Technology Taketh Away

There are ninety-plus students in my class, so we meet in a very large classroom. There are microphones in the ceiling to pick up students' voices and project them to the other side of the classroom. That's great when there's a class discussion going. It's not so great in the dead of winter when everyone is coughing and wheezing.

Missing Class

It's just week three of the new semester, and I'm missing a day of classes due to illness. Luckily, the school videotapes every class. Not every professor makes the videos available online, but the professors I have on Thursdays do, so I shouldn't miss a thing. Technology is a life saver.

Civ Pro Fulfills Its Promise

In the fall, the Civil Procedure professor warned us that the class would be concerned mostly with esoteric technicalities, then we spent the whole semester on broad, almost philosophical topics like state sovereignty. In the spring we're finally getting down to brass tacks. Suppose, for example, you were served with process pursuant to rule 4(e), but you think the complaint falls short of the requirements set forth in rule 8(a). What to do? File a 12(b)(6) motion to dismiss, of course! I'm in Heaven.

Iced In

Classes were cancelled today due to inclement weather. This is terrible news because it adds up to three and a half hours of class time that will have to be made up some time later in the semester, probably when we're all a lot busier. It also means I have a few more days to forget all the stuff I read for today's classes.

Fall Grades are POSTED!

That's a relief.

Off the Hook

I'm under the impression that the Criminal Law professor checks students off her roster as she calls on them so as to call on each student once during the semester. If so, I scored a coup by being called on toward the end of class today. Ten minutes of light questioning about the eighth amendment, and I can relax for the rest of the semester.

Taking Notes

If you've ever wondered what exactly I do all day, here's a representative page from my Torts notebook. The black ink is notes I took while reading. The red ink was added in class. The letters down the left margin stand for "Facts", "Issue", "Rule", "Analysis" and "Conclusion". Those five parts of an opinion were drilled into us from day one of orientation. Pi and Delta, if it's not obvious, are "Plaintiff" and "Defendant". In the fall, I produced sixty or eighty pages like this in each of the four substantive law classes.