JD Law Students Blog

I’m severely guilty. I’ve been neglecting my blog duties.

I’m a slacker.

However, here I am!
So, I’ve wanted to write for a while on a topic that caused me a lot of anxiety (and in some cases still does): The Socratic Method.

I feel like there should been some sort of sound effect after that. Read it again, and imagine some scary death music.

For all the perspective students that read this, I want to first say that the intimidating factor is mostly in your head, BUT there is a state of anxiety that cannot be ignored. What I’ve gathered thus far (as a 2nd semester 1L I am so experienced now), is that different teachers have different perspectives. Some don’t do it at all.

For the hardcore professors: It’s like your in a lottery every day. You know that feeling when you want to win, and your waiting and waiting – call my number! call my number! but its reversed to thinking, “I’m invisible, I’m invisible” – the professor looks down the list, pondering over who to choose, and then a name is said, and then…

This is when I retreat deep into my mind, alert yet somehow not there and this rationalization process begins:

“Was my name just called, is there another John, why is she looking at me, what am i going to say, what was the question, um…”

This happening in a manner of seconds while an erie silence awaits a response.
I find it all mildly amusing and yet disturbing.
I understand that this type of learning is great for extroverts. Extroverts get energized from this type of activity and love being in the middle of everything and talking to people. I speak to my fellow introverts. This is a draining exercise for us. Our energy and focus comes from within. We need to retreat after being in groups/social settings and take time to process information in solitude.

My advice is just don’t let it get to you. I really have no problem saying “I don’t know, or I don’t understand”. If I feel like contributing something that I feel is worthy of the discussion – I’ll offer it. Not everyone is going to be a litigator.
Ok I’m done.
John =)

It’s good to be back on campus. During holiday break I returned to NY only to find out that I’m not who I once was. NY is always home BUT… my identity has yet another layer. As a law student I suddenly belong to a community, of stressed, frazzeled and well read people who have felt the same pressures, who have performed and oddly… only they understand the tempo of the life I’m leading.

Semester 2 is easier to face than semester 1 because things are not as mysterious. All of the assignments that could not be done have been completed and the deadlines met. Just in time for a fresh set of deadlines and assignments. There’s less anxiety and high drama attached to an experience you are familiar with, even if it’s not an easy one. It feels comforting to know that I will need to read cases, manipulate fact patterns and get intimate with that !@#$# blue book and that is a comfort if you can believe it.

I got into Spanish Constitutional Law this semester. Which is pretty cool because there are only a limited number of 1L slots are available, it’s primarily for 2 & 3L’s. Spanish Con is a comparative seminar and I will get the chance to think broadly about the way other governments work and (nerd alert) we even get to take the seminar with a professor from the University of Seville at VLS and in Spain.

So semester 2 ‘s class schedule is not too shabby. In addition to the seminar I’m taking Constitutional Law II, Civil Procedure II, Legal Writing II, Property and Criminal Law. After I’ve taken Crim I’ll finally be able to tell whether the writers on my favorite crime drama are making up the dialogue or if it actually makes sense.

If the brevity of semester 1 is any indication semester 2 will be over before I know it. Today is the first day of the rest of the semester.

Two short years ago, while still a 1L, as an enjoyable distraction I wrote a column for The Forum, the VLS newspaper, entitled “Movies I Didn’t See.” The premise was simple: with law school taking all of my time, I reviewed movies based on trailers, cast lists, celebrity reputation, and general enthusiasm for pop culture. It was awesome, it made everyone laugh, and we all had great big ball. And then, in the irony of all ironies, second year kicked in and I didn’t have the time to review the movies that I didn’t have time to see. Bummer.

That’s why I love being on break, because it gives me a chance to catch up on all the movies that I missed during school. And since I haven’t made a posting on this blog for a few months, I figured it would be a proper way to get back to posting here with a throwback old-school movie review column. Without further ado … movies I did see! During break!

The Princess Diaries 2—Anne Hathaway stars as a rich princess of some phony baloney land that has to get married or something. I had a hard time getting into this movie only because years of reading Page Six has scarred me, and I kept thinking that this movie should have been more true to life. For example, instead of riding horseback through the countryside, she should have been out clubbing til dawn with Paris Hilton, flashing her privates to the paparazzi, passing out from “exhaustion”, dating the dirtbag son of a Greek shipping magnate, and maybe getting into a drug-fueled cat-fight with Lindsay Lohan. At the very least they should have had her do an MTV special “True Life: I’m a Princess!” just so millions of young girls across the country could feel bad about themselves because they can’t get Kayne West to sing at their sweet sixteen. Two thumbs down.

Havoc—Anne Hathaway stars as a bored and pampered suburban teenager that decides to hang out with a gang of Mexican drug dealers, and as a consequence she ends up taking off most of her clothes. This is the greatest movie ever. Two thumbs up.

Brokeback Mountain—Anne Hathaway stars as a lonely and neglected rodeo barrel rider trapped in a loveless marriage with a shamefully disinterested Jake Gyllenhaal. In all seriousness, I was defending this movie from the veiled homophobic criticism against it even before I saw it, but guess what? It totally stinks. It insulted me as a dude, actually. Expecting with an open mind some great tale of tragic romance, Ennis and Jack turn out to be a pair of mumbly nitwits that share the most shallow and nap-inducing relationship in the history of cinema. Part of me was hoping that they would finally get that place together on the mountain, just to hear this conversation. Jack: “So what do you want to do today?” Ennis: “I dunno. What do you want to do?” Jack: “Let’s do something.” Ennis: “We could go fishing.” Jack: “We go fishing every day.” Ennis: “What’s wrong with fishing?” Jack: “You never take me anywhere.” Etc.

The Devil Wears Prada—Anne Hathaway stars as a … I don’t really know. I couldn’t figure out if this was a movie or if they just followed Anne around with a camera at Bloomingdale’s for a few hours. Anyway, eventually she cheats on her boyfriend and starts making these really sad faces—I think her Versace clashed with her Louis Vuitton. But then she made the happy face again, so I guess everything turned out OK. Women are insane, by the way. Add two stars if you saw the cutest Manolo’s at Neiman Marcus last week.

Domino—Anne Hathaway stars as a nunchuk-weilding celebrity bounty hunter that dishes out killer one-liners while beating the crap out of the Vegas mafia. At least this is the movie it should have been. Instead, a scrawny chain-smoking Keira Knightly runs around like a lunatic in this nauseating disaster that has all the patience and charm of a meth addict. In hell I’ll be forced to listen to Tony Scott’s director’s commentary on this while the DVD plays in an endless loop. Mickey Rourke should be ashamed of himself, which is really saying something, because he is Mickey Rourke.

Roadhouse—Patrick Swayze and his mullet play a bouncer—a “cooler” in the parlance of the roadhouse trade—that single-handedly frees a small town from the clutches of a redneck gang. I’ve seen this movie roughly 46,000 times and it never gets old. Added bonus was that I caught it on cable, which means that not only did I get the gratuitous nude scenes, but I also got to hear the best homoerotic yet weirdly effective brawl-talk line, “I used to fight guys like you in prison”—only he uses a different f-word instead of “fight.” Best movie ever. Five stars.

So, um, what does any of this have to do with the law, or being a law student? Not much. But we all work hard in law school, and will no doubt continue to work hard once we’re released back into the wild. Distractions like taking some time out to post stupid movie reviews between school work and journal commitments and job applications and bar preparation and everything else can be the difference between balanced sanity and perpetual stress. Probably.

Now if you’ll excuse me, “The Family Stone” is about to start. Anne Hathaway is in that, right? Sigh.