when your baby who appears to be about one year old, starts crying because you yell at her, well, maybe you shouldn’t get mad at her for crying.  See, when you yell at kids, it tends to make them upset, and they cry.  Couple that with being a tiny child, who you didn’t bother to bring a toy for while you were waiting to get your car fixed too, well, you created the boredom in the first place.

But, what seemed to really not help, at all, was the entire scene where your baby was crying and you were screaming at her to “shut up, shut up, shut your mouth, shut up…” well, that’s not really helping either.  I am not sure how many times you told your daughter you were going to pop her, but alas, I must say, after about the tenth time, I kind of wanted to hit you as much as you wanted to hit your one year old baby.

Frustration goes a million ways, and when you do nothing but pretend like you are as smart as your baby, well, maybe you should ask your parents how to prevent a third one because you obviously haven’t figured out that babies shouldn’t have babies, and parents don’t hit their kids.

Mostly, it’s chill the F%##$ out.  Seriously.  as 1L’s you should have been scared, you should have absolutely not slept the first week of class, you should have absolutely not had a moment to eat, or sleep, but of course, there’s always a minute to grab another plate of pizza pockets.  But seriously, as 2L’s and 3L’s you all need to relax.  Otherwise, you’re going to end up broken drunks by the time you’re thirty.

In case you didn’t figure it out yet, your grade is NOT given to you by a list of the professor compiling all the major “insights” you offer in class, nor is it by daily quizzes about the sentence on page 342 of the third note case, and, nor is it from the amazing amount of sighs you offer while you’re studying in the student lounge as people around you are discussing life (that’s what the damn library is for).  Your final grade is determined by a final.  That final, in case you didn’t realize, comes in about, oh, three and a half months.  So, that’s plenty of time to chill out, have a cup of coffee (or sixty), a few bags of chips, three dozen pizzas, and more free time than I can calculate. 

So, especially the 3Ls, enjoy the day.  Enjoy the time you aren’t working.  Enjoy that little cafe down the street.  After next spring, you’ll be studying for the bar exam, and between that and trying to make partner for the next seven or so years, this is the best time you have left, so enjoy it.  Seriously, enjoy it.  The troubles that are coming are going to be heavy, so calm the F(#$ down and spend a little time enjoying the time you have left; it’s not much so use it wisely.  Happy Fall, Halloween is around the corner!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

I didn’t come to law school to be broke, it just works out that way.  But, no matter how much money I manage to make in the future, why would you go to law school and say to yourself:

if I needed legal help and I had no money to pay for an attorney, I would expect someone to help defend me against the man, but since I’m going to law school, to hell with everyone who can’t afford me.

Well, maybe people should care a little more about things other than the pocketbook.  Money isn’t happiness, it simply provides a vehicle to help attain it, there is a huge difference between having money and having happiness.

The point is, at this point, the last thing I want to hurdle over now that I’m trying to find a job, is a bunch of bureaucratic hooplah nonsense about having to turn in agreements that say, in order for me to use the career center, if they get me an interview, or informational interview, or email, or possible contact list, that upon my creating an actual appointment that I will show up, and if I can’t make it, I will contact the person and let them know I won’t be there, and hopefully reschedule the date.  Here’s my bitch:  As someone who has a bachelors degree, and is in law school, is it really necessary for career service center to require me to contract my word to them that if I mess up, I have to do my own networking because I can’t use their services any longer?  In other words, once someone has become an adult, a functioning adult, over the age of eighteen, with at least one undergrad degree, why exactly would they feel the need to stand over me, or any other student at this point, and threaten us with never being allowed access to their office if we don’t act like adults and show up at interviews? 

Isn’t the whole threatening me constantly with sanction this, malpractice that, that by the time I get to law school, if I haven’t figured out how to not plagiarize things (everything we turn in is required to have a basic statement that we did our own work and didn’t copy or steal the info/paper) nor how to act like an adult, well, at that point, shouldn’t the career center close it’s fucking doors and require that the law school admissions office do a better job of recruiting functioning adults to come here instead of the apparent trash that require the god damn law school secret police to stand behind us every time we take a breath and threatening to “report us” to the powers that be?  It seriously gets tiring, the constant barrage from the law school about how “we can’t trust you to take exams,” or “we can’t trust you to use services we provide” or “don’t try to think outside the material” or the whole “if you write the wrong page number in a citation you’ll be sanctioned, disbarred, outcast, and pissed on by every other mediocre attorney who managed to get the fucking citation right” crap. 

