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  • CNN International

    Watching the international CNN station anchored by a woman with a vague British accent at 1am when I should be sleeping, but can’t because the temperature in the room I’m subletting is swealtering and the Chicago humidity hasn’t been rained out yet by the thunderstorms rolling through daily, is comforting. Comforting like being in your bed at home. Comforting like walking into an air conditioned room on a hot day. Comforting like kissing someone you’ve kissed ten thousand times.

    The woman’s accent, the cricket highlights and the semi-canned clips that remind me of a windowless hotel room in Shanghai combine to remind me that some intangible force that is exponentially larger than anything I could ever dream of comprehending comes and goes with each passing day.

    Yet, here I am, sitting at my desk above the shadows of street lights lining up the minutiae of my daily life like dominoes.

    Written from 6:25pm to 6:45pm on Monday, June 29th, 2009 at the new Starbucks on Halsted Street north of Greektown, Chicago, IL.

  • My Thoughts On BarBri Thus Far

    First, a short history on BarBri. “Bar” refers to “Bay Area Review and “Bri” stands for “Bar Review Institute.” The two were merged in 1974 and marketed thereafter as “BarBri.”

    I’m nearing the end of the third full week of my BarBri bar exam review class. The first week was the Multistate Advantage; since then it’s been the “official” class, which covers the substantive law topic-by-topic.

    With each new topic comes a new professor / presenter. I’ve had four professors thus far, and have been pleased with each of their presentations. However, Michael J. Kaufman of the Loyola University Chicago School of Law, who covered Agency, Partnership, and Corporations, is my clear favorite. I think my classmates would agree. He came off as eccentric in an effective and energetic way, and conveyed the outlines memorably. (It helps that he’s got an MA and a JD from the University of Michigan.)

    The other presenters were:

    Richard Conviser, who happens to be the Founder and Chairman of BarBri and a professor at the Chicago-Kent College of Law. He presented Torts over the first two days. While not as memorable as Kaufman, he was clear and efficient in his delivery.

    Michael I. Spak of Chicago-Kent School of Law finished his presentations on the sleep-inducing areas of Commercial Paper and Suretyship yesterday. My first read of the long outline for Commercial Paper was frustrating because of the amount of information and multiple levels of detail. However, what BarBri does effectively, and what Spak did clearly was to reduce the information to a memorable shorter outline that targets what I need to know for the bar exam. Spak possesses an interesting combination of grandfatherly expressions and off-color jokes pertaining to various sexual acts, which, commendably, are not easy to slip into a presentation on Commercial Paper.

    Faust F. Rossi of the Cornell University Law School presented Evidence today and will continue to do so for another four hours tomorrow. His outline boils down evidence law to logical sequences that seem to be easy to remember. I remember taking evidence in law school and feeling, at times, quite lost. His lectures highlight a distinction between studying for the bar and studying in law school. The emphasis when studying for the bar is on knowing and understanding the law, not knowing specific cases or rules. That’s a good thing! One less level of information to remember.

    The class in general:

    The review class is huge. I thought the class size would shrink when the “real” review classes started because there would then be morning, afternoon and evening sessions. I was completely wrong. There are far more – hundreds – of fellow lawyers-to-be. It’s weird coming from the lone law school in New Hampshire, which cranks out approximately 150 new lawyers a year, to the third largest city in the US and being amongst more students in this one review location than in my law school class. (I’m probably making an obvious point, but still – there are a lot of them!)

    Studying outside of class has been bearable, but not easy by any means. I commend those classmates that work part-time and do the review. I’m sure they sacrifice their studies to a degree. There is definitely enough review and practice problems to keep me busy for the majority of the waking day. Plus, with getting settled in Chicago, I’ve been absolutely exhausted about once every seven days.

    The advantage of being in a new place, however, is that when I grow restless in one study location I can take a long walk to another one. It’s fun to people watch and get some fresh air.

    Greektown has been good to me thus far. I’ve had more Gyros in the last three weeks than I had in the previous three years. At six dollars for an over-stuffed gyro, fries and a drink, how can I not eat them two or three times a week? I usually go to Mr. Greek’s Gyros on the corner of Halsted and Jackson because they have free drink refills. However, I need to try the place across the street.

    Good stuff. More soon!

  • I Live In Chicago Now

    On Sunday, May 17, 2009, one day after graduating from law school, I drove from Concord, New Hampshire to Chicago, Illinois. Aside from the first two hours through the hills of southern New Hampshire and Vermont, the drive was simple and entirely on Interstate 90, the longest interstate in the United States at 3,084 miles (Seattle, WA to Boston, MA). 805 (84%) of 960 miles of my drive were on I-90.

