your two dum

I’d be much more likely to believe the results of a Myspace quiz if the author of said quiz could 1) demonstrate a functional grasp of the “your vs. you’re” distinction, and 2) spell any other words properly.  For example, I just found out I am a good friend because I “keep other’s people’s secretes.”  It’s a good thing I have lots of mason jars around the house… (And yes I realize that those words are all technically spelled properly but since ‘secrete’ serendipitously conveys a meaning that was (hopefully) different than the one the author intended to convey, I’m counting it as a misspelling.)

it's not every day the Devil makes my life better

Jacob's bad luck: Is it . . . Satan?
Bedeviled: His business deals have been delayed, keeping him from fully funding his campaign

This was one of the above the fold stories in today’s Salt Lake Tribune. Rep. Chris Cannon from Utah’s deeply Republican congressional Third District is facing a difficult primary challenge this year from local businessman John Jacobs. This election has essentially become a referendum on President Bush’s election policy with Rep. Cannon supporting the guest worker program and Jacobs essentially advocating mass deportation of all illegal aliens. Jacobs has raised a strong challenge by capitalizing on the jingoistic (dare I say racist?) tendencies of rural Utahns.

Additionally, one of my friends is employed by the Jacobs campaign. Now despite the fact that we’re friends, there are few things I enjoy more than watching this guy twist in the wind… and today his boss delivered a great little gift to me in the form of this article in which he rants that the Devil is actively opposing his bid for Congress. Apparently Jacobs presence in Congress would so confound Satan’s work that the Prince of Darkness is causing the businesses owned by Jacobs to suffer. It couldn’t be that this guy is simply out of his league and is reaping the consequences of his overreaching.

I love it. Now to work out exactly the right vehicle to torment my campaign working friend… hee hee hee.

Terror comes with a 39 cent stamp

Yikes! Talk about your frightening surprises. I just retrieved my mail and included with my Netflix selections for today was a little envelope from the Utah State Bar. It contained the month-to-go-before-the-exam instructions. It lists where to go and what to do for the test and gave a brief overview of the testing procedures. Admittedly it didn’t contain much I didn’t already know, but it was still a frightening reality check. The worst test of my life is just a month away! Is it too late to call the whole thing off and become a doctor?

There was one bright spot to the whole letter though that made it worth reading:

"Although the building is air conditioned, 100-degree weather, the large numbers of applicants, and the heat generated by laptop computers results in the test rooms becoming unavoidably warm as the day progresses... You will find the test room cool in the morning, but increasingly warm as the day progresses. Please dress accordingly."

Now correct me if I'm wrong, but isn't this test only administered to people who have finished at least four years of college and three years of law school? Shouldn't you expect that such people would be intelligent enough to reason out that it's hot in Salt Lake City at the end of July? Maybe I should take comfort in the fact that the bar examiners think we're dumb enough not to understand basic concepts like weather and so will test us with similarly low expectations on our comprehension of legal concepts? I can always hope...

Home and dry

Another fabulous day at the taco factory is behind me.  It was a pretty good day today, and people were in a good mood in general, leading to pretty decent tips today.  Woo-hoo!  Of course my joy at a productive and profitable day is tempered by the fact that when I came home from work I discovered that the water in my condo had been turned off as part of some routine maintenance.  So now I’m sitting in my underwear, smelling of tacos, and hoping that the maintenance workers finish up soon so that I can degrease myself.  Exciting, no?

Career? What career?

Well some time has passed since my last post so allow me to summarize the events of the last few months. I finished up law school. Actually managed to graduate! I even passed my bankruptcy final. Whoda thunk it?

Since then I’ve begun the painful and humiliating process of bar exam preparation. I’m enrolled in a commercial bar review course and it’s about as painful as I imagine the trip to the dentist I’ve been avoiding will be. Actually the review course is probably worse. They pack us in like sardines to the review course and force us to listen to hours and hours of lectures on the subjects covered by the state bar examiners. It’s actually a pretty slick system but my bad attitude keeps me from really appreciating it. Well… my bad attitude and my inveterate slackerishness.

Meanwhile, the job hunt continues. I’m really not all that crazy to be a practicing lawyer. I’ve mostly enjoyed the work experiences I’ve had, especially with Lisa’s firm I can’t say I’ve been inspired. When I look back over my life, I find that the time I spent working in Washington was some of the most inspiring. My fabulous, anthrax filled days working as an intern were some of the few times I really felt like I was part of something larger than myself and that I was working for something good. I had to leave DC because I was interning there in between my junior and senior years of college. Now that I’ve finished college and (amazingly) law school, I can’t help but wonder if it’s time to try again. I am a little bit torn at this point because I’m in a position now where I could take a really excellent job here in Salt Lake and enter the practice of law, or I could chance it all and move to DC and hope I find something really love.