The whole threatening thing is overblown, and I have enough to worry about, like trying to find a damn job while the world is broke without having to take a seventeen week course and get certified by a third party before I try to contact an alumni who practices in my area through the career center.  What the hell happened to:  I go to law school to learn how to be an attorney.  When, exactly, did my law school decide that I’m paying them a $130,000.00 to teach me how to be an adult, how to act like I’ve “got sense,” and that without their barrage of negativity, I’m sunk?

So far, they’ve actually cost me money because I ordered those stupid business cards with the schools’ email address on it, and if I don’t remember to update my contact information with the six family members I’ve actually given those worthless things to, the email address will be even more worthless than the forty dollars I spent on them.  When does law school become worth what I’ve paid them?  With all the hurdles they stick in front of me, it seems like the bar exam is the least of my worries…

When the professor says something like “we didn’t get to so and so, we’ll leave it for the next class,” well, that means class is over and pack up your stuff.  It doesn’t mean you should ask a bunch of detailed questions about the law because well, the questions you are asking at the end of class are probably questions you could answer yourself if you actually read the material for the day, or could look them up on our plethora of legal research sites. 

When the professor asks the class “are there any questions?”  He or she is not asking about questions in general, it’s about the reading or discussion, so, if you did the reading and there was something you didn’t understand, that may be fair game to take up a little class time, but if you clearly didn’t do the reading, and the questions you posed had nothing to do with the discussion for the day, well, that’s office hours questions for you and the prof, waste his time, not mine.

Finally, if you are going to eat during class, DO NOT EAT CHIPS!  Not from a crinkly bag you didn’t bother to open before class’ start, not from a bowl that you swish around to get the perfect quantity for your mouth, not from the bag you have “hidden” in your backpack so no one knows you are eating, no.  Be kind and eat a soft, chewey cookie, a sandwich, or anything else quiet and not distracting.  Trust me, no one wants to watch you stuff your face during class, we are required to be there, and we didn’t choose the class to learn how much noise you could make before  you finally cram that giant handfull of chips into your mouth.

I understand the importance of doing the group thing, it’s all about sharing the workload, working with and learning about your peers point of view, ect… However, anyone who has an undergrad degree, which is everyone in  law school, well, we all had those same projects as undergrads, and they were worthless then, and just because I’m paying you forty three thousand dollars a year, doesn’t mean it’s a good idea now.  If I want my peers insights, I’ll ask them.  Until then, just go ahead and put me in line to either tell me what you want me to answer on the final, or guide me to the most appropriate nutshell or understanding series, because until finals, I have other things to do besides being compelled to hang out with other law students in my down time. 

When I want real world experiences I’ll either work in the clinic, volunteer for another attorney, or take a class like mediation or advanced advocacy.  But, until then, please feel free to stand up there and talk to the walls while I try to figure out what I’m doing this weekend, and I’ll be happy to do my day of cramming before the final with the most advanced study materials I can come up with. 

This semester is going to be very calm, at least in plan.  a few of my friends and I are going to head to Sleeping Bear Dunes, an island in Mid-Michigan, not far from me.  We’re going to hit some backpacking destinations all year, and it’s going to be fun.  Michigan, and there’s a huge National forest in southern Indiana we are going to try to hit in a few weeks as well.  I have no Friday classes, and a late afternoon Monday class, and it’s purposely set up that way.  So, we can head out Early Friday morning, or the occasional Thursday evening, and not return until Monday, or Tuesday morning, depending on the number of my on call days in my Monday class.

I’ve been wanting to camp again for several years, and now I’ve found a small circle of friends that love to backpack, and there’s just enough of us to make the trip fun.  I’m looking forward to the year, and I am sure there will be a million pictures of places you’ve never seen, so don’t forget to check back.  Happy schooling, it’s going to be a fun third year!

My droid had an 8 mp and it was awesome.  But I’m smart phone free, so I’m going camera shopping this week.  I’ll probably just head to our local Target and check them out.  My camera, used 2 AA batteries, and you could take about, um, ten to fifteen pictures before you changed them.  Yeah, we don’t use it very often.  I want a new fangled camera that plugs in, takes at least 5 mpixel photos, analog zoom, video isn’t important, but I want to take good pictures again. 

