Lunching with Lions

One Final Tango

2007-09-05T18:53:00.000-07:00

My dearest readers,

Today I have come to a decision that, in the grand scheme of things, will probably make no difference to anyone. Still, it was a decision I've been thinking about and flip-flopping over for some time...several months now, in fact. But finally, after much consideration, I have come to a decision:

I'm retiring from blogging the world of UT Law.

I started my blog, as my description says, as a way to document the trials and tribulations of my 1L year. And I feel as though I managed to do that while having a lot of fun. I met new friends and fellow bloggers, learned far more than just the law, suffered through hangovers and finals with equal valor, enjoyed a gossipy scandal or two, and drank far more than anyone probably should--and I documented it all. And now, as a 2L, I plan to keep doing all of those things, although perhaps a little more anonymously. ;-)

To all my commenters, thank you. Even to the bitchy ones. To all my friends who, whether they realized it or not, often gave me the fodder for this blog, thank you. To the wonderful professors and the terrible professors, thank you all. I never thought I would reach the level of blogger "success" that I did--the several hundred hits a day, being featured on the Austinist blog, and regularly being linked in the Weekly Law School Blogger Roundup--it was all extremely flattering. I've had a great time.

So there ya go, I'm handing over the reins. I challenge the class of 2010 to get some juicy blogs going, we all need a good distraction now and then during lecture.

Lots of love,

The Lioness

Law school Reloaded: The eve of 2L

2007-08-28T14:18:00.000-07:00

Alas, that time has finally come. After a summer of working, drinking, and dreaming of the day where I get to do much more of the latter than the former, our hiatus from academia must come to an end.

I really did put it off as long as I could, including waiting to purchase my books until today. That was what we call a "stupid decision". I forgot that the reason I generally shoot to the bookstore the first day booklists are posted is not because of my excitement for school--it's my excitement for getting a clean used copy instead of paying full price on new books. And since all the used books were gone, my credit card got hit with the stomach-curdling $700+ charge for my books this semester. Ouch.

I also waited to the last minute to turn in my scholarship thank you letter, to the point that I ended up e-mailing it in. I learned I could e-mail it in after a lovely conversation with the never-dull Linda Alba, director of financial aid, who at one point in our conversation informed me that either "her computer was doing something weird or she was having a 70's drug flashback." I really do love that woman.

And my last bit of procrastination is me still putting off my first day assignments. The idea of diving into the fascinating world of Federal Income Tax just doesn't appeal to me yet today. Maybe after a beer.

Anyhoo, welcome back everybody. (And welcome in general to the 1Ls. Don't freak out too much now. Remember: if you really fuck up, you can always fling yourself off the top of the parking garage! No, I'm just kidding. Well, kinda.) Let's have a great year.

Summer Update #3

2007-08-05T14:31:00.000-07:00

In one more week I'll be done with my second clerkship, and I must say I CAN'T FREAKING WAIT. Clerkship #2 was much more practical and interactive than Clerkship #1, but in the end, still just your run of the mill clerkship with lunches out, alcohol fueled happy hours and social events, and a general glossing over of the insane number of billable hours you'd be expected to work annually as an associate. Both clerkships left with an overwhelming sense that big firm life isn't all it's cracked up to be, even with the recent upping of starting salaries to $160,000. What that will mean for me in the long run is still yet to be determined. Wouldn't it be great if there was a firm paying the outrageous salaries for only working 1600 or so billables a year? Alas, a girl can dream.

In other news, OCI bidding is in full swing for 2Ls and that means people have officially ended their "who got the better summer clerkships" competition and replaced it with the "who applied to more OCI interviwers" competition. The highest number I've heard so far is 46, but I'm sure sooner or later I'll hear of someone that applied to the max of 60.

I've also had the recent experience of meeting a handful of the incoming 1Ls at different functions, and they seem fine, though perhaps slightly less social than the party animals in the class of 2009. By this point last year, we were averaging about 40 people per weekly happy hour, which we were planning, hosting, and drinking at by ourselves. This year's class seems to rely on the 2Ls to plan things for them, or so the events listed on their myspace group would indicate. Worse yet, only about a handful of them actually seem to go to the ones we do plan. I initially took this lack of partying spirit as a bad omen, but then I realized that the fewer partiers in that crowd, the more booze left on the tab at bar review for me.

And with that, I conclude what is probably going to be the last summer update before classes start back up. I've got a few vacations and other events planned that will hopefully keep me 1) drunk, 2) entertained, and 3) away from my computer over the next few weeks, so until then, take care or yourselves, and each other.

Summer Update #2

2007-07-02T19:19:00.000-07:00

So, I've now finished with my first half clerkship, and I can't really complain. I'm still not exactly sure if firm life is for me, but the pay and the perks are sure nothing to complain about.

To date: 56 free drinks, 39 free meals, a free vacation, a few free ball games in the firm box suite, and a lovely free Westlaw leather portfolio.

Clerkship #2 started today, and the different vibe is palpable. Whereas firm #1 had us writing, writing, writing all the time, firm #2 seems to be more about practical experience. I'm assisting at a deposition later this week, at trial in a few weeks, and they have no issue with assigning me the task of writing the pleadings and motions and briefs that go to court.

What has suprised me most is the noticeable difference between law students from different schools. Fellow clerks from Texas are chill. They get their work done, go to all the social events, and search for a firm that offers a good work-life balance. Clerks from Georgetown, Yale, or NYU? They freak out about EVERYTHING. "Is my memo too short? What if I didn't find a critical case? What the hell is up with the greenbook?" Clerks from Baylor and SMU have a bit of an inferiority complex. Needless to say, I'm very happy to be a Texas clerk, clerking in Texas.

Summer has also brought the wave of the new 1L class, who have been gracious enough to join us 2Ls at some recent happy hours. A tidbit I overheard at this week's happy hour:

"So, do you have any advice?"
"Yeah. Go to class. Don't freak out too much. And whatever you do, absolutely DO NOT throw theme parties."

Welcome aboard new 1Ls. If any of you are blogging, drop me a link, I'm gonna update my blawgroll soon.

Gee, that was helpful and informative!

2007-06-15T23:08:00.000-07:00

Law school e-mail I got today:

"No events or announcements have been posted for this week."
.

..

...

Just a thought, but maybe did anyone just consider NOT sending out the e-mail if there were no events or announcements?

Summer Update #1

2007-06-10T18:33:00.001-07:00

Well, it's been a little over a month now since I walked out of the hollowed halls of law school to begin my summer. In that time I've managed to take a vacation, skip the write-on packet, do three weeks as a pampered summer clerk at a BigLaw firm, and re-acquaint myself with all of my favorite bars in Austin. Here are some observations:

1. We always say that law school is just like high school. But apparently the gossip factor stays with us even in our summer firms. Get a few (free) drinks in any of the attorneys at a firm event and you'll soon find out who slept with who in the legal world, which judges and politicians are on the take, and just about anything else you never wanted to know about the people holding JDs in the city you're clerking in.

2. One day recently I went to the restroom at my firm. There, in one of the stalls, I found a pen and a legal pad. This was a little disconcerting. While men may be notorious for taking some reading material with them to the restroom, it's not all that common of a phenomenon among women. To me, this indicated that whoever left the items needed to continue billing in so dire a way that they couldn't even take out a few minutes of peace to "do their business".

3. Current running total of drinks on the firm's dime since work started: 37, with two more drinking events anticipated in the upcoming week. Current running total of meals on the firm's dime since work started: 21, with six more anticipated in the upcoming week. My "significant other" has also enjoyed raking in the freebies, and I believe his total is an impressive 13 drinks and 4 meals without ever having to do a lick of work.

4. One thing I wish I would have paid more attention to in law school: how to look things up in the books as opposed to on Westlaw.

5. Things I enjoy most about working as opposed to law school so far: 1) the paycheck, 2) that when you leave the office, you're done for the day 3)different projects every few days.

So how are everyone else's summers going? Lemme hear your stories in the comments.

A thorny problem

2007-05-20T15:43:00.000-07:00

I'm completely enamored with the fact that the last source included in the Law Review write-on packet is Poison's "Every Rose has its Thorn." I wonder if the hair band ever imagined they would be nestled in among Locke and Machiavelli or some of the most famous Supreme Court opinions ever written. Somehow I doubt it.

Still, I'm tempted to see the inclusion as both a challenge and a warning. If I was Editor in Chief, those 10 write-on-only spots would go exclusively to people who had managed to include the power ballad in their commentary on the constitutionality of torture or warrantless searches. I mean, hell, that's showing both some balls and some creativity.

On the other hand, I also like to see the song as an analogy to law review membership in general. Sure, that line on your resume would be mighty nice, but do you really want to write the tedious essay? Work the long hours? Cite check till your eyes bleed?

Sing it to me, Bret Michaels, sing it to me.

Professor Glannon, I am your father...

2007-05-09T10:28:00.000-07:00

IM conversation from earlier today

Friend of Lioness (12:25:23 PM): Can I bring Glannon to the Civ Pro final?
Lioness (12:25:41 PM): i don't think so
Lioness (12:25:54 PM): she said something about only works of your personal creation
Friend of Lioness (12:26:05 PM): no, I meant can I bring Professor Glannon?
Lioness (12:26:18 PM): haha
Lioness (12:26:20 PM): yeah, that should be fine.
Friend of Lioness (12:26:17 PM): ok, good.

They're everywhere!

2007-05-08T16:01:00.000-07:00

A friend of mine who occasionally reads this blog has recently started culinary school. Recently, after hearing me explain the concept of a law school gunner, he became enthralled with the crossover potential of the gunner concept.

So apparently he told his culinary school friends. They loved it. But they also took it a few giant steps further:

Now, when their gunner speaks in class, a large crowd will shout "Bang!" at the end of his question/assinine comment. On particularly gunnerish days, they will mime finger pistols at him every time they see him in the halls. When the gunner argues with other students in class, the other student will fake a painful death and ask the gunner why he shot them.

