Making lists and having plans

All my life I have been very much a list-maker. In the margins of pretty much every spare scrap of paper on which I have ever taken notes is scrawled a to do list.
"Go running
send thank you card
finish reading assignment
return phone messages..."

On the wall of my college apartment hung a masterful 6 page articulation of qualities my roommates and I thought to be essential in "The Perfect Male."
"Intelligent
Funny
Ambitious
Can change a tire faster than you without breaking any
screws, but won't laugh at you for trying..."

I once had a teacher ask me to make a list of five things I wanted to accomplish in my life.
"Graduate college
Serve a mission
Go to law school
Get married
Have kids"

And this is probably why I have always had a five year plan. I'm a Type-A control freak in love with list-making. This week I found out that I scored an interview for a job with the DOJ after graduation, and hoping to be as well prepared for this interview as possible, I sought out a little advice from one of our current attorneys on what types of questions to expect. She told me the one question that will almost certainly be asked of me is where I see myself in ten years. That gave me pause. Because I honestly have no idea. I have found that my ability to plan ahead is severely hampered by the fact that I will no longer have school on my to do list. I was able to say as a high school senior where I wanted to be in 10 years because 7 of those years would be spent in school. Now that I'm almost past all that, the options are much more uncertain. Where do I want to be in ten years? I want to have my student loans paid off. I want to have a career that is meaningful and exciting, preferably something that lets me help other people while still allowing me to enjoy some semblance of free time. I want to live abroad. I want to read for fun. And I might even want to finally scratch the straggler #5 off the list. Maybe. Are these acceptable answers for a job interview? Probably not. I guess it's time to give serious thought to an updated long term plan.

Shackled to the ivory tower

There is a guy sitting two tables over from me in the library. I know him because he sat at my table during first year orientation and encouraged me to join the Runner's Club at Willamette. He seemed like a nice enough guy. I was surprised to see him in my Civil Procedure class the following week when school started. He was a 2L, and while 2Ls are not entirely uncommon in 1L classes here because of the merciless retake policy for students who get below a C+ in their required first year courses, it was still a little jarring. That guy went on to take that very same Civil Procedure class again as a 3L. There are few things in this world as mind numbing and painful as civil procedure, but it is one of the few classes here that is not graded on the curve, which means no one HAS to fail it. People still manage to do so. And evidently people manage to miss the minimum grade requirements for graduation. He should have been long gone with the rest of his class following graduation last May, but I still see him. Everyday. On this very campus. Willamette has a pretty unforgiving "kick out policy" which basically means if you manage to fall into the very bottom of your class, they thank you for your tuition donation to that point, and kindly show you the door. This weeding out happens after each grading period, but in the case of graduating 3L students, if you slip into the netherworld between pass and fail (the 2.3 cumulative), you are required to come back for an extra semester to get your act together. For those poor souls trapped in 3.5L purgatory, all I can say is, perhaps law really isn't for you. But thanks for hanging in there, because you serve as a constant reminder to me that I can't check out entirely just yet.

Kids say the darndest...wait, what?

Yesterday was madness. Our ward had its primary program, and can I just say whoever thought it would be prudent to pack the stand with 100 fidgeting, giggling, whining, "I have to go to the bathroom"-ing children is beyond delusional. Scott and I both had to sit up with the kids and regulate. I spent the entire time trying to keep my coughing and shaking under control, while watching every agonizing minute pass on the clock in front of me. When it was over, my first instinct was to head for the door and keep on walking. I'm pretty sure that if you're already sick, it's not the best idea to spend three hours in the company of small children, who not only catch everything, but manage to mutate what they catch, so when they boomerang it back to you, the sickness is nastier and even more resistant to drugs and bed rest. But it was also Scott's first day as an official primary worker, and I knew I couldn't leave him alone with our class. That would just be too mean. So I sucked it up and went to primary. Our lesson was on sabbath day observance, and Scott was quizzing our brilliant 5-year-olds on what things we should and should not do on Sunday. There was a girl next to me, screaming in the corner, still traumatized by the fact that her mother had made her come to class (which literally required prying her off mom's leg and quickly blocking egress from the door). Despite my best efforts to calm her, she was still shrieking and making it hard to hear what was being said. I gathered that the standard primary answers were bouncing around the room. "Don't hit your sister." "Do what mom and dad ask." "Read scriptures." "Go to church." And then another little voice piped up from the front of the room, loud enough to be heard over the separation-anxiety poster child at my side. "Don't look at naked pictures!" Scott and I looked at each other as we tried our hardest not to die laughing, which effort, I might add, was unsuccessful. That caught even crying girl off guard, causing her to momentarily forget what she was protesting. I'm not sure what made the kid think that particular response was the one we were looking for, but since we couldn't argue with the veracity of his answer, he got a gummy bear for a correct response.

