Adrift on strange waters [entries|archive|friends|userinfo]
T. [becoming complete]

[ userinfo | livejournal userinfo ]
[ archive | journal archive ]

What happened this semester, parts 1 and 2 [May. 23rd, 2012|05:37 pm]
[Tags|, ]

I took on 6 classes because it was my plan to graduate early - Next May, in fact. I thought this would be a good idea for the following reasons: 1) I can handle it; 2) Since I am a Spring Start, a May graduation is better than a December graduation, as I can eliminate a summer in between, speeding up a potential departure and/or job 4 to 5 months earlier, not including the semester I save in time; 3)I really didn't know about all the other crap that was going to land on me.
My exams are all done, and I am mentally preparing myself for two C level grades, and I really hope they are C+. I know that Consumer Transactions is a 9-headed devil monster of an exam, but at least a third of the class was graduating, and this was their very last exam. Hopefully some of them opted for the "D and Flee" method of finishing law school, and that some of that some would have, under optimal conditions, done better than me, thus giving me a little boost towards the thick part of the curve. Luckily (and I say that with some sarcasm), Lisa didn't get her walking papers until the day of my last exam - as that might have been distracting had it happened before finals.
I'm thinking Property will be in the C range, and possibly Consumer Transactions - but my worst grades are in places I think I did well, so Evidence? In any case, the plan to graduate early officially died with my not attending summer school, so all my effort last semester has only one benefit: I can take it easy this semester. And really, that will be pretty nice. I'm about 6 or 7 credits ahead of where I need to be, so I can coast on maybe 12 this coming semester and concentrate on doing well on Tax - which will suck.

...

I've been working in a law firm... Have I mentioned where I work yet? Sorta. Well, it's been a good experience. The attorney's like me, and they've even made some hints that I can possibly work there once school is done. And that's pretty amazing because that means that any job offer I get from here on out can be compared to something. Usually when I have an offer, it's "do I take this job, or become homeless?" This is a better way to live.

I managed the time pretty well over the semester, putting in 15 to 18 hours a week, and wading through messy divorces and unreasonable clients - and it's really not too bad. I think that attorney's who feel like family law is stressful, that the clients are difficult, that it's somehow too messy - well, they should have a real job for 10 years or so and realize that most people work with unreasonable assholes under hostile conditions. Walking people through divorces is nothing compared to the used car business.

I'm getting a little criminal law in, a little personal injury, but mostly family - and I think I can do this for a living. It's not a great living, but the lawyers at this office - they come in at nine, they are gone before five, and they seem to be making their car payments. They have their own office, a small staff, and some free labor via the local community college paralegal program. They have a life, and I'd like one of those while I can still enjoy it.

It's going to be ok. I'm working enough between the two jobs to pay almost all our bills. Lisa is getting enough appointments that she can cover the rest. Maybe she can spend more time on the political issues that mean a lot to her - the assault on reproduction that for reasons I can't fathom has become a dominant issue this election cycle - a rant for later - these groups need a person like my wife, and right now she has the time. We don't even have to make a decision about whether I go full time or part time in the fall until August. We can make it.

- T.
Link4 comments|Leave a comment

I tried and failed to be prez of an on-campus organization. [May. 22nd, 2012|01:21 am]
[Tags|, , , , ]

This will be a short one because for some reason I can't sleep right now. no idea why not, I was tired when I put the boy to bed, and I dozed off next to him. That was 3 hours ago, and for some reason that short couple of minutes has left me rather refreshed. Which sucks.

Lisa was royally screwed over by her job, she got the news that she was going to be cut without explanation, on the day before my last final exam. She and everyone at that job knew she was the most professional and competent person on that payroll - which in retrospect may have been the problem. Most people don't really want someone that good, because the presence of a dedicated professional might reflect poorly on your amateur lack of dedication. For the last week, we've been back in crisis mode - which is really more every-day-mode, and we got a brief 5 week vacation from the normal state of affairs.

