I only have two final exams this semester, because a) I'm in a clinic, which only gets a credit/no credit designation; b) see a), but for a journal; c) one of my classes was finished halfway through the semester, so I took the exam just after spring break.
As such, I am now doing everything BUT studying for my two exams. [I don't really feel anxious about these two exams - yet - in part because it's kind of arbitrary, I think, whether I'll get an Honors or a Pass grade in both of them. I *could* work hard to get an H in either/both, but I'm just not sure I care that much.]
Some things I've done instead:
* Graded papers for the undergrad class that I'm TAing. This is torture. Some of these kids CAN NOT write. They're juniors & seniors at Yale, and yet they have trouble forming complete sentences or creating logical arguments. Sometimes I wish that I read the papers while slightly buzzed, but that would be irresponsible TAing, I imagine, and I'm not getting paid the big bucks to be an irresponsible TA. If you want to talk about being irresponsible, look no further than one of my students, who after getting a week-and-a-half extension on the only graded assignment of the semester, insisted at 11pm that she needed a "few more hours" to polish her paper that I had told her was do-or-die due at 12 midnight because I needed to read it & grade it before going to bed/getting up uber-early to get on a train [see below]. At 1:08am, my plea of "Please, for the love of my sleep schedule, send me what you have now!") was met with "Just 15 more minutes, promise!" Those 15 more minutes turned int0 30, which resulted in a not-too-happy SB. The paper was, to put it lightly, underwhelming. I found out today that she's taking the class pass-fail. "Underwhelming" = she passed (and with a pretty good grade!), because I'm a really really nice TA. [To be fair, a couple of the papers have actually been quite good. Hooray!]
* Went to NYC. Twice. In 30 hours. I have to get a special tourist visa to travel to South America later this month because the Consulate General of a certain soccer-crazed country demands outrageous fees and rather excessive procedure, in retaliation for the US doing the same to their citizens. Fair enough, I suppose, but I don't make US immigration policy! In any case, I had to either make two trips to NYC to drop off and pick up my visa, or pay a bundle to a private company to do it for me. It turns out to be cheaper to take the Metro North and do it myself. Ironically, the first studying I've done this finals period happened when I opened a Property hornbook on the train and again in the Consulate waiting room.
* Packed my room and moved my stuff into storage and a different apartment. Our subletters needed our apartment on a certain date, which just so happened to be a date before we really wanted to vacate. So I'm now subletting someone else's apartment for the week, because I figured I'd be more productive here in New Haven than somewhere more exotic. Productivity has not been particularly high, however. On the upside, there are nice neighbors & it kind of feels like being in a hotel for a week.
* Organized a few summer events with YLS alumni for a student group I'm involved in. Wished that I'd actually be in densely-populated cities this summer, so that I could go to the events.
***
Showing posts with label apartment. Show all posts
Showing posts with label apartment. Show all posts
Thursday, May 14, 2009
Wednesday, April 1, 2009
Housing Hassles
For someone who, in periods with lots of down time, watches a lot of HGTV's various house-hunting shows, I am absolutely *horrible* when it comes to dealing with the hassles of a housing search for myself.
In college, I was an RA for my junior & senior years, so I didn't go through the off-campus housing shuffle that all my classmates did. I just showed up, and I had an apartment and it was all furnished and perfect. Same pre-packaged deal for college summers.
After college, when I moved with five of my best friends to a bit city, the process was relatively painless, too (but it might have just been a HUGE stroke of good luck, since it took a lot of wrangling to get 6 people to agree to live together/submit all their paperwork/tour the place we eventually picked/sign the lease)...my boyfriend-at-the-time and I just used Craigslist, found five places that had enough bedrooms and public transportation access, and went to see them. We instantly fell in love with one, and the rest, as they say, is history. Two years later, some of the original group is still living in "the house," and it looks like it will stay a permanent fixture in our lives for the foreseeable future, even though some of us (myself and Cat included) have moved hundreds of miles away...we've got a rotating crew of friends and acquaintances ready to take over the lease, so long as the landlord doesn't realize (or doesn't care?) that we've killed the lawn/broken the banister/almost knocked down the garage/burned a hole in the sink with a hookah coal.
When it came to choosing a place for law school, I was similarly laissez faire. I don't think the reality of "law school is starting in three months!" hit me quite as it should have...so I just somewhat randomly agreed to live with a girl from the YLS 2011 Facebook group after talking to her on the phone [we picked up a 3rd roommate, too]. It's turned out amazingly: we're now GREAT friends, the living situation couldn't be better.
EXCEPT, that now we have to:
* Find subletters for the summer, and
* Pay more for rent starting July 1st.
