begin with "So"? **<br />**What percentage contain a footnote?Unknownnoreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-14740172.post-1154326088620088012006-07-30T22:59:00.000-07:002006-07-30T23:08:08.633-07:00The Buggles? The motherfucking Buggles??So, after being kind of rough and draining, my week took a radical turn in the same direction Friday when a friend emailed me to let me know that the appendicitis she had a while ago was actually the result of a rare kind of tumor, and now there's some concern that tumor cells may have gotten out of the appendix and into the abdominal cavity where they can run amok. There are more specialists yet to be seen, and there are procedures to deal with this, but none of the options are pleasant.<br /><br />Super.<br /><br />This is what I hate about working downtown, because what happens next is I wander somewhat shockily down to my building's Starbucks, where "Video Killed the Radio Star" is on the muzak, and although that song has never before had for me any emotional valence at all, it completely sets me off, and I find myself blinking back tears while ordering a mocha, then pacing around the courtyard of this brutalist brown concrete office building wishing I had someplace inconspicuous to lose my shit.Unknownnoreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-14740172.post-1153807308363480612006-07-24T22:59:00.000-07:002006-07-24T23:01:48.380-07:00Why I didn’t blog for about a gazillion yearsWhen I went out for beers with M and his special friend S and her friend L, L asked me why I quit blogging this spring. My answer was something like, “I was feeling kind of weird and screwed up in ways I didn’t particularly want to share with strangers on the internet.” <br /><br />(Note: I’m drafting this in Microsoft Word, which gives me the squiggly green line unless I capitalize Internet. Guys, the internet is not our Lord. We do not have to capitalize It. Anyway.) (No wait. Weirdly, MS Word also recognizes “gazillion” as a word, but not “blogging.” Maybe I just need to update?) <br /><br />OK—where was I? <br /><br />Oh yeah, weird and screwed up, don’t want to share with the internet…until now. <br /><br />Basically, what happened is, I got my fall/winter grades back, and they were really good, and that made me feel like crap. <br /><br />No, that doesn’t really follow. Yeah, it seems like I’m bitching about my good fortune. But here’s how it works, as best as my therapist and I can figure out. Way back in the mists of childhood, I made an overachiever-style devil’s bargain with my screwed up family, something along the lines of “I’ll be perfect and you’ll let me exist,” or maybe “I’ll be perfect and you’ll stop screaming.” <br /><br />During college, I weaseled my way free of this bargain by underachieving, yet somehow managing to exist anyway. Aha! There’s a loophole! Well, not so much, because then the equation became something like: In order to have a self separate from the screwed up demands of my screwed up family, I must underachieve. Once you *have* to underachieve, it’s not fun anymore, and in my case became its own species of neurotic avoidance. <br /><br />Getting my good grades back kind of activated the whole weird reaction machine: if I do well, maybe what it means is my existence is contingent on doing well. The whole thing was very PTSD-like—all of those horrible, anxious, terrified, socially isolated, brain-in-a-jar feelings from childhood and high school came flooding back. I felt like I didn’t own my own capabilities, like they were something that had been foisted on me, or something that was only useful as a sacrifice to someone else. I felt like crap.<br /><br />This whole dynamic is of course only intensified by law school’s screwed up tendency to act like grades are who you are, grades measure and limit you, grades are real. <br /><br />So anyway, it took me about five weeks to figure this shit out and start feeling better. Five weeks during which I had a very hard time working, thus necessitating a very ugly end of the quarter. But I did learn this: If you haven’t done more than four or five days of the reading for Con Law, Chemerinsky’s mini-treatise is a very good idea.Unknownnoreply@blogger.com2