On the plus side, nice timing. Exams are over, and this certainly decided the issue of my taking summer school classes. And not taking summer school means that I will not be graduating early - you kinda need every single extra class you can take to shave a semester off of a 3 year program. And while that kinda sucks, it also takes off the pressure for the next year. So I start working the Monday following exams, working at the law firm more hours, and also back to my old job at the library. So I can get 45 to 50 hours of work in a week if I get weekend shifts and the library and the law stuff stays this active - they only want me if they have enough casework to bill me at least 40% of the time I'm there. I make almost enough to get us through the month, making $15/hr at one job and $10 at the other. Again, things I couldn't do if I was in class.

This leaves us a little short, but either unemployment money, or Lisa's pro-domme work gets us over the line. Both combined, and we are what I'll call "OK." Of course, the big kids will be here in a week. The obvious downside is we'll have even less money for fun and entertainment than we did last year - yay - but the plus side is that Lisa will, at least for the beginning, have a lot more time with them. And time is what they will remember more than stuff and crap and things.

So my last post about real life, I put that list of things that happened, whether by chance or my own doing, and number 4 was the loss of my presidential bid. The ADRA isn't the biggest group, but they are pretty big - maybe not the best choice for a first shot at office - but I had the support of the past president, I did well in competition, and all the coaches and staff liked me. But none of them vote. And the week of the last meeting where the candidates spoke to the group was the week I was in D.C. competing (and losing) at Nationals. So I never even got a speech. It's really no wonder I lost - but even that was tricky.
The vote was a tie - with 3 voters attempting to vote with non-school emails. Of the three, two were verified by the soon-to-be-ex prez, so without knowing who those votes were for, we all decided to count them, rather than try to put together a run-off before finals. Both votes were for the other candidate, sealing the election. I said we should count the verified votes, which killed my own shot at a run-off, where I could actually campaign.
I'm marginally upset with this result, not because my heart was set on leadership. I've never run for anything in the past, and I doubt I will ever run for an elected office ever again. It's clearly not for me - no, I'm not upset so much for the loss, as it pretty much means I'm competing again next year - at least to some small capacity. If I had made the presidency, then that would be the thing on the resume, and it would shoe diversity of talent and all that bullshit, so I wouldn't feel like I had to take one more shot at a national win.
But that's not happening, so we'll see what happens come fall.

Meanwhile, I'm going to try and sleep.

- T.
LinkLeave a comment

The kind of editorial I've been posting elsewhere [May. 21st, 2012|05:43 pm]
[Tags|, , ]

I wrote this for my google+, and once I realized how much I rambled, I thought it would go better here.

http://www.theatlantic.com/health/archive/2012/05/radical-life-extension-is-already-here-but-were-doing-it-wrong/257383/?google_editors_picks=true

