o p e n i n g . c e r e m o n i e s

oh, the beginning of school. the smell of new folders, new book-binding glue, and fear.

hard to believe that just a year ago, we were part of that terrified pack of huddled freshlaws. and now we assert our 2L dominance by passing along horror stories and kernels of wisdom gleaned from a year of panic.

if you have not already, i highly suggest reading buffalo wings & vodka, the preeminent blog for legal humor. it will brighten your day.

circle of life

oh, springtime.

that glorious time of year when the sun's rays slant ever so happily against the northern hemisphere, creating the perfect environment for love-addled teenagers, squirrels, and mockingbirds to publicly demonstrate the strength of their romance.

of course, it's also that wonderful time of year when people get the "itch." and i'm not talking about a disgusting dermatological disease. i'm talking about the "itch" that young men and women get to leave the chains of relationship-bondage and run screaming back into the liberated world of "single."

now, i myself have not fallen prey to the "itch." thank g-d. but i know people who have. and whether or not that decision to flee was the right one has yet to be seen. i just wish them the best.

sidenote: make the pollen go away. and tell sybil to quit messing with the austin weather.

**addendum: it has been a long day, and it's only eleven. in the morning. however, i thought i would take this time to drag my soapbox out from under the bed and stand on it again. law school. i have yet to pontificate regarding the hazards of law school, but it's about to start. law school is something like an a la carte menu of psychological disorders exacerbated by close proximity and external pressure. megalomania? section 3. generalized anxiety disorder? down the hallway. i am constantly amazed at law school's ability to break even the most confident of fraternity members.

this should be taken with a grain of salt. if you happen to be a natural at the law, then i'm sure none of this applies to you. of course, then you should be at yale, or harvard, and far away from me. additionally, should you find yourself to be a savant, you ought to get yourself checked out by the federal government for high levels of radiation, because only nuclear exposure could turn a human being into the kind of freak experiment that would "naturally" understand future interests.

i do enjoy the subject matter. there's something oddly satisfactory about crushing an objection with a "present sense impression" exception. but that's about all that's satisfactory about law school, at the moment. ask me again when my first year is over and i've started summer school.

you win some

you lose some. we of the utlaw community were recently alerted by our dean that our school slipped in the usnews rankings not because we deserved it, but because we have integrity.

seriously, dean sager. we're neophyte attorneys, to be sure, but even we can smell an half-hearted attempt at spin a mile away.

give us some credit.

after all, we are at the 18th ranked law school in the country.

the beginning is the end.

i've more or less become an addict of the blogosphere, and like any addict, i've decided to get in on the game. i'm surprised it didn't happen sooner, really, and all that i can hope is that it doesn't turn out like one of the thousands of law&order episodes in which the addict ends up dead in a gutter or in a bathtub filled with lye. i like to think i've a taste for the obscure kernel of humor in law school - it's kind of like a love of single.malt scotch: difficult to cultivate, absolutely useless, and more or less detrimental to your health.

that said, here's to an adventure. as if you needed any other reason to ignore class.