Tuesday, July 27, 2010

One Week

Read this post to the tune of "One Week" by Barenaked Ladies.

It's just...One Week till I have to leave
Drive to Charlottesville, pick up my keys,
Twelve days till the movers come, hauling,
All of this stuff that I'm taking with me,
Two weeks and some change until,
I have to assemble it all with my drill,
Though thats 3 days of hell,
It's only 3 weeks till I am a 1L!

Holy crap, the summer flew by,
In this I can't lie,
I say it's almost over too fast,
Now I'm tracking, packing, slacking, cracking, fracking, smacking
My head: because it's almost time for my first class.
Haven't gotten section class lists,
So I must ask this,
Do you know what books we're supposed to get?
Notebooks, binders, folders, mad pens,
Pencils, and things to sharpen,
All stuff I haven't purchased yet.
First things first, for good or worse,
I need a plan to stop, rehearse,
Because, honestly, I don't know what I'm doing,
In merely weeks, UVA seeks,
To make me speak, like I have leaks,
Just spouting legal words,
Like the oil that keeps spewing,

How can I help it if I'm a little bit eager,
Filled with enthusiasm of an ex-Ivy Leaguer,
I know that may mean I'm a little bit crazy,
Don't think that last bit is true? You will see,
In just four weeks I'll be wishing I was elsewhere,
Turns out law school is a whole lot of work,


It's just one week till I have to leave
Regardless of what they say, I'll take it with me,
Two weeks till I'm gone for good,
Take one last look at my hometown neighborhood,
And just a few days left of fun,
Didn't realize summer was almost done,
But I'd say, it's all been swell,
And now it's just 3 more weeks till I am a 1L!

Roll up to Ivy, prepare to check-in,
Open my door and my brain starts tickin',
Maybe I host some law school parties,
Invite the smarties,
And get them to give me outlines,
That might streamline all my study,
Make Review buddies,
"Hey, girl, your notes are so fine!"
Okay so that's a bad pick-up,
I know, so shut up,
I dare you to make a better line,
Unpacking all my stuff,
I wonder if I have enough,
I only brought 100 packs of Ramen,
I figure maybe I'll need more,
In case I never leave my door,
Unless I'm going to classes once again,

How can I help it if I'm a little bit eager,
Filled with enthusiasm of an ex-Ivy Leaguer,
I know that may mean I'm a little bit crazy,
Don't think that last bit is true? You will see,
In just four weeks I'll be wishing I was elsewhere,
I really wish that 1Ls got clerks,

It's just one week till I have to go
It's mindblowing that the time really here--you know?
Five days more left of fun,
Then I have orientation,
Two weeks till the epic move,
Have to drag out all my things and assemble to,
Sorry, didn't mean to dwell, it's just
Only three weeks till I am a 1L.

Wednesday, July 21, 2010

And Then, Something AMAZING Happened

No, I'm not talking about my laptop loan increase coming through. Though that was pretty important, if not actually amazing. Seeing as I had filed a receipt and not an estimate, I was (am) already on the hook for that $2,500 of computing merchandise which I have so happily been playing around with for the past few days.*

Today, I found out that YOUTUBE HAS 3D!! Okay, so maybe this is old news to the rest of the world. It's perhaps possible that because I'm not cool enough to have a posse of would-be filmmakers willing to help write, shoot, edit, and upload humorous/enlightening/awesome videos of me, I may not be fully up on the modern trends and such. Anyhow, I know now that 1.) Youtube has 3D, and 2.) It has an option that doesn't require glasses!

On 3D enabled videos (which you can get to by searching "yt3d:enable=true") you can select the type of apparatus you'll be using to get your 3D, ranging from various multi-colored glasses (from the cinematic good old days) to the POWER OF YOUR MIND (crossing your eyes correctly). Now, I was never good at those "magic image" books where you had to see the hidden image in 3D. I, for whatever reason, actually saw the images inverted--rather than popping out at me, they sunk in to the page, even more hard to find than before. Nevertheless, this exercise in cross-eyedness is a success for me.

