Posted by TDot on Jan 29, 2012 in
The 3L Life Yes, I’m still here 
When I mentioned a couple weeks ago that I was sequestered in my own personalized version of 3L Hell, I wasn’t joking. For most of January my schedule’s followed a pattern: Wake up at 6am, feed/walk dog, bathe, get dressed, go to class then work then trial team practice, come home around 10pm, feed/walk dog, do homework until midnight-ish and go to bed. For a time I had briefly hit the point where I was downing five 20oz bottles of Diet Mt Dew a day and living off Pop-Tarts, animal crackers, multivitamins, and anything else I could eat in the car 
Which of course didn’t leave much room for updating law:/dev/null 
I don’t have *too* much time to write tonight, but I miss talking with y’all so here’s a quick bullet list on some of what’s happened since mid-December:
- Fall semester continued in perpetuity; finally done. With the different extracurricular activities I was engaged in, plus a job on the side, the Fall semester didn’t actually end until a couple weeks ago. I had papers due in Employment Discrimination and another for Constitutional Law II, so I had flashbacks of undergrad and never really got a substantive break during the winter. It was basically a mini-mester trying to clean up what didn’t get finished and spending more hours than I care to admit in the law building.
- Wolfpack won the Belk Bowl. But I did take a few hours from the ongoing academic tedium to go with 雅雅 to the Belk Bowl in Charlotte, where the NC State Wolfpack dismantled the Louisville Cardinals Didn’t have the time or money to stay overnight like we did for the Champs Bowl last year, but I needed the break and the game was only a few hours away. Watching another win in person was worth the freezing temps and packed stadium
- Most un-Christmas-y Christmas evah. Christmas is my 3rd favorite holiday of the year, following Independence Day at #1 and Thanksgiving at #2… but this year there basically was no Christmas at all With the academic stuff due I couldn’t take the time to go visit anyone (and didn’t have the money for it anyway), but then on top of it I couldn’t even put up my own tree because Samson tried eating the ornaments — the stuffed ones apparently looked like toys worth chewing apart, and the ceramic ones evidently looked like dog treats. So it was easily the most un-Christmas-y Christmas I’d ever “celebrated.” Not sure what the plan will be for next year, but I need to figure something out to stop the dog from destroying things.
- Samson nearly died before New Year’s. Speaking of Samson, he nearly died right before New Year’s
He was given one of those big raw pork bones as a Christmas gift, because they’re allegedly great for dogs, but somehow the snippets of bones he managed to chew off clogged up his insides. He wasn’t able to poop and howled in pain when he tried, then woke me up at 4am to go outside and puke. So I freaked out and rushed him to the vet; they took an x-ray and discovered he had backed up fecal matter running nearly the length of his body. They put him in the pet hospital, gave him an enema and an IV and some special food, and a few hundred dollars later he was miserable but alive. Though you can’t tell he nearly died from the way he acts now, as he still tries to eat every damn thing in sight… 
- Got myself a Christmas present: fixed TV. I can’t remember if I mentioned it in a past entry, but what seems like an eternity ago the bulb in my bought-cheap-on-CraigsList projector television finally burned out so I’ve been working for the past couple months either (i) in dead silence or (ii) with video-less music on in the background. So while Christmas itself wasn’t particularly festive, in the days leading up to New Year’s Eve I decided to give myself a Christmas present and finally fix the burned-out projector in the name of being more productive. With bulb costs being what they are for a projector that was/is 5 years old, it was actually cheaper to get a brand new projector with better specs. Money I couldn’t really afford to spend given the mortgage payments I still owe BarBri, but I wasn’t going to be able to make it all the way through to August without a TV
- Finally completed NC Bar application! On January 3rd I finally got my monster-of-a-bar-app mailed off. The North Carolina Board of Law Examiners likes knowing every single thing you’ve ever done in your life since you’ve turned 18 — and, in the case of my last name changing when I was adopted at 3-years-old, the stuff before 18
— to the point where starting the app back in September wasn’t even early enough for me to get all of it done before the last possible moment. I had to request documents from the Social Security Administration to make sure I listed every single place I’ve ever worked, go rummaging through my Bucket-o’-Files to find residential records from the period right after I dropped out of college, go to the Clerk’s Office to find out all the cases I testified in back when I worked as the Clerk’s Office ombudsman down in Wake County, come up with 12 different character references, make three copies of everything, and on and on and on. Then include the $700.00 fee to apply, and set aside another +$125.00 to use my computer on the bar exam. But fortunately — it’s all done. So yay. And to anyone even older than me: START NOW or you’ll regret it!