I think this is a really interesting topic, and this brings up some good points - but I feel like it's missing the big issue: How is Long Life Economically Feasible?
There is that point that Super Long Life (SLL) will be for the ultra rich - say Rupert Murdoch - and he'll buy his way up to 250 years. Yes, he will be the ultimate oligarch, battling it out with other tri-centarian oligarchs for control of the limited resources like super-villains, and sure the gaps will all get wider - but what about the lower strata?
Science never stays at the top of the tower, it always drips down, lower and lower, till we all have touch screens and cholesterol pills. Rupert gets to be 300, but the average schmuck will get to 150, and the poor people might start to see 100. Look at how fast life expectancy is rising, consider that the average age of 80 only applies to people born 80 years ago, when the Spanish Flu was still going around. So a guy who's 40 (me) could easily see 120. So when we talk about Regular Long Life (RLL), the average schmuck's version of this, we are talking about me and all my friends.
Speaking of me and all my friends, none of us have any retirement money. Only 20 - 25% of people 60+ years old have an amount saved that any licensed accountant of financial planner would call adequate to live off of, and 40% are totally unprepared, without enough to make it more than a couple years. Assume I work till 70, like my father is right now. And assume that we will continue our now normal rate of boom-and-bust cycles of major recession every 8 years, flat wages, and real-estate bubbles and increased bank fees and bail-outs, and outsourcing and eroding safety net - let's just call it the Bain Capital World, where you only make it if you were born wealthy, or you were that one-in-thousands who bet on the right horse, like Zuckerberg's fellow FB founders. If you aren't one of them, then you are the steel worker who's plant was closed without warning. Except instead of losing your job at 50, with 20 years to go until probable death, you have 60 years to go. 60 years - how do you sustain?
Well, you could go back to school - but we are trying that now, and its straining the limits of credit because we all, myself included, are taking on crippling debts to add some letters to our resume, and taking a huge risk that it will be a good bet. But there's no guarantee of success, only the guarantee of debt, and for more and more people, it's looking like a sucker's game.
Skills! Ah yes, learn free or intern - and yes, that's going to work for sume, but lets look at the limitations: 1) not everyone is going to be able to go from low skill to high skill. Think about the abilities of the average worker, and know that half are less competent than that. And also, how far can we push that? Mental and physical strength will always atrophy, always decline, at what point can the RLL only work 6 hours a day as a greeter? 4 hours a day? Eventually, the pay is going to be commensurate with productivity, it's going to be a trickle income - even assuming that activity and work keep the mind and body stronger for longer.
If the U.S. remains as Socialism-Averse as they are now, and Congress remains as Hard-Decision-Averse as they are now - and neither of those options takes a real leap of faith - then we can assume that the social safety net will be eroded to a symbolic coin tossed periodically to the infirm. The burden will be on the family of the aged. Can you think of any scenario in which this doesn't happen? Who will take them on? If not family, then there is only the state - and in my short lifetime, the government has shed it's caretaking of the citizenry. The asylums are closed, the insane wander homeless until they commit enough crime to become wards once again. Only the old soldiers have a place - and that's paid for by voluntary contributions by active duty military, with minimum taxpayer involvement (perhaps it's best survival adaptation).
If I were you, I would counter-argue with this: But old people can vote and congress will do what the voters demand! As more and more reach that critical nexus where the income has declined and the medication expense has risen, won't they then cry out?
They might. But then, if you look around, don't you see many people voting against their own self interest in the name of austerity and deregulation and anti-socialism? Aren't the very people voting right now know that they will need universal healthcare system in place in their own future, voting with both hands to dismantle any possibility of healthcare once they can no longer work? For this centarian uprising to occur, these people, these same people who right now are putting away their Gingrich campaign signs to begrudgingly vote for a cultist Mormon on the promise that all consumer protection will be eliminated, social services cut, and banks to be unfettered from what few chains bind them - you must count on them to completely reverse course. Will they?
And if they do, will it be too late?
Link4 comments|Leave a comment

Catch up during a study break Part One. [May. 1st, 2012|08:42 am]
[Tags|, , , , , ]

As a first year law student, you pretty much can't do anything but study and drink. This appears to go back in to antiquity, and it's a good idea. The first year is like getting a daily beating with a stick, directly to the brain, and if you did anything but take your beatings, the dropout rate in the first year would be frightening. They discourage working, and forbid participating in any on-campus or extra-curricular activities beyond basic group/org membership.

Here's the danger - if you are someone who tries to do everything, whether as a symptom of mental illness, or trying to make up for the inadequacies of the GPA, then you maybe just might take on a little too much. And by "you", I mean me. Here's what I did this last semester:

- 6 Classes for 16 credit hours - 5 Final Exams.
- A part time job at a family law firm for around 20 hours a week.
- Served as Secretary of the ADR Advocates - an on campus organization.
- Ran for President of ADRA for next year.
- Compete on the Mock Trial team.
- Compete on the Mediation team.
- Served as moderator for a seminar on Riots and Mutinies, hosted by the school library.
- Get evicted and move across town.
- Stay married.

