divine angst

I was planning to write a sort of lengthy post about the end of law school and all of the myriad emotions I’ve been feeling since taking my last exam, and about wandering around the city feeling unemployed, and how sort of strange I felt today, particularly.

But I’m not going to write about that because, today, after I got home, my graduation gift from Mr. Angst was waiting for me and I’ve spent most of this evening playing with it. Mr. Angst has even joined me.

That’s right.

We’ve formed a band.

So you’ll have to excuse me if I’m a little preoccupied for the next few weeks before Bar/Bri starts (and before my summer job starts)—what free time I’ll have away from revising The Task and from finishing up journal stuff may well be spend honing my guitar skills. (Yes, it’s ironic—I’m the guitarist and Mr. Angst is the singer. I am not really sure why or how that happened except that it’s my graduation present and, at least if I play by myself, it’s more fun to play the guitar than to sing. I actually think I’ll spend some time tomorrow starting a solo career.)

Excuse me—I have to run. Mr. Angst is singing Don’t Fear the Reaper, solo. I want to watch this.

I made pho Saturday night because I really wanted pho, but didn’t want to wait for delivery or go get it myself. Here’s the (relatively easy to make) recipe.^[1]

Start with:

6 cups beef broth
1 cinnamon stick
2 star anise
1 quarter-inch thick slice ginger root

Bring these to a boil in a large pot. Once it comes to a boil, reduce to a low simmer for 15 minutes.

While the broth is simmering, soak 3 to 6 oz. of flat rice noodles in hot water.

While the noodles soak, slice a half pound to a pound of trimmed sirloin into thin slices, against the grain.^[2] I actually couldn’t find any sirloin that looked decent, so I bought a London broil instead (it was a top round cut—London broil can be any variety of cuts). I didn’t do this because I was impatient, but one of the best ways to cut beef thin is to freeze it first. Next time I’ll do that—my slices were a little too thick to eat easily.

Once your beef is sliced, put a pot of salted water on to boil. Once it boils, drain the soaking noodles and throw them in the boiling water for about 45 seconds, then drain. Set aside.

Your broth should have been simmering for about 15 minutes now. If you feel like it, strain the broth into another pot; if you don’t, just fish the ginger, cinnamon, and star anise out. Put the broth, strained or not, over medium to low heat.

Time to add the last ingredients to the broth:

1/4 cup fish sauce
1 cup cleaned bean sprouts
Sliced beef

The beef will cook in the hot broth. Don’t let it overcook, though! It’s ready to serve as soon as the beef changes color.

To serve, divide the noodles among your bowls (this recipe makes 4 smallish portions or 3 restaurant-sized portions), then ladle the broth (with the meat) over the noodles. Serve with basil, cilantro, sliced Asian chiles, sliced scallions, and more sprouts.

This turned out OK. Next time, I’ll use a different kind of beef broth—or I’ll make my own—since it was way too salty. (I used regular Swanson broth, since the store didn’t have the low-sodium variety. I also added some salt at the end of cooking, thinking the addition of the beef would dilute the flavor some; I won’t do that, again, either.) Also, since my local, walking-distance grocery store didn’t have star anise, I used anise seed instead. If you use anise seed, you might want to strain the broth; I did not, though, and just avoided scooping into the bottom of the pot when I served the soup to avoid getting any seed into the bowls. It was fine. I have leftovers; we’ll see if the anise seed makes the broth inedible after reheating, though.

1. Pho, for those who don’t know, is Vietnamese soup made with a fragrant broth and rice noodles. It usually contains some variety of meat, usually thinly sliced beef. ↩
2. This is really important—if you don’t cut it across the grain, it will be impossibly tough when cooked. ↩

Welcome to this week’s Law School Roundup! We all seem to be in the throes of exams, which explains the variety of non-law-school-related writing featured here…enjoy!

• Nerdery. Definitely ready for law school. Terra Nullius
• Holiday. Yet another day when lawyers still have to go to work. The Lay Judge
• Freak-out. Par for the course during exams, unfortunately. Butterflyfish
• Stretch. It’s a good thing. Starting to Melt
• Hypos. Stop it. Just because it’s exam time doesn’t mean everything is a legal question. The War of All Against All
• Online. Also a good thing. The Shark
• Training. Holistic and (maybe just a little) humorous. Frequent Citations
• Summer Vacation. For the last time? Lag Liv
• Gendered. Rings true for me, too. Magic Cookie
• Boo. I’ve seen this happen, and it does suck. Rambling Without Cause

And that’s it for this week! Look for next week’s Roundup at Evan Schaeffer’s Legal Underground.