The moral of this story is two part: a) gunners, beware...the people preparing your food at prestigious restaurants hate your kind too and b) isn't it just like law students to come up with the good ideas, only to fall short on total execution. Had we been doing any of these things in class to our gunners...well....I at least probably would have gone to Crim more often!

The Effects of Finals

2007-05-08T13:56:00.000-07:00

I don't really have the time/energy/desire to write out a whole interesting post, but I did want to relay a few of the things that I've found humorous so far during finals:

1. While in general, I would say that the female law students at UT are a fashionable, well-groomed bunch of ladies, that certainly goes right out the window during finals. Looking around my Contracts exam, not a single girl was wearing her hair down, and I didn't spy any makeup going on either. Of course, this isn't really to say that the guys are any better. Debauchery has the commentary on the unfortunate sweat pants trend.

2. I kid you not when I say that people had sports-taped their fingers prior to my most recent exam (which included 1.5 hours writing/prep time before we could use our computers) in order to avoid blisters. That's...um...intense.

3. I was going to make a joke about how socially-conscious it is for UT to employ the mentally disabled as proctors, but then I realized it would really be an insult to the mentally disabled to associate them with this special brand of idiots. Hey students services, here's an idea...why don't you have the proctors open Extegrity once on a computer before having them read off instructions they don't understand to others?

4. You know you are a law student dork when: you go to see Hot Fuzz with some friends, including one other law student. When at one point, the cop charges someone with "conspiracy" both you and your classmate, shove their fists in the air and shout "yesss!" because you both know that that was EXACTLY the right thing to charge.

5. There really is a darth of good post-finals drinking spots within walking distance. I mean, Crown & Anchor is great, but beer alone just isn't going to do it for me right after a final. Trudy's is more than happy to take care of the liquor (Mmm, Mexican Martinis..), but the presence of the suit-laden business lunch crowd really kills some of the fun. Cain and Abel's would be a good choice, excepts it's usually filled with undergrad frat boys. I'm thinking perhaps I'll just pack a flask for my last final....

....oh my, it really almost is my last final of my 1L year. Wow.

Update on the Laptop Situation/Just call me the king

2007-05-01T10:29:00.000-07:00

It's fixed.

$180 and three hours of work later, the WONDERFUL people at PC Guru on S. Lamar were able to figure out that the AC jack had become loose from the motherboard and fixed it. The best part: one of the dudes that work there totally looked and talked like Dumbledore.

Thanks to everyone who sent well wishes or offers to use their laptops tomorrow, times like this really make me realize how happy I am I went to a law school where people are nice and not scarily cutthroat or whatever.

On the upside, I've found my Elvis-like uppers and downers combo for finals. The upper is a venti iced coffee with two shots of espresso, low fat milk, and three sweet-n-lows (which is free thanks to the lovely Starbucks gift card my summer job sent me). The downer is a beer, three advil, and a hot bath. Sure, it's probably leading to an ulcer, but at this point, I don't really care.

Thought I was home free...

2007-04-30T19:51:00.000-07:00

...but it wouldn't really be 1L year without a freakout, now would it?

Around 8:30 this evening, my laptop stopped taking a charge. Cue the GIANT FUCKING FREAKOUT.

So, I madly threw everything in a bag and hauled it into the Geek Squad guys at Best Buy. Their conclusion? The cord is fine, and my battery is fine, which means that it's the AC port--in other words, the worst possible thing it could be, since they could have fixed the other crap.

So, in tears (very rare for the Lioness....including this time, I've cried 13 times in my life that I can remember. I'm not a crier.) I called my dad who gets me numbers for the one day fix it places in Austin. So instead of studying for my crim law final tomorrow, I get to traipse around town getting my computer fixed.

Right now, its decided to take a charge again. Who knows how long that will last. In the meantime, if anyone has an extegrity-registered computer that they won't be using at 8:30 am on Wednesday, please shoot me an e-mail. I'd love to have the backup option of borrowing it.

Welcome to the Blawgroll...

2007-04-25T11:40:00.000-07:00

Starry.Decisis has been added to the UT blawgroll.

It's still looking a little thin, but soon enough all the little 0L's are bound to start blogs too.

Gone Batty

2007-04-24T15:02:00.000-07:00

Between the law school e-mail, the career services e-mail, the SBA e-mail, the general UT e-mail, the parking e-mail, and the public safety e-mail, the University keeps a steady stream of useless crap coming through my inbox. But the "informational" email I got today really takes the cake. The winner of most pointless University correspondence of the year award goes to:

"If you or someone you know touched a bat near the south end of Bellmont (off of San Jacinto St., across from the Alumni Center) on Monday, April 23, 2007, Environmental Health & Safety needs to talk to you. Please call Environmental Health & Safety, 471-XXXX / 471-XXXX or call the City of Austin Health and Human Services Department, 972-XXXX, and report that you touched a bat. Thank You.

Carin [Lastname]
Safety Specialist | Environmental Health & Safety University of Texas at Austin"

Seriously?

A sign from the tv god

2007-04-21T10:46:00.000-07:00

It's not that I watch a lot of tv, usually.

It's just that, when faced with the idea of watching tv, or say, memorizing the Model Penal Code, the tv wins out. I'm also lucky enough to have a tivo, so in my mind, I'm not *actually* being that bad by putting off studying to watch Gilmore Girls reruns, M*A*S*H reruns, or Law and Order: SVU reruns, because, hey, at least I'm skipping all the commercials. Who cares if I just wasted 40 minutes watching that show, really I saved 20 minutes.

But somewhere out there, all my rationalizations fell on deaf ears, and a sign was sent down through my cable box that I need to get to work.

My cable is broken. I just have a black screen. I called the geniuses they're employing over at Time Warner, but after an hour talking to some guy whose incessant sniffing led me to believe he was on a coked out bender, there was still just a black screen. So they're sending someone out...on Friday. Which means I have a whole week without my favorite procrastination device. But don't worry about me, kids. I've already dug out the good old standby: the gameboy. Let's see the cable gods try to break that!

Retail Therapy (kinda)

2007-04-19T20:19:00.000-07:00

Now that Legal Research and Coloring is forever behind me, I realized today that I could probably avoid signing onto Westlaw or Lexis for the rest of the semester and be no worse off. However, as some of you may remember, when I was a bright-eyed, bushy-tailed first semester 1L, I had grand illusions of raking in the Westlaw points and saving up for a nifty wine fridge.

But, now, 8 months down the road, a litte more cynical, a litte more jaded, and substantially less money in my bank account to spend on actual shopping, instant gratification with some of the lower point items sounded way better.

So I wandered over to the Westlaw rewards catalog, only to find that the best thing my hard fought 3,600 some odd points could get me was the all-in-one breakfast machine thingy that makes coffee and toast in the same machine.

Of course, I don't drink coffee, and I rarely eat toast. Very depressing.

Blame Canada.

2007-04-17T18:50:00.000-07:00

Anyone who knows me well could probably tell you two things about me:

1. I really hate(d) Legal Research and Writing.
2. I really, really, really hate the band Rush.

So wouldn't it figure that the same day that I sit down to finish the torture of my final LRW memo, my downstairs neighbor would decide it's a good day to blast Rush's greatest hits album. (Why they were ever hits, or how one could describe any of it as great, is beyond me.)

Clearly, I had to take matters into my own hand before the wretched Canadian corporate rock seeped into my subconscious. So I went to my ipod....I made a quick playlist of the most annoying and un-Rush music I could think of. Then I plugged it into my speakers, turned the speakers over so that they pointed into the floor, turned the volume up and blasted Le Tigre (really annoying indie girl rock), old Nine Inch Nails, and a song from Rent into her ceiling.

At the end of the third song, I paused....

...the silence is golden. ;-)

Love is in the air

2007-04-11T10:16:00.000-07:00

Looking for a special way to tell your law school crush that you would like to help them "release their finals tension"?

Try these:
Law and Order SVU Valentine Cards

Who Says AIM in class isn't useful?

2007-04-10T17:08:00.000-07:00

Today I witnessed an amazing testimony to the usefulness of AIM in class.

Student A's laptop was about to die. Student A had a Mac. The closest other Mac user was 7 seats over, and across the aisle. Luckily for the sad Mac user, everyone in that line of seats was on AIM and paying very little attention to class. (It was crim law, after all.)

IM's were quickly sent to everyone in the chain, and the cord passing commenced. The laptop was saved, and no goofing off in class was missed. All hail to the power of AIM.

Never knew I had the power....

2007-04-07T18:15:00.000-07:00

So I've gotten a few e-mails today that suggested the recent craptastic weather is my fault, a direct result of this post. While I'm flattered that you all think I have the power to control the weather, I really don't think there's a connection.

Just in case, however, I present "A Second Open Letter to Springtime":

Dear Springtime,

I'm sorry. I was so ungrateful. Who was I to go and request less beautiful weather from 1:45-2:00 on M-W? I honestly thought it might help motivate me to go to Crim Law. But now I see the error of my ways. Nothing could help motivate me to go to crim, other than a giant dose of self-loathing and masochism.

Please forgive me spring. Don't alter your ways. Let the sun shine and the flowers bloom and the birds chirp and all that Snow-Whiteish crap that goes along with this time of year. And I promise, I really do intend to throw away that dead hanging plant on my balcony sometime soon.

Really.

Yours Truly,
The Lioness

There. It's out of my hands. But if this actually changes the weather at all sooner than it was supposed to change anyways, expect me to start charging for all such future requests.

They've stopped caring too

2007-04-02T19:27:00.000-07:00

In one of my classes today, a girl answered a question with straight jibberish. Not words, just a collection of "um, well, yeah, blah" or something like that. But she did it with convincing intonation, as if she were constructing a real sentence.

The professor looked at her for a minute, and then said "yeah, that's right..." and continued with the lecture. Proof positive that just as you aren't paying attention to your professors, they aren't paying attention to you.

Happy (belated) birthday!

