The Law School Transplant - If you don't find me helpful, hopefully you'll find me at least mildly entertaining.

To those of you who put up away messages such as, “WOW! I am SO GLAD I’m done with finals!” or “Done! Off to drink myself retarded and then pass out in the gutter!” or “YAY! I am done with finals so I can finally take a shower and catch up on everything I’ve TiVo’d!”: Fuck you.

I don’t want to hear about it. I don’t want to hear how joyous you are to be able to emerge from the lawbrary for the first time in two weeks.

As luck would have it (and, coincidentally, as luck would have it every damn semester), I had a final on the very first day of finals, and I have one on the very last day of finals.

So, until I am finally done and can share in the celebration, kindly keep it to yourselves.

Love,
LST

Dear Pete (I hope it’s okay if I call you Pete),

I just wanted to let you know that I thoroughly enjoyed watching your over-ranked, overrated, spoiled brat Trojans get beat by the unranked UCLA Bruins this evening. Although it does not take much at this point to distract me from studying for Secured Transactions, I consciously disregarded my academic duties in order to watch you lose. It gave vastly more pleasure than would a workable knowledge of Article 9.

Pete, you have to admit it’s been coming for a long time. The commentators have been whispering about it for some time. After so many near misses (despite a very poor strength of schedule), it was inevitable.

The fact that your team is vastly overrated is not the only reason that I hate y’all. You and your team have consistently shown not only a massive sense of entitlement, but also a shocking lack of class. Annoyingly overrated Matt Leinart, who is, notably, currently whiling away his days as a mediocre pro QB for the Arizona Cardinals, refused to give kudos to Vince Young after the Longhorns topped the Trojans in the National Championship last year. Even worse, he went so far as to suggest that he was the one deserving accolades.

Fast forward to today, Petey. In the last few minutes of the game, when it was clear you were going to lose, one of your players started hitting the UCLA ball carrier in a desperate and shameful move that should have been clearly called a personal foul. And after your stunning loss to UCLA, Coach Dorrell had to come all the way over to your sideline to shake your hand. He appeared gracious and humble. You looked disgruntled. Way to be good sportsmen.

Come play in the SEC, ACC or any other conference that doesn’t have a bunch of pussies in it, and your team might actually be revealed for what it is. Until then, I hope you wake up tomorrow with the taste of defeat still in your mouth.

Lots of love,

LST

Bar Application Fee: $300

Cashier’s Check Fee: $8

Motor Vehicle Report: $7

Fingerprinting at the Police Station: $12

Floppy Disks: $3.41

Express Mail Postage: $14.40

Having my Bar Application finally done: FUCKING PRICELESS.

Instead of learning UCC Article 9, I’ve been busy setting up shop over at Etsy this evening:

Check out my little Etsy shop. If you want to order Christmas presents, payment has to be received AND clear by December 15th in order to ship by the USPS holiday shipping deadlines.

C’mon, you know you want to.

Happy Thanksgiving, y’all!

In the spirit of the holiday, here is a non-exhaustive list of things I am thankful for:

• My family, even though some of them drive me batshit crazy
• The Boston Terrorists
• My friends, even though most of them think I have died
• Not having to join the real world yet
• Afternoon naps (with the Terrorists, of course)
• $1 draft specials
• College football
• Grande nonfat two-raw-sugar lattes
• A well-stocked bar
• A month-long break at Christmas

And here is a list of things that I do not currently have, but would be thankful for if I had them:

• A lot of money (or even sort of a lot of money)
• A plan for my life
• My sanity
• A fundamental understanding of UCC Article 9
• The ability to fall asleep at night, undrugged
• A house with a fenced-in yard for the Terrorists
• Job offer(s) that don’t suck
• Completed outlines for all my classes
• A good radar detector
• Freak repellent

The freak magnetism continues. I made a quick trip to the grocery store to get a couple of last minute things for Thanksgiving. On my way down an aisle, a guy, probably in his late 30′s or 40′s, starts talking to me.

