And, her head explodes

Turned in my moot court application yesterday and signed up for an audition time. I'm also trying out for the trial team and went to a meeting about that last night. Moot court requires reading a 25 page brief and prepping a 5-6 minute oral argument. Trial team requires reading a 60 page case packet and prepping a 3 minute cross examination and an 8-10 minute closing argument. Tryouts are the same week. The likelihood of getting onto either is roughly 15% (Math peeps - does that mean I have a 30% chance of getting onto one if I tryout for both?) Bonus for trial team: there are TWO rounds of tryouts. So much fun to look forward too.

And, our civ pro professor went ahead of our syllabus by 2 cases yesterday and assigned another 30 page case. So, last night was fun.

And, final bitch: I'm getting sick.

Ack! There's poop on my stoop.

Someone has pooped on the sidewalk in front of our apartment a few times. But, but, this takes it to a new level of disgusting. When the husband went to take the dog out this morning he discovered that someone actually shat on our stoop. Literally right outside our front door. And, the person used pages from the newly delivered phone books to wipe.

Today I gave my full length practice argument for moot court. Afterwords we were critiqued for substantive points and social elements. When my prof told me I was jittery, I agreed. When he told me I moved too much, I thought he was providing helpful criticism. When he said: "And, I'm not sur if you know, but you turn really red. There was one moment when it was like something just came over you and you flushed red as a...tomato. I'm not sure if you can do anything about that."

I think it's biology or genetics or the fact that I'm just Irish and turn red whether I'm embarrased or thinking too hard or too hot or too drunk. Regardless, there's not shit I can do about it and thanks for bringing it up.

Trying out for things

I am going to audition for a moot court team. It's one of the things our school is "known for." I have a lot of writing and editing experience and I genuinely enjoy public speaking. But, as with the applications for the DA's office, a sandwich board baring those words doesn't seem like the best strategy. I hate answering the questions for the application. I'm trying to strike a balance between selling myself but not being shmaltzy. But with questions like: What is your most compelling attribute as a moot court competition member? and: How do you normally handle stress? Ugh.

Question: does high school mock trial experience count for "relevant experience in oral advocacy or debate? Discuss.

Land Legs

We spent the weekend up north on my father in law's boat. The weather was far too windy to sit out on the deck of the boat for the most part. But, we ate some great meals at various restaraunts in Bodega, played lots of Boggle in the cabin, and drank wine. The husband fished on Saturday while I read a novel from start to finish. Of course, it was about rescue dogs. Last night we fed some seagulls leftover squid bait and made a sea lion friend in the process. After I wasted the last bit of squid on a seagull, he surfaced, announced his presence with a large breath and moved his head from side to side as if to ask: where's mine? Hell bent on feeding him something, I tried crab (no,) crab out of the shell (no,) bread (oh hell naw,) and when the beef jerkey didn't work, I about ripped off pieces of the boat to chuck in the water. He didn't seem to hold the lack of food against us because any time we went to the deck of the boat to get something from the ice chest, he'd come on over to say hi.

Now I feel like I'm still on the boat and I have a hangover and I resent that tomorrow I have to wear clothes that aren't made of sweat material and go to class.

Professional Garb

Went outlet shopping with Bevy today in attempt to start building a professional wardrobe. It is really depressing to wear 2 sizes bigger on the bottom than the top. And, suits feel like Haloween costumes, so I can't really tell what looks good or not. Ugh.

"I've got arms..."

Watched Walk the Line last night. Love, love, loved it!!

As a friend warned, the songs have been stuck in my head all day. Especially interesting when I went to Yoga today. If you've ever been to an Iyengar (and probably other types) yoga class, you know how the teachers say things like "rotate from your inner groin, pulling the skin back to your sits bones."

In my head, I sang "I got sits bones, and you got sits bones, lets together and turn them," with a country twang.

Dude(ie)

One of the less loveable things about living in SF...

For the past three mornings there has been a fresh human poop on the sidewalk directly in front of our house.

Worse? There is a free public toilet less than 150 yards away.

I didn't fail!

Woo-hoo! Got an e-mail from my moot court TA letting me know that I passed the ten error rule. For those of you lucky enough not to know what that is -- it's a ridiculous rule mandating no more than ten "technical errors" in your brief. Meaning, if the commas are in the wrong place in your citations, and there weren't enough spaces between the ellipses, too bad. Doesn't matter how good the rest of your paper is, you fail.

Food, snow, and outlining

Dinner at Chouchou was lovely. Cute location, perfect spot for watching the craziest lightening sorta snowing mostly hailing storm I've seen here in SF. The mussels were not the best, but the French Onion Soup and amazing triple chocolate torte made up for them. The people next to us seemed to think the wine list didn't include enough expensive wine because "really a bottle under $120 in a restaurant just isn't good."