2007-04-01T18:13:00.000-07:00

It was recently pointed out to me that I've been blogging for over a year here. Since March 9, 2006, to be exact. In that year, I've had a few laughs, learned a few things, and likely done some serious liver damage. And through it all, you, my loyal readers have laughed, learned, and been hungover right along with me. So....

Happy birthday to the blog and its readers!

.....nearly a month late, but oh well.

Like sands through the hour glass....

2007-03-30T11:04:00.000-07:00

...so slips the ranking of Texas.

The new US News and World Report ranking of law schools came out this week, and Texas has slipped on down two spots to #18. This also resulted in Vandy and USC hurdling Texas.

Guess the upping of out of state admissions basically didn't help them at all.

Rants of the day:

2007-03-28T10:43:00.000-07:00

1. Those sunflower committee bricks? They've been blocked off for a week. Either the bricks are dry, or the mortar hasn't been poured yet. And if they didn't have the mortar, they shouldn't have laid the bricks yet. Either way, I'm tired of walking around the yellow police tape. I think we should draw a chalk outline of a dead body inside it in protest.

2. Driving to study group a few days ago with my books, laptop, and a few supplemental materials, I hit a pinnacle in my law school career. I had enough weight in books in my passenger seat to engage the sensor for my passenger seat air bag. My books are as heavy as a human being. No wonder my shoulders always hurt.

3. As far as has been announced, there is no bar tab at bar review this week. How are we supposed to actively convince prospectives that we are happy, well-adjusted, people who aren't under way too much stress if we actually have to pay for our drinks? Further, how do we celebrate what (for many of us) is the anniversary of the first time we met our classmates if we're still just imbibing on our humble (if not already spent) loan money?

The Lioness is on the Bandwagon....

2007-03-27T08:10:00.000-07:00

Lest there be any doubt, Lunching With Lions is very excited to support

KATIE LYONS
for SBA President.

Good luck to all the candidates, and be sure to vote on Wednesday.

P.s. I know there was apparently some blog-nastiness regarding last year's SBA elections. Comments and discussion about the race is welcome here, but if I get one mean-spirited nasty comment, I will shut them down faster than you can say hanging chad. Debauchery, however, is open to it.

An open letter to springtime on the first official day of spring...

2007-03-21T22:39:00.000-07:00

Dear Spring,

We've always had quite the lovely friendship going on. I start to get really sick of winter and boom! There you are to cheer me up. I noticed that the bluebonnets have started blooming in the past few days, a bird is nesting in the tree outside my balcony (much to my cat's chagrin, but I digress), and the greenbelt has started to live up to its name and change back from dull, dead, and brown to lush, green, and happy.

But spring, we have to talk. You are making it a little too gorgeous every day when I get out of morning classes. It's been impossible lately for me to want to do anything but go for a walk or go kayaking or just generally be outside. Crim Law can't compete with lovely 72 degree clear skies, with just hint of a breeze. As it is, Crim Law can barely compete with a blizzard or a monsoon.

So I ask you for just this one little favor, spring: can you start making the weather suck around 1:45 Monday-Wednesday? Just enough so that I look outside, assess the icky weather, and decide that I might as well go to Crim since bad weather gives me no excuse to leave early. Maybe you can even get in cahoots with summer of fall to accomplish this. In return, I'll stop attacking every stinging insect that lands within 100 ft of my place with Raid, and I'll finally throw away the dead hanging plant on my balcony that died 6 months ago.

Glad we could work things out,
The Lioness

Over that quickly?

2007-03-18T08:51:00.000-07:00

If you're anything like me, you woke up today and realized it was Sunday, and that meant classes actually start back tomorrow. And that's a real bummer, because if you spring break-ed properly, you are probably wishing you had a break in which to recover from your spring break.

While I can't help with that wish, I can share some of the amazing bands that I discovered at SXSW to help you cope:

If you're feeling bluesy, and need someone to commiserate, try Paper Sun
If you're feeling angry, and want to yell it out, try Valient Thorr
If you're just getting back from a Latin country, and don't want it to be over yet, try the Monas.
If you're feeling nostalgic for simpler days, try the Presidents of the United States of America
If you're feeling all introspective and emo, try The Walkmen

And if you're feeling something else...go find a music blog or something, this isn't really what we do here.

What I've Managed to Accomplish the First Three Days of Spring Break:

2007-03-11T23:46:00.000-07:00

Friday:
-Went to Austin Java
-Convinced a friend to help me clean about 1/2 of my apartment
-Visited another friend
-Took a nap
-Drinking/Concert/Drinking

Saturday:
-Woke up around 11 (in all fairness, I didn't go to sleep till dawn the night before)
-Went to Freebirds for a hangover-be-gone lunch
-Took a nap
-Watched Van Wilder
-Drinking

Sunday:
-Tried to go for a run, but got rained on and had to cut it short
-Watched Comedy Central for a while
-Edited my myspace profile
-Dinner/Drinking

So, in other words, I've managed to accomplish NOTHING in my first three days of spring break. And I absolutely love that fact. Wishing you all a happy nothingess as well. And because the only thinking I hope to do this week is decide between whether I want beer or a margariata, I leave you with someone else's thoughtful writing: "Where the Supreme Court is going on spring break" by W&V

Happy Trails, To You

2007-03-07T19:02:00.000-08:00

Time to purge the outdated links again:

Cavalier Law is a second semester 3L. We really can't blame him for slacking.
Juddge's last post was ironically named "Die Die Die," which is just what his blog did, did, did.
Longhorn Law's dissapearance coincided with him getting a girlfriend.
Chicken Wings & Beer probably just got tired of being compared to Buffalo Wings & Vodka
Law School Virgin decided she'd rather pull out before she was finished (I meant with law school, you perv.)
The Littlest Tortfeaser also left the law school game for greener pastures.

And I also fixed the link for:
My So-Called Law School (I'm pretty sure she told me she was changing domain names a while back and I just forgot to change it. Sorry for the delay.)

Snowcone Wars

2007-03-06T20:05:00.000-08:00

So this has nothing to do with law school, but I was just kinda wondering...

What's with the snowcone turf wars going on at S. Lamar and Barton Springs Rd? When I first moved here, I immediately noticed Sno-Beach, snuggled into it's corner of the P. Terry's parking lot. Seeing as how, in the summer months, the line for their snowcones usually was at least 10-15 people long, it was hard not to notice. I always had a theory that they laced their snowcones with lithium or ritalin, and desperate parents took their kids there for a downer so they could have a moment of peace.

But now, Sno-Beach is occupying a corner of the Barton Springs Saloon parking lot and a new snowcone stand has moved into the P-Terry's lot, which is all of about 100 yards away.

What the hell is going on? Does South Austin need this many snowcones? Which stand will win out in this shaved ice war? Oh, the humanity!

Tlf it to me

2007-03-05T20:18:00.000-08:00

So, it's TLF fundraising week everybody, which this blog fully supports. Help your fellow students out, and all that sutff.

But one wonders, why have the professors agree to bribe us into pledging with such mundane things? Pizza, ice cream, beer....I can buy all of those things for myself. I'd rather watch the professor's experience some good old fashioned humiliation. Everyone in the class gets to throw a pie in a professor's face? Now we're talking. Perhaps the professors have to mud wrestle each other. Or better yet, force the professors to go to each other's classes, then have them critique each other a la American Idol. Now THAT would be a thing I would pay to see.

Perhaps that's just week before spring break tension, though.

Passion for Fashion

2007-03-01T21:31:00.000-08:00

Let's face it: most of us don't particularly enjoy dressing up for firm receptions. But at the same time, common phrases like "business dress" and "business casual" do keep (most of) us dressed as we should be for firm events.

Then, in an attempt to be cutesy, someone had to go and invent "snappy casual". This detestable term, ostensibly meaning nicer than casual but less than business cas--I usually wear nice jeans, a blouse, and heels--is even ok in moderation. You're trying to be cool, we get it.

But tomorrow's reception really takes the cake for dress instructions. We were told to dress "Austin casual". Now, for me, one of the things I like best about Austin is that you could ask ten different Austinites their definition of that term and get ten different responses. Is dressing like Leslie considered "Austin casual"? He certainly epitomizes Austin, and his look could certainly be described (perhaps as an understatement) as casual. Or maybe wearing a UT sports t-shirt, as so many Austin residents do, day in and day out, would suffice. I've been told Austin has more triathletes than any other city in the country--could one of their hot spandex outfits be considered "Austin casual"? Or better yet still, why don't I just have the hippies that hang out on the drag and near Barton Springs Pool dress me?

In the end, none of this is actually important, seeing as how I would rather stab myself in the eye with a fork than go to a firm reception on a Friday night. It's even easy enough to know what they want us to wear--probably the same thing I would wear to something "snappy casual"--but the point remains that a city as unique as Austin can't and shouldn't be pigeonholed into one commonly accepted definiton. And for that, I am thankful.

Parking in SJC, 101

2007-02-27T18:17:00.000-08:00

The San Jac garage, the place where the majority of us law students who are too environmentally unconscious to ride a shuttle like to park, seems to have gotten a little ridiculous this semester. Indeed, at least once a week now it appears that someone, perhaps confused with basic parking garage ettiquette, turns the lanes into, well, for lack of a better word, a parking lot. So with that in mind, I offer the following advice:

1. If you are getting to the parking garage after about 8:30, there isn't going to be anything available until the 4th floor. Just deal with it. Going slowly on all the levels up to 4 desparately searching for a closer spot just makes the entire line backup.

2. That middle ramp? It goes down. Always down. No matter what level you are on, that ramp only goes down. Someone in front of me starts to try to go up it at least once a week, then realizing that it's down only, has to reverse and get back on the right path.

3. If you are driving a gigantic, extended cab, mud-flap dressed, uber-truck, perhaps consider just going up another flight to get to easier parking, instead of blocking the entire lane to do a 16-point turn to get into the tiniest space in the garage. If you drive a really small car but just have frequent problems parking it without backing out again to "straighten up," this applies to you as well.

So there ya go. Just three simple suggestions that should make all of our lives easier. In the immortal words of Jerry Springer, "take care of yourselves, and each other."