Freaky Guy: Hey, I think I recognize you from somewhere. Did you go to W High School?
Me, obviously confused: No. I went to L High School.
Freaky Guy: That was going to be my next guess. Wasn’t there some article about you in the paper where you got arrested for beating another kid up for stealing your lunch?

[I shit you not. This is what he said. You can understand my utter speechlessness at this point.]

Me, wondering what kind of Bizarro world I’ve landed in: Ummm…
Freaky Guy: Just kidding, just kidding!

[Who the fuck says shit like this when they are "just kidding" WITH A TOTAL STRANGER?]

Freaky Guy: So you’re at Local State University now, right?

[Do I have a stalker? If I do, he is the worst stalker I've ever seen. Which might actually be a relief. I mean, if you're going to have a stalker, it's best if he's a shitty one who will end up peeping through someone else's window 70 miles away because he sucks at doing his stalker research.]

Me: No, I’m at PDSEU Law School.

[Internal Monologue: Dammit, dammit, dammit! I should know better than to leave this conversation open-ended like that.]

Freaky Guy: Oh, well if you do immigration I can get you a ton of work when you finish.
Me: I’m not. But one of my friends is.

[Internal Monologue: Shit, there I go again, not cutting the conversation off when I had a perfectly good chance.]

Freaky Guy: Well, here, why don’t you give her my number. [He finds a piece of paper.] I work with the daycare workers around here. Do you have a pen?

[A couple of points here. First, why are you giving me your number? I don't want it! Second, what does it mean to "work with" the daycare workers? Are they mild-mannered child care providers by day, hookers by night?]

Me, lying my ass off while sounding apologetically sincere: No, I’m sorry, I don’t have a pen.
Freaky Guy: Well, I’m sure I’ll see you up front at the checkout, I’ll give it to you before I leave.
Me, happy to see the light at the end of this tunnel: Okay!

At this point, I hustled away, grabbed the first thing that remotely looked like what I came to the store for, and made a beeline for the self-checkout. As I was sprinting through the automatic doors, I looked behind me to make sure Freaky Guy didn’t see my frantic and somewhat awkward escape.

Upon further reflection, I’m fairly sure that I could have avoided most of the situation had I: (a) told him I had just been released from a mental institution and was living in a halfway house; (b) screamed “RAPE!”; or (c) pretended not to speak English (or Spanish).

When am I going to learn? Apparently, not soon enough.

Law Student #1: When is Thanksgiving? Is it Thursday?
Law Student #2: I think so. At least that’s what everyone keeps saying.

Do I even need to comment on this?

I’ve ranted about Texas before. And here I go again. Apologies in advance to C or any other native Texans who may be reading this. I kid because I love.

If my mock trial team is (un)lucky enough to place well enough at the regional competition, we will be traveling to Texas to for the National Trial Competition finals. Houston, no less – the land of no zoning ordinances.

I have been fortunate enough to avoid Texas for 23 years; I was hoping to avoid it for at least a few more.

The whole Texas attitude just weirds me out, the way that Texans are so SUPER DUPER PROUD of their Texas heritage and think of themselves as Texans first and Americans second. A friend of mine even told me when she was in elementary school in Texas, they had to pledge allegiance to the Texas flag.

On two separate occasions, two different Germans disparaged the German province of Bavaria by referring to it as “the Texas of Germany.” Seems that the Lone Star State has acquired an international reputation.

Not four hours after I received news of my impending doom trip to Texas, I saw an SUV with a Texas plate on it. And if that wasn’t enough, it had a Texas flag sticker in the window. And if a person was dull enough not to realize the driver was, in fact, from Texas, it had a bumper sticker that read, “I’m from Texas. What country are you from?”

The audible thumping that was heard afterwards was my head repeatedly banging against my steering wheel.

Wish me luck. You can probably find me at the pawn shop buying a gun or at Tractor Supply Company buying a ginormous hat.

So yesterday, my heretofore shitty, unranked football team upset the number 5 team in the nation in a rivalry game everyone expected us to lose. Our highly-touted but slightly disappointing freshman QB came out of the woodwork and threw no interceptions (compared to 8 in the previous 3 games) and completed 14 of 20 passes.

My only question is, Where the hell have y’all been all season?