I knew in January I'd be doing 1-7 and planned on 9. #8 was a surprise, but I'll tell y'all about it later. Still, just those 7 line items are crazy to take on over the course of a few semesters, and it's insane, looking at it now, to think that in January I honestly believed I could handle it all. Well, I did, but it could have gone a lot better. Over the next two weeks, I'll try to get in to all of these nightmares, giving each the individual attention it deserves. For now, let's look at 5 & 6, competition.
Read more... )
Link6 comments|Leave a comment

So much... so much... [Apr. 29th, 2012|02:01 am]
Overwhelmed. Won, Lost, Middled. Moved, suppressed, adapted. Epiphany. Almost lost everything, almost done with a big mistake of a semester.

We are ok. Finals start on Monday, and whenever I'm burnt on whatever I'm studying (Evidence, at the moment), I may try to catch up here.

But not right now. It's been busy. And why I say "busy", I mean more busy with more on my plate than at any other time in my life.

But now, I'm going to try and sleep and see if all this Character Witness and Opinion rules settle in to the right synaptic order.

- T.
Link2 comments|Leave a comment

I am not Trayvon Martin - but are you George Zimmerman? [Apr. 15th, 2012|01:25 am]
[Tags|, , , ]

While I feel that the hearts of everyone who has ever said, "I am Trayvon Martin", are in the right place - something in my gut tells me that the real issue here has been missed due to a racial tension mishandling by a third party. I'll get to the last part in a moment. But first - I am a dad, just like the father who waited for his son to come home. It agonizes me to think about that, what it means to wake up and your teenager never came home, and you wait and worry until the police cars show up. But even as I feel a twinge of pain reading those stories, I look at my son and never think that he is like Trayvon. My boy is lily white, and he's going to be the son of a lawyer, and I like to hope that someday we will live in a decent neighborhood. So all the points - legitimate points in many cases - made about being targeted due to skin color, they just aren't going to apply to my boy.

But the Martin-Zimmerman case bothers me so much, because my son could still end up dead in this exact situation. I know that race jumped in to this, and I'll get to that, but I don't think this is about a black kid in America, wearing a hoodie. I don't think this is about suspicion, about profiling, it's not really about any distinguishing feature of Trayvon, except maybe his age. This is barely about that poor kid, dying in the street of his (nearly) own neighborhood. His dad's fiance's neighborhood, and a place he had every right to be. It's terrible that he died, but I'm far more disturbed at the reaction surrounding the guy with the gun.

George Zimmerman is a guy who feels the need to play Cop. He needs - Needs - to strap on a gun, patrol his neighborhood and harrass anyone who looks like the don't belong there. He likes to confront these loitering suspicious people, knowing that he's got his big bad gun, and they will be intimidated by him. He calls the police all the fucking time, so he can be involved with law enforcement - practically a law enforcer himself. How low must your self esteem be to have to do this? This is his Hobby, it's what he does for fun, and it doesn't take much of a stretch of the imagination to picture him confronting crummy looking punk teenagers more often than not. I bet this gives him a real thrill, to walk up to some punk teen, probably taller than he is, maybe in much better physical shape, and scare that kid with this gun and authority. Just like a cop.

George lives in an elaborate fantasy world where he can pretend to be a neighborhood badass. Something is deeply wrong with George, and while it may be some cliche'd armchair psychology here, but how small must your penis be for this to be the only way you can feel good about yourself? Why isn't George a Cop? Police are hiring all the damn time, why isn't George in the academy? I'm thinking because the cops have some standards, and one hopes that they are looking for people who want to defend the law, not people who are compensating for something. Police have physical standards, and they have psych standards, and I don't think George would have made the cut - just speculating. Also, when cops kill someone, there is a protocol, there are psych evals, there is an inquiry, and the guys who pull the guns have been vetted. It's not perfect, there are many bad cops out there, but a flawed system for putting the right mind and right heart behind the badge, is a lot better than no system. These cops - the ones in LA who shot that kid on the freeway - this is also a really tragic death of a kid who's life should have gone another way, but they followed the rules they were given. And they have rules. That's why they are cops and that's why they are the ones who decide when to shoot.