Both of those things suck. Big time. It's been a hassle and a half finding subletters who want our apartment for the whole summer at the price we're looking for; as you can imagine, New Haven's not the hippest summer destination, so the market's depressed overall...we're now trying to calculate just how much of a hit we're willing to take, rent-wise, to get a sure-thing set of subletters lined up.
And, of course, even though the real estate market in Manhattan and everywhere else seems to be favoring renters right now, for some strange reason our rent is going up by a not-insignificant amount. So we're trying (to use our lawyering skills?) to negotiate with the management, but as we live in a pretty in-demand building, it's not really as if we're bargaining from a position of power. Perhaps I will bake caramel-chocolate chip cookies in attempt to bribe the nice leasing lady? :)
***
In college, I was an RA for my junior & senior years, so I didn't go through the off-campus housing shuffle that all my classmates did. I just showed up, and I had an apartment and it was all furnished and perfect. Same pre-packaged deal for college summers.
After college, when I moved with five of my best friends to a bit city, the process was relatively painless, too (but it might have just been a HUGE stroke of good luck, since it took a lot of wrangling to get 6 people to agree to live together/submit all their paperwork/tour the place we eventually picked/sign the lease)...my boyfriend-at-the-time and I just used Craigslist, found five places that had enough bedrooms and public transportation access, and went to see them. We instantly fell in love with one, and the rest, as they say, is history. Two years later, some of the original group is still living in "the house," and it looks like it will stay a permanent fixture in our lives for the foreseeable future, even though some of us (myself and Cat included) have moved hundreds of miles away...we've got a rotating crew of friends and acquaintances ready to take over the lease, so long as the landlord doesn't realize (or doesn't care?) that we've killed the lawn/broken the banister/almost knocked down the garage/burned a hole in the sink with a hookah coal.
When it came to choosing a place for law school, I was similarly laissez faire. I don't think the reality of "law school is starting in three months!" hit me quite as it should have...so I just somewhat randomly agreed to live with a girl from the YLS 2011 Facebook group after talking to her on the phone [we picked up a 3rd roommate, too]. It's turned out amazingly: we're now GREAT friends, the living situation couldn't be better.
EXCEPT, that now we have to:
* Find subletters for the summer, and
* Pay more for rent starting July 1st.
Both of those things suck. Big time. It's been a hassle and a half finding subletters who want our apartment for the whole summer at the price we're looking for; as you can imagine, New Haven's not the hippest summer destination, so the market's depressed overall...we're now trying to calculate just how much of a hit we're willing to take, rent-wise, to get a sure-thing set of subletters lined up.
And, of course, even though the real estate market in Manhattan and everywhere else seems to be favoring renters right now, for some strange reason our rent is going up by a not-insignificant amount. So we're trying (to use our lawyering skills?) to negotiate with the management, but as we live in a pretty in-demand building, it's not really as if we're bargaining from a position of power. Perhaps I will bake caramel-chocolate chip cookies in attempt to bribe the nice leasing lady? :)
***
Tuesday, October 21, 2008
Essential Elements of Writing in Law School
The following things, I have come to note over the past three weeks, are (not an exhaustive list of) essentials to have on hand when writing a paper for law school:
* Post-It flags. They mark important passages in case law. They also can help create an artificial sense of accomplishment when, if you remove the flags as you insert their corresponding points into your paper, you accumulate a pile of discarded/completed flags.
* Laptop charger/power cord. Obviously. My computer can make it through 4ish hours of class without being plugged in, which seems pretty decent...but Rome wasn't built in a day.
* A big glass of water. Or juice. Or lemonade. Not vodka. Staying hydrated is important. For me, more important than being caffeinated.
* Saline solution or eye drops to keep my eyes hydrated. I think my eyes are getting worse, honestly, but regardless, they are certainly drier now that I live in New England. That is a problem come 3am.
* Chocolate, or something else sweet to make me feel better when I realize that I am, in fact, still awake at 3am because, let's face it, this paper isn't writing itself...
Thursday, September 25, 2008
We Get Free Cable...Turns Out That's Not Always Good
My roommates are both gone till Sunday (so like, 5 or 6 days away from school - in the first month! I'd freak out...but then, we don't have grades, so....), so I have the apartment all to myself. It's been awesome. Even though I love them dearly, and I lived all of last year with anywhere between 5-8 roommates at a time, it's going to be super-helpful* if I can take advantage of the distraction-free* environment to work on my writing assignments this weekend.
