Cupcakes and Torts

I didn't realize that the Dean has Georgetown Cupcakes out in the atrium of our main building every day of the first week of class.  Had I known, I would not have eaten breakfast.

First Civil Procedure class today- I like the professor very much and, though I think Civil Procedure would naturally be my least favorite subject of the four I'm taking, she makes it fun.

There is exactly an hour break on Tuesdays and Thursdays between Civil Procedure and Torts, and I find that to be a maddeningly useless amount of time to do anything reasonable, so I've decided just to make myself very nice lunches on Tuesday and Thursday.  Today I had a bacon egg and cheese sandwich (with a little bit of mustard for tangyness and a bit of hotsauce for kick).  It takes two pans and a toaster, so that's INCREDIBLY intense for what I consider to be cooking.

Torts is probably going to be my favorite class (I don't know, though, I haven't had Legal Research and Writing yet...).  It's a smaller group of about thirty students and our professor makes me feel like I go to Hogwarts for some reason.  She's the first of my professors to employ the true Socratic method, but she's very nice about it and the only thing she can't stand is nervousness or refusal to participate.  Not a problem, since torts are really fun and interesting on their own.

After Torts a fellow classmate introduced me to the cupcake truck that drives near campus sometimes.  I had another cupcake.  It was even better than the one from Georgetown Cupcakes, which is really saying something.

Then gym (which I couldn't use yesterday due to possible hurricane damage) and homework.  I have a deal with myself that I will work hard (well, my version of working hard) up until 7PM every day and then I can do whatever I want.  I'm finished with homework for tomorrow but I might work on stuff for Thursday anyway because David is down here for a job interview and I may get to spend some time with him.  Things like that always take precedence.

The Saw Spins Up

For the first day of class I was eased into law school about as gently as I believe one can be eased in- with one class taught by a professor who had been told by the dean to take it easy on us because some people didn't get their books on time due to the hurricane.  It wasn't bad.  In fact, for a two hour class it was surprisingly engaging.  We discussed the minutia of basic contract law and went through mounds of hypotheticals as to what could and could not be considered a binding contract.  

I offer you a million dollars if you'll get me a cup of coffee?  Probably not a contract.

I offer you fifty bucks to get me a cup of coffee?  A contract, even though I'm stupid to make it.

Bill Gates offers you a million dollars for a cup of coffee?  Possibly a contract.

Bill Gates offers you a million dollars to punch him as hard as you can?  Not a contract. 

etc...

Contracts are good fun.

We'll see about Torts and Civil Procedure tomorrow...

Since I finished my homework-that-isn't-homework-because-only-the-exam-counts, I was able to get a few guys together to play some Quiddler.  I lost, which might make it the first game I've lost since I got here.  Oh well, had to happen sometime.

Natural Disaster, 2d Restatement, §827

Well Irene was sort of anticlimactic here in DC.  It was very windy and very rainy, but it never felt like the good old hurricanes I remember from NC and VA.  It was tame enough that I could even run out to a hurricane party with Jake Reeder and some other WM ATO folk.  I know that it was actually terrible for my friends living near the VA coast and who may or may not have power right now, so I hope that everything is alright down there soon.

Looking out the window yesterday and seeing nothing but rain and wind, I was struck with a sudden urge to do homework.  I only had fifteen pages or so of reading for Monday, so I imagined it wouldn't take too long.

Three hours later I realized that law books are not the kind you can just "read" and be done with.  They're more like a verbal Sudoku puzzle with a grid of indeterminate size.  Cases are filled with tiny details which completely change the law applied, precedents used, and the outcome when compared with another case that, on the surface, looks exactly the same.  Judges, in their opinions, occasionally go off on tangents unrelated to the case which might throw you on a wild goose chase while missing or misreading the one sentence or phrase that actually matters.

I sort of enjoyed it.  Then again, I still haven't had a class yet and so I may be interpreting incorrectly.

Today I might go ahead and do my work for my Tuesday classes, since it seems like that's what everyone else is doing (the building is eerily quiet, but I know they're all here).

Officially Official

So I didn't realize  I wasn't really a law student until yesterday, when the president of the whole university told us that we were officially law students.  Good to know.  All of this happened after a day full of ACTUAL orientation events (how to brief a case, what to expect in class, how to use Lexis/Westlaw, who to call after you have a nervous breakdown, etc...) when they drove all 500 of us to the main campus in a massive logistical undertaking.

This is typical of the buildings on the main campus.  They are very old and have a castle/cathedral vibe.

This is the room wherein we had our opening ceremonies.  It's all pretty and majestic and stuff.