To put this in terms of the law, and I don't know much about Florida law, but Casey Anthony walked, so any goddamned thing could happen in those "courts" - here's how it works in a Model Penal Code state, like Texas. Self Defense is a Justification (as opposed to Excuse), and it is available so long as you meet some established criteria. A lot of attention has been focused on the "Stand your Ground" laws, which extend the so-called "Castle Doctrine" to where ever you are standing. Lemme sum up: in General, you have a duty to retreat from danger, unless you are in your home, including the immediate surroundings (definitely porch, maybe yard, depends on state). "Stand your ground" means that when confronted with life-threatening danger, you no longer have a legal duty to retreat. This, however, is only one small part of the Justification defense, and it has really nothing to do with this crime. The big one, the major factor in Self Defense, is what they call "Clean Hands". This means that you cannot have done anything to provoke or seek out a dangerous situation. Let's say that again, in it's own paragraph, because it's a big deal.

If you do anything to provoke, create, or seek out Trouble, then your hands are not clean. You do not get to call self defense on a deadly situation you played any part in the creation of. Why? Because if you can claim self defense any time you are threatened, and you happen to be a guy with a really small and useless penis, and you are deeply racist, you might buy a big fucking gun, go to a place where people you hate are hanging around, and maybe you feel really tough with your gun (like having two dicks), and see if those people you hate come after you. If you can call self defense for a situation you helped create - well hell, you could do this every Saturday Night. You and all your buddies. It could be like some kind of 18th century hunting club.

So you must have clean hands. You remember Bernie Getz, the last nationwide conversation about self defense? As scary as the details of that was, he had - at least at the beginning - clean hands. He was just sitting on a subway train. Shooting the last guy after he was already down - Bernhard's 5th shot? That can be debated for a long time whether it was self preservation or hatred that pulled the trigger. Only Bernie knows. But here's where my understanding of the law is, right now: when you put on your gun, get out of your car, and chase down the "bad guy", you don't have clean hands. The Police have legal permission to do that, you don't. Yes, citizens can arrest - but under limited circumstances when they have witnessed a crime. Citizens cannot arrest or interrogate a suspicion, even a neighborhood watch captain. If you go looking for trouble, and you find it, you don't get to use a Justification.

This whole case worries me, because I see a lot of guys out there who want to play put on their guns and feel that rush of scaring other people, particularly teenagers who dress like punks and have no respect for good hard working adults who begrudgingly pay their taxes. I see a lot of guys who would like to be George Zimmerman, and strut around their little community, striking fear into the hearts of the unarmed. Guys without any training, without any psych evaluator, without experienced mentors, playing cop sounds really fucking dangerous, especially thinking about my boy - who will undoubtedly dress like a punk and pay very little respect to hard working adults. And maybe if he's had a really bad day and he's sick of fat fucks like George harassing him, he might just throw that wannabe hero down and slap is face around. If George's description is true, that Trayvon managed to "get the jump on him" plays more to what an incompetent "cop" George was. Real cops don't get ninja-tackled like that, and for a very good reason - they aren't looking to get an intimidation boner. They are trying to keep people alive.

I am scared out of my mind that George gets off, walks away, and it's a big green light to every guy with a gun to start patrolling his streets for punk kids. And while I don't think George was thinking "black people" when he went looking for this trouble, I know a lot of heavily armed racist motherfuckers in Texas who are thinking that this would be a green light to thin out the herd of undesirables. Like it or not, this decision at the trial level is going to send a clear message, one way or the other. That either citizen patrol (read: random dude with a gun) has the authority of trained police, or we throw them in jail for being a stupid, irresponsible fantasist. I go with "B", and that's what the Model Penal Code reads. But Texas couldn't even get Joe Horn an indictment to even get him in to trial court, so who knows.

Yes, I see a lot of "Trayvon Martin's" out there. I also see a lot of George Zimmerman's out there, too. Which one is more likely to shoot my son?

...