    The drive was uneventful and I arrived 2.5 hours earlier than scheduled, in time to drive around and scope out possible self-storage sheds. I said I would never again use storage, but dumping my car load of stuff seemed like the wisest thing to do. I needed my car to do some fast apartment hunting, wanting to find a place to live asap.

    It took all of a day to find an apartment, and I found a great one mere blocks from my bar review class. My room has good light, which will be nice during the endless hours of studying I’ll be doing this summer. I’ll be moving in tomorrow.

    My next goal is to get back to working out. I’ve been off for a few weeks now, thanks to exams, graduation, and moving. Until I find a reasonably priced gym, I plan on focusing on running and other self-sufficient workouts such as push-ups, sit-ups, etc. I’ve found that YouTube is a good source for inspiration for different activities.

    I’ve already got a wishlist for my time in Chicago:

    • Single-speed bike

    Chicago Tips? Things to do? Want to say hi? Email me via the Contact form in the upper right of this page.

  • Being in a Wedding

    Being the best man in my cousin Tim’s wedding was one of the most stressful moments in my life. I had no idea what I was getting myself into when I accepted his invitation. However, I was excited as well. My wedding experience was picking up. Age of 14: attend first wedding. Age of 26: attend first friend’s wedding. Age of 27: be in a wedding.

    WAIT! Be IN a wedding? I played it cool, mainly because I was busy with school. But, then, suddenly, I was boarding a plan to Minnesota and I hadn’t thought much about what being the best man required of me. I began Googling “best man duties,” which returned a variety of lists that turned out, looking back, to be wholly inadequate. The listed duties focused on ensuring the groom had packed his bags for the honeymoon. Well, there was no immediate honeymoon planned.

    So, what do I do? My two big responsibilities were down to: (1) holding the rings at the wedding and (2) giving a toast prior to the reception dinner. That sounds easy enough, unless you know how bad I am at giving coherent toasts.

    I spent all of Friday running errands with Tim, who appeared far calmer than I felt. He had his few things to do – pick up tuxes and the wedding rings, get a haircut, buy lighters, and buy new car tires. Here, I had thought that the day prior to one’s big day was to be spent in chaos, meticulously preparing for more chaos. But no, he had time to give me a tour of the city and make a decision between touring and mid-level summer tires. (He had driven over on winter tires, which, when used in warmer months, sounds like the car is unzipping the road.)

    The rehearsal dinner was fine. I met my equal – the maid of honor who was the bride-to-be’s younger sister. The families chatted over pizza until we were shipped off to the church. I’m told this is all routine.

    It wasn’t until three hours prior to the wedding that I began to stress. I didn’t – couldn’t – do much to change how things would play out, but I learned a lot in the process. Thanks to another of Tim’s groomsman, who possessed far more wedding experience than me, things went smoothly. I’m not talking about big things. I’m focusing on the minutia of the whole wedding day. I’m referring to guy stuff that smooths the edges. What I’m talking about is stuff not listed on theknot.com’s list of best man duties – mainly, cigars and cars. Gabe came through on the cigars and we arranged some cars.

    Actually standing in the wedding was exhausting. All sorts of things were racing through my head: smile, don’t look at the bride’s maids for fear of crying myself, don’t annoy the bride, do I have the rings?, stand still, don’t fart, wow it’s hot, wow the pastor is talking forever, etc. I had my shoulders locked in such a way that they would be sore for three days. I’ve lifted weights and been less sore.

    The DJ, who upon our arrival at the reception, was dressed in a leather vest, had disappeared along with the know-how of how to operate his microphone. Once that was smoothed out, I kept my toast short and not-too-awkward. The bride and groom are great people. It was easy to toast them. Plus, they had made the excellent decision of serving breakfast food complete with an omelet bar for dinner, so I wasn’t about to delay getting to that.

    The experience was fun and it was an honor to be Tim’s best man. Perhaps from seeing too many movies, I expected a groom to have some jitters. But there was none of that. He was a rock because he knew he was making the right decision in marrying Olivia. That was cool to see.

  • Movie: The Great Buck Howard

    I’ve been waiting to see The Great Buck Howard since I missed it at Sundance two years ago. It wasn’t the greatest movie (quasi-pun intended), but I liked it well enough. Here’s why.

    • The main character is a kid who hates law school and only went because his father corralled him into it. I chose to go to law school on my own terms, but my father is a lawyer and I am in law school. (Strangely, and this goes for only a few people in law school, but I seem to have an affinity for books and movies about “the law.” By that I mean that I willingly and eagerly seek them out. Some of my classmates, instead, run the other way.)
    • The main character wants to be a writer. I would love to be a writer, but I’m not sure I’m willing to sacrifice the earning potential presented by the legal field. However, considering there are not yet any crops in my legal field, I may be just as well off either way. Hello, Hollywood?

