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4 . 3 0 . 0 8 One Final done, 3 more to go. The first one always is the hardest one to get through in terms of the prep, review, and all the motions. As always, I'm not quite sure how I did. The good news is that going through it quickly I was able to recognize everything and immediately tie the questions to material that we had covered over the semester. Usually that means that I did OK. As I tell Hana, I'm confident that I passed. . . but passing could mean an A, B, or a C. If grades were any function of how much one learned from a course, then this should be my highest grade, it definitely opened up some perspectives and caused some re-evaluating of political philosophies for sure. Of course in law school your grade is solely determined on your ability to articulate your knowledge in clear, concise legal arguments, in proper IRAC form in a single exam at the end of the semester (or year). There's no credit for participation or recognition for the process by which you learn the law. I'm wondering if the X-factor on this first exam was that this was a class I took during the day division - I would think this would stack things against me as the lone evening student competing with classmate who well, have ample time to prepare, but a good chunk of these day students happen to be graduating this semester. Either way, what's done is done, its on to the next one. Back to camping out in coffee shops and subway. Looking forward to getting this stuff done. In the past I've noted times when I'm sitting around, doing something usually very ordinary, but then I have a sudden realization that I've dreamt about the exact moment down to the very minor detail. In the past I've called it de ja vu, but maybe I should call it more like a moment of clarity or realization, an epiphany maybe. It almost always is some random and meaningless moment, like looking out a window of a car and noticing the detailed reflection of my shirt print, or sneezing on my way to work. But when it happens I feel a sense of calm, sort of a reassurance that I'm on the right track in life, that everything up until that point in my life has been for a reason. Trying to rationalize it psychologically, I have wondered if its a self-talking mechanism in times of my life when there is some self-doubt, or questioning of life in general. However I've noticed that this has happened in relatively frequency in both good and bad times in the past. The only other reasoning I can think of is that I've noticed the frequency of these feelings increases right before some kind of an world event or personal crossroads in life comes up. The creepy thing is that like the feeling, I don't even see it coming until after it happens. So if I'm some kind of a clairvoyant, my forward viewing devise is way out of focus. So the reason why I mention all of this now is that it happened a few weeks ago, for the first time I think in at least a couple of years, on my work trip down in the hotel down in Orlando. I was up late doing research for one of my classes and kind of thinking how out of synch it is trying to study away from home. Then the feeling hit me, down to the smallest detail, the shape of the room, the furniture, this funky laptop tray that came with the hotel, the fact that my extension chord barely reached the outlet, the coverage on the news about the pope visiting America. 4 . 2 5 . 0 8 For what its worth, I thought I'd make it a point to make more regular posts at least for my crazy finals prep week(s) It sort of allows a mental break from reading case law. I've been fortunate enough to have a few days advanced leave from work due to my trip going over the weekend. I usually plan to take some leave around this time of year months in advance, but it seems like more often than any extra time to prepare is welcomed. Occasionally I browse past the archives of this journal to see what I was thinking, 6 months ago, one year ago, 4 years ago, etc. It's pretty amazing how much I was following the primaries back in 2004, and how little I've written about them this year. It's not that I haven't been following them any less, more or less its because I think I'm a bit wiser or at least more cynical maybe about the entire process in general. I've already been following a candidate, for those who know me well enough, and have been watching the debates should know exactly who that person is. Back in 2004 I was following Howard Dean's run at the Democratic nomination and was pretty disappointed when and especially how he fell behind the eventual nominee John Kerry. The fall of Dean really spoke to me about the power of the media to phrase and showcase a candidate's strengths and flaws. I remember hearing the "Dean Scream" and not thinking much of it until it was blasted all over the TV as indicative of his un-electability. This time around the candidate that I'm supporting speaks to a lot of beliefs and opinions that I've held ever since I was very young, but couldn't quite identify them fully, mostly due to the black/white blue-state/red-state, good/evil mentality that live in today. I'd say that since 2004 I've had kind of a gradual revelation of sorts driven by working in the real world, some self reflection/observation and just keeping an eye on the events around the world. I also think my decision to study the law has a big thing to do with it as well. Some of the things that I've realized especially in this past year are illustrative to the conversations and occasional differences in philosophy I may