*Note: It's very unlikely that any real work will be done if I'm in the apartment. It's too tempting to watch tv. I've watched approximately 6 hours of Law & Order in the past two days [that's part of my education, right?!?]. Plus 3 hours of the Golf Channel. And a couple hours of football. And Project Runway. And Top Design. Perhaps the only deterrent is that our couch isn't particularly comfortable after the first hour. Obviously, though, that hasn't stopped me yet.
Boo. Writing assignments. We have a 12-page memo to write by next Thursday for our small group class (con law), wherein we're supposed to make arguments based on a "closed-world" set of 9 cases that have been given to us by our professor. We have to submit a draft to be edited by our TAs before it's seen by the professor, so not particularly a be-all-end-all situation, but I think the consensus is that we don't want to look utterly stupid. We also have to write a complaint (in partners) for our procedure class. Also due Thursday. C'mon, professors...coordinate?
On the good side, this week has been nice (and will continue to be so) because a couple of my professors have canceled class. I can sleep in till basically whenever I want tomorrow and Monday. I should use that time to work on my writing assignments. I will likely just do laundry, and work on my non-law-school-job work. Oh well. One to 3 am is the most productive window of the day, right?
A few random things:
* Lexis/WestLaw free printing (only of law cases, but since that's all I read these days...) is amazing. It saved me from spending $130 on a contracts book. I actually like the red Lexis logo printed on all the pages. And the rewards programs for using their services seem sweet, since I'd be using them anyway. My law student self looks back on my high school debater self [which unabashedly flirted with debate guys that had Lexis passwords, in hopes of getting to use them] and says, "Whoa! My own Lexis password! I'm on top of the world!"
* Note from my apartment's management (seemingly directed at the undergrads that live in many of the other apartments), paraphrased:
* You know you're back in school when you start planning for your school vacations. We have a week off in October (it's fly-back week for 2Ls doing firm interviews, and everyone else just gets a vacation), so I've been planning my escape this week. One small group is organizing a trip to Costa Rica. I have two trips planned for the bookend weekends - one to the Midwest, and the other to a city/state I haven't been out west.
* Things my schoolmates have written/done this week (I'm feeling more and more inadequate by the day...):
*Note: It's very unlikely that any real work will be done if I'm in the apartment. It's too tempting to watch tv. I've watched approximately 6 hours of Law & Order in the past two days [that's part of my education, right?!?]. Plus 3 hours of the Golf Channel. And a couple hours of football. And Project Runway. And Top Design. Perhaps the only deterrent is that our couch isn't particularly comfortable after the first hour. Obviously, though, that hasn't stopped me yet.
Boo. Writing assignments. We have a 12-page memo to write by next Thursday for our small group class (con law), wherein we're supposed to make arguments based on a "closed-world" set of 9 cases that have been given to us by our professor. We have to submit a draft to be edited by our TAs before it's seen by the professor, so not particularly a be-all-end-all situation, but I think the consensus is that we don't want to look utterly stupid. We also have to write a complaint (in partners) for our procedure class. Also due Thursday. C'mon, professors...coordinate?
On the good side, this week has been nice (and will continue to be so) because a couple of my professors have canceled class. I can sleep in till basically whenever I want tomorrow and Monday. I should use that time to work on my writing assignments. I will likely just do laundry, and work on my non-law-school-job work. Oh well. One to 3 am is the most productive window of the day, right?
A few random things:
* Lexis/WestLaw free printing (only of law cases, but since that's all I read these days...) is amazing. It saved me from spending $130 on a contracts book. I actually like the red Lexis logo printed on all the pages. And the rewards programs for using their services seem sweet, since I'd be using them anyway. My law student self looks back on my high school debater self [which unabashedly flirted with debate guys that had Lexis passwords, in hopes of getting to use them] and says, "Whoa! My own Lexis password! I'm on top of the world!"
* Note from my apartment's management (seemingly directed at the undergrads that live in many of the other apartments), paraphrased:
"It has come to our attention that there has been drinking in the hallways. Parties are not allowed in the hallways, or on the steps, or in the parking lot. We'll evict you if you keep being loud. Thanks for being great tenants."We love our management. Yeah, not long ago we were those obnoxious undergrads (and we try to avoid seeing ourselves as the grumpy grad students), but it's a little ridiculous to have thumping base radiating through our door at 4am. On a Monday night.
* You know you're back in school when you start planning for your school vacations. We have a week off in October (it's fly-back week for 2Ls doing firm interviews, and everyone else just gets a vacation), so I've been planning my escape this week. One small group is organizing a trip to Costa Rica. I have two trips planned for the bookend weekends - one to the Midwest, and the other to a city/state I haven't been out west.