- 1Ls won Kilpatrick-Townsend competition. I’ve already talked about this one at length so nothing much more to say. I’m just glad it validated my philosophy that people produce a better work product when they’re forced to develop it themselves Very proud of these folks!
-
Any guesses on which team is mine?
Submitted brief for Howard moot court competition. A couple months ago I mentioned making the moot court team, the end result of an ill-conceived experiment to see if I had been avoiding it out of fear the past two years or if I really had the skill to do it if I wanted. I was slated for the Howard Moot Court Competition taking place in Washington D.C. at the end of February. Making the team and getting the Howard brief done both came at a high cost — days spent brief writing and editing, that probably should have been spent on classwork instead — but I’m proud of the end result. Feel free to review the briefs if you get bored and guess which one is ours 
- Got a position with the Durham DA’s office… I also somehow convinced the Durham County District Attorney’s Office to bring me in as an intern
First day was about 3ish weeks ago. The sheer volume of work — and the… mmm… unique folks who come through the courthouse (especially in traffic court) — have made it a pretty awesome experience so far. I could definitely see myself working there after graduation.
- …and won my first case! I’m also officially 1-0 on my “real world” trial record! I’m slated to work on Tuesday afternoons, and typically there’s absolutely nothing going on in District Court so I end up working on subpoenas and other administrative stuff. So last Tuesday I decided to be a good little intern and show up to work 15 minutes early, get sent down to misdemeanor criminal court… and get handed two shucks and told “Go interview your officer, you’ve got this next case”
I had no expectation of trying a case, so I didn’t have any notes, my North Carolina Crimes book, nada. I was so absolutely terrified I quite literally forgot what it was I was supposed to prove in a criminal trial; as I’m out in the hallway going through the shucks trying to ascertain what’s going on, I grab an ADA who helped us with trial team last year and plead for a smidge of guidance. She replies “Well what are your elements for the offense?” and suddenly “DING!” my inner lightbulb finally clicks on. I find the officer, read his police report, get asked by him what he can expect on cross, and somehow came up with a quasi-intelligent and spot-on answer. I don’t think I’m allowed to go into too much detail, but it involved two Defendants (and their respective attorneys) charged with minor-but-serious firearms offenses. I went through my direct a bit fast due to the nervousness, but the more opposing counsel objected to a response — or asked something ridiculous on cross-examination — the more I got into my zone. Neither Defendant took the stand, and a few closing arguments later they were found guilty and sentenced to active time, a fine, probation, and a prohibition from owning firearms. Not bad for my first go-round
- Rewarded myself with a new laptop. In exchange for getting the DA gig, I “rewarded” myself by finally upgrading my trusty 5-year-old MacBook Pro. The Department of Education enables students to get a one-time financial aid boost once in undergrad and once in graduate/professional school for a computer purchase, and it was hitting the point where I’d need something I could use for the first couple years when I start practicing. So I’ve now gone from an original Core Duo with a self-upgraded 250GB hard drive and 2GB of RAM to a new quad-core i7 with a 750GB hard drive and 4GB of RAM Seeing how much the hardware has advanced in the past half decade is crazy. I don’t like some of the changes (e.g. there are new function keys to play/pause/rewind/fast forward, so I have to press the Function key to use Dashboard and such) but overall it’s nice being back on the leading edge of technology for another couple months.
- Fall grades were a disaster. While everything else was going smoothly, my grades turned out better than anticipated but worse than I wanted (if that makes sense). I’ve now fallen back below a 3.0 for the first time in a year and will have to pull off a miracle to graduate with honors. And in all likelihood I won’t be able to finish the Civil Rights & Constitutional Law concentration I’ve been working on for the past 2.5 years. We’ll see what happens.
