Walking into a Buzz Cut?

Today, with the completion and turning in of one 40-page paper that I like and one 25-page paper that I hope earns forgiveness from my professor, I am finished with exams. As always, it has been the least fun part of the semester and I am so glad that I only have to do this two more times.

I start at the Office of Special Counsel on the 28th, and until then I'll be doing small projects for Street Law, Inc. and doing a bunch of paperwork.

I suppose I should explain the paperwork. Actually, it goes along with the "exciting news" I referenced in my last post. Actually, it goes all the way back to this post, when I mentioned an application that I had been working on since August. Actually, it goes back a bit further than that. I might make a post explaining more at some later date if and when this becomes official, but I will keep it short here.

For various reasons, I have been very interested in the JAG Corps since near the end of my 1L year when I was doing job research. JAG officers are lawyers in Army, Navy, Air Force, Marines, and Coast Guard who prosecute and defend during a court martial, give operational legal advice on the law of war, help service members with various legal issues, etc.... For additional various reasons, out of the five different types of JAG I vastly preferred Navy.

Navy JAG does its hiring differently from everyone else. In fact, you can apply as a 2L. So that's what I did back in October. Predictably, I did not get in during that round. I was expecting that, because the Navy gets WAY more applications for JAG than it has positions available. For 2012 it was something like a 4% acceptance rate. This is the primary reason I didn't tell anyone about this before now.

Anyway, I went into 2L year trying to structure my course load to make the Navy like me, and I applied again in February. I found out on Friday, May 3rd that this application was accepted, which means that if I pass a medical exam and security check I will be a Navy JAG officer starting sometime after I pass the bar in 2014 (I suppose that assumes I'm going to pass the bar). This is exactly what I want to do and is my #1 choice for career out of law school. I'm very excited about it, but I'm also trying to not make a big deal out of it in case I don't pass the commissioning process for some reason.

If everything goes well, then to answer the question you haven't asked: yes, I will pretty much be Tom Cruise from A Few Good Men. But taller.

Passed the MPRE

I learned today that I'm ethical enough to take the Bar Exam in any state or territory of the United States. Looks like eschewing studying to work on a cookie truck is a solid life choice, after all. There has also been some other exciting news from the law front that I am not yet prepared to share in blog form but that has made this exam period considerably less stressful. I will write a longer post about that and what it means after exams are over (the 14th).

Until then, this is the reason I study at my place or the library rather than Kelsey's place during exam period:

It's Kels's computer, but the same applies to mine.

The More You Know

I'm studying for Corporations right now. Part of Corporations law is being able to understand basic accounting. This is great, since I took accounting in college and had a good accounting teacher. Also, I taught economics for a year, and sometimes understanding accounting requires an understanding of microeconomics. That's not really going to help me on the exam, but I would like to think that it will. 

At the very least, I have determined (during my week in the library basement) that this package of cookies is the most economically rational thing to purchase from the vending machine from both a caloric and volume standpoint. 

Wrapping up 2L

Just one more week of classes and then it's exam-time. My exam period is going to be a bit different from previous semesters because my finals consist of:

One real exam
One self-scheduled exam
One portfolio (Street Law)
One non writing requirement (20 page) paper
One writing requirement (40 page) paper
and
One trial (for trial practice)

My high school students somehow realized that, even though they have school until June, I will be leaving them at the end of this week. At the end of class today they presented me with a card. Jessica, my amazing cooperating teacher at the school, assures me that she had nothing to do with it. It was very, very sweet of them. I have to get back to researching for my non writing requirement paper (only 20 pages? Sounds like non-writing to me!) but I figured I would post the card because some of the notes on it are hilarious. I especially like "I never took you but you seem cool." from a "Jacob" who, indeed, I did not teach this year.

Birthday Week

I had a very good week. First, on Wednesday one of my student groups won the final round of the citywide mock trial tournament. The judge, who had been judging this tournament for the past 25 years, said that this was one of the best matches he had seen. The students on the team were so very excited. My most uptight student attack-hugged me from behind as I was leaving the courtroom. This was an especially uplifting win because they were down one team-member due to a family emergency. As we were walking in, one of the students on the team turned to me and said "we're just going to use this to come together as a team and win and then you're going to give us all A's and not make us take the final." As it turns out.... accurate. Overall my teams ended up within a just few places of one another, so hooray for consistency.

This week was also great because of Trial by Jury. Will Munoz recalled the time I tricked him into joining GG&SS last year and returned the favor by tricking me into agreeing to be a spotlight operator for Trial by Jury. I was glad to do it, since I wasn't able to find time in my schedule to do the show this semester (note to future self: 5:45-7:45PM classes are bad). Coincidentally, spotlighting a show is one of the very few things that I have never done for a production. I have acted, directed, music directed, tech directed, stage managed, assistant stage managed, choreographed*, run the curtain, house managed, and a few other things that I have forgotten... but never have I operated a spotlight. They're fun! I was constantly overwhelmed with the feeling of trivial power that, during moments that were blackout except for my light, I could unilaterally plunge the performers into darkness if I so chose. I would probably never do that, of course. Like I said... trivial power.

They all did so well! It was a very fun show.

Steph R. as Plaintiff's Attorney, Justine as the Plaintiff, Jeff as the Judge, and Noah as the Defendant

Thursday was my birthday, and I had classes without breaks between 10AM til 7:45PM, so yay! At 8 I ran the spotlight for the show, and afterwards we had the Thursday night cast party at our house. Jeff refused to listen to my pleas to just ignore the fact that it was my birthday and brought out a cake with candles on it in the middle of the party. Everyone sang and most people even knew my name for the "happy birthday dear _____" part, which was nice since I wasn't in the show and there was no reason for a good number of people at the party to actually know my name. After the party I went downstairs to find birthday mail from family and friends. 