* Things my schoolmates have written/done this week (I'm feeling more and more inadequate by the day...):
- WashPost op-ed on the financial crisis/bailout plan
- Reflection on David Foster Wallace [one of my favorite writers ever] in NY Mag
- Showing of a documentary about post-9/11 life in America
Wednesday, September 17, 2008
Can Men Be a Part of Law Women?
Over the past week or so, we've been bombarded with invitations to participate in various activities: secondary journals, pro-bono legal assistance projects, volunteer projects, mentorship programs, ethnic/religious affiliation groups, music & drama clubs...the list goes on and on, and at a big university, there are also myriad things to get involved with in the other graduate & professional schools. Next Saturday, I'm participating in a Day of Service event, where I'll be helping with a community art project at the city's public library. Helping people = good. Getting up at 8am on a Saturday to do it = hardest part of the day, I predict.
In any case, quick update: WE FINALLY HAVE INTERNET SERVICE. After a bazillion hours on the phone with a very nice woman named Denise, we finally have uninterrupted, legally-gotten DSL in our apartment. Thank goodness. We were about to go crazy. We quite seriously contemplated telecommunication terrorism in the form of pulling all the other apartments' cable/Internet wires from the central hook-up, just to incentivize their servicemen to actually come to our building to set up our service. Luckily, before that happened, the red light magically turned green - and here we are, 100% more connected to the world, 85% less productive than before, at least as far as law school reading goes.
In the process of getting situated and choosing from among the various groups open to us, I've found myself in a very troubling place. Suddenly, the academic workload, at least as far as time out of class goes (for reading or whatever) is head and shoulders above what I've ever experienced before, at least if I want to actually understand anything that's being written. Why can't law scholars write like scientists?!?!? I never thought I'd actively miss reading science journals, but here. I. am.
The problem arises then: What to sign up for? What to commit to? What to pass on this time [unfortunately, in the midst of the Internet debacle, I wasn't able to apply in time for one thing I had kind of wanted to do...maybe it was just a sign that I'd be over-extending myself??]?
If there's one thing we've learned so far, it's this general rule: Don't rule out anything that offers free food. Luckily, almost every single symposium, lecture, and student group meeting offers lunch or dinner - if you're lucky, it's of the non-pizza variety. I've made or bought food maybe once during the past academic week, and I probably won't need to for the rest of this week or next, based on my current plan. Best of all, at this point, since most of the student group meetings are just informational, there's no commitment, and still - lots of free food.
One group for which there was literally no commitment: Law Women's annual welcome dinner. All you had to do was be a woman. That was easy! We all got on buses and drove to a professor's house out in the suburbs...there was great food, good drinks, and fabulous dessert - just for having been born into (or, you know, currently claiming membership in) the near-half of the population that is female.
Great quote from the dinner:
"When you're sitting in class, not saying anything out loud, and some *guy* raises his hand and says something stupid, you're probably thinking, 'That's wrong!' Well, let me tell you, we professors are thinking he's saying something idiotic, too! We just can't say it. So, please, raise your hand and point out his stupidity!" - Host Professor
*
In any case, quick update: WE FINALLY HAVE INTERNET SERVICE. After a bazillion hours on the phone with a very nice woman named Denise, we finally have uninterrupted, legally-gotten DSL in our apartment. Thank goodness. We were about to go crazy. We quite seriously contemplated telecommunication terrorism in the form of pulling all the other apartments' cable/Internet wires from the central hook-up, just to incentivize their servicemen to actually come to our building to set up our service. Luckily, before that happened, the red light magically turned green - and here we are, 100% more connected to the world, 85% less productive than before, at least as far as law school reading goes.
In the process of getting situated and choosing from among the various groups open to us, I've found myself in a very troubling place. Suddenly, the academic workload, at least as far as time out of class goes (for reading or whatever) is head and shoulders above what I've ever experienced before, at least if I want to actually understand anything that's being written. Why can't law scholars write like scientists?!?!? I never thought I'd actively miss reading science journals, but here. I. am.
The problem arises then: What to sign up for? What to commit to? What to pass on this time [unfortunately, in the midst of the Internet debacle, I wasn't able to apply in time for one thing I had kind of wanted to do...maybe it was just a sign that I'd be over-extending myself??]?
If there's one thing we've learned so far, it's this general rule: Don't rule out anything that offers free food. Luckily, almost every single symposium, lecture, and student group meeting offers lunch or dinner - if you're lucky, it's of the non-pizza variety. I've made or bought food maybe once during the past academic week, and I probably won't need to for the rest of this week or next, based on my current plan. Best of all, at this point, since most of the student group meetings are just informational, there's no commitment, and still - lots of free food.