    That’s really where the similarities end. I wanted “the law” to play a bigger role in the movie, but it wasn’t. Except that “law school” is used as a symbol of oppression from which the main character escaped. I like the message – do what you love … no matter what … and enjoy the journey.

  • Blog Reading is a Waste of Time

    Blog reading is a waste of time. So is microblog reading and tumbleblog reading.

    Let’s tale a look at what I get from each sub-genre.

    Blogs

    I subscribe to about 100 blogs via Google Reader. On a good day, I read about one third of those and that still took 1+ hours of my time.

    Most of the information I gleened from blogs was unrelated to me. Topics like how to do things better, faster, in an odd way. Topics about art, law, photography, and economics that were far too obscure scrolled down the screen too often.

    In theory, I found all of the topics to which I subscribe interesting. In practice, I simply didn’t need to know 99% of the stuff I read. It’s not just that I didn’t need to know it. The information made me think I constantly needed to improve, rearrange or change my own habits. Not good.

    Solution: Limit my blog reading to: friends’ blogs, local info and direct interests (golf and law). Although, law will be highly focused.

    Microblogs

    Same overindulgence of information here as with blogs. I don’t need to know who is complaining about what all of the time.

    At one point a couple years ago I was using Twitter, Pownce, Jaiku and a couple other microblogging sites simultaneously. That’s insanely annoying to admit, let alone practice.

    I check Twitter while I’m bored, walking around places. I see this as an admission that I find people’s tweets more compelling than either my surroundings or the people I am actually with. That’s not, in fact, the case.

    Solution: Only follow friends I’ve met in person.

    Tumbleblogs

    These are the worst. At least with Twitter the user has to create something semi-original. Tumblr allows users to post scraps (pictures, quotes, videos) without adding anything to them. I’ll admit that this is incredibly addicting, but it serves no purpose and is a huge time suck.

    Solution: stop using and reading.

    Conclusion

    What this all comes down to is that the Internet, as I have been using it for 6+ years, is a huge waste of time. I usually have a laptop with Internet within reach about 90% of the day. This was because I thought I needed to be connected. What I’m discovering is that I’m happier without the connection. I still have my iPhone. I can chech email and Google directions, but the time suck stuff has gone away. The life tips have disappeared. The random information has stopped scrolling.

    What is left? More things I can trip over, talk to, and smell. Everything around me. Everyone around me.

  • Spring Semester: Final Week of Classes

    I am halfway through the first day of my final week of law school classes ever. There have been some tweets to this fact by a few of my fellow law school tweeters. The mix is from excitement to sadness. And I fall at both ends and in between. Or, at least I plan to.

    The excitement hasn’t quite hit me yet. I still have a good deal of work to do to finish the semester in good fashion. But, come the end of finals, whether that is the end of next week or the week after (it all depends on how much I want to pack my days versus spreading the work out and delaying the ultimate end), I plan to be excited. I can imagine how it will feel. I’ll walk out of school after dropping off my last assignment. I’ll close my eyes for a second to adjust to the late-spring sunlight, and then I’ll smile. I’m not one to scream or jump around. Not about things like this, anyway. (I save that for the golf course and tennis matches and watching Michigan football games.) My smile will turn into a grin and my shoulders will relax. It will be a relief.

    Inevitably, I’ll feel a sense of something short of disappointment that stems from my always wondering if I could have made the entire experience better, more efficient, more fun, etc. Something can always be improved. But instead of being disappointed this time, like I was when I left Washington D.C., I hope to accept that I’ve learned many things about “the law” and about myself during the past three years. It’s amazing, when looking back, how fast – how absolutely fast – the time has passed.

    Looking back will be easy. There is a definite end to things. My last day of class. Finishing my last final. Receiving my diploma on graduation day.

    Looking forward is less concrete. The rest of my life is going to start on May 17th when I get into my Ford Explorer and start driving west to Chicago, Illinois. I’m working diligently to bring the unplanned into focus. I’ve sorted my storage shed into “ship,” “sort,” “sell” and “toss.” I need to find an apartment in Chicago, a task I generally leave to the very last minute. (This past semester, I didn’t find an apartment until the day I arrived in town.) And most of all, I need to find a job while studying to pass the bar.

    This is just me rambling. I could go on, but I have my third-to-last class in ten minutes, so I’ll end my commentary here.