Wah-freaking-hoo!!!!!!!!!!!! I made law review!!!!!!!!!!!!

Holy cats! I am so excited that I could bounce off the ceiling. Wow. And really, this news could NOT have come at a better time. I really needed this shot in my arm.

Remind me that I was this excited come fall and I am hating my life at 3 am doing cite checks.

*smooch* everyone have a great fourth weekend!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Worst day of my life

Ok, so that was rather hyperbolic, but I am definately having a downer day. I feel like i have faield at my externship. I know that I am over-reacting, but I can't help but feel it's partly true. In the last 5 or so weeks I've written three things for the court. One that is polished and pretty... which the judge has yet to see. And two things that were drafts that the fulltime clerk wanted to see after I finished a draft. And that was it... a draft. I gave it to them and said... the citations need cleaning, and I need to do a serious organizational and grammatical edit. You know, this is a first draft. Sigh. So imagine my utter horror at THAT VERSION being given to the judge. Shit.

And I feel like the clerk I gave this stuff to now no longer thinks I can do anything. It was a first freaking draft. Lesson learned: when they say draft... they mean pretty damn close to finished. Sigh. Damnit. From a networking way, I just feel like these weeks were totally wasted. Shit.

Writing lessons:

• The passive voice is loved by me... i know this but I usually clean that up on edit. I need to write in active voice to start with.
• My transactional phrases at the sentence level suck. I usually forget the phrases and just go with the single word transition like rather or however or moreover... and those are lovely but there are lovely transitional phrases that read well too.
• i need to outline a wee bit more before I write... so i realize when two different claims have the same element ahead of time, so i don't write like an idiot.
• And i need ot spend less time researching and just start writing already.
  

Not a happy day for Joey. But hey, it's almost over, right?

trying to put a good face on it: I really have learned tons and tons about what good writing is and nuances on pleadings that i don't think i would have learned before.

still... it's going to be awkward to say why i don't have a letter of recommendation from this judge when it's interviewing time. At least I still have an "A" in my writing class to try and talk around.

I'm already in research hell... and this is a good thing

So I realized that between my two classes that end in early aug and taking the MPRE on the 4th of Aug. i've got 2 papers (of the research variety) and 2 tests to do in a 7 day period of time. Yowza!

For whatever reason, that lit a fire under my butt and I am happily, OK maybe contentedly, researching my first topic. Oddly enough, I have found only books that are on the direction I want to go and one web site. Sigh. I need a meaty law review article. Hmmm. I guess I will find that later.

Is anyone confused yet as to what the heck I am talking about? Good, so am I. All this summertime anonymity kind of blows when it comes to comprehendible posts. Sorry bout that.

I am cursed

Why why why!? I ask you again. Why? How is it possible that the one psychotic grade/rank gossiper in my school is the only person I see at campus tonight. She kidnapped me for almost an hour about the finer points of whether she would be number 3 or number 4. I don't give a rats ass. Don't tell me who got what. Don't tell me your ambitions... just don't talk to me.


On a happy note, I had a better grade than her in a class and I could see her visibly deflate at that. :) There is a god.

The best part about family weekends is the ending

At least on either side of my family. there is no such thing as our family events going out like a lamb. They always go out like a lion. Sigh. Arguments. Pettiness. General declarations of woe is me but I'm too lazy to help myself. Lovely. Inspiring. Cheers to the fact that we won't have to do that again until at least Christmas.

So begins another week. And a long one at that. I've got 2-3 weeks to do the summary judgment order. Which is probably too much time. Blergh.

Sick Sick Sick

We're all freaking sick. Argh. My Sister in Law is getting married tonight, so I've got to make nice with people I don't know. All the while there is a snot revolution going on in my head. Sigh. So it is.

I finished my first order at the court this week and was given another order to start. A summary judgment motion with oodles and gobs of facts from both sides to poor through. I still think clerking is the coolest.

On a side note, I watched a hearing before a different judge yesterday... the poor plaintiffs. They thought they had it in the bag because the judge let it go on and on for about 2.5 hours... of which the defendant's counsel spoke only for 15 minutes (thank heavens for that too!). In any case, then the judge goes on and on about how Defendant's are being obnoxious and too strict and not cooperative... blah blah blah. Then in the last 30 seconds he says that unfortunately though, he has no authority over the matter (it was an admininstrative agency) so Plaintiffs lose. Ouch. They never saw it coming. But I give myself some kudos because the whole hearing I kept thinkjing... can this judge override the agency? I don't think so because the Plaintiffs aren't attackign the actual statute the agency is enforcing... just the result of the statute as it applies to them.

Sigh. Good times.

Hurrah!

Grades are in. And I didn't stink it up after all. Thank heavens for that. Now I can move on and continue doing what I've been doing.

-------------------------------------------------------

So thinking about it still... how on earth did I get the grade that I got in my con law class? It was pretty good. And while I like to think that reading close to 4000 pages (no, there aren't too many zeros in that number) helped, I have a hard time believign that I could do that well when I got nothing out of class discussion. It's the oddest thing. But then, I can't really remember what the test was about. That's the only good thing about how long it takes grades to be posted in law school... you can't remember what the test was on anymore :)