- Debating giving up internship to focus on grades and SPICE. The grade situation has prompted me to reassess what I’m doing this semester, and I’m giving serious consideration to dropping the DA internship and some other activities to free up time to focus on grades and the SPICE proposal. It’s not an ideal situation, especially with the economy, but doing the jack-of-all-trades thing clearly isn’t working. I’ll keep you posted.
That’s it for tonight y’all, thanks for still reading Hopefully more posts in the days ahead. Good night!
Tags: #fml, 3L, Criminal Prosecution, 雅雅, Festivities and Diversions, I ♥ Apple, Law Grades, Legal Eagles FTW, NCCU Law, NCSU Wolfpack, Samson
Posted by TDot on Nov 5, 2011 in
The 3L Life Let me preface this entry by saying it really has been an excellent day — my NC State Wolfpack dominated (and shut out) the University of Non-Compliance at Cheater Haven on the gridiron today to extend our win streak to 5 consecutive years, I got to enjoy a dinner celebrating the 30th anniversary of NCCU Law’s Evening Program, and had an opportunity to catch up with friends before and after.
Everything you read after this paragraph is not indicative of how everything else turned out.
But d*mn the MPRE was rough!
I couldn’t come up with a humorous metaphor to throw out as a comparison, though I imagine a swift kick to the shins would be only marginally more painful.
The first mistake I made was not studying more sooner. There’s been so much going on at the law school academically and otherwise that I just never had time to study much of anything. I watched the 4-hour BarBri lecture video and filled out the corresponding outline, but that ended up being it. No review of the Model Rules. No reading of the review book I got. No multiple choice questions. Nada.
My figuring was that I’ve got a fairly well-developed sense of right and wrong and the rules would be common sense, so I could just wing it and still be OK…
…then I got to the first question on the test and was like “omgwut?”
Now there are a few questions that I know 110% for certain I got right. For example, I paid enough attention in ConLaw to know a state’s attempts to restrict law licenses to its residents only violates the Privileges & Immunities clause of the Fourteenth Amendment. There were others that truly did seem like common sense and I feel comfortable with my answers.
But things like the imputation of conflicts and the whole privileged-vs-merely-confidential stuff left me scratching my increasingly bald head.
I was sufficiently clueless that it only took me about an hour and 10 minutes to get through the thing, feeling totally awkward as I ended up being the very first person in the room to turn in the test and leave.
There’s a slim-but-nonzero possibility I won’t have to retake the test in March, but until then all I can do is cross my fingers and pray that I somehow managed to pass.
To any 1Ls/2Ls who happen to read this: don’t repeat my mistakes
Have a good night y’all!
Tags: 3L, ConLaw, Moot Court, MPRE, NCCU Law, NCSU Wolfpack
Posted by TDot on Sep 5, 2011 in
The 3L Life I’ve officially concluded that the course load I signed up for this semester was, in fact, insane
Scarcely two weeks in to my 3L Fall semester at NCCU Law and I’ve already burned an extended weekend getting caught up on reading for classes. I took some time on Saturday to clean up the apartment and enjoy some Wolfpack football, but otherwise have been steadily immersed in my Tax and Sales books.
And the sad part is I’m technically not even caught up yet: I wasn’t able to get my Employment Discrimination textbook until this weekend, I’ve saved ConLaw II reading for tomorrow in between classes, and I’ve got Sales practice problems to knock out somewhere along the way.
But on the upside (and on a totally unrelated note), either today or tomorrow law:/dev/null should hit its 1,000,000th pageview! So I’ll have another Site Stats entry to queue up later in the week
That’s it from me, I’m heading to bed so I can get up for the 8:30am Tax class — have a good night y’all!
