A sunny September Saturday afternoon and I'm sitting inside...

... but not for long! I'm getting ready to go out and meet some friends and spend some time at a park enjoying a little sunshine and barbecue. The weather is simply beautiful today. Of course, it helps that I have this beautiful tree to look at outside my window rather than the Wash n'Go Laundry building on Hester St.

I have spent my morning trying to figure out what to do with my cell phone company. I got my monthly statement and it's $231! Apparently, I went over on my night and weekends. I haven't called to discuss it with them yet, but I have no intent of paying that much money and if I do, it will be the last payment they receive from me. After doing some quick research, I found that there is a way to get out of my 2 year contract without the early termination fee, even though I'm only 1 year through my contract. Verizon is adding a $.40 service charge starting on Oct. 1 and that is a change in the contract, so they offer to let you out of the contract if you don't agree with it. We'll see what happens there. The only problem is that if I change companies I won't be able to port my number because I still have my non-NYC area code and they won't let you keep it if you open an account with a different address. That's okay though. I'll be more like a local with a 917 area code.

School is going well. Thursday was my first journal deadline for my note. I did some frantic research Tuesday and Wednesday night and was able to come up with the requisite five pages. I am not sure how well this topic will pan out, but at least it is interesting to me and they say that is an important factor. Naturally, my topic has very little to do with actual law. It's more of a writing about another topic and then tying it into law. I won't bore you with the details, but for non law school people, it's a lot more fascinating topic than most people write about. I shared my topic with someone who graded on to law review and you could just see the wistful look of envy when he realized that I was writing on something cool and his topic was a snoozer.

They seem to do a pretty good job of keeping the 2Ls and 3Ls away from the 1Ls. That's probably not completely true, but I rarely see anyone that I know is a 1L. I'd like to get a hold of them and start sharing with them some of my knowledge about the process, but alas, they wouldn't listen anyway. (I'd most like to tell them not to stress about legal writing--especially the first semester stuff since it is only 10-15% of the grade.) They have to find out for themselves. Law school takes a certain kind of person; a person who is mentally deficient in some way. At the end of our first year, a few of my 1L friends sat around a table eating an after study session dinner. I asked them if they had it to do over again, knowing what they know now, whether they would still decide to go to law school. Two of them immediately said an emphatic, "No way!" A third sided with them a little less emphatically. The other two of us couldn't really say for sure. It's sort of an interesting question to think about because I'm not sure I can really answer it yet. I think that I probably would do it again, if only because I'm a bit daft now and then. Let's put it this way: it hasn't been a bad decision, but it hasn't been my best decision (at least not yet).

A nice note: Cardozo was kind enough to extend an invitation to displaced Tulane Law students to attend our school for the time being. I guess nearly two dozen have taken up the offer and a few are in some of my classes. I imagined when I saw that our school had done this, that the students would be paying a reduced tuition or something, but one of the students told me that Cardozo is paying their tuition and their books. They may be paying for more, I didn't hear. That was enough to impress me. Glad to know that there is some good going on in the higher levels of our fair school. (Also, I had some friends point out to me that Yeshiva University made US News' Top 50 schools this year. Way to go....uh.... Maccabees! There's got to be a better mascot....)

And we're back...

Alright, so I took a brief break from this new endeavor. Alright, so it was a six month break. That's okay. The good thing is that I'm back. A lot has changed in the last few months, but perhaps most importantly is that I'm no longer a measly 1L at Cardozo. Now, I'm a measly 2L at Cardozo! Is there a big difference? Ummm, not really. One thing I have noticed is that the professors I have this year tend to call people by their first names rather than the formal Mr. or Ms. Last name that was used by all the 1L professors. It has been nice to come back and have an idea of what is going on and how to get on with all the business that law school has to offer.

Some of the new things to deal with this fall is the fact that we all know where we stand now. Yes, grades came out and labeled us for life as someone who should be interviewed or someone that should be looking for work in a different profession. It's not that bad, but you do kinda get the feeling that the people with all the interviews are looking down on those of us who did not. At least I got on a journal. There are, unfortunately for those people, students who wanted to be on a journal and didn't get on. What's even worse is that I've heard of someone who got kicked out of school for grades, but still managed to get offers from two journals. What a process! Journals are an interesting creature. I haven't done it yet, but it sounds like a lot of work for one credit and a line on your resume. We have to put in three office hours a week and write a note outside of office hours and homework in order to get one credit for the whole year. I'm not bitter.

One of the sad things about some of the journals is that they deal with a specific topic and then selected people to be on the journal that don't even want to work in that area of the law. This seems to be an overwhelming problem and a major fault with the current writing competition/journal selection process. They should have some way to indicate what you actually may be interested in working on during the year. I know that some people have no clue and so they want to be on this clinic and that journal to get an idea of two different areas, but it may be a lot more beneficial to the journals and the people involved to let people who want to pursue a certain area be involved with that journal. I'm just saying....

On a completely different note, I moved out of Manhattan. I gathered up all my courage and ventured out of my mouse house in Little China/Italytown and relocated to "the Slope" in Brooklyn. So far, my quality of life has gone up more than you can imagine and that is even taking into account the 25 minute commute. I think I kinda like it here.