If you don't have glasses, like me, here's what you do. Select "cross eyed" in the 3D dropdown menu at the bottom. Look at the video, cross your eyes. If you remember ever being shown as a kid how you can "make your fingers touch" by holding them apart and crossing your eyes till the images of your fingers overlap, do that. What you should get is a 3rd image in the middle of the two pictures on the screen. You need to cross your eyes till the images line directly over each other. This may take some practice, but stick with it. Let your eyes relax and cross, this may help. Once you get the right state, it will be easier to hold in place.

Now that you've done that, focus only on the middle picture and nothing else. Let your eyes slowly focus in on what your seeing, and get yourself to believe that this phantom image is the real image, that there is nothing else to look at. Let your eyes come into focus on the picture. You may need to sit forward or back to the screen and maximize or minimize the YouTube video. You may also want to make the video as high resolution as your computer can handle w/o skipping.

You are now experiencing the world in 3D.

Here is an example of a 3D vid for you to try on [EDIT: You're gonna need to double click on the vid to see it on youtube, where the video is correctly formatted side-to-side for cross-eyed viewing and other viewing options are available]:


And this video is not in 3D but it's hilarious and awesome. If you haven't heard of the "Double Rainbow Guy" then go here. If not (which is to say, "if you have indeed heard of the guy"), then watch the autotuned song of him by the folks who brought you the Autotune the News videos, below. This has gotten a ton of views, so if you're like one of the people who contributed to around 3.5 million views of this...feel free to watch it again. Because it's awesome.


*BTW, I've finally managed to get my facial recognition software to know who I am more often than not. And, no, I don't want to hear why you think I don't need facial recognition software. You are wrong.

Sunday, July 18, 2010

"This is Madness!"

So, I'm drawing ever nearer to having real, actual content to comment on. Which is good, because I feel like every time I wander over here to post of late, I have nothing more to say other than "things are just like they were a few days ago. Getting more stuff. Yay!"

As it is, this is very possibly true, but I figure I ought to come up with something to say: after all most of you who see this are friends and family whom I've convinced can follow my progress by logging on here, and if I don't post you may very well think I might've kicked the bucket before setting foot in class--sort of a preemptive strike. Nevertheless, in my latest haitus I've experienced enough that I can now bring you, oh faithful reader (unless this is your first time, in which I say, "you, oh soon to be faithful reader") my brilliant comments on the obvious.

Concerning the Bar Exam
On most of the blogs that I read concerning (ex-)law students much older and wiser than me, there have been steady streams of posts regarding the Bar Exam. Unfortunately for whatever laziness instincts I may still have left by the time I get to it, if I wasn't convinced before, I now know this: You absolutely have to take a prep course (BarBri) to prepare for the exam. Not doing so hovers between stupidity and suicide, with a heavy bias towards the latter.

Over the past few weeks/months, I've watched these poor, funny, lively students devolve into ravenous, insane were-students, who do nothing other than study, and when time allows, lash out at those around them due to the stress of studying. Luckily, some have been kind enough to develop and send on warnings to those who cannot possibly comprehend the gravity of the test that they are about to take.

I have to say, I find it hard not to believe them. As the truisms go, going to law school teaches you "how to think" not "how to lawyer." Unfortunately, the Bar (what little I actually know about it) seems to be squarely focused on the latter, which means when it comes time to sit down to take the test which will determine if you've just spent approx. $200,000+interest of your future earnings and 3 years of your past life for absolutely nothing. Unfortunately, professional school pricing is based on your expected income post graduation with a license. And $250,000ish isn't exactly the kind of money you can earn with a lemonade stand. If it were, then I'd be going to Wharton's executive education program for lemonade stand CEOs and learning how I can squeeze every last dime of profit out of the lemons.

I've always done well at standardized tests. Indeed, I've actually come to think of them as fun amusements. Sure I may not want to have to be up early on a Saturday to take the SAT for 6 hours, but if I had to, at least I might as well enjoy the parts that weren't too bad. The same went for the LSAT, which was a test made in heaven for me, as it required absolutely zero knowledge of any subject, just the ability to logic your way to an answer and read passages hand picked to be racially sensitive and politically neutral and fill in little dots.