Tags: 3L, ConLaw II, Damned Lies and Statistics, Employment Discrimination, NCCU Law, NCSU Wolfpack, Sales, Tax
Posted by TDot on Dec 31, 2010 in
Randomness Back in July, I took my first bona fide vacation in ages when 雅雅 and I went to visit Nan and Pops for Independence Day and took a roadtrip through the Outer Banks of North Carolina on the way back.
This past week was so much better!
First, my employer closed down the office on both Thursday and Friday for Christmas. I don’t get paid time off or anything when they’re closed, but it did let me leave out of here on Wednesday night and spend more time with family.
Speaking of family, those of you who were readers back during Father’s Day or who are friends with me on Facebook might recall that it had been an incredibly long time since I last saw Son of TDot. Well at some point recently he asked his mom about who I was and if he could see me, so she arranged for the three of us to have lunch on Thursday
We met up at the food court of a local mall for what was probably one of the most nervous moments I’ve had ever in my life. It was amusing as I walked up because his mom was standing with her back to the direction I was coming from with Son of TDot facing my way. He saw me from about 75ish feet away and gave a look like “This guy looks oddly familiar”… and I basically gave him the same look, because I thought it was him but hadn’t seen him in so long I wasn’t sure
It’s not surprising to share similarities with your own offspring, but some of it still took me by surprise. His hair was cut short like mine and he looks a lot like I did when I was 12. We ended up independently ordering the same thing for lunch: a 10-piece chicken nugget meal from McDonald’s with a Sprite for the drink. His favorite subjects in school were the same as mine (science and history). He loves playing with Legos (I’ve still got a box of mine in the closet). He also loves RPGs, specifically Kingdom Hearts — a spinoff of the Final Fantasy series I play myself, so a good chunk of lunch was spent with the two of us talking video games
He also has allergies in the winter like I do, to the point where he keeps tissues in his jacket pocket. The look on his face was priceless when I pulled out my own batch of tissues from my coat pocket too 
I know he was nervous and I suspect his mom was nervous (and Lord knows I was nervous too), but all in all it was pretty awesome and I’m hopeful that it was the first meeting of many more in the future
The snow that was predicted (top) and what fell (bottom)
The next day was Christmas Eve, which is when the family gathers at Nan and Pops’ house to exchange presents with each other. If you count the various denominations of currency/gift cards as one gift, 50% of my Christmas presents were toothbrushes (an electric one and a travel one). It’s almost like my family was trying to tell me something…
Everyone got along this year, which is a switch from years past when there’s usually a bunch of arguing. And I enjoyed being able to finally afford presents for everyone in the family — even if it meant they all got NCCU Law paraphernalia 
Then of course there was Christmas, my 3rd favorite holiday of the year after Independence Day and Thanksgiving Dinner was tasty and it was fun getting to hang out with the family.
Y’all already read about Snowmageddon 2010, my road trip back to Durham. The photo on the right shows the difference between what was forecast when I left for Virginia Beach and what had I actually fallen by the time I was driving home. The red dots respectively show Nan and Pops’ house in Virginia Beach and my apartment here in Durham.
It was a bit of a white-knuckle experience but in hindsight it was pretty cool
Our view from the hotel room
雅雅 and I then headed down to Orlando the next morning for the Champs Sports Bowl, where we got totally spoiled by Nan using her frequent traveler points to reserve a hotel room for us at the Grand Bohemian in downtown Orlando. We were automatically upgraded to the “concierge level” on the top floor because of it, which included among other perks a VIP lounge with its own bar just steps from our door 
The photo shows part of what I woke up to on Tuesday morning
In a fitting dose of irony, however, our trip to Orlando happened to be accompanied by near-record low temperatures for Florida We had to bundle up as we were exploring downtown, and had to double-bundle up before heading to the stadium.
But I think one of the coolest aspects of the trip (aside from the weather) was being able to connect with dozens of friends from undergrad, all of us in a different city of a different state, traveling from across the country to reunite in support of our alma mater. It was a fun realization
Then of course there was the game itself, my very first bowl game that I attended in person
My new red NC State hat!
I upgraded my black N.C. State hat that I’ve had since 2000 with a new red edition to help add to the red shading of the arena — which complemented the shading of the post-game crowd after the Wolfpack followed up with a huge 23-7 win! 
