Christmas came 4 days late this year....

And on that day, the Gamecocks won our bowl game and Clemson lost theirs. What a marvelous day in our household and Gamecock nation. There is a certain feeling of pride the next day when you are out and you see all the alumni or fans wearing their Gamecock gear and chatting them up about the game. Plus, Clemson also losing to a bad SEC team made this all the more sweet.

Clemson lost before our game began, and my girlfriend, knowing how foul I become when USC loses its games, asked me if Clemson lost and we lost, if it would make it okay? It doesn't, but it certainly helps. So, when they lose and we win it is doubly sweet. Also, maybe our rivalry is starting to get some more national attention. The announcers of our bowl game got a hint of it. They were like, "This morning there were a lot of cheers erupting in the lobby of our hotel as if the USC game had just started and we couldn't figure out why it was so loud. Then we got down to the hotel bar and we saw that Clemson had just lost. Man, there is some kind of hatred between South Carolina and Clemson." Damn right. We also got a shoutout in the Charlotte Observer in the list of top 10 sporting events in the Carolinas (ranked even higher than the Duke/Chapel Hill basketball rivalry). Now that we've got Spurrier, I'm predicting a new winning streak for the Garnet and Black.

Home Is F'n Sweet

I haven't been doing much of anything these past few days and it has been absolutely fantastic. Christmas came and went and since then, I have pretty much been sitting on my (increasingly) fatter ass and watching TV and playing Tiger Woods golf and poker. I just want to be able to do absolutely nothing for the next few days. The USC bowl game is coming up on the 29th and that is pretty much the higlight of the next few days.

B (@ UVA) has been telling me that he already has grade anticipation, which isn't really too surprising. Everywhere you turn it seems like someone is mentioning grades. Even in Charlotte, I am not surrounded by anyone who goes to law school but my parents don't even help. These will be fairly typical conversations.

Me: "Yeah, we don't even find out about our grades til February.
Dad: "Really? February? After all that time you put in studying you don't find out til February?!?"
Me: "Yup."
Dad: "Wow, that really sucks."
Me: "Thanks for reminding me."

Me: "Interviews for our 2L summer job happen before the start of our second year."
Dad: "So, you won't even have any of your 2L grades yet right? So, pretty much everything rides on your 1L grades... wow."
Me: "Yeah, no pressure though, right?"

At the same time, I've been able to keep the grades off my mind. Exams are over, me thinking about them certainly isn't going to change anything, so why would I waste my time. That's why I was surprised when B said a friend of his had IMed him asking, "Have you heard anything about grades yet?" Are you serious? Hit up the alchohol a little harder and just forget about it buddy. It's winter break and law students everywhere should be enjoying their time off. Hope everyone's holidays are going well.

This old dog learned a new trick

For the incoming 1Ls next year:

When you're tired and need a quick pick me up (and don't feel like doing an eight ball like some of your classmates) quickly down two cups of coffee (for the dumb ones entering the class, it may be smart to wait for the coffee to cool) and then take a 20-30 minute nap. You will wake up feel super refreshed and ready to take on the world.

Now it really is the FINAL countdown

So, less than 8 hours away from my final final now and today has started off with a bang. Yup, it's 6:15 am and since I've already cooked and eaten breakfast that puts my wake-up time around 5:45 am. I had some awful dreams last night that ended with me waking up feeling kind of anxious and nervous. First, I had an odd dream where I went to my exam and sat down to take it and it was a multiple choice question. So, I knock that out in like 45 minutes but since we have four hours for the exam I really feel like I shouldn't leave so I wait for other people to start finishing. After going up to turn into that part of the exam, then we are given 6 long essay questions that we're allowed to do at home but for some reason I take it into my head that, even though this test was supposed to end at 1:30 technically we "had four hours" for the exam so I bring back the essay questions and decide I'll just take a nap for a bit instead. Of course, I end up sleeping through the 1:30 deadline and end up arguing with the school about how I didn't use my four hours because I was sleeping. I think finals just need to end.

Pop quiz hot-shot: Can I learn all of contracts law in 2 days?

I guess we're going to have to find out. I felt like I didn't know shit about contracts (it was a class that I was kind of excited about at the beginning of the semester, but then became disinterested in) but now that I have been going through some commercial outlines and my notes/outline, I feel like a lot of it is coming back to me. If I can just keep my nose to the grindstone (or whatever it is you're supposed to keep your nose to), I feel like I have a shot at not screwing the pooch on this one.

On a related note, I need to stop thinking about my torts exam because I keep realizing things that I screwed up. I'm pretty sure I completely messed up a damages question and have only been comforted by the fact that it was only 1/3rd of a 40% question, so what is that, like 13%? That's not too bad, and surely I must have said something in there to get some points. But I'm pretty sure I screwed it bad... so, onward and upward we go.

For some odd reason, I woke up at 5:30 this morning unassisted by an alarm (which, granted, was set for 6:00 but I didn't see the need for those extra 30 minutes of sleep). Unfortunately, I agreed to run stairs with my workout buddy which kicked my ass. Walking back to my apartment I felt lightheaded, nauseous, and like I was going to vomit. So, instead of getting an early start to the day I literally passed out in my bed for about an hour, until some needy girl called and woke me up (no, I'm not talking about my girlfriend). I get a call from an 803 number that I don't recognize and I decide to answer it (which is risky, because the last time I did that it turned out to be an crazy ex's number that I had deleted from my phone and then forgotten it was her number... she was not happy, but then again, she's psycho). It turns out to be some little girl with cancer asking for blood donations. I would have been more sympathetic, but she woke me up from a nap so it looks like it up to someone else to save her life. Not it!

