Daffnee

Last day of class, and got called on in Crim -- I've been told I wasn't horrendous, but I'm still convinced that my professor now thinks I'm the next Justice Clarence Thomas. But did I mention that today was the last day of class? To some, this means that finals are coming. To me, this means some year-end parties...




...watching a little baseball with a boy...



...and keeping an eye on Ellie.



Don't worry -- despite appearances to the contrary, I actually do change what I wear every now and then.

I skipped my favourite class in the world this morning (Property) because I thought I had to write about how to sue the New York child welfare agency for messing up the foster placements of two underprivileged children whose mother was beat up by her South Carolinan boyfriend. Turns out I didn't. I am now slightly peeved.

Hee hee...the Paperwork Reduction Act.

I really should be reading over course descriptions and preparing to meet my old Torts professor for a course counselling review session in 20 minutes, but I thought I'd wax eloquent on the beauty of NYC from the 14th floor terrace instead and complain about exams and the administrative and regulatory state.

And before the right wing nut-jobs get too excited, let me clarify and say I'm not talking about the real administrative state -- just the ARS course that is going to kill me in 3 weeks and will be the bane of my existence until then. I signed up for it thinking that I cared about child welfare and procedural justice for disadvantaged families. Whoops! Looks like I care more about land use and environmental regulation instead, seeing that I've stopped posting on ARS discussion boards for 2 months and will read ahead in crim and property just to avoid catching up.

This sounds a lot like my approach to Physics 206 (Mechanics), which I was mathematically underqualified for -- as I recall, I spent the second hour of that exam looking around the room blankly because I really couldn't do more than map the forces and plunk down what formulae I thought might somehow relate.

I think I got a B.

Everyone, she has a name now -- Elisabeth. There was an awkward moment when some of us were worried that she wouldn't have one before the 24th and be subject to the naming whims of the Canadian government, but she is named and is down to just one IV:



I love her already.

Spring is hitting NYC with a vengeance, which means that I want to study for finals about half as much as I did in December, and think about what comes afterward even less. Moot court was a spiffy silver -- nah, platinum -- lining, because I can at least use it to justify being a week behind work. I sacrificed it for debate! How UBCDS would laugh at me, if they could see me now.

So, for those who haven't heard about the antics happening at my school recently: one of my fellow law students decided to ask (Supreme Court) Justice Antonin Scalia if he sodomized his wife. Brilliant! Why didn't I think of that? Oh, because it's offensive, reflects badly on our poor ancestors that struggled to walk upright, and isn't really that witty. He should be hung on the last point alone, and I don't even believe in the death penalty...

Jpg and I decided to get out of the city for 24 hours and ended up in suburban New Jersey, the land of no sales tax, crossing signs that only light up with some pedestrian initiative, pubs that don't try to be clubs and folk music. Apparently I have her sense of humour. Or, rather, she has mine.

No pictures from NJ, as per my usual mental blind spot with respect to actually pulling out the camera I carry around anyway. I did manage to finally get a picture of my lawyering crew, the comrades-in-arms that have the misfortune of taking all their classes with me:



Who says that having fun on someone else's tab only starts when you're working at a firm?

And because I'm starting to like Dar Williams a lot more now that I've seen her from 50 feet away in Red Bank, NJ:

When I was a boy

I won't forget when Peter Pan came to my house, took my hand
I said I was a boy; I'm glad he didn't check.
I learned to fly, I learned to fight
I lived a whole life in one night
We saved each other's lives out on the pirate's deck.

And I remember that night
When I'm leaving a late night with some friends
And I hear somebody tell me it's not safe,
someone should help me
I need to find a nice man to walk me home.

When I was a boy, I scared the pants off of my mom,
Climbed what I could climb upon
And I don't know how I survived,
I guess I knew the tricks that all boys knew.

And you can walk me home, but I was a boy, too.

I was a kid that you would like, just a small boy on her bike
Riding topless, yeah, I never cared who saw.
My neighbor come outside to say, "Get your shirt,"
I said "No way, it's the last time I'm not breaking any law."

And now I'm in this clothing store, and the signs say less is more
More that's tight means more to see, more for them, not more for me
That can't help me climb a tree in ten seconds flat

When I was a boy, See that picture? That was me
Grass-stained shirt and dusty knees
And I know things have gotta change,
They got pills to sell, they've got implants to put in,
they've got implants to remove

But I am not forgetting...that I was a boy too

And like the woods where I would creep, it's a secret I can keep
Except when I'm tired, 'cept when I'm being caught off guard
And I've had a lonesome awful day, the conversation finds its way
To catching fire-flies out in the backyard.

And I so tell the man I'm with about the other life I lived
And I say now you're top gun, I have lost and you have won
And he says, "Oh no, no, can't you see

When I was a girl, my mom and I we always talked
And I picked flowers everywhere that I walked.
And I could always cry, now even when I'm alone I seldom do
And I have lost some kindness
But I was a girl too.
And you were just like me, and I was just like you.

Moot moot moot moot moot moot moot moot court!

Happiest 19th birthday to my favourite sister.

Most disturbing incident in New York so far this year: a man asks us for a quarter so "he can go and kill his wife."

Most heart-warming sight seen in New York so far this year: a little boy walking out of a corner store behind his mother, with an armful of tulips.

It's almost enough to make me forget finals are coming.

My dad called at around noon today, catching me in a slightly grumpy mood because I had forgotten about daylight savings and hate losing an hour of my life as much as anyone else. It was nice hearing from him, explaining what moot court was and establishing that I'm not pulling a Scott Turow and going insane yet. But then came the awkward bit, or when he asked if I "needed anything" before I left for Switzerland. Needed? Nah, I'm fine. No medication or anything? The last time I mentioned I had run out of Tylenol Cold they sent me a padded envelope filled with 50 sample packages, and that wasn't really something I wanted to repeat, so the answer was no yet again.

And that's when he clarified and said he wanted to know if I had enough of my meds (i.e. happy pills) to last the summer. Looking at the unopened bottle with 200 doses and the one I'm currently working through, I figured that even if I stayed on my daily half-dose I'd have enough to last well into next June.

Next summer? Am I going to need these little white pills into 2006, too? I've gotten through most of my 1L year and what has probably been the most dramatic 7 months of my life popping these things, I suppose -- but I wonder how much of that was them, and how much of it me. I don't want to be one of those people that never find the line where the drugs stop and I begin.