It was definitely a lot of driving over the past week, but it was well worth it! It’s been an amazing year, and I’m incredibly blessed to have an opportunity to end it the way I have.
Now I’m recharged and ready for the Spring semester to get underway
Hope all of you had equally amazing vacations, and have a fun and festive New Year’s Eve!
Tags: About TDot, 雅雅, Nan & Pops, NC State, NCCU Law, NCSU Wolfpack, Son of TDot, TDot's Travels, The Parents
Posted by TDot on Dec 29, 2010 in
The 2L Life After a trip up that went a lot faster than the ride down, I’m finally back home in Durham
Lots to write about tomorrow and over the next few days, including a quick rundown of what has become the most stellar vacation week ever in the history of my life, along with my $.02 on last week’s net “neutrality” vote by the FCC, my New Year’s resolutions, a (finally) updated Site Stats entry, and a bunch of other stuff I’ve got partially drafted but never seem to actually get around to finishing in a timely-enough fashion for y’all to read it
Until then, I want y’all to read this entry from Jack Whittington over at World Wide Whit. It’s one of his older pieces but highlights a philosophy he shares along with myself and Keith Lee at An Associate’s Mind — and you’ll be seeing it again and again over the year(s) ahead
And then take a non-law-related detour to check out this great highlights video from N.C. State’s 23-7 stomping of WVU in the Champs Bowl yesterday
More tomorrow! Good night y’all!
Tags: 2L, Gotta Be NC, NCSU Wolfpack
Posted by TDot on Dec 27, 2010 in
Wolfpack Athletics Good evening everybody!
I’ve had such an incredibly amazing year that I almost can’t believe the amazingness is continuing right down to the end, but as I mentioned at the end of yesterday’s entry I’m currently writing this post from the not-quite-as-frigid-as-NC climate of the Sunshine State!
The drive down was ridiculous, as a 1-car barely-an-accident in the northbound lanes of I-95 in South Carolina somehow created enough attention that rubberneckers successfully slowed both of the southbound lanes of I-95, creating a backup for 40ish miles — and since there are only 2 lanes to I-95 for the entire stretch of SC, it took 雅雅 and I ~3.5 hours to travel those 40 miles
SC+GA+FL are now added to the list!
But the wait was worth it! Florida seems very cool so far, our hotel is amazing, and I just ordered room service for the first time in my life (delicious!). Then tomorrow I’ll get to see a lot of my old friends from undergrad plus explore a new state plus enjoy the obligatory pre-game tailgating plus get to see some Wolfpack football!
And I got to add 3 more states to my “Gotta Get to All 50 Before I Croak” list
Your normally-humble author is getting spoiled…
I’m not sure if I’ll have an entry here tomorrow night after the game, but if I get back to the hotel at a decent hour I’ll try to cobble something together. In either event, have a great night y’all!
Tags: 雅雅, NCSU Wolfpack, TDot's Travels
Posted by TDot on Dec 26, 2010 in
The 2L Life I survived!
Hey y’all
If you’ve flipped to a news show at some point today, odds are good you’ve seen at least one story on the blizzard that hit the East Coast over the past day and a half. It’s not exactly the type of stuff that would make people from up north flinch, but it ended up setting records in several parts of the Southeast — including being the most snowfall Virginia Beach has gotten since I was born 29 years ago
In other words, after praying for snow on Christmas for most of those 29 years, Mother Nature decided to cooperate on the one year I had to drive back home to Durham the next day
I left Virginia Beach around 10:00am this morning, figuring since the snow wasn’t projected to stop until 3am-ish tonight it’d be better to get out sooner rather than later. The downside in leaving so early was that there had essentially been no plowing or significant road treatment of any kind done on any of the highways between Virginia Beach and Emporia…
…so a leg of the trip that usually takes 1.5 hours ballooned out to 3.25 instead
31mi east of Emporia VA around 12:15pm today
For a stretch I was stuck debating which was worse: (i) the overcompensating pricks in SUVs barreling down the highway at near-full-speed with their headlights off, blazing past me just to later spin out into a ditch, or (ii) the people who acted like they hadn’t seen snow before, crawling along at 5mph and holding up the only lane of traffic
The wind made the whole adventure even more adventurous, with visibility dropped to 50ish yards and occasionally having a full-blown whiteout as the snow falling combined with snow blown off the trees.