And a reminder—if you’re interested in stepping into my shoes and taking over the biweekley student-authored part of the Law School Roundup, let me know!

I’m really in the home stretch now, and I’m starting to feel it.

That’s mostly because I just got comments back on my second draft of The Task. I’m really proud of what I’ve written, astonished that I cranked out 21,000 words and that most of them don’t suck, and, most of all, gratified that my advisor thinks it’s a great paper.

Despite the fact that I still have an exam to take, I’m really feeling the oncoming end to this thing called Law School. This paper has been a very consistent theme for me this year—it’s influenced what news I’ve read, what I think about some really interesting current events, and even how I think about an entire area of law and regulation. This, from a paper that started as a very small germ, in the vein of “I think I want to write about this particular entity,” that didn’t even really have a conclusion until two months ago.

So seeing it wrap up has me a little emotional. It represents a whole year that has been one of the hardest of my life, both personally and academically, and its success represents that all of it has been worth it. It’s exciting and sad and overwhelming all at the same time.

Of course, I say all of this knowing full well that I intend to send it out for publication in August, and will be working on it all summer, too—sending it out for comments from some of the authors I cite, revising the language, tightening it, expanding it, contracting it. I guess the distinction, though, is that it won’t be Law School this summer—it’ll just be me, writing about something that I find really, really interesting.

But for now, The Task represents an emotional end. It’s not bittersweet—I am, actually, completely ready to graduate—but it’s emotional.

Craigslist is amazing, but only for electronics.^[1]

Mr. Angst and I found ourselves with an extra flatscreen monitor and I wanted to get rid of it. Having had little luck selling anything on the school listserv, and wanting to get the best sale price, I decided to post it on Craigslist.

That was this morning at 9.

I just walked back in after handing it off to the buyer. With cash in my pocket.

AH-MAHZ-ING.

1. I say this because, last summer, when we were trying to sell some furniture we no longer needed, I could not find buyers for some really solid stuff to save my life. I guess furniture is tough, with the transportation issues and all, but still. ↩

I admit it. I’m a HUGE nerd. So much of a nerd that when I read this Volokh post, I actually tried to explain my hysterical laughter to Mr. Angst by briefly recounting the constitutional requirements for administrative appointments.^[1]

1. Note that at least part of my hysterical laughter was inspired by the masthead on the actual article referenced in the Volokh post. ↩

My new favorite movie lawyer is Paul Biegler. Sorry, Atticus Finch.

Welcome to the It’s-Late-Because-I-Was-at-a-Bachelorette-Weekend Edition of the Law School Roundup! Enjoy!

• Home Improvement. Better for the earth, too! Ostranenie
• Reality. Better for your sanity. 2L Wannabe
• Career Choices. I’m glad for mine, reading this. Mommy on the Floor
• Class Choices. You can’t take it all. PT-LawMom
• Property Violations. Of more than one kind. TJ’s Double Play
• Organization. Important, yes, but this is a a little insane. A New Duck
• Manners. I swear, they get worse every year. Lag Liv
• Stupidity. The things people don’t know. My So-Called Internet-based Life
• Payoff. It couldn’t happen to a cuter baby. Peanut Butter Burrito
• Another Kind of Payoff. I am SO JEALOUS. Yayarolly

And that’s it for this slightly delayed roundup! Look for it next week at Evan Schaeffer’s Legal Underground. It’ll be back here in about two weeks.

On an administrative note, I’ll be graduating soon, and I’d like to pass the student half of the Roundup on to someone who will, well, still be a student. Interested? Email me.

I seem to like the lists lately. Here’s another one.

• I did a quick search on Westlaw today, looking for additional authority for a section of The Task that I’m reworking. It was very gratifying to note that of the top 10 results, I already have—and have read—seven of them. Two of the other three were PLI documents (so, not really what I was looking for, since those tend to just report developments in an area of law rather than craft/expound upon a new theory or interpretation). Honestly? One of the better research moments in my life. I do wish, however, that I’d been able to construct this awesome search three months ago; the benefit of hindsight, I suppose, and months of reading on the topic.
  
  
• My brother may be moving overseas. Like, in a month. This is a little weird, but really cool for him. I was just thinking that, if he does have to move overseas on short notice, it’s good that it will be right after my graduation, since that’ll be a nice family gathering where we can all say goodbye; he probably won’t be back in the States till the fall, and even that seems like a bit of a longshot.
  