Up until this point, I've never taken an actual class for any kind of standardized tests, but I think my luck has run out, concerning the Bar. Even though some of you might say my ego is uncontrollable, unstoppable, and incredibly charming, even I can't see myself going through, what, 3 days of testing without having spent a long, long time making sure I knew what was going to be asked. Even though I didn't do any more preparation for the SAT than just show up (and take the PSAT when offered at school), I bowed to reason and bought a book of logic games to practice on and about one year's tuition worth of practice tests from LSAC. Looks like I have to give in to the Man, and pay for an expensive prep class after all. Unless some nice employer will do it for me.

On OGI (On Grounds Interviewing)
On TLS, there has been talk about the mysterious methods of UVA's OGI. On some level, I have to say that it's a bit weird to hear people using new acronyms for OCR (On Campus Recruiting), which has been branded so deeply into the heart of all Whartonites. OCR was that magical time of year when juniors (for internships) and seniors (for full time jobs) went everywhere around Huntsman Hall in suits, simultaneously trying to walk about like they owned the place (which is, of course, a lie--Jon M Huntsman owns the place, and our collective souls), and trying to hold themselves together after getting slammed with interview prep and ridiculously time consuming group projects. Nearly everyone did OCR, but with the change in the winds of the economy, people found themselves suffering and facing circumstances which they certainly didn't anticipate when they were reading the "$80,000 median starting salary for graduating seniors, plus bonuses" in the brochure.

Now, it's OGI. Different initials, but same end goal: Be one of those mythical people who actually sets the median where the brochure says it is. After reading that helpful current student's post, OGI looks to be more of a strange, job related, strategy game. There's all the bidding and accepting and such. It looks incredibly fun and mind boggling at the same time. After all, who you bid on is almost certainly an major determinant of who you can get a job with: a firm you don't bid on won't give you an interview. After seeing all of that, I can see why law students wind up being a little crazy.

On A Different Subject All Together
INCEPTION WAS AMAZING. YOU SHOULD ALL SEE IT NOW.

More to come soon.

Sunday, July 4, 2010

Oh Yeah! Other News:

I was catching up on the handful of blogs that I've taken up reading and saw this from Legal Alien, which reminded me: "Holy crap I'm actually starting law school in a month and a few days." Not only that, but for the first time in ages, we're actually getting emails from the law school with orientation-y type things!

For instance...

I have a UVA email address! 
It's nice and shiny and had the option of being a Gmail account, which I took, because, let's be honest, there's no email better than Gmail. There's also no business like show business, but that's for another blog post. I doubt I'll ever use the address directly, though, as I've got every email I care about forwarded to my main gmail and the accounts linked so I can send out on them. Nevertheless, I've got the pebble theme up over there, and it's very peaceful. Sharky likes.

I have to turn in my darn immunization forms!
I'm a very anti-shot person, and so I'm none-too-thrilled about the prospects of having needles shoved up my arm in the name of protecting myself and others. I'm also none-too-thrilled at trying to figure out who I'm supposed to call to get records of all of this stuff. I suppose my pediatrician. Honestly, can't we just agree that we'll all not get sick and that'll be the end of that?

I ordered a brand new laptop!
Mine is on its deathbed more or less, and the school requires laptops. As such they have a one-time loan eligibility increase up to $2500 for anyone presenting a receipt for their laptop. Now, I could have tried to be frugal and gotten an economical solution, minimizing the amount of loan increase I would require, but i got to thinking...$2500 can buy a lot of computer. And netbook. And extra monitor.

Utilities?!
Right around now, I have to look into trying to get the utilities set up in my apartment, a task which really does signify the coming of a new era. I am slightly nervous though, as I've never had to pay for utilities before, and I have no idea how much I'm going to be spending per month. If stuff gets to expensive I may start staying over at other peoples places for showers, and my apartment will be the ambient temperature outside, no matter how hot or cold that is.

Course Listings Are Up!
Although I don't know what my personal schedule will be (our section assignments apparently don't come out until August), I do know that for the first time in years I will have to suffer class on Fridays. [Moment of Mourning] After so long, I'd sorta forgotten that real people do anything on Fridays--I had always presumed that the weekend started Thursday mid-afternoon when my first semester classes ended last year. I also didn't have class on Monday that semester, I believe, so I also figured that everyone had 4 day weekends. Suppose that wasn't as accurate as I'd hoped. Hmmm...