To give you an idea of the conditions, I took a couple pictures when I was about 31 miles east of Emporia. The top photo is the view from outside my windshield, and the bottom photo is the view out the passenger side window at the same point.
Fortunately by the time I got to North Carolina all of the highways were totally cleared, so it only took me about 2 hours to make it the rest of the way home Kudos to the NCDOT and the various municipal plowing authorities for doing what Virginia didn’t bother to do in a timely fashion 
Now I’m here getting everything re-packed to head down to Orlando for Tuesday night’s Champs Sports Bowl featuring my alma mater… where I’m pretty sure there won’t be any snow
Needless to say I’m looking forward to it, so I’m heading to bed — have a great night everybody!
Tags: #fml, 2L, Gotta Be NC, NCSU Wolfpack, TDot's Travels
Posted by TDot on Nov 27, 2010 in
Weekend Roundup I disappeared again, sorry!
Out of the 144 weeks from the time Orientation started until I get my J.D. in May 2012, something about the 2-day class week before Thanksgiving triggers a feeling of “omgwtfshootmeplzkthxu”.
Out of curiosity I checked the law:/dev/null archives for this same time last year, and sure enough there was this entry on panic setting in before finals. I’ve got the same feeling a year later, so blogging took a back seat for the week.
But, today was game day again — which means I got absolutely nothing productive accomplished and could properly get things updated here. Plus it gave me an excuse to tag an entry for the Weekend Roundup category for the first time since Week 8
Here’s a week-in-review look back at what’s happened in my life over the past 7 days:
- As I hinted before my disappearance, last Saturday was spent with 雅雅 as we watched the N.C. State Wolfpack stage an amazing comeback to defeat the Baby Blue Powder Puffs of the University of Non-Compliance at Cheater Haven — for the 4th time in 4 years We ended up winning by a score of 29-25, which included one of the most improbable touchdown catches I’ve ever seen in college football; check around the 2:13 mark of this NCSU-UNX highlight video for the whole play. After the requisite celebrating and trash-talking, we headed out to go see Harry Potter VII Part I… and I was generally unimpressed. No hate mail please
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My SBA colleague after her team lost last week
Got to spend Sunday afternoon picking out a Wolfpack shirt for the SBA secretary, who happens to (1) be a UNCCH graduate and (2) have an affinity for making outlandish bets on losing sports teams The rest of the day was used to revise my brief in opposition to the State’s motion in limine for DV Law, then frantically figuring out what on Earth I was going to say during oral arguments.
- Monday was compartmentalized into three distinct phases. Oral arguments took place Monday morning and turned out fairly well, even though I didn’t get to use several of the pre-packaged zingers I had prepared just in case
The afternoon was spent being annoyed about this UNCASG news piece in the Daily Tar Heel — and for once it wasn’t because of what the DTH printed. Bear in mind there is nothing at all whatsoever in any of ASG’s governing documents that dictates what amount (if any) officers have to be paid, yet these people are amending its Constitution and eliminating a constitutionally-mandated financial oversight position, purportedly to save money they’re not required to pay in the first place. “We mismanaged our budget, so let’s eliminate one of the key people responsible for making sure we don’t mismanage our budget” is the unspoken message being sent to the UNC Board of Governors and the other political players in North Carolina. Then Monday night was right here in front of the laptop banging away at my last Legal Letters assignment of the semester until the wee hours of the morning.