Dear Socrates, I am no longer impressed.

September 1, 2006 saw me taking my first wobbly steps into the law school abyss, living in fear of the sound of my name, and resigning myself to a very long three years of public humiliation on a regular basis. That was then...
The case is Leonard v. Pepsico, the class of course is contracts, and the mission that fate has so cruelly dropped in my lap is to defend a plaintiff so stupid, so completely unreasonable that no rational human being could possibly hope to win the case. "Ms. Wareham... Wareham is that it? It's pronounced 'ware-ham'?" Never before have I so hated the sound of my own name. I nod. "Tell us your thoughts on this case." I took a deep breath, closed my eyes, and laid my head on the chopping block. I wouldn't be needing it anyway; it was defective!!! It seemed to have sprung a leak, because for the life of me, I could not call to memory what I had read, nor was I capable of making sense of my case notes. "Well...I would say that I have to agree with what has been said regarding the reasonable person standard. I don't see in this case how the plaintiff could have honestly thought the commercial was making an offer when it was so obviously meant to be a joke." The professor stares me down for a moment, the class is shrouded in silence. "You know what side you're defending, right?" Of course I do. How could I not? "Okay, did you want my personal opinion, or my opinion as member of the Leonard camp?" The response is swift and unforgiving. "Ms. Wareham, do you think a judge is going to care what your personal beliefs are when you're at trial? Of course they won't!" A low rumble of poorly suppressed laughter ripples through the room. "Now again, I ask what your take is on this case." Right. "Well the plaintiff saw the commercial as an offer, to which he responded with an acceptance in the form of his completed order request and the money for the jet." Silence. The professor turns to the other side of the room, demanding a rebuttal to my assertion. Am I off the hook? Response is offered, and again he turns to me. "And what do you say to that?" "The commercial makes absolutely no distinction between the items you can purchase with product points and those you cannot. If the intent was merely a joke, which is evidenced by the fact that the revised commercial indicated as much, the company should have explicitly stated as much." Did something so utterly stupid and contrary to what I actually think just escape my lips? I'm a lawyer already. The professor continues. "Then the dispute becomes one of fact. Would a reasonable person think this is an offer or not? If we in fact have a dispute, then summary judgment, which is granted in this case, is not appropriate. It should have gone to a jury. But why don't we want this case to go to a jury? Do you know what kinds of people sit on juries?" I hear my thoughts out loud. "People that aren't smart enough to get out of jury duty?" He smiles ever so slightly, raises an eyebrow, and accuses me of reading his notes. "Unemployed people that aren't smart enough to get out of jury duty." This time the laughter is not at my expense. And he moves on to his next victim.


And this is now. I sit in Federal Income Tax, wearing my boredom like a pair of mirrored sunglasses. The professor doesn't seem to see his reflection. He is awkwardly firing off names from his attendance sheet, trying to get a Socratic dialogue going. I am unfazed. I know that my classmates are equally disengaged because I can see their screens: solitaire, Facebook, Ebay, and email, but no notes. No one is taking notes. I'm pretty sure I haven't heard a word that has been said for at least the last three weeks, with the possible exception of when the professor shot down an anomalous attention-payer by telling the student his question was incoherent. It really is true what they say. The first year, law school scares you to death. Probably because all of us were used to being "the smart ones." And that first year is only successful if you finish with no self-esteem. The second year law school works you to death. Class, job, extracurriculars, seriously. It's a good thing we don't have any self-esteem left, because a mentally stable person would choose life. And the third year law school bores you to death. No self-esteem, no quality of life, and the new found distraction of job searching during class. Like the last three students who have been called on in this class, I think I'm going to need a pass. Why? Because I'm dead, three times over, and I'm clearly not paying attention.

On the highway of life...