After the speech ("you are duly registered as candidates for the degree of Juris Doctor") they plied us with food and wine again, which I'm getting pretty used to and which they are really skilled at.  Since I was in Georgetown, I met up with Chris Lynch, who is living near there and has a job as an organist at one of the best churches (musically) in the country.  Before going out he let me into the sanctuary and played a few things on the organ which the organist at the National Cathedral called the "best in DC."  I can see how that would be true- it was an amazing sound.

This isn't a great picture, but Chris assures me that this is the staircase used in The Exorcist (that's him standing in front of it).  Or at least the poster for it.  I'm not sure.

We went out to a couple of bars and I was able to introduce Chris to a few new law school friends.  At the second bar there was a live band with just about the most impressive bass player I've ever seen.  An excellent day overall and a good start to what should be a very rainy weekend.

Right, LAW stuff, THAT'S What I'm Doing Here...

This morning I woke up early for a 9:30 lecture about being a prosecutor/public defender.  The professor was fantastic and spoke mostly about how the jobs were different (more fun?) than what is usually seen on TV.  It sort of boiled down to the idea that if you want something proven, you should get a prosecutor.  If you want something poked full of holes, hire a defender.  There are appropriate places and times for each.  He also showed us a clip of when he had two lines as an assistant prosecutor in a movie, because- why not.

After that I went to a lecture given by a professor who had spent twenty-some years of her career trying to free a woman who was wrongly convicted of a first degree murder charge.  It was a difficult story to hear, as she pointed out that the woman was given several chances to plead guilty in order to get out after three years, ten years, etc.... but always turned down the offer because she would rather be in jail than admit guilt (though there is a certain way that you can officially admit guilt but also maintain innocence- isn't law great?).  

Then it was time for my tour of the Harmon Shakespeare Center!  This was led by a professor who reminded us multiple times to remember that there were more things to life than law school and we shouldn't study too hard.  I like him.  On the way over it rained heavily and I got soaked, which I think might qualify as the first unpleasant experience I've had since I moved in, so I suppose I can deal with it.  The center itself was gorgeous (Jerusalem stone imported from Jerusalem, African Cherry Wood imported from Africa, worked in Canada, finished in China, and shipped back to America, etc...) and featured the most flexible stage design I've ever seen.  They can literally, with the flip of a switch, change the acoustics in the room from a .8 second echo to a 2 second echo or anywhere in between.  This is a very difficult thing to do normally, so I'm impressed.  The set for Julius Caesar also looks great- I think I'm going to try and go see it on Sunday, assuming I can make it there through the torrential rains.

There was ANOTHER lecture after the tour about personal ethics and responsibility as a lawyer.  We discussed a case in which a defendant, who was winning a case full of only circumstantial evidence, told his lawyer in confidence that he was actually guilty.  Seems like an easy thing to answer, but as it turns out it was not.  I was pleasantly surprised that most of the people who raised their hands to add something to the discussion actually had something to add to the discussion.  There were no students that I would refer to as "THAT guy."

But maybe I spoke too soon.

In the evening there was a Moot Court featuring some of the faculty (who have collectively argued over 60 cases in front of the actual Supreme Court) which dealt with a fourth amendment issue that will be going to the real court sometime this year.  It's about GPS devices being used to track cars without warrants and it's a legitimately difficult case with excellent arguments to be made on both sides.  My Civil Procedure professor took the anti-government side and deftly sidestepped all of toughest bits (would it be illegal if the tracking were for a short period of time?  How is this different from having extended visual surveillance?).  It was a very very cool evening and reminded me why I wanted to be here.  At the end of the program the students had the ability to ask questions of the "justices" and advocates.  Most of the questions were excellent.  And then we got to THAT guy.  I know for a fact that this was THAT guy because I could feel the entire audience slowly turning against him as he started to not ask a question and continued to not ask a question for about two paragraphs.  It's as though he thought he could come up with something that would make the panel of some of the greatest Supreme Court scholars in the country go "OH!  We didn't think of that!  You're totally right!"

They did not.

As a general rule, I believe that there is no such thing as a stupid question... but you DO have to ask a question when you get up to ask a question.  Otherwise you're just being that guy.

Played another game of 20 questions tonight, some more card games, and monopoly.  I initiated none of that.

Just Another Day at Camp

After a workout in the always-amazing gym this morning I met up with Megan Castle, who is going off to be a teacher in Connecticut tomorrow!  We had a great time even though she had some difficulties driving into the city (I have no regrets about not having a car here).