- Tuesday was my very last Legal Letters class ever, which called for celebration. Even though the professor was cool the material was just mind-numbingly bland and no amount of caffeine / cash / illegal narcotics could keep someone awake in it I also had an interview with the tech company I mentioned last week, which I think went well but honestly I’m not sure; I’m supposed to get a call this coming week with a thumbs up or thumbs down. The prospect of getting the job has me insanely nervous because everything I’ve done up until this point has either been trivially easy or difficult-but-practically-a-hobby. This would be a combination of being totally new, probably difficult, and sufficiently not-a-hobby that I’d be fired if I screw up. Which I don’t think I will, but you get the point. I’ve always been a high-risk/high-reward type of person, but I still get butterflies in my stomach in the process…
- In anticipation of Thanksgiving, I used Wednesday to finally clean my apartment thoroughly for the first time since the semester started getting crazy. Washed all my clothes, cleaned up the wasteland that was quickly becoming my kitchen, and so on. Stocked up on food for the holiday, donated $$ I didn’t have to the Durham Rescue Mission to help those who aren’t as lucky as I am, then went home, put all the food away… and ended up falling asleep in the recliner watching TV
- Thursday of course was Thanksgiving. It was only me this year, but I was blessed to have a handful of folks offer up their own meals if I wanted them — I declined though, because I wanted to experiment with cooking my very first turkey without potentially killing anyone It turned out well for a first attempt so I was happy. Followed that up with the obligatory mashed potatoes and gravy, some steamed broccoli and cheese, and a few rolls. The only downside is that I will be eating turkey-related leftovers for weeks In between cooking and eating, also spent about 8 (non-contiguous) hours sending personalized text messages to folks wishing them a happy Thanksgiving. Maybe a little crazy, but cheaper than sending a bunch of holiday greeting cards no one reads…
- And then yesterday was pretty much spent banging my head against the desk in the hope that something useful would fall out for this Evidence memo due on Monday. It’s ostensibly optional extra credit, but when (1) you’re graded on a curve and (2) a majority of your classmates are going to turn something in, “optional” isn’t really optional I’m in the position of defense counsel in a criminal case (sound familiar?) trying to block the State’s effort to get evidence introduced under FRE 404(b) about prior bad acts allegedly committed by my client. The only problem is that pretty much every case I’ve found that holds any weight for this particular factual scenario says the evidence needs to come in, and the more exotic theories I’ve come up with are even more thoroughly refuted I’m going to come up with something, but doggone it I hate making losing arguments…
NC State got Ron Cherry'd on UMD's 4th and 1
Which brings us to today. My Wolfpack disgraced themselves in College Park, Maryland, losing to the Terrapins by 31-38. We actually played far worse than the box score indicates, scoring 14 points in the first 9 minutes and 14 points in the last 4 minutes — making only a 3-point field goal during the 47 minutes in between. NC State got screwed when Maryland was given a first down they didn’t earn on 4th and 1 with under a minute left (see the photo), but the truth is we played so horribly that we pretty much deserved to lose anyway.
I’m not in a position to complain since I predicted we’d end the season at 7-5 and we’re actually 8-4, so I’m just gonna be happy with our bowl game and look forward to next season
The rest of this evening has been spent trading critiques with EIC about our various papers due tomorrow (Evidence and DVLaw for me, both of those plus Race and the Law for her). And finally writing this blog entry
All in all it’s been a good week… and now exams are upon us GOOD LUCK to everyone facing finals, and if you have a few prayers to spare feel free to send them my way
Tags: DVLaw, EIC, Evidence, Exams, 雅雅, Legal Letters, NCSU Student Senate, NCSU Wolfpack, SBA, UNCASG, UNCCH Daily Tar Heel
Posted by TDot on Nov 19, 2010 in
Wolfpack Athletics This is NCSU-UNCCH football weekend, a point I hinted at in yesterday’s entry. Anyone who tells you it’s not one of the biggest rivalry games in the ACC is either (a) delusional, (b) clueless, or (c) lying to you
I come from an apparently-bygone era where it’s still possible to appreciate a person/group/institution and what they do, while still trashing them habitually in certain competitive eras like athletics (or mock trial competitions). So, for example, while I’ve got a few colleagues who hate anything and everything that is Duke Law, I don’t have a problem with them or their students — just the trial team, which couldn’t litigate its way out of high school detention without professional help
By that same token, I have no doubt the University of Non-Compliance at Cheater Haven is a fine upstanding academic institution 6 out of 7 days of the week. But the rest of the time they’re typical blue-blood white-wine elitists who got where they are today courtesy of mommy’s and daddy’s trust fund.