Promerrific

2007-02-25T12:13:00.000-08:00

I have to admit, prom was a blast. Three cheers to the SBA for putting on a great event. Everyone feel free to post your favorite prom moments in the comments.

A prom confession

2007-02-24T11:44:00.000-08:00

When one thinks of high school prom, one thinks of spiked punch, corsages, slow dancing, hotel rooms, and getting lucky, right? Well I have a confession: if those things are definitive of prom, tonight's Casino Night will be my first real prom. Why? Well, for starters because I went to boarding school for performing arts. Let's take a stroll down memory lane:

Prom #1- Sophomore year.
Hot hometown football player invited me to go to prom at the high school I would have gone to, had I not gone to boarding school instead. I was thoroughly excited. He picked me (and two other couples) up in his old beat up pick-up truck, then proceeded to drive everyone to a very fancy establishment for our pre-prom dinner. Oh yes, we dined at none other than T.G.I.Fridays. We got to the prom (which was held in the same location they do livestock auctions and rodeos in our hometown), took pictures, and then sat at a table with a bunch of other football players and their dates. They had all decided beforehand that dancing was stupid and they weren't going to participate. After 20 minutes, our dates decided they had suffered all the prom they could handle and we left to go to a post-party. The post party was broken up by the cops within the hour. So we tried another party. Also busted shortly thereafter. Since the guys couldn't figure out where to go, I got out my cell phone and called my dad. I explained that everyone in this town was moronic, and could everyone come to our place? Of course they could. So, my dad became the "coolest dad ever", broke out his grill at 11:30 at night, made burgers and virgin margaritas for half the football team and their dates while everyone crammed into our living room to watch Carrie, Office Space, and Monty Python. What crazy debauchery, I know.

Prom #2-Junior year.
My boarding school didn't have prom, we had morp (prom spelled backwards. This was done as a statement to how anti-mainstream we were.) We all boarded a bright yellow schoolbus in our fancy attire, and were taken to the hotel where the prom was being held. We ate dinner there, and it was good, though I distinctly remember someone spilling bright pink punch all over me. Not that it mattered, because after dinner, everyone changed into the jeans they had brought with them to begin dancing. At this point, my on-again-off-again boyfriend and I decided to have an argument that lasted the entire rest of the evening. At midnight, we re-boarded the bright yellow schoolbuses and had finally made up. Which was great, cause that meant we got to go back to our dorms. Alone. Uber-fun.

Prom #3-Senior year.
As co-chair of the Morp committee, I got to spend the entire day planning our masquerade morp. Being a senior and on the committee kind of had its advantages, because at least I didn't have to ride there in a school bus. However, I also remember that we had chosen to do beta fish in vase centerpieces, and the first part of my senior morp was consumed by dealing with dead fish. Anyways, my date that year was my gay best friend Thomas, who was lots of fun until he discovered that "hot dance major Lawrence" thought he was cute and they spent the rest of the evening grinding on the dance floor together. At midnight, we all boarded the school buses to be taken to a bowling alley, and we proceeded to go bowling in our formal wear until 2am, then reboarded the buses and were taken back to the dorms. "Lights out" was at 3, after all.

Never was there alcohol. Never was there dancing. Never was there a crazy post-prom party in a hotel room. So, tonight, tonight! I hope to do it right. I plan to participate in every ridiculous high school cliche I can tonight. Consider yourselves warned.

A New Breed of Gunner

2007-02-22T13:41:00.000-08:00

When I first posted about gunners in the 1L class last semester, I got a lot of responses of people telling me not to worry because they would likely a) figure out they were annoying everyone and shut up or b) drop out/transfer. And to some extent that's true. Word on the streets is that our biggest gunner is indeed trying to transfer, and the other major 1st semester gunners chilled out a bit as the semester went on.

But, now, a month into second semester, a new breed of gunners has sprung up. And just like antibiotic-resistant bacteria, I think these suckers are gonna be harder to get rid of than the original batch.

You know the type. They may have piped up occasionally first semester, but for the most part, they kept a low profile. But now, perhaps emboldened by an A on an exam or a cushy summer job offer, they've decided it's their god-given right to blather on, incessantly, about whatever they like, every single class period. This breed is more agressive than the original gunners as well, frequently dispensing the need to raise their hands or be recognized by the professor.

But perhaps the most puzzling part about the nouveau gunner is that they have no idea that they've become a gunner at all. They made fun of the gunners last semester, and they still sigh and roll their eyes when the old gunners speak. It appears that they have become blinded to their own gunnerish ways. So, as a PSA to all my readers, I offer these helpful tips to determine if you have become a gunner:

1. Have you volunteered in class more than once today? (If yes, +1)
2. Have you done so in more than one class? (+1 for each additional class)
3. Have you spoken without being called on? (+1 for each outburst)
4. When you raise your hand, does anyone groan audibly (+5)
5. Does the professor notably try to call on every single other volunteer before calling on you? (+3)
6. Have you brought up game theory, religion, or philosophy in class to "add" to the discussion? (+10)

More than three points, and chances are you've become a gunner. But don't worry, it's easy to fix: just shut up. It's that simple.

If imitation is the sincerest form of flattery,

2007-02-21T12:50:00.000-08:00

then all the other UT blawgers and myself should theoretically be flattered by this new site that UT is using on their main web page:

http://www.utexas.edu/inside_ut/blogs/

Too bad I'm more appalled than flattered.

It looks as though the University has hand picked a bunch of its "choice" undergrads, (while maintaining gender, race, age, and major diversity, of course), set them up with cookie-cutter University-sponsored blogs, and let them write PC, University-approved impressions of campus life in hopes of drawing in prospective students. That's some accurate journalism for ya.

I find this really dissapointing, mainly because I *did* read student blogs (and not the University-approved version) when deciding on one law school over another. While it certainly wasn't my main consideration, reading the students from Chicago Law (where the blawgs all sounded angry, terror-stricken, sadistic, or any comination therein) compared to Texas (I think everyone here is pretty familiar with Wings and Vodka and Ruth) , made me much more comfortable with the decision I had made.

Basically, if UT wants to show prospective students, or anyone else for that matter, what being a student is really like, there are undoubtedly a handful of solid student bloggers in undergrad just as there are in law school. But sponsoring puppets to write University-approved glossy images of student life is just pathetic.

An honor to be nominated...

2007-02-19T18:01:00.000-08:00

Apparently I've been nominated in Ruth's Joe Jamail Awards in Legal Education in the category of "Outstanding Achievement in Commentary."

So, thanks to whoever nominated me. I feel all loved and stuff. ;-)

Others, however, were not feeling so loved. Certain 1Ls nominated in other categories were unpleasantly surprised to discover their true reps, and a general wave of IM debates flew through Crim. Non-nominees responded by writing long, drawn out votes for their favorite candidates, which they made their friends proofread and give commentary on before posting. It was all very amusing. Seeing as how the ratings for the Oscars go down every year, I think this is the new awards ceremony to watch.

Happy Valentines Day! (Now don't kill each other)

2007-02-14T10:29:00.000-08:00

Ahh, Valentine's Day. That special time of year when law students (along with the rest of the country) put to shame the Beatles' notion that money can't buy you love...because it can buy you dinner, flowers, jewlery, and stuffed animals.

But, being the cynic that I am when it comes to this holiday, I can't help but laugh at the many pitfalls that have already surrounded many a couple:

-In contracts, a giant balloon delivery from one student to another had the class (and professor) amused. When the balloons wouldn't stop playing "Everlasting Love" the professor's amusement waned considerably.

-The DVSSN crush sale has apparently delivered some crushes to people in committed relationships...much to their significant other's displeasure.

-One girl in the atrium took no notice of the volume of her voice when describing her lingerie plans for the evening to a friend. If I heard it, I'm sure a few professors did too.

-A non-law friend called to tell me about her boyfriend's attempt to make her breakfast in bed. Instead, he started a fire in their kitchen and managed to give them both food poisoning. They'll be spending their day taking alternating turns praying to the porcelain godthrone. How romantic.

As for me, I think a nice bottle of red wine at home is more than satisfactory. But to those of you with plans of grandeur, just remember, as evidenced by the above, Murphy's Law works in overdrive on February 14th.

Note to Self:

2007-02-08T10:59:00.001-08:00

In a class that is a year long, such as Legal Research and Coloring, telling the professor how you actually feel about the class will result in her opening the class with this statement:

Prof: "Yesterday, I read through the course evalutations from last semester. I haven't decided whether to go back to practicing law or hang myself."

Yikes.

Fresh pig's blood, anyone

2007-02-06T05:24:00.000-08:00

As the 1Ls start to rumble about law school prom (which, hey SBA, it'd be great if you'd actually announe that since it's less than 3 weeks away!) the inherent ridiculousness of the whole thing is finally sinking in. I've heard of people ordering corsages. I've heard of people booking hotel rooms. I've heard of 80s thrift store dresses so fabulous they would make Cyndi Lauper proud. And I think it's all hilariously wonderful.

But how do you explain law prom to non-law school students? At first, I thought it would be a hard feat to make the entire thing sound enticing to a guy:

"So, um, do you wanna go to law school prom with me? We can hang out all night with a bunch of up-tight, type A personalities who will invariably have way too much to drink, cause a bunch of drama, and look really silly while doing it. You'll have to dress up, and btw, there's going to be dancing involved."

and then I realized the magic words that I was forgetting..."there's an open bar."

Happiness is...

2007-02-05T14:11:00.000-08:00

...getting a summer job offer! Yay!

...anything not involving the stupid LR&W oral report, which I will hopefully be done with by the end of the day

...a really beautiful day outside

...celebrating all three at the bar later!

The good, the bad, and the ugly

2007-02-02T10:25:00.000-08:00

The do-gooders of UT Law had the public service career day today, and I couldn't help but notice the conflict of the students who are ok with less cash and informal workplaces in exchange for being honorable humans walking around in spiffy, expensive-looking suits, while the big-law, high salary obsessive were so hungover from bar review that they tended to resemble drag rats.

