Thursday!

It's Thursday and you know what that means -

The Office
My Name is Earl
Survivor
Grey's Anatomy
ER

That's a lot of TV in one night, but you have to expect a lot of TV on Thursdays. It most definitely doesn't leave any room for studying, but that's ok because this is my official night off. I do have unofficial nights off, but this is the official one.

The Office: This is my favorite show on TV right now, and I bought seasons 1 and 2 on dvd this past summer. The season 3 opener last Thursday was hilarious, with Oscar telling HR guy Tobe he's gay. Tobe tells Michael, who handles it like he does any other issue: Ineptly. He makes mistake after mistake, and every time he tries to cover for his last mistake things get a little worse.

My Name is Earl: Any Earl episode that has a lot of Joy is going to be funny. So last week's premier, which was all about Joy, was one of the best yet. Even without Joy the show is funny, but she brings it to a whole new level of funniness.

Survivor: I might be over this show. I don't know yet. I don't really see the value in segregating people by race and making them compete, but then again I don't see the value in segregation by sex either. Except maybe for ratings value... Either way, Survivor is starting to seem a little tired. It premiered in the summer of 2000, which is a longggg time ago. Still, I watch... and I have to admit to being entertained by a lot of it.

Grey's Anatomy: One of the things I liked best about this show when it premiered in 2005 was its focus on the way new doctors respond to patients and other hospital-related issues. Yeah we learned about them and their relationships as well, but the best part was watching them adapt to treating patients and the dog-eat-dog world of hospital politics. At the time I thought ER was putting way too much emphasis on the personal relationships and too little emphasis on ER type situations. Last week's premier make me worry about Grey's Anatomy. Dramatic flashbacks. Izzie in her prom dress. George and Dr. Sheppard locked in a room discussing life and love. Blech... The one good storyline was the baby in a dumpster. I want more like that.

ER: I don't love ER, but I think it's pretty ok. It's something to do at 10pm, which is too late to start studying and too early to go to bed. I like the characters and most the storylines. I don't really have anything else to say about it...

This term is one third over...

It's been a while since I've said anything about my classes. This is supposed to be a law school based blog, so maybe I should say something.

The first month is just about finished. Today is September 27 so... in 4 days it'll be October. That's Sunday. It's interesting to me that one third of the term is over (classes finish this term on December 1st), because I've probably done about 1/20 of the work. If that.

But this is day 3 post-rut, and I'm catching up. I know you're on the edge of your seat to hear about my classes, so I won't make you wait any longer:

Trusts. Interesting course, lots of reading. Unfortunately I missed this class last week... uh... twice... so I have some extra reading to do.

Federalism. Looks at how the constitution divides power between the federal and provincial governments and what happens when federal and provincial laws conflict. I'm finding this course and my comparative constitutional law course the most interesting. I guess that means I'm interested in constitutional law...

Comparative constitutional law. This course is great. It compares the constitutions of Canada and the United States and it's taught by videoconference from Penn State. There are 24 students in the class, with 12 being at UBC and 12 at Penn State. The prof is also at Penn State, but we can all see and hear each other because of the video conferencing. He teaches the class using the Socratic method, meaning he calls on people and asks them a series of questions. So basically I study like I'm getting ready for an exam before every class.

Evidence. This is probably one of the most important courses in law school. It covers... wait for it... evidence! We look at what is admissible and what isn't, jury charges, presentation strategies, etc.

Real estate transactions. This is my Wednesday night course. I usually don't like night courses, which run from 6 til 9. Happily, the prof is great and usually lets us go by 8. And he brings cookies, even though there are like 50 people in the class. We're basically learning what lawyers do for all the money they get in real estate conveyancing. Interesting.

Most my profs are pretty good this term. There aren't any absolute train wrecks yet, although there's a potential train wreck in the making. One prof I've got... slow with a capital S. We spend the whole class on a case or two, going through every paragraph and deciding whether it adds anything to the case. The problem is, after spending so long dissecting a case it's hard to know exactly what we're supposed to take from it. Because when it's exam time, we don't go into detail about cases - we just give a basic point or two.

How slow is this prof? Ok well the reading list is 8 pages long. After one third of the term we are about 4/5 of the way down the FIRST page. So by the end of this week we'll probably be finished the first page. 7 pages to go.

As bad as this is, it's not as bad as last term. I had one prof who was actually removed from the course part way through the term because of being unable to teach it. I had 2 courses with this prof, who wasn't removed from the other course. We didn't get an outline until the last month of the course, and at that point we got a 5 page single-spaced list of terms and cases we had to know for the final. Brutal? Yes.

Not wanting to sound too negative, I've got 2 profs this term who are really great, and another 2 who are pretty damn good. Pretty damn good isn't as good as really great, but it's still a lot better then mediocre or good, and it's not even on the same planet as bad.

Yeah I know I'm a negligent blogger...

So this is the beginning of fall term week four. I know it's Tuesday, but I don't have class on Mondays so this is really the beginning.

Which is an apt time for a blog posting, because the theme this week is beginnings. As in, beginning to get out of this rut I've been in for the last few weeks, beginning to do some readings, beginning to get back to the gym every day, beginning to work on a few side projects I've got going on, etc.

Maybe even beginning to become a regular blogger again. I was looking back over the last year in terms of the ol' blog, and I have to say I'm a huge slacker now compared to the first 9 months. But I'm not making any blog-related promises because I don't keep them and the unkept promise is then here for all to see. So no blog promises. I should post the California pictures at some point though...

So what is a rut? I looked at Merriam-Webster online and got a few definitions:

1. An annually recurrent state of sexual excitement in the male deer.
2. a) A track worn by a wheel or by habitual passage. b) A groove in which something runs.
3. A usual or fixed practice; especially : A monotonous routine.

