Category: Our Experiences

Tales of my life as told by me.

Midterm Time

I have a lot to do. I was feeling a bit overwhelmed earlier in Contracts, but then I took the big picture approach to everything and decided all will be fine in the long run. I have a Civil Procedure midterm on Friday. It’s take home and we get 24 hours from 3pm Friday to turn it in. That means I get to spend all day Saturday writing about how to bring a case in court. Believe me, I know it sounds fun, but I can think of better ways to spend my weekend. Like watching UM beat Penn State.

Top it off with a research report due Friday at 2pm and we’ve got a great week going.

Time to study. Bought a printer. Go Tigers!

The Demise of the Coffee Cup (and Coffee)

Coffee used to be simple. It was what we drank in the morning to wake up. It was a grown-up drink. An acquired taste. Something that smelled good, but tasted just OK. For years, coffee was consumed in moderation, not guzzled like an SUV goes through gasoline. But now, something has gone wrong. We’ve allowed coffee to take us over. To dominate our street corners and our pocketbooks. At ten bucks a day for a couple coffee drinks, many of us have to budget coffee. We tell our accountants that we need more money. That we can’t afford our habit. That the large cups are distorting our demand, and the supply is lacking. “We need more,” we shout, but only the devil, disguised as a busty coffee goddess named Starbucks, hears us.

At 25 years old, I’m young compared to coffee. But, I’ve seen enough old movies and heard enough stories of the “good ol’ days” to know the truth. I didn’t live the ups and downs of coffee, but I can empathize because we are in a coffee recession right now. Not for lack of coffee, but for lack of appreciation – for lack of respect.

The old movies show gritty detectives walking over to a grimy glass pot half full of day old coffee with grounds settled to the bottom. These men don’t grab a cup the size of the town water tower. They get a small white styrofoam cup and fill it up far enough to warm cold hands, but not so high that the simple act of walking will cause the coffee to spill and burn their hands. This is the kind of cup coffee was made for.

And jackets? Why does my coffee cup need a jacket? Why do I have to go through the trouble of putting a jacket on my coffee? Shouldn’t, considering the technological advances made during the past century, the jacket be attached to the cup?

And my biggest pet peeve. The one that gets me with each purchase is the modern cup seam that forms a tiny gap between the lid and the lower part of the seam that allows coffee to leak through and drip onto my fingers while I’m walking to class. If the coffee is hot, I get burned. If it’s cold, then it’s just disgusting. Either way, I can’t imagine a gritty detective having to deal with this distraction. It just wouldn’t happen then, and there’s no reason to tolerate it now. We deserve better.

It’s October!

This means a few things:

Red and yellow abound. The fall foliage will be peaking soon. Here’s some info on Vermont’s celebration on October 10. They have a flannel contest. Amazing.

I’ve known my NH friends for over a month and it seems like a lot longer… in a good way. Lots of memories.

Ski season will soon be upon us.

The Detroit Tigers are in the playoffs for the first time since 1987.

Why Law School?

I ask this question of myself daily and never have a good answer. Today in legal writing, a class which I am usually marginally disinterested despite finding the actual skills it teaches useful, we were prompted to think about what we want out of law school and what we expect from our jobs. I haven’t thought about this much since getting to school. The work has taken over and I’ve been coasting with regard to questioning the purpose of my education. Now, I’m wondering, thanks to legal writing, why I’m here.

Thinking about this – whatever this is – makes me tense because it highlights how little I know about the life path I’m actively paying to follow. Before I got to law school I didn’t know why I wanted to come here, except that it seemed interesting. I may have told you some bullshit answer like, “Intellectual property is compelling.” If I did, I’m sorry. I had no idea what I was talking about at the time. IP is apparently, although I will have no personal experience with the subject matter until the beginning of next semester when I take an IP elective, similar to watching paint dry on a wall.

So, why then? What’s the draw? Do I like it now that I’m here?

Yeah, I like it more than I thought I would. I like that there are rules within which we operate. There is structure, but at the same time a creative mind can work within the structure (in an ethical manner) to do some good. To get a better case for their client. To gain the respect of their peers. And, ultimately, for one’s own satisfaction, to accomplish something. To be able to look back and say that I worked hard and I was sincere and I hope that I made some other people’s lives better as a result.

The day to day of law school isn’t so bad. Civil Procedure and Legal Writing on MWF and Contracts and Torts on TTh. Two classes a day. There’s a lot of free time, which I guess you could call study time, but no sane person would spend all of it in the noble pursuit of law. And those that do bug me. I’m sorry, but there’s more to life than school.

I don’t know where I’m going with this other than to get it off my head and out there. I’ve said a lot of it before, but it won’t get old. Not for three more years, and even then, I’ll be spending the rest of my life being a lawyer.

Hmmm… I’m becoming more OK with that.

Alternatives

My ideal job would involve playing golf or creating something. Professional golfer isn’t really in the running, and never really was. I wouldn’t mind being a golf pro – the kind that gives lessons – but, I’m too arrogant to do so. And, I have little patience for teaching people.

Being a college professor would be fun because I love the setting. I love the thought of being on a campus and drinking coffee while writing on a board and learning. I don’t have authority on much of anything at the moment, but that can always be acquired.

I would love to be a personality – a talking head. A creator. An intellectual entrepreneur. I have ideas all day long – the stream of Chris. Some of them make their way past the idea stage, and the others may some day when I have more “free” time.

I’ve never worked at a coffee shop or a hardware store, and I wish I had covered both in high school or college. The draw of the barista is mostly because I like coffee and I would like to get wired on caffeine for free. There’s something calming about a hardware store and it’s aisles full of obscure tools, rope, and metal objects that I find fascinating.

Writing is something I’ve never really given a chance beyond the random blogging and a few short articles for my old company. I think, if you were to ask me today what my ideal job would be, I would say author. Hopefully, fiction. But, I could settle.

Concord(s)

We went to a Red Sox game and left in the top of the 9th with the Sox up by one. Baltimore scored two runs in the bottom of the ninth to win by one. I didn’t care about missing it, and from what I hear this is typical of the end of their season. We went to a couple pubs, ate seafood, and saw a lot of cops in China Town. Fascinating. The one hour drive back to Concord, NH took me 3.5 hours. Apparently, Concord, MA isn’t the same as Concord, NH. Nor is it remotely close to Concord, NH. I was going east, west, northwest, which I thought was relatively correct until I found out that I needed to be going east. We got home at 4:30am.