One group for which there was literally no commitment: Law Women's annual welcome dinner. All you had to do was be a woman. That was easy! We all got on buses and drove to a professor's house out in the suburbs...there was great food, good drinks, and fabulous dessert - just for having been born into (or, you know, currently claiming membership in) the near-half of the population that is female.
Great quote from the dinner:
"When you're sitting in class, not saying anything out loud, and some *guy* raises his hand and says something stupid, you're probably thinking, 'That's wrong!' Well, let me tell you, we professors are thinking he's saying something idiotic, too! We just can't say it. So, please, raise your hand and point out his stupidity!" - Host Professor
*
Friday, September 12, 2008
What Contract(s) Have You Made Today?
We didn't have Contracts the first week of school, because our professor is recovering from joint replacement, but when we finally had class on Tuesday, the most interesting part of the session (other than her assertion: "This will be the easiest. class. ever.") was when she asked a student, "When was the last time you made a contract?"
"Maybe last week," he said, "I just moved into my apartment, and I [had to deal with the devil incarnate that is] Comcast, to get internet and cable hooked up."
Pause.
"And, I guess...I bought a cup of coffee this morning."
Eventually, this conversation became so long and drawn out that I turned to browsing the internet and catching up on the news in class for the first time [in part, for reasons explained below], but it was generally interesting. Another student claimed she hadn't made a contract in the past 24 hours - the professor seemed unconvinced. Turns out said student walks to school, brings her own food for lunch, and doesn't buy anything. Ever.
***
One of the most trite things that you hear from current and former law students, I think, who are trying to explain what law school is like is that "you start to find the law in everything." I call shenanigans. At least, I hope that I can continue to try to refrain from finding the law in everything - I'll go crazy!
However, it's at times like these that I'm willing to assert my (abysmally minimal) legal training, and when I wish I knew what law I was looking for so that I could take advantage of it: AT&T hates us. At least their internet-"providing" division. We moved in August 27th, and here we are on September 12th without any internet signal [save for the smidge of a single bar I'm currently getting by sitting in the corner of the hallway floor...stealing a signal from our benevolent neighbors]. Suffice it to say, we're not pleased as punch.
Total time on the phone with AT&T: 4.5 hours
Total calls made to AT&T: 6, at least
Friends we've made at AT&T: 0 - Though Angel and Rodrigo were particularly nice, they didn't actually help resolve our problem. In fact, they had no idea what the problem was.
Times we've threatened to call Comcast instead, even though due to a fluke not of our doing, we can't actually get internet from Comcast without giving up our free cable: 2
Hopefully, a cable installer worth his/her salt will show up tomorrow morning at an ungodly hour (we've been told 8am - I'm holding out just an inkling of hope), and we'll no longer be sitting on the floor to connect with the rest of the world. Speaking of which, my butt is getting sore...
"Maybe last week," he said, "I just moved into my apartment, and I [had to deal with the devil incarnate that is] Comcast, to get internet and cable hooked up."
Pause.
"And, I guess...I bought a cup of coffee this morning."
Eventually, this conversation became so long and drawn out that I turned to browsing the internet and catching up on the news in class for the first time [in part, for reasons explained below], but it was generally interesting. Another student claimed she hadn't made a contract in the past 24 hours - the professor seemed unconvinced. Turns out said student walks to school, brings her own food for lunch, and doesn't buy anything. Ever.
***
One of the most trite things that you hear from current and former law students, I think, who are trying to explain what law school is like is that "you start to find the law in everything." I call shenanigans. At least, I hope that I can continue to try to refrain from finding the law in everything - I'll go crazy!
However, it's at times like these that I'm willing to assert my (abysmally minimal) legal training, and when I wish I knew what law I was looking for so that I could take advantage of it: AT&T hates us. At least their internet-"providing" division. We moved in August 27th, and here we are on September 12th without any internet signal [save for the smidge of a single bar I'm currently getting by sitting in the corner of the hallway floor...stealing a signal from our benevolent neighbors]. Suffice it to say, we're not pleased as punch.
Total time on the phone with AT&T: 4.5 hours
Total calls made to AT&T: 6, at least
Friends we've made at AT&T: 0 - Though Angel and Rodrigo were particularly nice, they didn't actually help resolve our problem. In fact, they had no idea what the problem was.
Times we've threatened to call Comcast instead, even though due to a fluke not of our doing, we can't actually get internet from Comcast without giving up our free cable: 2
Hopefully, a cable installer worth his/her salt will show up tomorrow morning at an ungodly hour (we've been told 8am - I'm holding out just an inkling of hope), and we'll no longer be sitting on the floor to connect with the rest of the world. Speaking of which, my butt is getting sore...
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