The First of the Last, or the Last of the First

I keep confusing myself as to whether this is the first week of my last semester of classes, or the last semester when I will have a first week of classes. Either way, while I was thinking of it the milestone passed.

Last Friday, at the end of my courtroom technology class, we were able to go to the judge's court and play with all of his technology. It was very impressive.

Since he is a federal judge, he gets the nice stuff.

This week I started my three classes that I have for the rest of the semester. Two of the three were chosen 100% based on the reputation of the professor, and if the first sessions have shown anything it is that choosing classes based on professor reputation continues to be the best way to pick discretionary classes.

First I have Complex Litigation, which is all about large multi-plaintiff lawsuits. Not as boring as it sounds, AND there are a few really important class action cases going in front of the Supreme Court this semester, so we get to learn it as it happens.

After Complex Litigation, I have my Supreme Court Seminar. This was my top choice class and will basically let me geek out about current term Supreme Court cases and get credit for it. Everyone in the class is responsible for understanding pretty much all of the cases, but we each get one case that we are responsible for. By "responsible for" I mean that we are in charge of prepping the judges at a moot court where the lawyer who will be arguing the case in front of the Supreme Court will test out his or her argument. My case is about whether police officers should have something called "qualified immunity" (can't be sued so long as they aren't violating clearly established law) if they shoot a suspect to end a high-speed chase. Should be fun!

Finally I have Decedents' Estates, which is basically a class about how terrible things will happen to you if you don't have a plan in place regarding your healthcare and property. Also it explains how nowadays is the best time in the past two hundred years to die if you want to create a Downton Abbey-esque estate that will last forever and be completely immune to federal taxes. Hooray for the aristocratic renaissance.

I went up to Gaithersburg today to help out my little adoptive mock trial team there, and it was so much fun to teach a little again. The kids were so smart and eager- they have no idea what they're doing but they are doing it as hard as they can, which is everything that you want from first-timers. When I demonstrated how you could frame facts differently depending on what you want a jury or judge to think they looked at me like I had just done an amazing magic trick. I'll be helping them out over the next two months as they compete in four rounds against other high schools. That's a lot of rounds, so they'll be experts by then.

I think that's everything new that's going on. The ear is healing well- it'll take a month for it to "settle" and so until then it will (hypothetically) slowly improve in hearing every day while making weird popping noises that only I can hear. I can already hear close to what I could before the surgery, so that's good. And one last thing- this past weekend was Kels's and my second anniversary! I'm sure that you can't believe she has put up with me for so long. I certainly can't, but I'm very glad she has.