The race thing: I believe that this became so racially charged when the cops - really the third party to this whole thing - decided not to charge George with a flagrant act of stupidity resulting in the death of another (this is called everything from Manslaughter to Negligent Homicide; all felonies). Letting him go, and then citing a law which really didn't apply to the situation inflamed all this passion, especially considering the police force didn't have a great reputation regarding racial relations to begin with.

So they charge him, then they offer him a plea down to aggravated assault, and he gets a suspended sentence, no jail time and 3 years probation. Parents and the local community would be a little pissed, but it wouldn't leave the regional news. And in the end, they wouldn't have to punish George that harshly, but they would do the right thing, and brand George as a Felon for the rest of his life. George could live without the scrutiny of trial, without prison, but he would know that he isn't a hero. And he would never be allowed to carry a gun ever again.

Just my thoughts, but they've been brewing for two weeks, and I wanted to write them down, since I'm kinda awake tonight, and everyone else is asleep.

- T.
Link3 comments|Leave a comment

Keep hope alive. [Mar. 4th, 2012|12:32 am]
[Tags|, , , ]

We are pretty close to our maximum capacity for bad shit.

Besides the accident, the bills, the pressure, the lack of insurance for anything in our lives - health, car, home, stuff - there is this feeling of mean spiritedness hanging over us. We are expecting a substantial tax return, and it's pretty much our temporary life preserver. We have to move, get a new place, and all of the expenses that incurs, as well as book travel for the summer for the kids to come out. The tax return was that lifesaver, and it was expected last thursday. Due to a very small error - seemingly inconsequential - the bank rejected the deposit and it was sent back to the Federal Government for safekeeping.

And while some vestige of rationality says, "ok, I get it, you don't want money going to the wrong place" - the Under Siege part of my mind says, "Really? You can't just cut us a fucking break and give us our own money back to we can at least get our noses above the water line for a couple of weeks?"

Wife has two job interviews on Monday. The first interview in the morning is her FOURTH interview for the job. They need to see her four times to decide if they are hiring her? After four, if they don't give her an offer, it will be devastating. So they better give her a damn offer. After that interview, she is going for her first interview at what may be her dream job - Planned Parenthood. It will likely be for a lot less money, but it's something she has been passionate about for so long, it would be great to see her fulfilling a professional dream. And with me bringing in some, and the way we've cut expenses in the last quarter, we can make it work on less.

There may be a third possibility still on the hook somewhere, but these two are the focus for now. So she's got these interviews, and it's enough pressure just to try and get a job in this market, wouldn't it have been nice if we had money in the bank and the immediate problems solved? No - she has to go try and get a job with this hanging over her head. Thanks.

We'll get the money eventually - after yet another fucking endurance test. The money will be gone shortly after it arrives, as we owe on bills, owe her brother for the phone, and have to move in a few weeks, and we don't even know where we are moving! That will be determined by where she is working next.

18 more months in this city, 18 more as a student. Then it's highly unlikely we'll remain here. It would have to be serious money for us to stay, and with the way things are going now, I'm not confident huge dollars will suddenly fall from the sky. So let's just try to cooperate here. Please IRS, just give us our money so we can pay our bills and make it to April. Please?

...

Today I had the first Saturday off in a long time. No practice, no extra study (even if I need it), just a day with the family. After getting the bad news about the taxes, and my constant worry about no insurance on the van, I try to tackle the lawn and find that a critical piece of the weedwhacker is missing. I know my model is discontinued, so the chances of me finding this end-cap piece is near zero. At the second place I stopped (Home Depot, as Lowes didn't have it, nor did they offer any solutions) I asked with the preface of "you probably can't help me, but..."

The guy asks me the model number, then reaches up to some shelf, and hands me the piece. $4. I think I looked stunned, because he laughed a little. I told him that this was the first thing all week which ended well and without much hassle. "Keep hope alive, my friend" he said.

I'm trying to keep hope alive. Thanks for the break on the weedwhacker. Let's see if we can make this a trend.