So for now I’m just concentrating on taking the bar exam. Although I keep hoping that some fabulous job in DC opens up that I’m forced to take immediately and therefore must regrettably refrain from taking the bar. Since that’s not likely to happen right away I guess I’m in for the long haul here. Speaking of which, it’s probably time I turn off my DVD review of the Simpsons (season 5) and get back to Conflicts of Law…

Greasing the slide to Hell

So today I had one of those ‘oh shit’ moments when you realize that you’re vastly underprepared for something.  With me, that moment was squarely centered on my bankruptcy class.  Just as I was settling down to sleep last night, my eyes popped open and I started to sweat as I realized that my exam is on Monday and I haven’t studied for it at all.  And I mean at all.  All semester, I kinda put it on the back burner, instead choosing to spend my time on addictinggames.com.  In retrospect this may not have been the wisest course of action, but then again I’ve never claimed to be particularly brilliant – evidenced by the fact that I decided to take bankruptcy in the first place.  Sigh…  The sad thing is that bankruptcy could have really been an interesting class except for a few minor drawbacks.  Number one of course being my charming professor who spoke in such a soothing monotone voice that he could have made a living charming kids with ADHD.  Second, the fact that last year Congress significantly reworked the bankruptcy code and now no one really knows if anything is still good law.  Since the laws only went into effect in October ’05, there haven’t been many cases interpreting the various new provisions.  So after the first few classes, when I would listen intently to a lecture only to have it summed up by the caveat “That was the old law.  We’ll have to see if it’s still good.”

I haven’t lost all hope yet.  There’s always the chance that I can be horribly burned at work tonight or get struck by a meteor, or get abducted by aliens.  The sky really is the limit.  

Also this morning I had the pleasure of undergoing my financial aid exit interview.  In sum, this is where they sit you down and gleefully remind you that you have mortgaged your soul for your education and that it would be better for you to go without food, heat, and shelter rather than miss a single payment.  Talk about uplifting!  Then they hook you up with this little amortization table that shows you how much interest you’re going to pay over the next ten to twenty years… I think ‘yikes!’ just about covers it.  Thank goodness I lived relatively frugally during law school (although that frugality will have been for not if I can’t ever find a job).  No wonder lawyers drink.

Oh and before I forget.  The one thing I remember from my bankruptcy class is that student loans are almost impossible to discharge.  So much for that plan…

Outlining sucks

Netflix is great.  It’s like Christmas every couple of days.  Well… Christmas on a shoe-string budget.  It’s particularly great during finals time as it gives me ample opportunities to avoid the work I should be doing, (i.e. studying for entertainment law).  Today I happened upon an outline for that class, so it takes a ton of weight off me.  Though not literally as I happened to eat way too much for dinner tonight.  I went to Bombay House with Brad and Emily and ate a huge amount of a spicy chicken dish with coconut milk and rice with cilantro.  Good times.  I’m hoping to hit my stride with this studying thing soon.  What the heck was I thinking setting up a schedule with four finals during my last semester?

Yesterday at the Minority Law Caucus auction, I ended up buying a dinner for four at Professor Kogan’s house.  $85!  It had better be darned tasty.  This was a total peer pressure moment where my friends Brett and John stared me down until I bid on the stupid dinner.  The thing is, Kogan hates me!  Well… he may not hate me, but considering that my seminar paper was for his class and I turned it in over a year and a half late, and as such I had spent the last 18 months ducking every time I saw him coming down the hall…

So I’m sitting here, enjoying my Netflix selection of the week, slowly working my way through the fourth season of the HBO series OZ, and resolving not to commit crimes.  Frankly I don’t think I’d make a good prisoner.  I’m just not angry enough.  Anyway, my attention is wandering so I’ll wrap this up.  

last last day

So today was my last day of classes.  Again, my last last day of school.  Wow.  It’s starting to sink in, but it still hasn’t yet.  Granted I still have two yucky weeks of finals ahead of me and I’m not entirely sure that I’ll be able to pass my bankruptcy class, but assuming that I somehow make it through, I’m gonna graduate!

Tonight is the family law clinic.  Yee-hah.  This is a great project where people with family law related problems and who are unable to afford an attorney come to the courthouse and are assisted by law students and lawyers free of charge.  

It’s a great cause and it really helps people but at the same time it’s sometimes hard to handle because by and large because we’re often dealing with people without much formal education and who feel completely overwhelmed by the system.  So I go and I listen and I try to help with what little knowledge I have.  And I worry that I’m steering people in the right direction, that I’m giving people good advice that will help them and not mess them up further.  In the end though, I think that a big part of the job there is just to listen to people who may not have anyone else to talk to them and who can help them take the next step.

And tonight I get to be in charge!  Oh the abuses of power will be rampant!  Well… at least to the extent that one can abuse the ability to hand out forms to the volunteers…  So I’m off there now so that I can be ready to help the thronging masses.

Duck and cover

So it’s time for another posting.  My good friend James tells me that it only takes fourteen consecutive repetitions of something before that thing becomes a habit.  He was stating this in reference to me working out regularly, but if it’s true it’s probably applicable to things like blogging.  So I’m starting a challenge with myself today:  Blog for fourteen consecutive days (quality of the content not necessarily being my highest goal) and see if it sticks.  This is day one.  Good times so far.

As far as updates go, tomorrow is last last day of school.  Possibly forever!  Who’d have thunk that I’d make it this far.  Frankly I expected to die in a particularly spectacular fashion sometime ago…

Nevertheless, kudos to me.  Since I managed to complete my seminar paper last week (only 2 years behind schedule) things have seemed much better.  I didn’t realize how heavily that darned paper had been weighing on my conscience.  Now that it’s done, I can begin to concentrate on the four finals I have to take this semester.  Oh gosh. Probably should have started those earlier too…  Oh well.  No time to live in the past.    

The Daily Utah Chronicle Online

The Daily Utah Chronicle Online