Oh, and the wealthy white alumni $$$ that came with excluding blacks for 160 years.
So it was in that spirit I’ve been exchanging trash-talk with one of my colleagues in the NCCU Law Student Bar Association, who happens to be a UNCCH alum. That in turn led to the inevitable taunt of putting a friendly wager on the game. I proposed the loser cooking the winner dinner and wearing a t-shirt touting the victorious school.
She saw my bet and raised by taking it a step higher: social media
If, by some cosmic coincidence, the Baby Blue Powder Puffs manage to eke out their 1st victory in the past 4 years over my beloved N.C. State Wolfpack, I have to change my Facebook and Twitter avatars to something UNCCH-esque and write an entry here at law:/dev/null praising them for their victory
Even though Vegas has my Wolfpack as a 3-point underdog… and we’ve whipped them 3 years in a row so they’re due for a win… I accepted
So this entry is just to give y’all advance warning that if things don’t turn out the way I want, you might want to avoid stopping by the blog tomorrow — and if you happen to ignore my advice, make sure you read #6 on the Disclaimer first
Tags: Duke Law, NCCU Law, NCSU Wolfpack, SBA
Posted by TDot on Nov 18, 2010 in
Randomness Law school life is hitting über-crazy status as we get into the final days of class before the Thanksgiving holiday… followed the next week by final exams
So rather than a properly edited entry, you get a few random bullets that crossed my mind today:
- Wednesdays this semester seem to be the day I just totally forget law:/dev/null exists — sorry for constantly bailing on y’all the same time every week
- I’m appreciative y’all still stop by though! Barring an unexpected outage (or a complete and total lack of all interest) we should cross the half-million pageview milestone today
- It took 10 months to rack up our first 250,000 pageviews, and only 5 months for the next 250,000. I doubt that growth trend is going to continue given my sporadic absences but it’s still pretty cool
- After she read the N&O article on my less-than-stellar academic performance in computer science, one of the senior academic folks at N.C. State sent me an incredibly kind email with her thoughts. Amid the other remarks was this snippet: “In light of your comments regarding yourself as a computer science student, I thought I would pass on what a computer science professor told me when he realized I was one of your fans. He told me that you were one of the best and finest students he had ever had in computer science.” I have no clue which professor she was referring to, but is it bad that my first two thoughts were wondering (1) what that professor must have been smoking to come to that conclusion, and (2) if I could find a hearsay exception to get it admitted in case I ever had to prove that I really wasn’t that incompetent?
- I also got a snarky email from some random person about that article. Might make it a separate mailbag entry just so I can be snarky in response. We’ll see
- If you haven’t done so already, I want you to check out two blog entries that continue last week’s posts on the value of law school: Keith Lee over at An Associate’s Mind has this entry on performing your due diligence, and Jack Whittington of World Wide Whit has this piece on how *not* to persuade people. They’re both excellent entries — and it makes me feel better not being the only one in the “realistic optimist” camp anymore
- Speaking of realistic optimism, in the span of one hour Wednesday morning I randomly got contacted to schedule two different job interviews — one in the CrimLaw arena, the other in the CSC-related intellectual property field. It was a reminder to me that I really need to figure out wtf I’m going to do with my professional life after law school. Look for an entry on that topic soon.
- My draft motion in limine for DV Law was the highest grade in the class… and now I have to pretty much re-do the whole thing I’m in the role of defense counsel (again) and the facts for my case suck (again). Even so, I thought I had a pair of exotic-but-still-pretty-compelling arguments — until the prosecution from a different team unintentionally ran a tractor trailer-sized hole through one of them during her own performance this morning. Back to the drawing board…
- I can’t wait for Saturday
Have a great night everybody!
Tags: 2L, Blawg Love, DVLaw, NC State, NCCU Law, NCSU Wolfpack
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