Call me Mr. Planters because I was just as-salted.

Yeah, torts is officially over which means that I'm 2/3rds of the way done with my first semester of law school. And torts kicked my ass for sure... after putting what I thought to be a respectable performance on civil procedure I was welcomed to the world of closed-book exams and strict and short word limits. I don't even want to think about that exam right now.

I have, however, figured out what the anticipation of grades for 1L year is like: it's just how I feel at any national tournament before they handed out speaker awards for debate. I know that one is within my grasp, but everything kind of has to fall into place (right judges, good rounds, etc). So, I always sat kind of anxiously waiting and hoping that this time I would get a speaker award, and even if only the top spot was left I had some hope that it would be me, but when it wasn't, I wasn't really disappointed (just relieved it was over). That is pretty much exactly how I feel now... I feel like good grades ARE a possibility, but everything would have to work out just right... and I have a feeling that, just like speaker awards, it's not gonna happen. I don't think I bombed or anything, but if you're debating at NPTE or taking exams at NYU, you really aren't up against a lot of scrubs and I have a feeling I might be falling into the healthy middle of this group. Off to study for contracts so hopefully I can finish the first semester feeling like I made some exam my bitch, instead of the other way around.

It's the Final Countdown!

My first exam is in roughly 12 hours now and I'm kind of filled with a giddy excitement. How sick is that? It's almost like a Christmas Eve of sorts, wondering what is left underneath the Exam SofTest tree. I hope I don't get coal (although that would probably be more appropriate for my study habits this year).

I think I've picked up a bad habit from my old debate partner. Prior to tournaments, he would spend time thinking of clever/funny ways to talk shit against teams that we might be debating... and now I've spent too much time thinking of funny jokes to work into my CivPro exam. I was sharing them with a friend of mine....

Me: What do you think about this.... what if, I call Rule 14 the "artist formerly known as impleader?"
AH: I can tell you've been at this way too long
Me: Fuck you, that is funny!
AH: Although, I have to admit... on the last page of my torts final last year, I spent the last 10 minutes drawing a big picture of the Kool Aid Guy with a caption that read "Ohhhhhhhhhh Yeahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh!"
AH: It's really amazing what people will find funny in the middle of the chaos that is finals...

At least I'm not alone. I'd share the rest of my classic material, but I don't want any of you stealing my schtick! (Because I'm sure that is a legitimate concern....). Most of them are pretty damn corny (imagine that, jokes about civil procedure not being legitimately funny) but I figure if I can't make substantive arguments (or, at the very least, outcome determinative ones) I might as well make the professor crack up while he is turning through 112 nearly identical, equally boring exams. I'll get back to you in February and let you know how my strategy works out.

Some thoughts on law school

I'm taking a brief break from studying Civil Procedure so I thought , hmmm, what a better way to spend some time than post on my blog. This is a surefire way to break the curve.

1. Maybe it's just my personality but law school is NOT as stressful as everyone makes it out to be. Now, part of that might be the school that I'm at which is notorious for it's cooperative learning environment (though I have heard that one particular kid in my section has been hiding books in the library... fortunately I don't go to the library, mainly to stay away from neurotic peeps like him) and part of it is that I am not determined to get a clerkship nor do I want to make sure I'm hired by a high-profile firm up here. I want to go back to my hometown in the Southeast which is certainly not a high priority among most people here. And finally, a lot of it probably has to do with my personality in general. I tend not to get stressed out too easily over most things, and maybe 8 years of competitive debate have made it so that my threshold for stress is higher than most, so that helps.

2. However, that being said, I am studying more now than I ever have. I spend at least 1-2 hours a day doing practice exam problems, and generally another 3-4 hours on top of that either studying or bullshitting with my study group (which, translated = at least TALKING about the law). While I'm not running at WOT levels of productivity, it's still a lot of time to dedicate to studying, especially since even in undergrad studying for a final was rarely more than a one, MAYBE two day exercise in cramming and that seemed to work fine.

3. I really appreciate the hand-holding that goes on by the professors. This is the standard lecture we get: "Many of you are going to be very disappointed by your grades. Just to get in here, you have to be a very high-powered individual and many of you have probably never even gotten a B. But the fact of the matter is, 75-85% of you will get a B+ or less this year. That doesn't mean that you're bad at [insert 1L class here]. That's not it at all. In actuality, when you get out into the world you'll realize that, in fact, you're quite good at [insert 1L class here] compared to many of your peers. The difference is that, while you're here, you are competing against other very-talented students...." Thankfully, I've resigned myself to the fact that I will probably not be getting any As/A-s this year (though my goal is to make at least all B+s, and MAYBE an A-) so I won't be disappointed.

4. On a completely unrelated note, I have perfected the walk from the grocery store back to my apartment. It's key to make the right at the intersection of Bleeker/LaGuardia and head down Bleeker on the right-hand side. This way you can avoid the homeless guy who is always outside of CVS. Then, don't make your right until you get to Sullivan, this way you can bypass the guys outside the Comedy Club who are always trying to shove tickets down your throat and avoid the homeless Asian woman who sits outside that corner shop. Less traffic + less homeless hassling = hotttttt.