Now I am trying to become one with supplemental jurisdiction while the poor husband is stuck at the Ford dealership trying to get a 2nd key made for us.

School's Out!!

Woo! It's spring break! Pass me a Zima.

The brief is really all the way, turned in 100% done. I have no class for a whole week. And, it may snow in San Francisco today. All things to be happy about!

Going to spend the afternoon with my favorite 4.5 year old. I'm thinking baking and perhaps introducing her to the joys of polaroid pictures.

I also *Hate* Kinkos

Took the brief to Kinkos for binding and copying yesterday. Dropped it off around 10 am I think. The particular location didn't do tape binding, but had some other non-spiral option. Fine. It will be done by 4 pm. OK. Great. Fast forward to 4:15. Get to the counter and tell a woman: "Pick up for SKH." I know it's a bad sign when she spends the next 10 minutes looking everywhere for my briefs. Finally, they find them in an unbound heap. The binding machine wasn't working and someone wrote 16:00 as the time for them to be completed. Some dumbass thought that meant 6:00 pm. So, I am praying and crossing all sorts of things hoping that its ready at 10 am like they said it would be...

Brief Dreams

The brief is done...I think. I'm giong to give it a final glance over tomorrow am before I take it to get printed. I know of at least one error, but I really don't think I can spend another 2 hours working on the format and dots...

I've been having violent dreams again. 2 nights ago I was at a club (this may be the weirdest part of the dream as I never go to clubs) and a group of people started shooting everyone with automatic weapons. Last night I was walking in a parking lot at night when a gang surrounded me and tried to kill me. Thankfully, I jumped under a parked car and they couldn't find me.

And, I have a little exercise secret. Maybe I'll post it, maybe I won't let's just say tomorrow will be the 2nd day of going to work out before it's light out.

I Hate Huckabees

I Heart Huckabees may be worst movie ever. You keep thinking, it has to get better, all the elements are there. This is a great cast. It should be so good. But when a shot of tequila doesn't make it even slightly more bearable, you have to wonder.

Now watching THX-1138, I am skeptical but the husband is very into it and a friend said it's one of her favorite movies...

Update Yeah, that movie lasted about 25 minutes.

Note to self:

STOP BLOGGING AND FINISH READING.
"Okay, I'm just gonna post a quickie."

Motivation is lacking seriously today. I am getting things done, but at a snail's pace after fighting with myself like this:

"Just read the next case."
"No, take a quick break. You need to add the diet soda you're drinking to your new account at FitDay.com.
"OK, there went 5 minutes of your life. Read the next case."
"OK, that's done. Now, I should go flip the laundry."

I also feel that spending all day editing my brief yesterday should render me free of all other work. And spring break is next week. Woo! Pass me a Zima.

Ways our expensive educations are paying off

Things my husband googled today:

ass poop butt - a lot of really filthy porn
baby poopie pants - some mother and father blogs by parents really obsessed with their babies' shit
baby's butt - and he got just what he was looking for (you can see it here)

Update

Bevy -- this is really for you. The husband also renamed the turbo categories on our television:

Turbo 1: lawschool
Turbo 2: is
Turbo 3: buttsauce

The Other Bar

Lots of lawyers are alcoholics. Lots of law students are alcoholics. The first day of orientation we received a pamphlet detailing the reasons for this and what we can do to get help when we inevitably develop an excessive taste for the sauce. As I type this, I am drinking. Personally, I think alcohol is conducive to the legal analysis process. For example:
A good friend had a cosmo at lunch before our afternoon class today and really rocked the crim law commentary.
The TA for my moot court class which meets from 4:30 - 6:30, conflicting with beer on the beach (lots of free beer on the concrete slab in front of the school) managed to chug 2 cold ones during our 10 minute break. He was better than usual at judging our oral arguments.

And, randomly, a good friend of mine who does not go to law school called to tell me he too was at beer on the beach and where the hell was I? I'm sorry M! I was in class.

a few of my favorite things...

Dumb food/ wine post ahead...

One of my favorite past times is looking at menus and win elists for SF restaurants. And, trying to figure out if we can reserve through OpenTable.com and get bonus points. Anyway, our last dinner out was a not so great group of ten experience. (I am never ordering sea bass again!) So, I decided we need to go out to celebrate the brief being finished next Friday. We're going to try a neighborhood French Bistro Chouchou .

MMMM... tasting the muscles and fries already.

Oh, and since Moot Court just so sucks, I am celebrating *again* when the whole class is done with my girls at the SF establishment Zuni Cafe where I have, embarrassingly, never eaten.

PS -- Ms. A, we tried to get reservations at Myth, but I really don't want to eat at 9 pm 2 weeks from now. Harumph.