  
• I get to leave tomorrow for a three-day, four-night vacation with my best friend (and some other people) and I am probably more excited about that than the fact that I had my last real law school class, EVER, today. (I have a clinic meeting tomorrow, but that’s not really class.)

I think that’s enough of a list for today.

• I picked up my disgustingly purple graduation gown this week. The purple color is really not the worst part. The worst part is the two gold-embroidered medallions Right. Over. My. Boobs. ROCK.
• I had to do my financial aid exit interview this week also. I owe a crap assload of money to various people. It’s pretty depressing, actually.
• I found out who our graduation speaker is, and I am pretty embarrassed that I now have to tell my parents and my in-laws who it is. Yeah, it’s that bad. I might just not say anything and act surprised at graduation.
• But in brighter news, all of my remaining obligations for the semester seem to be wrapping up smoothly. I’m a little surprised, actually, and I’m kind of waiting for the other shoe to drop.

I find it amusing that my package tracker widget is not smart enough to realize that the “days till delivery” should be “0″ when the status is “out for delivery” even though the “scheduled delivery date” is tomorrow.

In other words, I’ve ordered a new trench coat (the last one did not fit) and it should arrive today. Which is actually perfect, because the weather today is vile.

After all my worry and angst, I am ethical in every jurisdiction. Whew!

Welcome to this week’s edition of the Law School Roundup, featuring posts by soon-to-be, current, and soon-not-to-be law students. Enjoy!

• Decision made! It’s definitely that time of year. Terra Nullius
• Still working on it. Yep, that time of year. A (non)Token Minority Law Student
• Good advice. Even if no one will actually take it. 1L Elle
• In your head. Zombie? The Lay Judge
• Killjoy. Basically, that’s law school. Mommy on the Floor
• Wordsmithing. It’s not not using your brain. Butterflyfish
• Vengeance. On hate mailers. Haters. Knocked Up (and in Law School)
• Not quite adults. When do they grow up?? Starting to Melt
• Ditto. I mean, ew. Think Like a Woman. Act Like a Man.
• Confused. Too many acronyms, too much pressure. Frequent Citations
• Lack of time. So a summary will have to do. Lag Liv
• Bob. Yeah, that’s right. Bob. Magic Cookie
• Word. It sucks and yet I will miss it. Mel Woods
• The long road. I like this description. Thrown for a Loop
• For Seriousness. That is all. katlet

That’s it for this week’s edition of the Roundup! Look for it next week at Evan Schaeffer’s Legal Underground, and back here in two weeks.

I am having a bad day, already.

OK, I’m not really having a bad day, I’m just not starting out superb. For starters, I got home quite late last night after a long day—one that began at 6:45, and involved driving to a nearby suburb, among other things—and I was just exhausted. But I still had to get up and take the dog out this morning because, hey, the dog has to pee. On my way out with him, my non-slip waterproof boots slipped on the non-slip rubberized stair covers on the steps going out the back door of my building and I bonked my thigh (which I already bruised last night) and mildly twisted my ankle. The dog did not even look up.

I, of course, went back to bed.

Now I’m up and the dog is ignoring me, which is weird, we are out of coffee, except the pot Mr. Angst made and left for me (thank you, thank you!)^[1], and it looks like it might actually snow today—you know, like the digusting spitting rain from yesterday wasn’t enough. Meanwhile, I’ve ordered a new trench coat, but it won’t arrive in time to keep me dry today—instead, it will arrive just in time for sunny weather. Awesome.

Finally, I am having a meeting about The Task today and I am, frankly, petrified. I haven’t looked at it since I turned it in, but I’m pretty sure it has NOT gotten better. So I don’t know what that’s going to be like, but I can’t even imagine a scenario in my mind that’s not awful because I really can’t imagine anything good coming of it.

I think today might be the day I go set up my tanning membership.^[2] I need some UV rays to lift my mood.

1. We are expecting more coffee today. Yes, I order my coffee online. Yes, this is really necessary. Coffee is very important; it’s the first thing I consume every day, and I want it to be the coffee I like. ↩
2. I’m in a wedding right after graduation, and my dress is a color that will look much better on me if I’m tan. And yes, I know tanning “causes cancer” and yes, I know they make fake tanning stuff. The problem with the fake stuff is that it actually rubs off of me. I have two tubes of very good, very expensive self-tanner that comes right off if I exfoliate the day after applying it. Seriously. So I will be tanning, and unapologetically. I have Mediterranean heritage, and my skin can handle quite a bit of tanning—and I won’t be maxing out. I just have to get rid of the pasty winter-whiteness. Plus, I really do think the UV rays will help my mood. ↩

I’m pretty sure it’s not good.