I don't know too much about the majority of the professors yet, but I am excited to meet them.


~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Anyhow, that's what's new!

Oh...uh...hi! How long have you been standing there?

So I went away for a little bit to handle some things in Real Life. Strangely, doing so has left me feeling slightly more unaccomplished than when I embarked, mostly because I haven't been on the slightest bit of a schedule.

Alas, I've got a bunch of things to get caught up on/start, like that idea for making a running narrative of my past experiences, a training manual ("MAUI: Black Edition" is coming, I promise! Soon!), my gunnerish pre-law school reading, and DDR. Honestly, what is my world coming to when I can't block off an hour and some to play my favorite games with hyperactive electronic music?

And the countdown to law school continues. One month from today I will be heading down to Charlottesville to pick up my keys! I'm excited. And so is everyone on Top Law Schools.

TLS Forums: Once you go TLS, you don't go...hmmm...nothing rhymes with that...
Never has there been a more retched hive of scum and villainy than the TLS forums, where it seems that every single type-A law student and law school hopeful comes together to talk about anything. No matter how minute the detail, no matter how trivial the squabble, no matter how offhand the comment from the admissions rep, there is always a team of TLSers waiting to respond like a SWAT team to LS gossip.

I, of course, being cut from a higher cloth than those peons don't stoop to perusing or commenting on those boards

Usually.

Sometimes.

On occasion...

Uhm...Moving On
They don't tell you how addicting it all is: the whole law school application and attendance process is incredibly addicting for a certain group of people. Those people tend to happen to be the people going to law school. No matter how much some given student complains about the LSAT, the waiting, the applications, the more waiting...some part of them gets s strange thrill out of it. Perhaps it's because we as aspiring law students are competitive by nature. The law school applications process is nothing but a very complex game which each of us tries to outmaneuver the other in. I have to wonder if that's part of the draw of LawSchoolNumbers.com. We love keeping score, and having a running list of statistics on the competition in a heady addicting reality (just ask anyone who sits at LSN for hours hitting the reload button for their graphs in between the refresh button for every status checker known to man).  It's my suspicion that if you asked a law student that was honest with himself and seemed to be truly enjoying law school, he would say that the whole process had some fun moments.

In other news, I need to start thinking about "final preparation" kinds of things, including securing my utilities and buying my books. Unfortunately, there is very little about law school which involves getting money, rather than losing it. Indeed, now I count it as a win if I can keep all of my expenditures on a given "buy stuff for school" day down to a reasonable $100 or less. But when it even costs $10 to have the Undergrad send your transcript so that the law school can know that I didn't make my degree on Photoshop, it seems like that might be a lost cause.

On the Identity Crisis
Fellow blawger idwsj found out that his shadowy identity isn't as shadowy as he might have suspected when, after a post commenting on being anonymous, several members of his section informed him that, yes, they knew who he was. Idwsj made the good point though that it may be slightly awkward for people who you don't expect to to know who you are, but really it's not the end of the world so long as your future high power law office friends can't randomly Google your name and bring up a post titled something like "Bodies of Law: Which UVA Law Hotties Trigger Strict Scrutiny and Which Should be Rendered Undateable Per Se" [note: the first two parts of that joke were lifted from Con Luv, because they took every potentially funny thing I already knew about law and made it into a music video, reducing my already weak material into nonexistent material =P]

I feel like I probably won't encounter too much of a problem with that, considering pretty much noone reads my blog except for the people who know me who I've compelled to read it (like you, Sister of SmartArt).

Anyhow, I promise I'll be back on schedule again soon, and you can all revel in my awesomeness yet again.

Best,

~ TheSharklord
This blog is updated approximately whenever I feel like it. Those of you who expect some kind of schedule will be sorely disappointed, and probably don't realize how scatterbrained I am.

© TheSharklord. Yes, I reserve my rights. Look, touch, but do not steal. Or I will find you.