On Saturday, Kelsey had arranged for a birthday brunch at one of my favorite new eating spots, The Big Board. Apparently, by the time she was through arranging everything, she was on a first-name basis with everyone in the restaurant. They gave us the entire upstairs of the restaurant for as long as we wanted, because Kelsey is a very assertive party-arranger. She had also arranged for one of her co-workers to make me a cookie-cake, which was one of the best surprises ever. The cake came undecorated and we put out tubes of icing for people to play with. Selena went up first and used her artistic skills to write a very nice message and draw some hearts.

Very impressive.

Then everyone else went. I particularly appreciate the addition of the word "usually" to "We love you Mike!"

Cheers, Sladky! In this picture he is toasting me for having won a March Madness Bracket. 

We all know how knowledgable I am about sports.

Kels deserves lots of praise for putting everything together.

Saturday, after the final show, there was a GG&SS 40th anniversary gala. Kels and I got to go as Davia and Noah's "dates" (the members of the cast all got complimentary +1's). The event featured lots of good food and an open bar and provided an excuse to dress up. I even let Kelsey put gel in my hair.

And after all that effort to get ready, this is the least-blurry and/or light-distorted picture that was taken of us all night.

So, to sum up, 26 started out very well and I am excited to finish out the semester strong over the next few weeks.

*Until I let Kay take over. And by "let" I mean there was a mutiny against my choreography.

Hold Tight and Pretend it's a Plan

Saturday I had to take a standardized test called the Multistate Professional Responsibility Exam (MPRE). You have to take it to be a lawyer. I took it this year because I did a professional responsibility class last semester and I don't want to have to worry about it next year. Since I'm on the Journal of Legal Ethics it will look especially bad if I fail it. So I hope I did not fail. 

All of this is to say that I had every intention of studying for the MPRE on Friday. Every intention. Then I looked on facebook and saw that my friend Kirk, owner of Captain Cookie DC, had sent out a request for help for the afternoon. Well, I've always wanted to work on a DC food truck and as luck would have it, I had all afternoon free (to study for the MPRE). I texted Kirk on the off-chance that someone else hadn't already lept to his aid. I received a text back within a few minutes that told me to come to Virginia and 20th NW whenever I could. I took that as a sign that I shouldn't worry about the MPRE (I can always retake it next year). 

So I spent my whole Friday afternoon selling cookies and ice cream out of Kirk's cookie truck. It was awesome. I felt connected with DC (we are famous for our food trucks) and everyone was smiling at me all day, which is a stark difference from how I imagine everyone will be looking at me whenever I become a lawyer. 

The view from inside Captain Cookie's truck. I even got a special hat.

Having studied up as an expert in DC Food Trucking, I took my ethics exam on Saturday morning. It's a good thing it was multiple choice or I might have said "just give the client a cookie" as an answer to every ethical dilemma. Unfortunately, actual legal ethics rules are an even mixture of common sense and archaic traditions that make no sense at all (sure, you can call yourself a "Proctor in Admiralty"if you practice maritime law, but don't you dare suggest that you are a specialist in murder cases unless a random ABA accredited group has given you an award that says you're a specialist in murder cases). 

The rest of Saturday was spent shopping at Trader Joe's, where I bought everything because I love Trader Joe's almost as much as I love Costco, which is a lot. Mainly, I realize that I appreciate stores that remove brands and just give me one option for each type of thing to be bought.

Sunday was a very nice day so we decided to go on a run to see the Cherry Blossom Festival. Kels and I ran from my house to the Thomas Jefferson memorial in about half an hour. Pete met up with us there to share in the festivities. Though few trees had actually blossomed, this turned the afternoon into a find-the-BEST-tree scavenger hunt. 

No good ones over here, but an artsy shot of TJ (and all the tourists) is always good.

Then, far away in a corner, we found the perfect cherry blossoms.

I told them to pose like they were in a high-school yearbook.

Pete was much better at staying in character.

But she got it eventually.

Though Pete and I really nailed it, I think.

Obligatory.

Look at them! How majestic they are!

Look, you don't spend an hour walking around trying to find the ONE cherry blossom tree that actually looks decent and then NOT take pictures like this.

After looking at trees we went to the American History Museum. I always thought this museum was just okay, but that was because I had no idea there was a bottom floor filled with gigantic and awesome exhibits, including one about electricity (featuring giant early 20th century pistons and generators).

Also, a valuable lesson learned. In any great endeavor, step 5 is always "Consequences."

We're about to get to step 5 of the semester. Exams are less than a month away and so many of my classes are winding down and/or up as dictated by format. That's okay. It's all part of the plan.

We're Going to Finals

Very proud of my students today. I found out in an e-mail that TWO of my teams are going to the street law mock trial finals. Now, this is supposed to be an impossibility because typically there are only two teams IN the finals and they don't allow teams from the same school to compete against one another, but this year they decided to have four teams in the finals due to a tie between the top scorers.

So they all get A's. A's for everyone.

Also, I had a great Easter weekend. I was working throughout most of it but got to take a break on Saturday and have brunch with Mom and Nanny as they stopped by DC on their way down from Maryland to North Carolina. We went to Lavagna, one of the best brunch places in the city. Other than that and a nice dinner on Sunday that Sara spearheaded I've just been doing a lot of work. Good work, though. Reasonably fun.