Ah, law school.

Oh, um, hi.....

2007-01-30T22:00:00.000-08:00

Awkward: Schmoozing attorneys at a firm reception for a firm that you are only marginally interested in working at.

Really awkward: Having several of those attorneys stumble into the bar you are at five hours after the reception, when both you and them have clearly been drinking in the interim.

Even more awkward: When drunken 1st year associate for the firm shouts out "Hey, weren't you at our reception tonight?," and brings all five of his firm buddies over to talk to you and your non-law friend, in a conversation that could have gone down as the Webster definition of awkward and uncomfortable.

My thanks to the guy who appeared to be the only partner in the group, who eventually suggested they leave us alone and go outside. Whoever you are, you have my ultimate gratitude.

Doodleriffic

2007-01-29T09:13:00.000-08:00

Observing the random vandalism carved and written on desks and other school property throughout my education has always been a favorite activity of mine. At my high school, myself and my group of friends often found it humorous to carve "[Celebrity who went to my high school] was here" into the cafeteria trays in hopes of tricking the freshman into believing that she had, in fact, partaken of cafeteria food off of that same exact tray. Because in jr. high and high school, that's hilarious.

But in Tarleton, where the average age of the people at the study carrels has to be at least around 26 or so, I've always wondered what would convince someone of the need to write "Poop" or "I heart so-and-so" on the desks. (Both of those scribblings are on the wall of the carrel I'm at right now.) I mean, for that idea to seem like a really good idea to a highly-educated mature adult must mean that some of our classmates are really losing it in the library. Either that, or perhaps they are just regressing to their childhoods in response to the immense trauma of being in law school in the first place. Your guess is as good as mine.

As if they weren't moving at a sloth-like speed already...

2007-01-22T20:32:00.000-08:00

"Law Mail group: All Current Subscribers
Message sponsored by: Student Affairs

*** This message is for information only and requires no response.
*** Replies by email will not be answered.
The deadline for fall term grade submission has been extended. Professors are now required to submit 2006 fall grades by noon on Monday, January 29th."

Oh, yeah, take your time guys. I don't need my grades for anything like interviews. No, noooo, you just go ahead and take a few more days with it. You didn't just have three snow days to finish up your grading or anything, so really, it's cool.

Another one bites the dust...

2007-01-19T17:49:00.000-08:00

Sad to say, two of my blogging compatriots have decided to say adios to law school after just their first semester. Littlest Tortfeasor and Law School Virgin are both done with the law school game. While I've only heard rumors of such dropouts at UT (seems a little early, since most sections only have 2 of their 4 grades so far) I say congrats to everyone who's sticking it out with me for another semester, at least.

But really, when snow days mean that your only class all week is Legal Research and Coloring, who wouldn't mind law school?

Second Thoughts on the Snow Day

2007-01-16T15:04:00.000-08:00

Ok, while I was just as excited as everyone else about the snow day, I have discovered the dark underbelly of this supposedly joyous occasion:

No food.

Seeing as how my fridge contains very little other than beer and ketchup, and the odds of me standing outside and de-icing my car for 15 minutes in order to go get some is unlikely, I turned to my handy dandy backup method, aka the drawer of delivery menus.

But no one is delivering. Not chinese. Not pizza. Not anyone. This is a very sad fact. Granted, it won't be the first time I've made a dinnner out of Shiner bock, but no one can deny that there's nothing like some orange chicken and crab rangoon on a cold winters day. Alas.

Snow Day!

2007-01-16T01:44:00.000-08:00

So, apparently, UT is closed tomorrow because of inclement weather. Because, apparently, it is possible we may have an inch or less of sleet overnight.
.
.
.
Ok, Northeasterners, have you had enough opportunity to laugh yet? Oh, no? Ok...
.
.
.
How's that? Better? Ok, good. Well, jokes about how silly Austin is for cancelling classes because of a half inch of sleet aside, can we reflect about how awesome it is that my first day back is actually not going to happen for a while?!

Ah, finally

2007-01-12T00:38:00.000-08:00

I find it amusing that when my Con Law professor announced at the end of the semester that we would get our grades between the 13th and the 15th of January, I thought,

"Wow, that's late. I guess he'll be the last grade we get."

Turns out he was the first. I figure it's about 50/50 whether I get the rest of them before classes start.

Conflicted

2007-01-09T13:28:00.000-08:00

General question for my fellow 1L's:

What are you guys doing about the firm receptions that conflict with each other? Are you going to try to attend both of them, or are you just picking the one you'd rather go to?

You'd think the firms could coordinate their reception times, but apparently, that's just too complicated.

Wow, That's Really Loserish

2007-01-08T19:31:00.000-08:00

While this is not law related at all, I just felt it really important to talk about how lame Ohio State's marching band is. They played the Titanic theme song and had people walking around on the field with portable fog machines. Clearly, OSU deserves to get their ass kicked.

Not a good first impression...

2007-01-04T12:15:00.000-08:00

While I understand the goal of firm receptions is generally to make a good impression on the 1Ls, holding a firm reception on Monday may do just the opposite for the firm that is holding it. Because through the whole reception, I am going to be wondering one thing:

What sort of firm forces their attorneys to work a reception the night of the National Championship game?!

It just doesn't suit me

2007-01-02T11:50:00.000-08:00

With firm reception, interviews, and spring OCI all either in progress or coming up soon, I decided that today was a good day to break out my buisiness suits. Trying them on, I realized once again: I hate business suits.

I don't think women look good in suits, neither the skirt nor pant varieties. Not that they really should be expected to. Women's suits weren't created by designers who envisioned how to make women look beautiful and feminine--they were designed to make women blend in with men.

Granted, I come from the world of entertainment PR in Los Angeles, where the only appropriate office wear was tight fitting jeans that cost well over 100 bucks and the tallest strappy sandals you could manage. (I know those of you who have rarely seen me out of flip flops may find that suprising, but it's true. I was much more stylish back when I actually had to be.) But even business casual is just so much more flattering.

Don't get me wrong, a well-dressed man in a classy suit is hot. But there's a reason suits aren't the choice of the hot Hollywood bombshells--women look better in other things, namely, dresses. Suit jackets are just so severe and boring and drab. 1-button or 2-button should not be the end all, be all fashion decision for the rest of our lives. Alas.

[End rant]

Happy New Years, ya lucky bastards

2006-12-31T11:16:00.000-08:00

To all of you that have amazing plans to get ridiculously intoxicated tonight, I salute you. I, unfortunately, will be sitting at home and probably be in bed by 10 because I have strep throat. What a way to start 2007.

On the upside, when the fever hits 104, I start having mild hallucinations, so that's fun. Wait, no, it's really not. Damn. Well, everybody drink one for the Lioness tonight.

No! Not Yet! Noooooo!

2006-12-29T12:27:00.000-08:00

It's not even January yet, and what shows up in my e-mail today?

An assignment for the first day of classes for next semester.

Damnit. Whatdya mean I have five more semesters of this crap?! I don't wanna. I don't waannnnnaaaaa. I have at least another solid week of binge drinking ahead of me in hopes of purging every retained bit of knowledge from last semester out of my head before I can even BEGIN to contemplate another semester.

Oh well. At least it's bowl season.

Out with the old, in with the new

2006-12-29T10:22:00.000-08:00

With 2007 fast approaching, I figured it was time to update my links. Some people have asked me how I choose who to link. Basically, when I get either a request from someone to add their blog or I notice a particular blogger commenting a lot, I'll start reading their blog occasionally. Then, from those I've taken notice of, if they continue posting (as quite a few die out within a month or two) and I think their blog is humorous and compatible with mine, I'll add them. I usually update my links every few months.

So, in the UT category, welcome to the blogroll Cavalier Law and Paragon to Pieces.
Goodbye Emphasis Added and Passive Voice.
In the non-UT category, hello So-Called Law School, and hello Butterflyfish.
Goodbye Law and Mommyhood. (It might also soon be a goodbye to Littlest Tortfeasor if she does indeed stick with her decision to leave law school.)

Enjoy!

Merry Christmas!

2006-12-25T08:24:00.000-08:00

Merry Christmas to my bloggy readers! Hope everyone is enjoying family and eating way too much. Here's a highlight from my holidays so far:

Conversation with my 6-year old cousin, exasperated that I did not know the plot line of the children's show Suite Life of Zach and Cody:
Cousin: "C'mon [Lioness]! Didn't they teach you ANYTHING in law school?!"
Lioness: "Nope. They definitely did not."
Cousin: "Then why do you go?"
Lioness: "I guess I'm just a masochist"
Cousin: "A what?"
Lioness: "Nevermind. Go and play with your brother."

A few minutes later:
Aunt: "[Cousin], why did you hit your brother?"
Cousin: "Um...well...I guess I'm just a masochist?"
Aunt: "WHAT!?"
Cousin: "I dunno. That's what [Lioness] said earlier."
Aunt: (After shooting me a dirty look) "Well, first of all, hitting someone else makes you a sadist, not a masochist, and second of all, stop repeating anything [Lioness] tells you. Ever."

Finish Line

2006-12-22T10:18:00.000-08:00

As of 11:00 am this morning, I am finally finished with my first semester of law school. Yee-haw. Somebody put the bars on alert: section 1 plans to drink them dry tonight.

Next phase: manic grade checking. Though, let's not lie. I started doing that a few days ago.

Also, this is my 100th post. Fitting, I think.

Hungry Like a Wolf

2006-12-20T13:37:00.000-08:00

Last night was an interesting night. Suffice it to say that my Legal Research and Writing grade will not be helped by the fact that I discovered a Korean-style karaoke place (private booths) that serves alcohol till 4 am. Anyways, so after numerous rounds of soju shots, I ended up crashing at the house of one of the people in our group. Blissfully intoxicated, I went to sleep without much notice of my surroundings.

I was awoken this morning by a 150-lb full blooded wolf licking my face. Apparently it was this person's pet. And do you know what I thought when, through hangover-blurred eyes, I saw this wild animal with its large teeth mere inches from my face?