- T.
Link5 comments|Leave a comment

Time out, plz. [Mar. 2nd, 2012|12:45 am]
[Tags|, , ]

Things were, well, kinda looking up on Monday. During the day, at least. I got to see my poster in the lobby - my school puts a hand drawn sign up every monday when we win something over the weekend. I've been seeing those posters since I got to law school, and now I have one. I'm a little behind in homework, but I can catch up - I just need a few days without disaster.

Tuesday morning, on the way to school, we get rear-ended at a stoplight by a guy in a little neon, who then took off. The van is pretty much ok, but I really want to have the mechanic look at it. I'm much more worried about Lisa. She either has a bad strain, or a bulging disk. I'm hoping for strain, but it will take a little while to know for sure.

We saw a very nice doctor who was able, through our connection at the law firm, to see her that day. He's a car-crash doctor, so he naturally has relationships with law firms that handle Personal Injury. As a favor to them, he gave Lisa a preliminary diagnosis, and prescribed some anti-inflammatory and some pain killers. Sometime after the doctor visit, we figure out that we have no insurance coverage for this accident. Nothing's going to help pay for whatever damage just occurred. Perfect.

Of course, we're out of money. I wouldn't get paid until the 1st, so we could only pay for the steroids to keep her back from locking up, and have been relying on the last bottle of Aleve, and muscle relaxers given to us by a friend. Telling the pharmacist how much money we had total to find out if he could get a small enough volume of pills to make it work - that was fun.

So she's been on some medium-serious meds for her back, and after two days on said meds, she has a job interview. She's supposed to be lying very still in bed with heat on her back, but we're also completely broke and she wants this job, and canceling the interview is no different from telling the hiring manager that his mother is a sewer rat. She goes to the interview, and I'm just terrified of her getting a re-injury, or even another car accident.

My back is stiff and sitting through three classes of two hours each - and in those horrid plastic scoop-seats. By the time I got to the end of my day, my back was killing me. And then I had mock trial practice. At least I could stand for part of that.

My wife hates being on meds. I can see she's miserable, and I'm so worried about her back. I'm worried it will get worse. I'm worried it might interfere with her finding a job she loves. I want her to be happy, and want to see her smile, I want her to like her job and be happy with where we are. This didn't help.

...

No sign of tax return, despite the assurance by the IRS that we would have it by yesterday. I do get a (small) paycheck tomorrow, that will pay some bills. The return is big, but it's already spent, particularly with this new twist. I'm really scared. The accident could have been so much worse, and it's a reminder of just how close to complete disaster we are. No health insurance of any kind, so a little more force, and it's all over for us. This is the line we've been walking for a while.

If there's a problem with the tax returns and we don't get the money before end of April, law school is over. I owe the school money for this semester, and don't see how I can pay for summer classes. I'm hoping my financial aid went through for Fall.

I drank so much coffee today - I was dreaming with my eyes open in my first class this morning. I'd see things move suddenly in my peripheral vision, and turn to see it was nothing. Then I had to look for something so my class mates don't get sketchy about this. Of course, I drink so much to stay awake for 7 hours of solid lecture today, that now I am only just starting to think I can sleep.

I took a muscle relaxer myself - probably the last one I'll take to save the remaining pills for Lisa. I'm not too bad, just a little stiff and sore. I'm ok. I think we're out of nyQuil, so no extra sleepy action for me. I'm going to go evict my boy from my side of the bed and see if I can get a few hours tonight. At least tomorrow is mostly work, with only one class.

G'night everybody.

- T.

ps - thank you for all the congratulatory remarks. Yes, it was a good victory, and I'm glad I could share it with friends like you.
Link1 comment|Leave a comment

Winner [Feb. 29th, 2012|12:25 am]
[Tags|, ]

Me. I won. And this hasn't happened in a long time. And more to the point, I don't think it's ever happened like this.

I've had some good moments, don't get me wrong. Getting my wife was a 'win' and a big one. Getting in to law school, getting selected for mock trial, these were all good work on my behalf, and there was a reward. But not a 'there can only be one' kind of win.