The first two aren't really what I was thinking of. The third one would be closer. I don't think I dealt with the transition between summer ending and classes starting that well, so I took a bit of a mental vacation. Meaning... I haven't got a lot done and there's been a recurrence of some past resolved issues. Ok but now I'm dealing with it. In fact it's pretty much dealt with. Starting today. Ok actually it started yesterday. So this is day 2.

Babies: A Mystery

I was on my way to class the other day, on the corner of Pine and 12th. I was waiting for a clear spot to turn right, and while I was waiting a woman walked in front of me with an infant-filled stroller. The sound coming out of the stroller was nothing less than spectacular. Seriously, if I hadn't actually seen the source, I might have thought it was an air raid siren.

I looked at the woman walking this child and thought "wow, that must really, really suck." After they crossed I turned right onto 12th and forgot about them. But not for long.

Traffic was really slow on 12th and I ended up waiting at the end of the next block for a long time. How long? Long enough to hear a faint cry and then listen as it got louder and louder and became the same air raid sirenesque howl that I had heard before.

The infant, amazingly enough, had been keeping this racket up for at least two blocks, and I'm sure I didn't catch the beginning or the end of the show. The woman was still walking with the same vacant look on her face, which I barely caught before I drove away again.

This time traffic was a lot better and I didn't see them again. But it really made me think about babies and what interesting creatures they are. How much energy and vocal strength does it take to do what this baby was doing? Seriously. Think about it. Or better yet, measure out three city blocks. Then, start walking slowly from start to finish, and scream at the top of your lungs the whole time. I think that would be tough. Yet, babies do it all the time.

It also reminded me of another baby I'd seen the day before in the IGA parking lot. A woman was lifting her kid out of a shopping cart and attempting to secure it in some kind of car seat, and the baby in question had gone stiff as a board. The back was arched, the arms and legs were extended straight, and the vocal cords were on overdrive. This kid was clearly upset about something.

That was obvious. My question though, was why the upsetting turn of events had caused the baby to go stiff like that. I've seen babies and toddlers do it before, and it must mean something. I mean, on an instinctive level, why do kids go into that board-like position when they don't want to be moved/placed somewhere? Clearly it's an evolutionary defense machanism. I have two theories as to why this might have been helpful in nature:

It makes them heavier. This might cause the parent/predator/whoever, to either be unable to carry the weight or decide that the child/prey isn't worth the effort to carry away.

Makes them seem bigger. This would be akin to a cat arching its back when cornered. This might make the parent/predator reassess the situation and think "ok maybe I've bitten off more than I can chew here. I better back off."

Either way, it's interesting...

Is it 2024 already?

Last night I dreamt it was my 50th birthday. August 26, 2024. Except I don't think I was really in the future. It was more like I just woke up this morning and realized "wow so today is my 50th birthday." I remember thinking "what happened to my 30s and 40s?"

The disturbing thing about the dream wasn't the idea of being 50 - it was that somehow I had gone from 32 to 50 so quickly. In my dream I remembered something I had read once about time seeming to go faster as you get older, and I thought yeah, I guess they're right about that.

But still, I thought, it didn't seem to take any time at all and that's just nuts. My next conclusion was that if 32 to 50 can pass by so quickly, then 50 to 70, or 70 to 90 can go by even faster (because, as I was thinking, time seems to speed up as we get older). The last thing I remember about the dream was thinking that if that was true, I've probably got about another ten seconds before I hit 90 and it's all over.

The dream wasn't scary - I think I was more disappointed than anything. But happily, I woke up this morning, still 32.

I guess this would be a good time to say something profound. And I would, if this were one of those emails that gets all sappy with lots of pictures of kittens and puppies, and lots of poems and heart-warming maxims. You know, those emails that say, "if you care about love and kittens, send this to 20 people that are important to you," but also warn you that if you don't, killer ghost Nazis will come for you in the night and tear your arms off.

Yeah, if this were one of those emails, I'd be saying something profound right now. But it's not. It's a blog. So I'll just talk about those other dreams where you realize it's a dream and then you can do anything, like fly or turn invisible. Those are the best. They don't happen often, but when they do, they're really cool.

September 1: The Beginning of the End

Summer's over. Yeah I know, it doesn't officially end until the 21st or something like that. But seriously, once September 1st and Labour Day weekend are here, summer as we know it is dead. But you know what? It's okay. Why? Not because the weather will turn cold and it'll rain for eight months. That's not okay at all. It's good because it means I can get my last year of school... or let's just say my last eight months of school... over with.

It's hard to believe this is my last year of school, and in exactly 236 days, 14 hours and 18 minutes I'll be putting down my pen after finishing my last final. Of course I'll still have the bar exam to look foward to, but I'm not going to start worrying about that yet.

I'm not trying to say I dislike law school. Actually, there are a lot of things I really like about it, like days without classes, the social side of it, and hell, the learnin's not so bad either. It's just time to move on and get finished with being a student.

So I guess you're on the edge of your seat wondering what I'm taking this year. I don't blame you, cause it's pretty exciting. I listed the courses a while back, but for anyone who might have missed them (haha anyone... I've got like 2 readers), here's a recap:

Administrative law
Family law
Trusts
Evidence
Federalism
Comparative constitutional law
Immigration law
Succession
Real estate transactions
Professional responsibility

The prof for the comparative constitutional class already emailed 107 pages of reading to have done for the first class... half the students in that class are at Penn State and the American Bar Association says their semester has to be 14 weeks... and ours is only 12... so I guess we have to catch up with them - hence the 107 pages of summertime reading, which I'm going to do because this year I'm going to stay caught up. Yeah right.... I think I've said that before.