In some ways it makes me more angry about our dismal season. It would be one thing to say that the team didn’t have the talent, which places a natural ceiling on our ability to win. But they clearly have the talent; they showed that yesterday. Which means that in the ridiculous losses we’ve suffered, they have lacked the dedication, drive and focus necessary to bring home the win. And that is what disappoints me most.

After much procrastination, I finally decided to go to the police station to get fingerprinted for my bar application.

I arrived around 1:30, only to be told that a) the officer who takes fingerprints is out to lunch, and b) they don’t take credit or debit cards. So off I went to get cash and kill some time browsing K-Mart (let me tell you, this is exciting stuff).

I came back at 2:30, paid my fee and sat down to fill out my fingerprint cards. There was one other person, a middle-aged woman, in the waiting room, and apparently she heard the clerk and me talking about the bar application process.

Freaky Lady, talking to the clerk: I have to go to Wal-Mart. They have distilled water for $0.64 a gallon!

Clerk: What?

Freaky Lady: Distilled water! $0.64 a gallon at Wal-Mart!

Clerk, still puzzled: Oh.

Freaky Lady, to me: What kind of law are you going to practice?

Me: I don’t know. I might not even practice law, but I’m taking the bar anyway.

[You'd think this might end the conversation, but it didn't, because I'm a freak magnet.]

Freaky Lady: You should help children. We need more lawyers to stand up for the children and protect children.

[Ummm... what?]

Me, figuring out the obscure coding system provided by the bar examiners: Mm hmm.

Freaky Lady: I got divorced and he got mad and got custody to get back at me. I tried to tell the court all of these things but they wouldn’t let me get it in. They wouldn’t let me get in what the child psychiatrist said. They need lawyers who only represent the child.

[What is it about me that compels people to tell me their entire life stories? Does this woman not have a mental filter that says, "By the way, it's kind of weird to start talking to complete strangers about very personal matters"?]

Me, wanting badly to end this: They do. It’s called CASA, Court-Appointed Special Advocates.

Freaky Lady: There was one, but the judge ignored him. I tried to tell the court so many things but they wouldn’t listen and so they gave custody to the abuser. Even though the child psychiatrist recommended only supervised visitation. And I had to hire an attorney from Atlanta to help me because all of the attorneys here are too afraid to stand up to Judge S and point out that he is biased. Judge S just ignored everything and gave custody to the abuser.

[The law student in me REALLY wants to point out her faulty reasoning in asserting that there are not enough lawyers to "stand up for the children."]

Me: Well, it sounds like the problem is not the attorneys, then, but the judge.

Freaky Lady: Judge S just got re-elected. D would have been so much better I think.

Me: I know.

Freaky Lady: So now the child is being abused and [something about a car and blah blah blah blah].

Me, looking for any statement to definitively end this exchange: The law school has a family violence clinic that helps people seek protective orders and the like. It’s not very expensive. You should check it out if you feel like you need that kind of help.

Freaky Lady: Good luck with the bar! I’ve heard it’s hard!

Me: Our law school has a 90-something percent pass rate for first-time takers.

Freaky Lady: Wow, that’s outstanding!

Me: No. Our state bar is just not very discriminating in its attorneys’ competence.

About that time, an officer came to take Freaky Lady’s report for someone who had written her a bad check. Which was awesome, because I was about to go postal. And I don’t want any incidents on my bar application that require explanation. That would look fantastic on my record: “I kicked a woman’s ass and got booked on assault because she annoyed the piss out of me telling me her sob story while I was waiting to get fingerprinted. Do you want my mugshot to go along with my fingerprints, then?” Awesome.

It’s not that I don’t have sympathy for people in bad situations, because I do. In this case, though, I was dubious about her claims of “abuse” and I’m fairly certain that if the judicial system here was rampantly corrupt, I’d know about it since I have several friends working for local judges, prosecutors and lawyers. And the kid is probably better off with her dad than with her whacked-out, socially inappropriate mother, in any case.

Last time I checked, there was no sign on my forehead saying, “PLEASE RELEASE YOUR INNER FREAK. I AM A FREAK MAGNET.” So what gives?