STRICT LIABILITY! STRICT LIABILITY! (Holyshitwhyisthereawolflickingmyfaceifiteatsmethenitsgoingtobe:) STRICT LIABILITY!

Perhaps Torts served me well after all.

I hate Target.

2006-12-17T09:33:00.000-08:00

So, even though I needed to be studying for my torts final this morning, I also needed to do my Christmas shopping. Problem: I hate shopping, I hate malls, and I especially hate them during the Christmas season. Solution: The internet. Or so one would think, right?

I spent two hours on Target.com, picking presents, making sure the only presents I picked were available to ship within 24 hours, that type of thing. Only to find that for some reason, the Web site wouldn't let me enter in that I needed two-day shipping. The earliest date that I could guarantee getting my presents here by was December 27th.

So I called the customer service people. Why can't I get expedited shipping? Oh, sorry Lioness, but Friday was the last day to order and have things guaranteed by Chistmas eve. Uberpwned!

Me and Target are no longer on speaking terms.

2 down. 2 to go.

2006-12-15T10:54:00.000-08:00

Well I managed to survive my first two law school finals. Some observations:

1. The only appropriate thing to do after a final is drink. If you move on directly to studying for your next final, you will either self-combust or all your classmates will hate you. Probably both.

2. Witnessing the day before finals freakouts of various friends teaches you way more about them than you can learn through seeing and talking to them every day for a semester. Witnessing their attempts to pretend that you didn't see them freak out like scared little girls? That's just comical.

3. If you are ever "totally sure" that a certain type of question or a certain area of knowledge is going to be on the test, then it absolutely and categorically will not be on the test. Same goes for anything that was tested on any of the professor's previous exams.

4. While I can't say authoritatively until grades come out, I get the distinct feeling that grades are going to be a total crapshoot.

5. I've seen at least 100 people in this past week that I have never seen at the law school or at any law school function before in my life. They all look patronizingly carefree. I have been told these are the 3Ls who have already accepted offers. Bitches.

6. The proctors are utterly useless. And for the love of all that is holy, it doesn't take a genius to figure out that if there are two proctors, and one speaks with a heavy foreign accent, the other one should read the damn exam instructions.

7. My feelings towards extegrity can be explained here.

8. My feelings towards finals in general can be explained here.

Good Luck!

2006-12-11T07:30:00.000-08:00

Good luck on finals, my 1L brethren.

(Unless you're in my section. In that case, I wish no bad luck upon you, just no additional good luck. ;-))

Moral of the story: Never clean during finals season

2006-12-09T13:31:00.000-08:00

The other day I thought perhaps if I cleaned my messy apartment, maybe I would be better able to focus on studying. So I started to clean, and after about 10 minutes, I found my old Gameboy.

Con Law has now taken a back seat to saving the princess.

Be the Best

2006-12-08T08:29:00.000-08:00

Well, bloggy-fans, I think it has come the time to address perhaps the most controversial topic this blog may ever discuss. Yep, that's right. It has come time to ask the question:

Who has the best breakfast tacos in Austin?

On your mark. Get set. Go! I'll post the first ever Lunching with Lions award for whoever draws the most votes.

Damn, that's a hot clerkship

2006-12-06T12:11:00.000-08:00

It started with a few mass e-mails. Then a few targeted e-mails. And now the postal onslaught has begun. That's right, it's December, so legal employers are trying to woo (or reject) the 1Ls with varying tactics. The different styles of the firms has reminded me of various dating tactics:

Tactic 1: Showing some skin.
Firm A is employing the classic "look at me! look at me!" move, having already sent out two e-mails and a full color brochure in the mail.

Tactic 2: Playing hard to get
Firm B sent a letter basically saying "yeah, we got your resume, and if we have time we *might* look at it, and if we do that we *might* ask you to interview. We'll get back to you."

Tactic 3: Flat-out rejection
You always want what you can't have, and that is what made firm C's letter so special. The gist of it was "You want a position here? Ha! Get back to us when you're a 2L, loser."

Tactic 4: Buying me drinks
Firms A, D, and E are having firm receptions in Austin. And we all know that every summer associate positions appears cuter, funnier, and smarter after a few drinks.

Clearly, tactic 4 is the most useful. Other firms: take note.

Just like a cheap hooker...

2006-12-01T14:04:00.000-08:00

I hate Lexis. I really do. I’ll also take any excuse not to focus on finals, and hating them is more fun than finishing my outlines.

Why do I hate them? Well…

I’m sitting here, studying, when I realize that the only thing that could make my study experience complete would be to hear Want You to Want Me by Cheap Trick. And I wanted to hear it that very second. I used to have the mp3, but it was lost somewhere in the great hard drive crash of 2005. So, being the legal and ethical person I am, I headed over to Itunes.

At which point I thought, “Wait! I know! I have enough Lexis points to get 10 free Itunes songs! I’ll just do that!”

So I headed over to the Lexis webpage, and searched rather unsuccessfully for the damn Ultimate Rewards banner for a while. Apparently, it’s only on the screen if you login from lexisnexis.com/lawschool, but not just lexis.com, as I tend to use. Not finding it, I did a google search. Still not finding it, I went through my deleted messages to find an old e-mail from Eric Knustrom until I finally got onto the right web page.

Once on the damn site, I went to my account history and realized that Westlaw points are FAR superior in every way to Lexis points. I’m gonna hold out till my 3L year and get that damn Wine Refrigerator thing from Westlaw, but with the puny points allotted by Lexis, I’ll take whatever I can get, whenever I can get it. It’s like Westlaw is my true love, and Lexis is my cheap hooker on the side.

Anyways, I had exactly 750 Lexis points. Which is exactly how many I needed to get my 10 free itunes songs. So I ordered it. And I got the code. But when I tried to enter the code, and every subsequent time I’ve tried after that, it tells me that “the music store network connection has timed out.” I blame this entirely on Lexis, regardless of whether it’s truly their fault or not. So now I sit here, point-less, music-less, and having wasted nearly an hour between trying to get the song and having written up this blog. Ahh, finals season….just one more reason to hate Lexis.

Winter? What's that?

2006-11-29T23:09:00.000-08:00

As I was just woken up by the pouring rain, thunder, and lightning beating down like the four horseman of the Apocolypse outside my window, I decided to check what tomorrow's weather would be like. Congratulations, Austin, you get to look forward to winter weather: it's here, and it's ANGRY.

If you make it through the tornado watch in effect right now, you'll get to deal with the thunderstorms and freezing rain promised for tomorrow. Not to mention wind gusts of up to 25 mph. And a predicted wind chill in the low 20s. Super. Just super.

Right on schedule

2006-11-29T06:06:00.000-08:00

Last night I had my first finals-induced nightmare.

I dreamt that I totally bombed my Con Law exam. Remember that episode of Full House where DJ dreams that she bombed the SATs, but they were the weird bizarro SATs? Yeah. My dream was like that.

The first section of the exam was running an obstacle course while stating the amendments to the Bill of Rights. Then you had to do some weird pouring of water into cups thing. After you had completed these two, you could move on to the academic portions of the final. The first part of that was how Con Law related to astronomy. Or maybe it was astrology. I forget. Then there was a rather lengthy section in which you had to name bottles of wine based on blind tastings. Then you had to apply the gay rights cases to passages of the Old Testament. There were eight sections total, and all of them were about that random.

Also somwhat odd, the entire thing was held outdoors at my old summer camp.

I woke up to my alarm blaring at me. Time to go read more Con Law.

Black Sunday

2006-11-25T19:00:00.000-08:00

So I am told that today is Black Sunday, the day in which everyone in law school breaks up with their significant others. The reasoning, theoretically, is that everyone had the past few days of non-law school madness to reconnect with their future-ex and inform them that a) they're no longer interested and/or b) they've been sleeping with someone else.

While that is all well and good, I think something must be wrong with my 1L class. Most people I know ended their relationships in September, not November and/or just started new relationships recently. I've also heard one 1L describe his plan for an "alternate hate-fucking relationship" aka where you hate law school so much, you find one other person who you hates law school as much as you, and you take out your anger through sex.

So to all of you breaking up today, just remember, as a lawyer, your TRUE soulmate can always be found in the bottom of a pitcher of beer. And a glass of scotch. And a shot of tequilla. Trust me.

Switch

2006-11-25T18:21:00.001-08:00

I switched my blog over to the new Google Blogger platform, let me know if you see any glitches.

These are our future clients

2006-11-22T12:47:00.000-08:00

Scene: Starbucks on South Lamar

[Enter Lioness. She is annoyed, because she was just told by the people at the Jiffy Lube next door that it will probably be an hour before they can change her oil. She is holding her large purple Emanuel's for Torts. On the front, it prominently says "LAW OUTLINE"]

Lioness: Venti Green Iced Tea, please?
Barista: Sure. Wow, that's a big recipe book!
Lioness: Huh?
Barista: Your book, you must really like torts! Are you looking for a recipe for Thanksgiving?
Lioness: Oh, um, this isn't a recipe book. This is about legal torts, like personal injury and medical malpractice and stuff like that...
Barista: [clearly confused] Hmm. I didn't realize bakeries had that many legal problems.

I shit you not, people.

A Rivalry for the Ages

2006-11-20T16:28:00.000-08:00

As UT revs up for its annual rivalry game against A&M, I will remind all of you Longhorns that the greatest rivalry is not UT/A&M. It is not UT/OU. It is not Florida/Florida State. It is not even Michigan/Ohio State.

The greatest rivalry in college football is, and always has been, USC/Notre Dame. Read this very well written article (written by a Notre Dame fan, no less) to find out why. I am looking forward to a great game on Saturday!

Nap time

2006-11-19T15:30:00.000-08:00

I think what the law school needs is a room; a dark room, with 20 cots in it, and 20 pillows, for law students that just want to take a nap sometime during the day, a la hospitals or fire stations. I've seen the people who've fallen asleep on their books in library carrels, and it always appears that when they awake, they are going to be horrified to realize they've drooled through about half of their casebook, and will have weird impression lines on their face for the rest of the day from where their head was pressed into their laptop.

