Friday, July 30

No Fault

The bar exam is over. Bill, Mike and I tried to turn it into a road trip – Mike suggested we think of it as a sequel to “Crossroads”. We tried not to talk too much about the bar exam so I got to learn about Bill and Mike’s shared obsession for “News Channel 8” and its local news “personalities”. Strange.

The exam itself was horrendous. The hotel was a dump. It rained constantly and it was so cold I spent the entire time wishing I’d brought a sweater. Some of the essays went very badly but I was probably able to compensate with better scores on the multi-choice section. The low point for me was the essay question about No-Fault Insurance. Somehow I hadn’t managed to find much enthusiasm for studying New York’s no-fault insurance laws. Oops.

We don’t get our scores until November so I’m going to try not to think about it. The highlight of the trip for me was walking around Empire State Plaza during the lunch breaks. It must be the most awesome example of brutalist architecture in the world. The four identical buidings at the back of the plaza are called Agency One, Agency Two, Agency Three and Agency Four. Brilliant.

Anyway, here are some photos:


I don't have any photos of my red hair yet but I do have a photo of me in my stupid shirt at the graduation dinner in May. Posted by Hello


This was also taken at our graduation dinner. This is the Yale Law School letting loose. Look at those law students go! I think Jen Sung is making an effort but the rest of us look like we're auditioning for a role as the high school dork in a teen comedy (a role I'm sure everyone played to perfection in real life). Posted by Hello

. . .

My life now is completely consumed with organizing my move to Vermont. I’ve been trying to throw out as much stuff as possible before I move. This afternoon I went through my pantry and threw out a bunch of stuff that, even though it hadn’t necessarily gone bad, I knew I wouldn’t ever eat. There was so much stuff it took me two trips to the dumpster. In the 40 seconds between trips there was already someone at the dumpster sorting through my stuff. He saw me with the second box and asked if I was throwing that out too. I wanted to keep the box so we started going through it with me saying things like “No, that vegemite is probably too old, and I doubt you’d want it anyway” and with him saying – without any self consciousness I could detect – things like “My wife will love these spices.”

. . .

Some links:

A lucky bunny.

A great new desktop (I have it up on my computer and I can tell you it looks fantastic).

Sunday, July 18

Seat 7886

I have been assigned my seat for the New York bar exam.  I must take the escalators from the outdoor atrium.  I then proceed to Area III, sections 112 through 113 where I should be able to locate seat 7886.  When you picture me taking the exam, begin by picturing me hunched over my desk.  Then pan back slowly until I’m a tiny dot among thousands and thousands of candidates.  Then move to time lapse and watch everyone walk out, walk back in, walk out, walk in, walk out, walk in and then walk back out again for the four sessions of the two day exam.
 
My seat is in Albany’s Pepsi Arena which is a large indoor stadium.  I can barely imagine the atmosphere as thousands of us file toward our seats.  After 3 years accumulating debt in law school one in four people will fail the one exam you have to pass to become a lawyer.  I do not plan to be one of them so I am continuing to study despite being at the verge of dying from boredom.  I now believe it is possible to die from boredom.  I feel myself close.
 
Today I was reviewing the condensed notes (that I prepared myself) for trusts.  I came across the following sentence:
 
It is valid to have a trust saying “income to me and on my death in further trust for my children” so long as there is at least one beneficiary besides settlor then there is a statutory exception to the “no incorporation by reference” rule of Wills law providing a mechanism for adding testamentary assets to a trust the testator created during lifetime, or to a trust created by another person ® by statute such a "pourover" gift is valid even if the trust is subject to revocation and amendment and is later amended, but if the receptacle trust were created by another person, amendments made after testator’s death are disregarded.
 
If you have any idea what this means be sure to tell me.  The author of that sentence (or whatever it is) is in need of serious help. 
 
The exam is on the 27th and 28th of July.  No more posts till after the exam.  When it’s all over I’ll put up a photo of me looking silly as penance for my absence.

Monday, July 12

Misogyny and losers with bad spelling

Last night I was studying upstairs at Gourmet Heaven (the ironically named 24 hour convenience store). I had the upstairs tables to myself until a stocky and bald guy in his early 40s sat down and started a loud cell phone conversation. I was doing a reasonable job of tuning him out until I finally couldn’t shake the thread of his conversation. He was giving advice to a friend. It went something like this:

Jerk with phone (JWF): Listen man, there’s NO WAY you should be letting that bitch have the house.

Other guy (OG): Silence

JWF: No dude, if she walks out on you – if SHE walks out on YOU - then you’ve gotta fight her with everything man. You can’t let her just get away with that shit.

OG: Silence

JWF: Don’t roll over dude, you can’t let her have the house.

OG: Silence

JWF: Hey, you really don’t have to worry. Because, between you and me, you are SITTING PRETTY dude because if she does walk out you then you’ve got that on the side and you can just go live with her. So you got nothin’ to worry about. Absolutely nothin’.

OG: Silence

I was thinking yes, that’s great advice. You should punish your wife for walking out but not worry about a thing because you always have your extra-marital affair to comfort you. Moreover, this intimate advice (delivered with vehemence and without a trace of irony) was being shared with anyone within a 50 meter radius.

Later he changed topics and started to complain about how his best friend’s wife is trying to stop his friend from spending time with him. He said “I think it’s cause she’s worried about my reputation.” That struck me as quite plausible. Still, he didn’t let this woman’s interference with her husband’s associational rights upset him: “Fuck that bitch, why should I care what she thinks!” he said.

He made some references to his own wife. Apart from feeling sorry for this unfortunate woman, I couldn't help wondering how anyone could ever have married a guy like that. She must have had some understanding of his attitudes before she married this jerk, right? Would she approve of what he was saying now? Does she live in terror of this guy? Live in ignorance? Or is he an alright guy when you really get to know him?

. . .

This is hardly the most visited web page in the world but enough of you folks show up for me to keep writing. Recently my traffic has more than doubled as I’ve started getting a lot of hits from search engines. So, you ask: What are these visitors searching for? Well, a few weeks ago I wrote a post about my torts classes that included mention of a bizarre comment from the professor. And being a pretty bad speller I managed to misspell “cunnilingus” as “cunnelingus”. Now over half of the visitors to this blog are searching for “cunnelingus”. I can’t help but think that I disappoint them.

So my readership is not just losers trawling for porn but losers who can’t spell and are trawling for porn.

Tuesday, July 6

A bored looking kid with red hair

As Tim pointed out, there is often nothing left to write about when you subtract the too personal and the too mundane from the rest of your life. And I am right in the middle of two months of supreme tedium as I study for the bar. I even died my hair red in a feeble attempt to amuse myself. I’ve gotten used to it after spending a few days doing a double take every time I passed a mirror (Who’s that freak with the red hair?).

Even the 4th of July was mostly memorable for a traffic jam. After a few quiet drinks we went down to the New Haven waterfront (not the most scenic place in the world) to watch the fireworks. The people-watching was superior to the humble fireworks display. In the distance we could see that all the rich suburbs along the coast had better fireworks. Even Perth’s Australia Day (ok, Invasion Day) fireworks are more impressive. After the fireworks ended we ran back to Mike’s car to beat the traffic. Unfortunately, we didn’t get there fast enough and we got wedged right into the gridlock. After about 10 minutes of not moving at all I decided to try walking home. After an eerie walk under freeway underpasses and through industrial parks I managed to get back to my apartment in just under an hour. I was curious about how long it had taken the others to drive home so I called Bill as soon as I got in. They had moved about 20 meters and were still in the parking lot. God bless America.