I used to have an awesome Olympus SLR camera I got for high school photo class, I wanted to be a professional photographer.  So, naturally, I had a plethora of lenses and filters, but alas, nothing remains.  So, I want a new camera so I can take pictures again.  Happy summer, I hear a train coming and there’s nothing better to do than stand here on the tracks…

Every few days we see how a predator has blown up another car with one or two “high ranking terrorists,” and yet, we gain nothing.  Every few days our service members are blown up by ied’s on the roadside or by suicide bombers, for what?  Because we don’t want to “lose” another war?  We aren’t in a war.  We are in an endless chase with us following the smoke trail of some elusive, unorganized paupers who are using the same guns and tactics we taught them to get the Russians out, because the middle east does not want people occupying them.  Not the Russians, not the Romans, and not Americans.  Even if we catch Osama, terrorists will not give up.  They will not sigh and lay down their weapons, they will simply laugh at us and keep about their merry way until we get the fuck out. 

So, in sum, Dear General Petraeus, get our troops out of the middle east and back home where we can fix them and rebuild our economy.  And, by the way, Dear Obama, you said you would get us out of the middle east.  So far, we’ve not left, and when you say you’ll do things and you don’t, well, law school should have taught you at least that by definition, is a lie.  I don’t mind adulterers as politicians, nor tax evaders, but what I don’t think I care for any longer is needless war and useless deaths.  Please feel free to not run again.  I won’t be voting for either the giant fucking elephant or the stupid tard donkey.  I’ll be taking my vote elsewhere. 

My answer?  I didn’t have one, I gave them cookies to take the discussion away.  G’pa has seen his granddaughter one time in the last  four years.  Literally one time, for about three hours, two years ago, at my undergrad graduation.  He had not seen her for two years before that.  He lives two hours away (from both my undergrad college and my law school, he lives between the two, oddly enough).  He has not, in the four years, sent her a Christmas card, a birthday card, presents, nor called, nor even asked about her.  Nothing.  He see’s my son occasionally, when my son’s mother brings him by during the occasional summer visit.

When he visited two years ago to drop in to my graduation, he told her, and us, he was sorry he had missed her the last two years, and he would not go without being a grandfather any longer.  Since that time, he has not seen her.  He hasn’t even asked how she is.  He said, three weeks ago when I sent him a message, “well, every time I see her you send me a nasty note.”  Interesting, because he hasn’t seen her.  In fact, until last Christmas, we had been in his town at least once a month for the first year and a half of my law school career, and every time we called and emailed prior to our coming in, to let him know we were coming.  He would say ok, I can’t wait.

Then, we’d get into town, and he would not be home.  He wouldn’t answer his phone, and after we’d stay the day and visit other family and friends who also live there, then, a couple of days later, he would send me an email and apologize, and say “sorry, something came up that I had to do.”  For example, once he had to go get groceries, once, he had to take his boat to the dock, once, he simply forgot to go home, and the last time, he said “I’ll call you that morning because I will be out until lunch time,” then, after he didn’t call, answer his phone, and he never came home (we drove to his house several times looking for him, well, the next day he said “I had to go put a sink in my garage.”  And, he furthered it with “getting my sink in my garage is more important than seeing my granddaughter.”  I didn’t talk to him until Christmas (three months later) and he said “I’m not sending presents this year either, you can come here and get them, but I won’t be home, and if you don’t drive here, I’m not getting the kids anything.”  So, he didn’t.  Later, he said it was kind of mean to have said that, but he felt it was my fault and that by coming into town, I had brought the whole thing on.

Why air this dirty laundry to the internet you ask?  Well, first, my family doesn’t read my blog.  I know this because my father uses the computer for, um, uneducational purposes, and the rest of my family couldn’t care less.  Second, aside from a couple of people, I don’t have anyone to rant to so the internet always listens.  Third, I don’t want to waste any energy discussing it with my father because it turns into some sort of “it’s your fault I can’t see my grandkids” even though he hasn’t seen her for four years.

Moral: everyone has a jacked up person in the family, usually it’s a crazy uncle who drinks or likes to visit the county pokey.  In my family, it’s g’pa, and that sucks.  I can’t wait for another few years when my kids have a real discussion, because they are a little grown up, about this elusive g’pa and why he visits one grandchild but refuses to see the other one.  No judge will ever hear a better discussion about alienation, I’m positive…