But everytime I suggest this to a fellow classmate, the reaction is the same:

"Yeah! That's a great idea! Oh wait. No. People would have too much sex in there. It would be gross. Nevermind. That's a horrible idea."

So, to you people who awake from library naps with muscle aches in your necks from the weird angle you slept at, to you people who had camera phone pictures taken of you passed out among the stacks, to you people who honestly just could have used a little nap room--you only have your own horny classmates to blame.

Top five things not to say while hitting on a female law student

2006-11-16T06:48:00.000-08:00

Last night, against my better judgment as I am still fighting a cold, I allowed myself to be dragged downtown for a few hours to see a friend's band play. Throughout the night my friend and I got hit on by a few different sets of gentleman at the bar. And, as happens roughly 70% of the time, when the flirting/conversation reached the inevitable "so what do you do" point in the conversation, and I answered "I go to law school," I would get the look of total horror, generally followed by one of the following lines: (All of these have actually been said to me, btw)

1. Oh, so are you going to sue me for talking to you?
2. Law school? So I got this [parking ticket, dui, assault charge] last week....
3. Cool! You could be my sugar mama!
4. My [parent, sibling, roommate, goldfish] is an attorney. [He/she/it] hates it. Why would you ever go to law school?

And my personal favorite:
5. That's too bad. Drunk guys hate smart chicks.

Stick with it!

2006-11-14T18:35:00.000-08:00

A quote from tonight's Gilmore Girls:

Rory: (After having a mild breakdown about not knowing what to do with her life after graduation) Maybe I should be applying to grad schools? Journalism school or maybe law school?
Friend: You don't want to go to law school.
Rory: I totally don't want to go to law school.

Stick with your gut, Rory. You don't. Really.

(Warning: stop reading if you are planning on watching this later on your tivo... on a note completely unrelated to law school, can I just be a total girl for a minute and gush over the fact that Lorelai and Christopher got married in Paris! Soooo romantic! Ok. Uncontrollable girly moment over. Back to your regularly scheduled Lioness.)

A post as disorganized as my Con Law notes...

2006-11-14T13:36:00.000-08:00

-I'm sure most of you who read my blog also read Ruth's, but if not, this is fantastic. I recommend singing it, instead of just reading. Over and over again. In the library. Really loud.

-I continue to be amused by something a fellow 1L said after hearing about 3 seperate recent events in my personal life. I believe the quote was "[Lioness], your decision-making has sucked lately. Maybe you should take up the George Costanza approach: whatever or whoever you think you want to do, do the exact opposite." I think he's right.

-And speaking of George's, is it just me, or has the food at George's Cafe actually gotten WORSE since it opened?

-Last night, I fell asleep while reading property. I woke up this morning with a bruise in my back from where my highlighter lodged itself during that equitable-servitude induced coma, and it's making me rethink my love for the Sharpie highlighters.

-Lastly, I think it just plain cruel for UT to send out a notice before finals are over telling us that our spring tuition bill has posted. Really? I'm basically bludgeoning myself daily over the next month in preparation for finals, and you have to remind me that I am actually going into debt for this torture? And that as soon as the torture stops, I just have to start it up again? Whoever sent that e-mail clearly has no soul.

Lessons Learned in 1L, volume 2

2006-11-10T14:50:00.000-08:00

Sharpie highlighters are clearly superior to every other brand of highlighters. That is all.

Earl Warren's ghost just tried to kill me

2006-11-08T14:58:00.000-08:00

So I'm sitting in my bedroom, with my cat in my lap, reading Con-Law, specifically about the Warren Court.

All of a sudden my sliding closet door swings out, then back, and all the hangers start moving. As my cat dashes into a hiding spot, I assume that some animal must have gotten in somehow and so I go to check it out, by standing on my nightstand and peering into my closet.

Now, the way I was standing on the nightstand it was foreseeable that it might have fallen over in the way I was leaning. Instead, it falls in a completely opposite direction than the law of physics should have allowed it to fall and I fell against the wall, hurting my wrist and scratching my back pretty badly in the process.

I have investigated every single inch of my closet. There was no animal. Something else did this. I am forced to accept the notion that, apparently, Earl Warren wants me dead. Trust me Earl, the feeling is mutual--and I mean all the way dead too.

I used to have a life. Really.

2006-11-06T18:15:00.000-08:00

Oh little blog, has it really been nearly a week since I posted in you?

Yeah. Well....that's too bad.

I'll admit it, I'm a pretty arrogant person. So when I heard law students that came before me say "just wait till November, you'll get slammed with work," I usually thought that they were just poor planners. I was wrong. Very wrong.

With daily reading for con law soaring ever higher each week, the need for outlining and flashcarding and memorizing becoming very apparent, study group meetings that span 6-hours on the weekends, the first LR&W project that actually requires much effort due in about two weeks, the rewrite of the Torts paper looming whenever the prof decides to hand back our drafts, and now the need to research fims for the summer and get resumes and cover letters ready to go out on December 1st....I can plainly see that I was just dead wrong.

So, this is the effective announcement that now through finals, don't expect blogger brilliance from me. It's not that I don't love you all, my readers. It's just that, with whatever few spare moments I have, I love drinking more.

IKEA Rocks

2006-11-01T15:05:00.000-08:00

The e-mail I just got made writing this entire blog entirely worth it:

"Dear Lioness,
We have noticed your blog and although you probably do not consider yourself as traditional media, I would like to invite you to the IKEA Press Preview Day next week in the event you may wish to view IKEA Round Rock before the public. Perhaps this may be of interest to your readers?
IKEA is coming to Central Texas!
Please join us at [time]...for the IKEA Round Rock Press Preview on [date] ([#] days before our grand opening to the public on November 15)! This official ‘sneak peek’ at Central Texas’ own 252,000 square-foot IKEA store includes personalized tours to see our 50 room settings, 3 model homes, 256-seat restaurant, Swedish Foodmarket, supervised children’s play area and more! Interview opportunities will also be available.
Experience the uniqueness of IKEA, touch products, ask questions, and snack on Swedish specialties.
I look forward to hearing from you"

Now, people, I used to work in Public Relations before I came to law school. I can totally relate to wanting to get coverage for your event. So for stroking my ego, IKEA, you totally get a mention on the blog. I own several lovely items from this fine Swedish establishment. Everyone: go shop at IKEA.

I'm all about George's, but...

2006-10-31T10:13:00.000-08:00

...I'm not all about ice.

George's Cafe (the new UT Law School Cafe) has fountain drinks, and fountain drinks mean ice. And when given to stressed out law students, that means eating the ice. And the sound of people crunching ice has followed me around ALL DAY today.

So, I looked it up. Apparently, the craving to chew on ice is called pagophagia and is a symptom of lack of iron. Fellow law students, I beg of you, for the purpose of not hearing ice crunching going on as I try to read Con Law, take your vitamins and eat your greens.

Ex Ex Parte

2006-10-28T09:01:00.001-07:00

With (amazingly) only a mild hangover, I can officially say I survived my first Ex Parte. My favorite costumes include the full team from Double Dare that also brought their own Marc Summers, the functional box of Franzia and my costume, of course.

And while there were three Borats, I was dissapointed that none of them rocked the man-thong. Now THAT would have been genius. Also mildly surprised that I didn't see a Steve Irwin with a barb through his heart. Alas.

Not my fault: I'm in 1L

2006-10-25T15:23:00.000-07:00

With my father coming in for dinner tomorrow night, and the royal state of messy that my apartment is in, I started thinking of all the things outside of law school I can blame on being a 1L approaching November. Feel free to post your own in the comments.

Messy apartment, completely cluttered with empty bottles of Shiner
Haven't gone grocery shopping in three weeks
No longer cook meals, instead subsist on take out, sandwiches, lean cuisines and beer
Often answer friend's phone calls with "I'm too busy to talk to you right now"
You still have to catch up on tivoed shows from three weeks ago
Laundry? Ha!
You have a newspaper subscription, but haven't read one in a month
In fact, you have no clue what's going on with current events whatsoever
The last time you had a nice manicure or pedicure was at orientation

This isn't to say that I have no free time. It's simply to say that in my free time, I'm going out drinking because that's the quickest way to forget how mind-numbing Con Law is. And ya know what? That's ok. Because I'm a 1L.

Don't be a Jurisprude...

2006-10-23T17:12:00.000-07:00

...is apparently the theme of Ex Parte (UT law's Halloween party).

I suppose that goes along well with the general tendencies of myself and the rest of my gender to go as slutty fill-in-the-blanks (slutty cop, slutty stewardess, slutty pirate, slutty nurse, etc.) for Halloween. Seriously though, when did Halloween turn into a lingerie party? I think if men are to be rewarded with such behavior on Halloween, women should officially get a new holiday....I'm thinking "Shirtless Volleyball Player Day" or something along those lines.

Oh, for the simple days of candy corn and ballerina costumes.

Paper Chase

2006-10-21T15:46:00.000-07:00

This torts paper is driving me crazy.

We have to write a 6-8 page decision as if we were a district court judge deciding a case based on a provided fact pattern. (UT requires a writing assignment for the one class you have in small section, and uses this as reason to bump the class weight up to 5 units instead of 4) We are not supposed to do any research, and rely solely upon two provided cases, neither of which are longer than 4 pages. So you tell me, with barely any material at all, what exactly am I supposed to write about for 6-8 pages?

Moreover, it's well known that my torts professor is a fan of brevity. The sections of the casebook which he edited have incredibly short opinons, with barely any additional notes. It's odd to get an opinion that goes for more than three pages. So why would he require that we be so verbose in these stupid papers?

I've been working on this thing for a week, and at 4 and a half pages, I'm convinced that I've more than adequately addressed every legal issue that could possibly be tortured from this hypo, and yet, I'm now forced to decide whether to insert some rambling, repetitive bullshit or change my font to Courier New. The fact that I'm incredibly hungover from bar golf last night isn't helping.