Oh, I mean, it’s got good parts, and it’s probably a good start, but I’m pretty sure it’s not actually good. I can’t even add “yet” to the end of that sentence; I’m not really sure it’s going to be good. I have hope, but my hope is definitely tempered with a little bit of realistic dismay.

It’s not as long as I thought it would be; I’m sure it will grow, though. It’s not as fluid as I wanted it to be, but I think that’s expected of a first draft. The biggest problem, though, is that I’m not sure I’ve said anything new at all. Maybe that’s OK—maybe this really is just one of those papers that brings a lot of different thoughts together to bear on a particular problem. Maybe it’s OK to not break new ground in recommending a complete change in thinking if I’m breaking new ground in suggesting that a problem exists that people haven’t recognized, and that other (smarter, maybe) people than I have already outlined the solution—it’s just a matter of applying the solution.

Whatever. All I know is that I have to put the damn thing away for a few hours or days before I come back and reread it, and then send it in. And wait for the (first draft) verdict.

I like spaghetti squash. But all that bunk about being able to treat spaghetti squash just like pasta is just that: bunk. It tastes like squash, therefore it is not good with red sauce, olive oil and basil, or anything else I’d sauce pasta with. But it’s tasty, pretty good for you, and doesn’t require a lot of fussing—you apply heat in your favorite form (steam, bake, microwave steam, whatever), chop in half (or you can do those two things in the opposite order, depending on how you are applying the heat), and use a fork to pull the threads out into a big pile.

But still, it’s not a pasta replacement. And I always struggle with how to prepare it because of that. Until I found this recipe. This looked really good, pretty easy, and we had a spaghetti squash sitting around, so I made it.

OMG. SO GOOD.

Of course I had to adjust it a bit. I added about a teaspoon of garlic powder because I like garlic, and I cooked the pancakes in butter in my cast-iron skillet. Make them relatively thin or they’ll be too soft and mushy. I served them with low-fat sour cream and some leftover spiced apples we had. (No applesauce, but the spiced apples were probably better.)

MMMMMMM. YUMMY.

Welcome to the Easter-Spring-Break-sorry-it’s-so-short Roundup!

• Decisions. terra nullius
• Still browsing A (non)Token Minority Law Student
• Benefits Mommy on the Floor
• Starting PT-LawMom
• Learning Butterflyfish
• Wild Frequent Citations
• Argh! the last refuge of the persecuted crack smoker
• Beards Peanut Butter Burrito

Look for next week’s roundup at Evan Schaeffer’s Legal Underground, and then back here in two weeks.

As much as I am enjoying the writing (and I really am, when I am actually making progress and know what I’m doing), it hit me this morning just how tired I am.

I’m tired of dealing with . . . everything. I’m tired of dealing with authors, I’m tired of being the go-to person for a variety of tasks which I thought I delegated away, I’m tired of not having time to sit and watch TV or clean my house or take Himself on a decently long walk. I’m tired of the neverending work; I can’t go home and get away from it because it is always there, needing to be worked on. I’m tired of feeling like I don’t have time to go to the gym because it takes two and a half hours to get there and back and get a decent workout done, and I don’t have two and a half hours in the day to spare. I’m just tired.

Graduation is looming, looming, looming and, while I often wish I had another year of law school so I could take all those classes I didn’t get to take and learn all that stuff I never got to learn, I know what a bad thing that would be for me. I’d just end up back in this same spot, fending off ever more work and getting more and more tired. I cannot even begin to describe how eager I am to just have a job and not feel like my minutes on the train or bus need to spent reading and thinking about The Task or exams or journal work, to be able to leave work at work (even if I leave it at work late in the day). Long hours I can deal with; neverending hours I cannot. At least not these kind of neverending hours.

I am distressed—nay, appalled—that it freaking snowed 2″ last night. Yesterday was BEAUTIFUL—45 degrees, sunny, breezy, very “Spring is on the way!”

Today, it’s wet and snowy and cold and it looks like it’s going to stay that way through Easter. Barf.

At least I have this paper to write so the sunshine won’t taunt me. Yeah, that’s my lemonade.

