Your exam questions... answered

I'm so glad the registrar had time to come into our class this morning to answer our questions about our upcoming midterm. Here are the highlights:

Anyone whose cell phone rings during the exam will have points deducted. Anyone who brings food to the exam will have points deducted. Anyone who brings a watch that stores data will have points deducted. Anyone who so much as lifts a finger after time is called with have points deducted. Bathroom break? Sure, if you want points deducted. What if I forget my pencil? Deduction. What if I get stuck in traffic and come to the exam late? Major point deduction.

Halfway there

We're now about half way through the first semester of the first year of law school. We've reached the point where everyone is pretty much delirious from lack of sleep and class discussion has disintegrated because no one can form coherent thoughts.

Our Torts professor has decided to schedule extra classes twice a week, which means that our free afternoons are now taken up. That leaves a choice between skipping some of the reading or skipping sleep to do the reading. Really it's no choice. Either way, you'll have no idea what's going on in class. It's impossible to actually retain 200 pages of cases on 4 hours of sleep.

The good part at least is that everyone is in the same boat, so you get plenty of sympathy all around. One of my classmates suggested that if everyone would just agree to study a little less, we could all get more sleep. (The bell curve means that if everyone were to do a little worse, it would turn out the same in the end.) Of course, no one would agree to that because how can you be sure that others aren't taking advantage of the opportunity to get ahead.

Second rainy day

Today was the second rainy day in Pasadena since we moved here more than 2 months ago. These Californians are just spoiled with good weather. I am happy about the rain because it made it a bit cooler here and it seems to have driven our chain smoking neighbor indoors. We have a day long reprieve from his nasty second-hand. Our apartment almost smells better than a seedy bar-- almost.

I enjoyed my fabulous rainy day by studying at Pete's Coffee, my favorite Sunday hang out. Ah the many happy hours I've enjoyed there, just sitting back, drinking a latte and frantically preparing my course outlines. I am about 2 weeks behind on outlining for each class. Fortunately, in Crim and Civ. Pro, that's barely any information-- we go slow in those classes. Sadly, in property, we covered future estates and the Rule Against Perpetuities in the past 2 weeks. Coming up with a concise statement of all of those rules that I will be able to memorize (damn you closed-book exams! What the hell is wrong with my school) is going to take a pretty long time.

While at Pete's, I also got to enjoy the fabulous conversation skills of random old foreign dude. I'm just glad there was only one chair at my table or I have no doubt he would have sat right down and kept chatting. Here's a tip to lonely people who like to make new friends at coffee shops. Look for the person who doesn't have 6 giant textbooks and a laptop out on their table. Oh and for those who are curious, old foreign dude just loves the rain. He should move to Boston, or Seattle. You would think that if he loved rain so much, he'd want to get away from the desert at least.

As usual

As usual, I didn't get enough sleep last night, so here I am dragging myself through my third class of the day. I'm not even sure if I did the correct reading and I know that if I didn't, I will get called on. The property professor has an amazing ability to call on me when I don't know what's going on. (Which is actually pretty rare in this class because we are covering material that I had to learn for the real estate licensing exam, so it's pretty much review.)

We are about 2 weeks out from the cursed Torts midterm, so that has been causing quite a bit of stress. The whole idea of law school midterms is just horrible. Instead of spending time doing the reading for all 5 classes, we have to cram for one class. Evil. evil. evil.

Very bad things

Ugh. What an all around bleh day.

First, I was treated to a fun encounter on my way to school. A middle-aged man decided it would be a good idea to make vulgar comments about my butt as I was waiting for the train. When I gave him a dirty look, he said to me, "What's a matter? You don't like black people." Yes. That must be it.

Then, I had class, which was fine except that I'm really sick of people mumbling under their breath while other people are talking. Yes. You know more than the person who's speaking, but they're paying to be here too, so shut your mouth and let them learn. I don't like listening to wrong answers either, but I keep my mouth shut until I"m called on. Then I can never remember what I was going to say and wind up sounding like a moron, but that' s neither here nor there.

After class, I headed home to find that I had ruined dinner. Yes. I managed to ruin a slow cooker dinner. I set the crockpot on high by mistake and I came home to nasty burnt stew. Grr.

Then I checked my email and saw this: http://www.jcruel.com/catdogfur.asp Apparently, J. Crew has started selling fur again and is buying their fur from China, a country that is known to skin dogs and cats for fur. If you click on the link, don't watch the video if you are easily upset. Some of the little doggies are still wearing their collars as they are shipped off to be skinned.

Arming the stupid

Here is an interesting commentary I found about how the U.S. army has had to lower its standards to meet recruitment goals. Apparently, the army is now open to even total morons. Let's give those with almost no education and minimal IQ points access to all manner of high-tech weaponry. Sounds smart to me.

http://slate.msn.com/id/2127487/?nav=tap3

And now on to more important matters... should I subject myself to a one-hour presentation on tax law in order to obtain free Quiznos?

And just in case you were wondering...

Law school has completely lost its charm.

I have nightmares involving bizarre hypothetical situations.

Over-priced coffee beverages are my only joy.

My own cat now attacks me daily.

I am a hollow shell of a human being.

Thanks for asking.

So many irritations, so little time...

It seems like every irritating thing that can happen, does happen. (For example, hubby was improperly denied unemployment benefits, so we need to do an appeal, the credit card company misspelled my new last name on my replacement credit card, someone used my credit card number to sign up for match.com and I had to dispute it... little things that wind up taking up so much time.)

I spent hours today dealing with Verizon Wireless. In September, we bought hubby a phone and set up his Verizon service at the Verizon store here in Pasadena. The salesclerk told us that the cheapest phone they had was $140 minus a rebate for a final price of $99. We bought that phone and didn't give it a second thought. Then, yesterday I called Verizon to set up my phone and I was told that the phone we bought in September actually cost $50 after the rebate. The salesclerk added a $50 accessory package to our order without telling us. I called the store and was put on hold for 20 minutes, then told a manager would call me back. The person I spoke with apparently thinks that defrauding customers is no big deal. He didn't even seem concerned about my complaint until I threatened to contact the authorities. Of course, no one ever called me back. That means that tomorrow I get to go in the store and demand a refund. There had better be some serious butt-kissing too.

To add to the fun, the phone I ordered came by mail today. Unfortunately, I couldn't set it up because the customer service agent who sold it to me forgot to enter the new phone line into the system. I was transferred 3 times before someone told me that the correct department was closed for the night and I would need to call back tomorrow. So Verizon accidentally forgot to tell me that the phone accessory pack was $50 extra and then accidentally forgot to set up my phone line. But there's good news: They promise that they will never forget to bill me.