...One must have a car. I had a car once. And this blog is dedicated to my Rhonda. It was nearly ten years ago when I first laid eyes on you, my future first car. I was 16 and too cool for a sensible sedan. I must admit, I wasn't happy about my parents' utter refusal to give into my wheedling for a sporty red convertible, and while it wasn't exactly love at first sight, I've grown to love you more than a person should possibly love an inanimate object. I remember the test drive, signaling what would be the start of my long bout with lead footitis, but you being the wonderfully unassuming car you are, were practically invisible on the road. The more I got to know you, the more appealing you became. Bringing you to school for the first time, I felt like the coolest kid on the block. With your moon roof, CD player, seating for four of my best friends, and those awesome automatic seat belts that have by now been phased out because of their hazardous nature, you were much more than a way from A to B. You were a fashion statement. Way too fashionable to have my younger brothers ever sit in the front seat. We made our way through the treacherous years of high school and even though you got a few dings and dents, you were still the hotness. Remember that jerk on the motorcycle that failed to grasp the fundamental concept of physics that two objects cannot occupy the same space at the same time? I still can't believe he got out of having to pay for your tragically banged up front passenger door. And then there were those punks that smashed one of your windows to grab my stereo, CDs, and spare change. I can't believe the cops wouldn't charge them with anything, even though they were found with the stolen property. I think it was then that I decided officially to be a crusader for justice. Then there was the time that a tornado blew through the area and the basketball hoop fell on your roof. I guess we were pretty lucky that it missed the windshield and the moon roof. I'm still not sure how it managed to knock off my rear view mirror, though. Weird. From there, we made the journey to college; the first of many trips across the country. In the sleepless haze of No-Doz and M&M's, I'm amazed we didn't end up in a ditch, although we did come close. Way to go, dad. College together was awesome, even though gas prices started to creep up to the unimaginable range of $1.50. $1.50!!! It was then that I decided I couldn't afford to drive around as much. You were still as trusty as ever, starting on cold mornings, running on hot afternoons, and always getting me to where I needed to be. You even substituted as my apartment when I found myself locked out. Your door handles started to crack, but we worked around that. There were a few brushes with the law during college, but luckily we managed to talk ourselves out of that massive fine and into traffic school. What a farce that was. But at least I learned that you were not a time machine, and I shouldn't use you to make up for my perpetual tardiness. Point taken. When I left you to go to Spain, my spastic sister crashed you into a pole and your radio antenna mysteriously disappeared, and my brother got a fantastically overpriced $400 ticket driving you from Oklahoma to Utah (with expired tags, ouch), but when I came home after 19 months and put Linkin Park into the CD player, it was like no time had been lost between us. By the time we made it to law school, you were celebrating 200,000 miles. Must have been all those trips from Utah to Oklahoma and Provo to Cannonville. So many miles. So many memories. In Oregon, I really couldn't afford to drive, so you started spending more and more time alone in the parking lot. I'm really sorry about that. I'm even sorrier that when your distributor went out and you stopped running, we didn't get it fixed right away. And now, it's time for us to part ways. I feel like I'm losing a best friend. Thanks for the good times; you're going to be a tough act to follow. I feel sorry for my as yet unpurchased new car already.

Lipstick. Lipstick! LIPSTICK!!!

Saturday School

There are a great many things I like to do with my weekends. Sleeping in is high on that list, usually followed by general waking laziness. What I do not like doing on a weekend is anything even remotely related to school. This includes reading, writing papers, or even driving past the law school. Today I was willing to make an exception to a rule I usually only discard during finals. The college of law I attend is currently celebrating its 125th anniversary. As part of the festivities, we have had the opportunity to have Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg on our campus, dedicating new buildings, getting honorary degrees, and basically lending legal street cred to our humble institution. This morning the law school sponsored a special Constitutional Law "class" featuring Justice Ginsburg. Can I just say it was amazing? Justice Ginsburg is a personal hero, not only for her thorough and searching legal analysis and contributions to American jurisprudence, but also because of her incredible and tireless dedication to advancing the common good. The woman is brilliant. And she has used that brilliance to help others throughout her entire life. She personifies what my idealistic former self aspired to when I first started law school. Listening to her speak, I felt the faint stirring of a vaguely familiar excitement; one that I used to feel when I thought about using a legal education as a means to make the world a better place. Today as she patiently fielded questions from students (some of them thought-provoking, others considerably less so) on topics ranging from constitutional interpretation, to federalism, to judicial activism, I found myself getting excited again about being a part of the legal profession. It's been a while since that has happened. When I grow up, I want to be just like Justice Ginsburg.