I am at just under 14,000 words, and I think I probably need at least 5000 to finish this sucker. But it’s coming along, slowly but surely. I am happy with what I’ve got so far, too, and that, to me, is more important than hitting any predetermined length. There’s something about hitting that stride, where you know what you want to write, you know you either have the source you need (or that you don’t have it and need to find it, but that it exists), and you just do it. Of course, there’s also something about being in that mode and struggling mightily for words. Which is how I spent a lot of today. Boo.

I was out of town for four days and it was terrific—I got little sleep, came down with a three day sinus infection (or maybe I was just allergic to my best friend’s hometown), and did absolutely no work.

However, I’m back now, and racing towards a deadline. I’m about halfway through the first draft of The Task. I’m currently at 26 single-spaced pages and 12,740 words. I could theoretically stop when I hit about 18,000, but I think I’m going to need at least 24,000 to say what I want to say. Which is good—it means I’ve picked a good topic. I’m on a roll, having a good time, and mostly not frustrated right now, except with myself for not doing enough of the right kind of reading. I mean, I’ve read a bunch of stuff over the last several months, and most of it is not useful at all. Ironically, a bunch of articles I found early on but put aside because I thought they were taking me in a direction I didn’t need to go are all the articles I’m having to go back to—and I never read them closely then. Boo.

Back to work.

I was really excited at how bright out it was as I made my way to campus for a meeting last night. “It’s 5:30 in the evening and I could wear my sunglasses!” I thought. (OK, I admit it—I actually thought, “Hey, wow, the days are really getting noticeably longer!” right before I remembered that we’d just sprung forward our clocks.) I was pretty happy right then about Daylight Saving Time.

Of course, this morning, I remember the dark side of Daylight Saving Time—literally. I hate how dark it is at 8 am when I am getting up and moving around. It doesn’t help that it’s sort of cloudy and hazy out today, with a possibility of snow, and very little sunlight. But even were the weather more cooperative, it would still be dark in the morning when my alarm goes off, and that, my friends, is a crappy thing. I suppose it would matter less if I kept more student-like hours—sleeping way in, staying up way late—but, in fact, I do not. I get up at a reasonable hour and I go to bed before midnight. I keep working hours—i.e., the hours of my working husband. So the evening daylight is nice, yes, because it’s light out when I’m coming home from school or (as last night) going to an evening meeting, but the lack of morning daylight really sucks. It’s hard enough for me to get up in the morning.

Happy Monday, all.

Welcome to this week’s (timely) edition of the Law School Roundup, featuring posts by future and current (and soon to be not) law students. Enjoy!

• Winnowing. A necessary task. Terra Nullius
• Credibility. Not sure it’s worth $150,000. Fight the Hypo
• Focus. Remembering it can be helpful. Legally Numb
• Goal. Employment is, generally, the goal, so having some is good. Butterflyfish
• Seeking. It’s out there somewhere, the perfect job. Knocked Up (and in Law School)
• Fighting. What good is a law degree if you can’t fight tickets from your (law) school? The War of All Against All
• Clique. Time and place, my friends, and eventually, it’s not either. Who Owns the Fox
• Smarts. There are different kinds. Frequent Citations
• Pictures. Really are worth a thousand words. Lag Liv
• Nutshell. Definitely worth a read. Shelley’s Case
• Flyers. Seriously, isn’t it just a popularity contest? Thrown for a Loop
• Senioritis. Law school style. I’m feelin’ it, too. Yayarolly goes to law school
• LawDad. Babies, babies, everywhere! Preaching to the Perverted

Look for next week’s roundup at Evan Schaeffer’s Legal Underground. It’ll be back here in about two weeks.

Now that the MPRE is over (damn the MPRE!) I am heading into my last week of school before Spring Break with only two things on my plate—one more edit^[1] and The Task.

I’m starting to get a little nervous about The Task. I have several pages, some of which are actually good but most of which are mediocre at best—and quite a few of which are really, really bad. I finally have a solid, concrete vision in my head of what the whole thing is going to end up looking like, but that vision has not hit the paper yet. I’ve got to get it on paper, and soon—all 60-something pages of it. With citations to authority.

So I’ve got about two weeks, maybe a little less, to get the First Draft of The Task done. I keep telling myself I work better under pressure and that once all these edits are off my plate I can just write and write and write. I hope that’s true.

1. And this means EVER—I’m almost done with the big part of my journal duties, though I’ll be doing follow-up edits for the rest of the semester. I am pretty much totally and complete excited. ↩

The MPRE is over. I honestly have no idea how it went. What I do know is that I’m back to editing. Editing editing editing.