The main orienteering event of the day was "registration," which is a funny thing to call this event since, as 1Ls, we have all of our classes automatically assigned.  The time served as an excuse for all of the deans of various departments to introduce themselves and talk about what they can do for us.  The financial aid dean was unexpectedly hilarious with his remarks about the recent (bad for us) changes to grad student loans as a result of the recent debt deal.  As I have a (generally vague) plan to go into either public interest or government work, and as Georgetown has one of the best loan forgiveness plans around for those who go into such work, my ability to get riled up about it was diminished.

In the evening we had a welcome address from the dean of the law school, and it was excellent.  Afterwards they had free food set out for us, which was even more excellent.  I'm getting very used to this free food thing.  At the reception I found a BUNCH of Section 5 people (my section) and a lot of us went out to Kelly's, the nearby bar.  Once there we played more games (seriously- if there's one thing I've noticed it's that G-law students LOVE playing ANY kind of game.  Card games, board games, mental games, drinking games- they will find a game for any situation) and I got to know some of the people who will actually be in my classes (up to this point I hadn't really met any).  

There was more game-playing back on dorm once I returned (including a lively discussion about whether it was "duck-duck-goose" or "duck-duck-grey duck"... apparently some of my new friends come from states with weird terminology), and I'm going to go ahead and start calling it a "dorm" instead of an apartment building, because that's what it really is.  Also, I found some homework assignments on my e-mail.  That was new.  I guess I'll get to those on Sunday or so...  I only have one class on Monday so the pressure is really not on.

Tomorrow I get to hang out with the theater geeks as we get a backstage tour and free tickets to see Julius Caesar.  I've been looking forward to that for a while.

You Don't Have to Go Home But You Can't Stay Here

Today started off much as I imagined it would.  I woke up, went on a tour of the buildings on campus, made a sandwich with Ben's panini maker (which makes good sandwiches into GREAT sandwiches), bikeshared over to Tyler's to feed and hang out with Baxter the lonely cat, and got back to campus in time to go on a tour of the library.

This was the first time I had been in the library, and it was everything I expected it to be: enormous, beautiful, and intimidating.  After the tour I was walking with Parker, Jack, and Chelsea and we decided to go look at the mini-cafeteria which was supposedly on the ground floor (the library entrance was on the second floor so we hadn't seen the ground floor on our tour).  We descended the staircase and passed a group of 2L or 3L students doing some sort of work in a glass-enclosed room.  Then the walls and ground started to move and it felt as though a five-thousand pound person had just fallen down the staircase.  I suggested we exit the building and there was general agreement.  The 2L or 3L students who were doing some sort of work in the glass-enclosed room saw our panic and laughed at us, though I still can't figure out why.  It's as though earthquakes hit the library often and it's just something we were supposed to get used to as students.  Silly us.

So we walked out of the library and into a sea of people who had also been busy walking out of their respective buildings.  Then we were directed to move across the street, away from Georgetown's large buildings and directly underneath other, larger buildings that were not Georgetown's.  After standing there for about half an hour and trying (unsuccessfully) to make text messaging work, we got some surprisingly low-priced street food (sweet tea and a hot dog with chili for $3) and went to go sit in the middle of a park away from all the buildings.  This made more sense to us, in general.  It also got us away from the horde of people.

Once in the park we kept up with the status of the school via e-mail updates,  which mostly told us that we wouldn't be allowed to go into any campus building for any reason until further notice.  With that in mind, we started playing a game of 20-questions.  Some of the best and worst objects-of-the-game from the following three hours:

Barack Obama (six questions- fewest questions to an answer)
Moby Dick (twenty questions exactly)
A Scooter (first that took more than twenty questions)
A Treadmill (nineteen questions but most heated argument between guessers about the last few questions)
CJ from West Wing (more than twenty questions and a terrible realization at the end that we never asked "is this a FICTIONAL person")
Elmo (more than twenty questions due to complete inability to ask good questions after "is it a man-made object" was answered in the affirmative)

Around four we finally got the all-clear to head back into our building.  Parker had some reisling and I had some cards so we went to the eleventh floor outdoor seating area (which is a great, great place) to play various card-games.  Most of these games involved slapping the table violently, because, as one of the six players put it: "we do not play bridge."  I forced Parker and Jack to pose with their wine so that I could take a picture of them to show off the view from the 11th floor.

It's not a great picture I took, but it's a great view.

We had a hall meeting (first rule- no alcohol in public areas of the building including outside areas) and then the RFs (resident fellows) took us out in groups to Chinatown.  I ended up eating with Ben and some other guys at Busboys and Poets, where I had a delicious falafel.  Didn't feel like going out to a bar so Ben and Matt and I went back to our room and played a game of Settlers of Catan, which I won by a comfortable margin.  

More orientation/summer-camp fun for tomorrow.  Hopefully no more earthquakes.  I do hear that a hurricane is on its way, so we should have a nice rainy weekend at the very least.