The final round was pretty intense. We were in the pretty court room, we had a substantial audience, three judges, and a dvd recorded for future training of mediators. We received the information we would be using in the round just the evening before about 6pm. 15 hours, we were going head to head across the table for 75 minutes. My partner David and I prevailed, two ballots to one. We are the regional champs, and in a little more than a month, we'll be in D.C. getting our asses beat by the best of the rest of the nation. We'll be kicking a few asses ourselves, but I have no illusions about what I'm heading in to - but that's April. I'm going to enjoy what I've got right now.

Meet my team. The two good looking guys in polo shirts are the team from South Texas who didn't advance, but they spent Saturday night working with us on the problem. They didn't want to be in the picture because they didn't win, but we couldn't have done it without them. Also - that's pretty much my whole history, being the support team.



I'm usually the guy off to the side, not the guy holding the trophy (ok, it's a piece of paper at this competition, which is a bit disappointing, but it's not like I get to keep the trophies at this school - they stay in the bragging hall. If you ask some of my old college buddies, they will say No, T. won quite a few competitions - and that's true. But those were different kinds of events - it was interpretation events. This is a short performance, memorized and rehearsed, and it doesn't really change. Not like Debate, or Extemporaneous speaking - where you have to figure it out on the spot, or go against someone else who's as good or better than you. It's the difference between the figure skating events and boxing.

I've never won a debate-like tournament in my life. But I've been to more out-rounds than I can count. I failed to break out of prelims only a few times, and I made it to finals a good number of times, and this is way more than so many people ever accomplished. I was well known in debate circles, I was liked and respected. But I never won that final round. I took some solace in being maybe the only person to be in the finals of debate and poetry at the same competition - that was just a little strange in competitive circles.

Winning a debate tournament is one of those missing pieces in my life.

Mediation competitions are very debate like. There is a general scenario known by both sides, and then confidential information that is not revealed until the round has started. you have to prep your side, your arguments, back them up with good law, and anticipate whatever they have to bring at you. No time outs, 75 minutes of dancing, maneuvering, arguing, persuading, and wrapping it up before the clock runs out. And the other side is smart and they got to finals by kicking as much ass as we did.

I've been in that final round situation at least a dozen times, and it's been a decade since the last time I was there. This was my first win. Ever.

I'm still getting used to the feeling. But I've got 5 weeks till I do this as the National competition. I'll make it to outrounds. Maybe more.

...

Another interesting thing about law school - people here know what I did, and they care. Back in college - I went to a school with a population higher than some nations. Going to classes, no one knew what debate was, nor did they care. Law school is smaller, more focused, and this school really gets in to competition wins. I've had people I don't know congratulate me in the hall. Very new experience, and I'm finding that I don't know how to take the compliment.

It's a check off the list. Something that's been hanging around my neck for a long time. I owe a lot to my partner, he did great in the competition, and if I had been partnered with anyone else, may not have even got out of the prelims - so this isn't all me, not at all. It's just that feeling of accomplishing something that I never managed to do my first time around.

And while I'm going to hit Nationals as hard as I possibly can, getting a win also checks this one off the list. Next semester, different priorities. I'm thinking more like being in a leadership role at an organization. Something where I travel less and drink more. Never been president of anything, either. Maybe it's time to try that, too.

- T.


.....


So that should have been the end of the report, but this morning my wife and I were rear-ended while at a stop light and the guy who hit us fled. Insurance is giving us a hard time, and my wife may have herniated a disk. That sucks, and we don't know how bad it's going to be. I'll know more on this subject, but it kinda threw off my good vibes - missed classes today getting my girl some medical care and lining up some legal defense against dickish insurance.

Still. Feeling good.

- T.
Link10 comments|Leave a comment

My first tournament in 15 years [Feb. 24th, 2012|09:58 pm]
Wow, that's a long time.

So here I am, in a hotel in Ft. Worth, going over notes. Mediation
competition tomorrow. Wish me luck.
Link2 comments|Leave a comment

navigation
[ viewing | most recent entries ]
[ go | earlier ]