have had with a certain student organization I was invested in college, late night debates with my fellow La Follette classmates, and more recently, employee groups at work. Even as far back as high school and grade school I think some of these beliefs were at work and I didn't even know it. Short disclaimer, for what its worth, I'm not endorsing a vote for any candidate for president, as far as I'm concerned you all can and should vote for however you feel is best person for the job. I do urge that you take the time to research the candidates out and make an educated choice, as hard as it is to see through the spin and sound bites and propaganda that is what we now call the main stream media, just exercise some of that free thinking ability that we all have as human beings. With the uncertainty that the country is facing in these upcoming 4-8 years, I think this last primary push and convention season leading up to November will be a very important one. Looking back to my political compass and mindset from the last presidential election a couple things haven't changed at all. I'm still looking for a truly anti-war candidate, pro-civil liberties, and pro-fiscal responsibility and pro-social responsibility. What has changed since 2004 is my opinion on the way to achieve populist goals, and to what extent the "noise" in the political discussion has confused us to which party or which ideology promotes the values that I believe in. Sometimes its better to keep a healthy level of skepticism whenever ideas are reduced to sound bites and one-liners. The party who speaks about limited government in actuality becomes the big government spenders, the party of civil liberties becomes the party of pro-war, and domestic spying. 4 . 2 4 . 0 8 Late April, and the finals crunch is here again. Been MIA from this journal for almost two months total now this year, its been hard to keep up with the posts with everything going on. Aside from getting flooded this past weekend, I also got to do some work travel, headed up to Philadelphia Orlando for a few days. Had a chance to have dinner with my cousin and her husband at a place called Monk's in downtown Philly, they had a variety of belgian beers pretty tasty burgers and a bunch of steamed mussel pots. Have to say that I was pretty impressed with how vibrant the downtown area was even on a weeknight, it kind of seemed like a scene in between NY and DC. Being that this is the first time I travelled for work in almost 3 years, it was kind of a change of pace, the immediate challenge was figuring out how to keep up with my readings for class and even debating whether to ride the train back to DC for a few classes. As it turned out I only missed one class since the other two were cancelled due to the Pope visiting the school. I ended up doing some online research and reading law review articles from my hotel room. I think there's truth to familiar surroundings as being conducive to studying, maybe it's just my nature to need some clutter on my desk otherwise I feel out of place. I had loaded electronic versions of a lot of my research articles on my laptop, but it was hard to read them on a tiny laptop screen. I also noticed that despite being someone that is relatively wired, I definitely preferred reading articles in hard copy. The trip to Orlando was for a conference, not too bad except it was held on a Saturday, so that means that I was essentially working through the weekend. The plane down was filled with kids going to Epcot Center and Disney World. I had gone straight to the airport from a meeting, so I was still dressed in business attire, something I've never done before, that is fly dressed up. Traveling down south you can definitely see the diversity of the country, even along the eastern seaboard. Although I didn't really see much else from the airport, the hotel and the conference, you get a sense and feel for the place. The humidity and landscape actually reminded me of home. When I was on break from the conference I walked around the mall that was adjacent to the hotel. During lunch I got a good cuban plate at the food court, it was a no brainer to go there instead of the McDonalds, Panda Express and all the other standard food court fare. Happened to check out a surf shop that had a lot of brands from Hawaii, the kind that I used to check out a lot growing up. After a few minutes walking around I happened to glance at my reflection in one of the mirrors of myself wearing a coat and tie with the surfboards and racks of boardshorts behind me. 4 . 2 2 . 0 8 Feel like I've been running on empty getting back from my work trip. Landed at Dulles at about noon Sunday, to save some money I rode the shuttle and train back home, dropped my stuff off and headed out to catch up on some studying that I couldn't finish while on travel. Sitting at potbelly's I noticed that it was pouring outside and the street was turning into a river pretty quickly. After about an hour of this I thought better to go home and check on the apartment - too late, half of the main room had flooded. Spent the rest of the afternoon and evening clearing out the water, hanging up the rugs, and throwing out stuff. Luckily way back I had the foresight to try and all electrical outlets raised and most stuff on shelfs. The only real loses were a bunch of rugs from linens and things and IKEA, no big deal. In retrospect it made for an impromptu spring cleaning. The downside is that I lost an afternoon and evening to studying, and of course its back to work tomorrow. Back to the grindstone. |