Officially over halfway through!
I think I am winning the burn out battle. At least against my teachers, who seem to be feeling the quarter far more heavily than I. As mentioned, we are officially behind schedule in pretty much all of my classes. No, I take that back. In my Med Product Liability class we're not behind so much as ... um, skipping?
I'm not sure if our teacher has realized that it may be time to cut his losses and treat this like independent study class it really is (this is the two English speaker class), but he's been giving us a lot of "class time" to "work on our papers." I'm not really sure if this means that he is truly expecting something magnificent (I fear I have to rennovate and reinvent the entire field of products liability in order to really live up to all these expectations I can drum up) - he keeps reminding us that because he is giving us this time, he expects a well developed analysis. I am hoping that it's just his way of forgiving himself for not wanting to make the long trek from his place in Bainbridge every day. We've managed to condense some few classes, making the readings pretty prohibitive on some days, but the schedule far more flexible. Since my paper is already about 25 pages at just under halfway through my outline, I'm not sure I want too much more time to work on my paper. Time, like the absence of page limits, can be a dangerous thing when you've got law students (and yes, I say that the same way an exterminator says, "well, you've got rats!")
In Employment law, I guess my teacher isn't burnt out so much as a practicing attorney and practicing attorneys get caught up in interesting discussions, especially if we can throw policy/politics/justice into the mix with a few fairly opinionated students who've managed to wear their idealism like a shield against the typical law school scars and scabs. This interest in discussion plus a plane-related illness and we are so off the grid that the syllabus might as well be written in kanji as an orientation.
Secured Transactions ought to be on tack, being as mechanical and dry as clockwork (read from the book, say mmm-kay, read through the problems, say mmm-kay again while all the students look confused and make perplexed head motions that circle through both the nod and the shake in academic ambivalence). I think my teacher is very sweet and clearly quite intelligent, but she is a bit nervous and gets flustered easily. And once she's off the script, improv isn't really her strength. Because law students are programmed to think up these off the wall, bizarre hypotheticals ("how would section A(1)(a)(ii) change if Donald Trump turned out to be a woman and sued Cat Stevens for tortious interference with uh his acquisition of solid gold tampons and they fought and accidentally destroyed the constitution... what then???"), things can get surreal pretty quickly.
Despite being a half day behind and perhaps hearing the odd "it really feels like Thursday" on "Tuesday" from our illustrious professor, Civil Procedure II wears through the malaise the best. This is due to it being handled by a friggin' pro. I kid not, I really think this prof, McGinnis is one of the ablest professors I have had and I laud UW that after unleashing some of the colorfully inscrutable geniuses on 1Ls that are apt to traumatize them for life, they soften the blow a bit with the brilliantly organized, affable and clear likes of Callandrillo and McGinnis. There are teachers I just really like and maybe whose styles mesh with so consonantly with mine that I am really driven to push myself unwaveringly into the material (Kelly, Gold, Aronson, Mastroianni to name a few) and there are teachers who just have their teaching down to an impressive science. I usually like them too, but while some teaching styles may be a matter of taste and subjectivity, others are just objectively good - particularly impressive when we're talking about wrangling the larger lecture classes of scared 1Ls (ewww). As a mighty 3L, of course I think 1L's deserve the very pits, but even 1Ls (if we speak of "law students" as "rats", then 1L's are more like cockroaches with some kind of skin condition - I kid, I kid) deserve a break from time to time.
Oh and my grades came in from last quarter, which is all told not terrible turn around. I am pleased to have aced the classes taught by the ridiculously handsome 1950's film star masquerading behind glasses as a District Attorney in his Oscar run and the one taught by the adorable teacher who wears Houndstooth with pink lining and tells great stories about people's bizarre wills. I have to admit that for all my joking about "trying" etc., my real motivation to do well is less ambition than some kind of personal connection with various teachers (although I have this odd OCD dissatisfaction with the fact that my damned GPA won't even off at something nice and round like a 3.8, instead wavering between 3.78 and 3.82). Even though I understand that they probably barely remember who I am and due to anonymous grading, will never know that I did well in their classes, somehow I am driven by a perverted filial duty to do well "for them" like a little kid wanting to do her parents proud. And I got my requisite A- on employment discrimination. I'd apologize to Schnapper for not writing the most amazing new sexual harassment law ever (tomatoes should have been rancid peaches), but somehow I suspect he doesn't exactly care too deeply.
And with that, I leave you with this:
In Employment law, I guess my teacher isn't burnt out so much as a practicing attorney and practicing attorneys get caught up in interesting discussions, especially if we can throw policy/politics/justice into the mix with a few fairly opinionated students who've managed to wear their idealism like a shield against the typical law school scars and scabs. This interest in discussion plus a plane-related illness and we are so off the grid that the syllabus might as well be written in kanji as an orientation.
 |
| now I'm on a rat roll... photo from last year's law prom |
Despite being a half day behind and perhaps hearing the odd "it really feels like Thursday" on "Tuesday" from our illustrious professor, Civil Procedure II wears through the malaise the best. This is due to it being handled by a friggin' pro. I kid not, I really think this prof, McGinnis is one of the ablest professors I have had and I laud UW that after unleashing some of the colorfully inscrutable geniuses on 1Ls that are apt to traumatize them for life, they soften the blow a bit with the brilliantly organized, affable and clear likes of Callandrillo and McGinnis. There are teachers I just really like and maybe whose styles mesh with so consonantly with mine that I am really driven to push myself unwaveringly into the material (Kelly, Gold, Aronson, Mastroianni to name a few) and there are teachers who just have their teaching down to an impressive science. I usually like them too, but while some teaching styles may be a matter of taste and subjectivity, others are just objectively good - particularly impressive when we're talking about wrangling the larger lecture classes of scared 1Ls (ewww). As a mighty 3L, of course I think 1L's deserve the very pits, but even 1Ls (if we speak of "law students" as "rats", then 1L's are more like cockroaches with some kind of skin condition - I kid, I kid) deserve a break from time to time.
 |
| Aww, look at the little 1L's!! |
Oh and my grades came in from last quarter, which is all told not terrible turn around. I am pleased to have aced the classes taught by the ridiculously handsome 1950's film star masquerading behind glasses as a District Attorney in his Oscar run and the one taught by the adorable teacher who wears Houndstooth with pink lining and tells great stories about people's bizarre wills. I have to admit that for all my joking about "trying" etc., my real motivation to do well is less ambition than some kind of personal connection with various teachers (although I have this odd OCD dissatisfaction with the fact that my damned GPA won't even off at something nice and round like a 3.8, instead wavering between 3.78 and 3.82). Even though I understand that they probably barely remember who I am and due to anonymous grading, will never know that I did well in their classes, somehow I am driven by a perverted filial duty to do well "for them" like a little kid wanting to do her parents proud. And I got my requisite A- on employment discrimination. I'd apologize to Schnapper for not writing the most amazing new sexual harassment law ever (tomatoes should have been rancid peaches), but somehow I suspect he doesn't exactly care too deeply.
And with that, I leave you with this:
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