Sue the Pants Off Him

2006-10-19T21:12:00.000-07:00

Non-law school friend: So when do you get to start suing people?
Lioness: After I pass the bar exam.
Friend: That would be so awesome to just be able to sue anyone anytime you wanted to. I'd sue everyone who pissed me off. Like ex-boyfriends and stuff.
Lioness: What would you sue them for?
Friend: Money, of course.
Lioness: Yep. Now you're thinking like a lawyer.
Friend: There must be something you can sue an ex-boyfriend for, just for being annoying. I dunno, you're the law student, you think of something.
Lioness: Wellll....I suppose you could attempt to prove that he negligently caused you injury to consortium.
Friend: Oh, that sounds fancy! What does it mean?
Lioness: It means you're not getting laid anymore, and it's his fault.
Friend: Hmmm....
Lioness: What, don't like it?
Friend: Well. Maybe I shouldn't sue him. Wouldn't want to give him the impression I in any way enjoyed his miserable attempts at sexual prowess.
Lioness: That bad, eh?
Friend: Oh yeah. I'd rather sleep with one of those dead guys in your Con Law book.
Lioness: Like who? John Marshall?
Friend: Yes. I'd rather sleep with John Marshall. Sexy, sexy, John Marshall.

Misery Loves Company

2006-10-18T08:37:00.000-07:00

Apparently, the kids over at UCLA law didn't learn anything from our recent scandal. Who Owns the Fox has the dirt on UCLA's racist mock-trial competition.

http://uclaw.blogspot.com/2006/10/deja-vu.html

(Note: for now, I'll leave comments on, but that is so you can talk about THEM and THIS INCIDENT not what occured last week at UT.)

Stomp, Stomp, Stomp

2006-10-17T10:10:00.000-07:00

Today I ventured away from my usual study perch due to the just plain moronic football talk occuring near my normal study spot. (To said moron, 1) don't talk so loud in the library, and 2) Matt Leinart played great last night, it was the Cardinals defense and kicker that lost them the game.) Being ousted from my normal spot, I ventured over to the lounge area outside 2.138.

There I found what can only be described as the most annoying structure in the law school: the obnoxiously loud handicapped ramp. While I fully support its use by anyone on wheels, its use by perfectly mobile students and faculty results in this: STOMP, STOMP, STOMP, STOMP, STOMP. There are stairs right next to it, and yet, it appears the majority of our fellow students choose to ignore these in favor of clomping up and down the ramp like Clydesdales.

Oh, there go two more clomping by, as I write this....

But really, they can't be blamed, they are just following the faculty's bad example. While I sat here, the biggest stomper of all--a certain popular Contracts professor--literally RAN up, and then a few minutes later RAN back down the ramp, resulting in the loudest clomping of all.

Oh, there goes another clomper, this time with a rolling backpack too.

It appears the world just doesn't want me to start on my torts paper. Not today at least.

We are the lucky ones...

2006-10-13T11:45:00.000-07:00

I have always thought that it might be possible I am a good luck charm. I could refer to numerous football coincidences (I was a fan of the Cowboys in the early 90's, they win three superbowls. I go to a bunch of A&M games when I'm in high school, they always win when I am there. I attend USC, they have three Heisman winners and two national championships. I decide to go to UT for law school, they win the national championship.) or I could refer to my astounding ability at games of chance such as paper, rock, scissors and/or king's cup. But today, my fantastic luck was proven once again:

I skip torts because it is just much too lovely of a day to be stuck in a classroom, and I just find out that my professor overslept and missed class.

AWESOME.

Cold Weather!

2006-10-13T09:44:00.000-07:00

So a cold front has blown through Austin, and it is currently a lovely 68 degrees outside! How fantastic is that? I love the first cold front of the year. What better reason than to throw on a sweater and burrow under a blanket for some quality time with.......my torts book.

Cause, ya know, nothing makes me feel more warm and fuzzy inside than personal injury law.

I Thought We Were Done With This...

2006-10-11T09:48:00.000-07:00

...But I guess we weren't

Today in the atrium, the Thurgood Marshall student group had displays comparing a photo of 1950s performers in blackface to a photo of white (not-UT law) people dressed "ghetto."

Also, word on the street is that someone at the party "rolled" on their fellow students and reproduced a list of attendants at the party for the dean. The dean has individual meetings with these students later today. Apparently, the people fingered in this incident include both people that were in pictures and those who were not, leading students to believe it was an "inside job."

This blog's official position remains one of neutrality. (And to answer the numerous e-mails I've gotten, no, I wasn't there.) But, to the rest of you anonymous viewers, your discussion is welcome.

EDIT (10/14/06)- With 50 comments now accompanying this post, I think everyone has had ample opportunity to adequately debate the issue. While there has been some very healthy discussion in the comments, I think everyone on both sides of this issue would now like to see this thing cool down. I'm turning off new comments here and on my other post on the issue.

Rainy Days and Mondays

2006-10-10T06:15:00.000-07:00

Ok, so actually it's Tuesday, but it's raining. In fact, it's raining and thundering. And I'm lying in my comfy bed with my adorable cat cuddled up by my feet, and I can think of NO REASON that makes me want to get out of that bed to go to law school on a day like today.

So I figured, just go look at the weather channel, the rain will probably be over soon and then you'll feel guilty about skipping class. And what did I find there?

A TORNADO WATCH!

Now, to the "ordinary man of reasonable prudence" driving around in thunderstorms during a tornado watch may seem like a bad idea. But not to me. I love tornadoes. Always have. So up and at em, slugger. My first tornadoes since being back in Texas! Yay!

Oh, Westlaw, you just don't get it, do you?

2006-10-09T12:49:00.000-07:00

Last week's Westlaw breakfast tease was documented here and here.

Today was the "makeup" breakfast. And what do they bring us? Spinach and mushroom kolaches. Really? Really, Westlaw? I'm sorry, but did you not hear about this? Dissapointing at best. And in a city full of 99 cent breakfast taco makers, no less.

Between that and the nifty Lexis water bottle I got at Lexis training today, I may just have to switch to the other side.

Air your grievances here

2006-10-06T15:14:00.000-07:00

Everyone is whispering in hushed tones about the 1L "ghetto fabulous" party and the backlash that resulted. Stop whispering. While this blog's official position is one of neutrality, I encourage the rest of you to say what's on your minds.

Facts:
-A costume party themed"ghetto fabulous" was held and attended by 1Ls
-Pictures from the party were posted online, and a link to the pictures was places on the 1L myspace group page. (They have now been taken down)
-Some other students at the law school saw the pictures, were offended, and petitioned the dean to take action
-An e-mail was sent to all law students from the dean condemning the party as having "negative racial overtones" and telling students to "think twice" before engaging in such behavior again.

Feel free to post your thoughts/opinions/etc. Annnnndddd....go.

EDIT (10/14/06): New comments have now been disabled. See above post on this topic if you have questions.

Dirty pinko bastard.

2006-10-04T20:38:00.000-07:00

I hate pink.

You see, since the beginning of classes, I have had not one, but TWO pink highlighters dry out on me. None of my other highlighter colors have run out even once. (Yes, I hear you laughing at me because I use multiple color highlighters....ya know what? Bite me.)

But seriously. It's not like I used the pink ones more than the others. If we were going with most frequently used color, yellow should've been long gone. But yellow is doing just FINE. So what the hell is wrong with you, pink? Think you're too good for the other highlighters or something? Are you a commie bastard? Well? ARE YOU?

There is clearly only one way to fix this problem. I'm getting a beer. Maybe it'll help my neck feel better too.

EDIT: After re-reading this post, I realized how crazy law school has already made me that something this trivial would even bother me. Damn you, UT. I know you're in on it, Manchurian Candidate style.

Bound to Happen Sometime

2006-10-04T07:56:00.000-07:00

So today, I feel as though I reached a very important milestone in my legal education:

I skipped a class for the first time.

Yep. It's true. I feel like such a bad girl. But in a good way.

(Of course, before anyone gets too excited by my wanton disregard for attending class, I suppose I should mention that I'm only not there because I got hit so hard in flag football last night that I fell backwards, hit my head on the ground, and achieved a mild concussion. The immense pain in my head and neck today seemed like a good enough reason to forego lectures by 70 year old men, and to instead catch up in the following areas 1) my sleep 2) my laundry 3) my tivoed shows. Yep. A true bad girl am I. )

Sex Par-tay

2006-10-02T20:52:00.000-07:00

So apparently, the law school holds a contest to name the theme of Ex Parte (UT's annual law halloween costume party). Past winners include "XXX Parte" and "Ex Parte: Leave Your Briefs At Home". Contests like this thrill me to no end. Unfortunately, my ideas so far generally suck:

Ex Parte: The drunker you get, the more it will sound like "Sex Par-tay."
Ex Parte: Because where else is [Professor X] supposed to meet his 4th wife?
Ex Parte: If you don't go, you're probably the gunner.
Sex. Bar. Yay.
Ex Parte: Latin, meaning "really great reason to get drunk with your classmates, go home with one of them, then act really awkward the next time you see them."

See, I told you they all sucked. My readership, you are encouraged to show me up with your genius ideas.

Lessons Learned in 1L, volume 1

2006-10-02T19:03:00.000-07:00

First installment in what I hope will be a nice new series.

If you anticipate being called on in class, for the love of all that is holy, sign on to AIM. By about the third week, enough people will have been called on and sounded stupid that they will take pity on you and help you out when you start to sound stupid. The key here is making it look like you are looking at your book and not at a random flashing answer on your screen. Also important is to position your IM windows so that your smartest and most reliable buddy is at the top of your screen, and that no other IM "helpers" that may or may not be correct will flash over theirs.

And, even if no one knows the answer, instead of feeling like a failure, you can be reassured by the fact that no one else knew it either.

New Links

2006-10-01T12:32:00.000-07:00

Updated my links section to add a few new UT law blogs and a few of my favorite non-UT law blogs. Also alphabetized them.

(I'll do anything to put off doing my reading for Con Law.)