Whispers and Whimsy

The weather this week was so refreshing. One or more cold fronts rolled through town with some storms in tow, knocking the temperatures well below the 35-60⁰ days we’ve had during the last few months. With apologies to all the southerners and coastal-ites, a 5⁰ night followed by a 14⁰ day felt wonderful. I’m like those seeds that don’t start opening in spring until they’ve been good and frozen. Now when spring comes around, I’ll feel like we’ve actually had some winter first.

Plus, it snowed. [Sigh of contentment.]

That meant (this being Virginia and not Utah) classes were canceled. The storms managed to coincide almost exactly with my class schedule. Monday night: cancelled. All of Tuesday: canceled. Thursday morning before 10:00: canceled. I spent Tuesday morning shoveling the driveway.

Also, my Wednesday night class was replaced with a 20-minute Operating Agreement conference with my professor. So except for one make-up class that took place Friday morning, the week was like an extra winter break.

For me, it was also about as productive as winter break. I simply did not want to tackle the homework, reading, and research in my “to do” pile, so I didn’t get much done.

In a way I was feeling like the weather: cold, white, and closed in. By Saturday night, I was wrapped up in an icy layer of stress-and-care-avoidance (with a touch of stir-crazy) and in need of some melting.

Almost by instinct, I turned on a talk from General Conference and pulled out a book of artwork by James C. Christensen.

The Conference talk was a small way to reach out for some perspective; a means of melting the stiffness that was skewing my view of my current situation and correcting my focus. The Gospel is good for that.

The book of artwork was for humor.

A friend of mine recently shared her thoughts on the use of humor as a means of easing stress and releasing pressure. That’s what humor does for me. When I’m feeling stiff and cold, humor reminds me not to take things too seriously.

So, melting accomplished. It’s amazing what some whisperings from the Spirit and a little whimsy will do.

Chutes and Ladders

Last semester I thought I was getting the hang of law school. I felt I had finally achieved a sort of balance and I expected this semester to be much the same.

Little did I know how precarious that balance was.

It took less than a week back in school before I felt the informal arrangements of my life tumbling around me. My class schedule was inconsistent, my sleeping was erratic (late night, early morning, nap, inability to sleep that night because of my nap, sleeping in late because I couldn’t sleep earlier . . .), and my other activities (exercise, grocery shopping, laundry) were on an as-needed-to-scrape-by basis.

It felt like I had missed a ladder somewhere, slipped into a chute, and ended up all the way back at square one.

And, just as if I were a young kid playing Chutes and Ladders, I was frustrated. It’s no fun to feel, as I did this week, like you’re in 10th grade again, surrounded by a lot of people who seem to know what’s going on and how to navigate life while you feel like you’re still trying to grow up.

I’m not saying my circumstances were bad. I’ve learned enough about the ugliness in the world to know I live my life on very easy terms. Even for a middle-class American I have things pretty good. But I was in a dark place.

I now feel like I’m dragging myself back up the ladders. I’ve managed to keep up with homework (mostly). I’m starting to catch up on research (Spring Break next month will help with that). I’ve taken care of a few household chores. And I’m going to make a batch of no-bake cookies in a few minutes.

Life is slowly balancing out again.

Plus, a big snowstorm is supposedly rolling into town this week. If that can’t make my winter feel more normal, nothing can.

* * *

Tidbits:

• An article we read for Property Theory discussed the “doctrine of confusion”. Yes, that is a real thing.

• Property Theory also brought up the issue of neurotic beavers. Apparently their dam building tendencies can be a little extreme.

• Speaking of wildlife, I saw a squirrel sunbathing on the roof of the shed the other day. (I myself was sitting in the sunbeam shining through the window, so I considered the squirrel rather smart.)

• In Employment Law we discussed defamation related to obtaining references from former employers. That prompted my professor to read some thoughts from the Lexicon of Intentionally Ambiguous References (or LIAR). Ah, the joys of ambiguity.

• That topic also gave us a case reference wherein the plaintiff was described as: untrustworthy, untruthful, disruptive, paranoid, hostile, disliked, a classical sociopath, a zero, and a Jekyll and Hyde personality that lacked scruples, “but otherwise a nice guy.” Frank B. Hall & Co. v. Buck, 678 S.W.2d 612 (Tex. Ct. App. 1984).

• Finally, I walked into my Religion Clauses class one day to find the school’s music group, Law Capella, serenading a student with “Hooked on a Feeling.” Can we have music at the start of every class?

Williamsburg Winter

I'm still hoping for a snow day or two, but enjoying the solemn landscape in the meantime.

"The trees are just wood, the woods are just trees . . ."
I'm actually fond of the desolate look the woods
have right now; I think the emptiness is poetic.

 

No, this picture is not upside down. These are
reflections on the lake of the nearby trees.

Third Quarter

I’m happy to report that my spunky new backpack works well. It is comfy and has good pockets and delightful colors. (Thanks for the Christmas present!)

I’m also happy to report that I did not fail my classes last semester. My grades are posted, and I passed both Business Associations (despite a few minutes of absolutely not knowing what to write about during the final) and Public International Law. My PIL grade actually startled me. I stared at it for two minutes to make sure it was real because it was so much higher than I expected. Either my paper was better than I thought or my class participation had a bigger impact than I expected.

Mostly, I’m just grateful for that small confidence boost, because at the beginning of this week I was feeling very third quarter-ish.

In high school when I was learning to run one- and two-mile races, my coach told me that the third quarter of the race is the hardest. During the first half, you aren’t really tired yet. During the last quarter, adrenaline kicks in because you are almost done. But during the third quarter, you’re tired, your body wants to stop, the finish line looks far away, and your mind starts playing tricks on you.

This semester starts the third quarter of my law school experience. And it felt like it. I wasn’t sure I was ready to tackle another semester.

But I’m feeling better now that I’ve started. Working is better than waiting.

I have five classes this semester. Four of them only meet once a week;  the fifth meets twice a week. That means I’m not in school very much, but I have a lot of reading to do between each class. And a lot of time to forget what I read.

Here’s a quick rundown of my classes:

1. Business and Financial Literacy: Our first class felt like a crash course in Accounting 101. I think this class will be useful, but I don’t expect it to be really thrilling. For example, my book mentioned a 57,000 page tax return (filed by GE in 2010); that’s just not something I can get excited about.

2. Employment Law: This class will cover the definition of “employee”, hiring, terminating employment, work regulations, etc. That first topic is surprisingly difficult. The OSHA definition for employee is “an employee of an employer who is employed  in a business of his employer.” I’m personally partial to the duck test mentioned by the judge in Estrada v. FedEx Ground Package System, Inc.: “if it looks like a duck, walks like a duck, swims like a duck, and quacks like a duck, it is a duck.” 64 Cal. Rptr. 3d 327 (2007).

Bonus: My EL professor also does circus law. Yes, there is such a thing. Apparently the circus rents its tigers.

Ducks.

Not ducks.

I think they were getting ready for a round of
"King of the Hill." All the ducks were on the
platform, while all the geese swam around as
if they were coordinating an attack.

3. Religion Clauses of the Constitution: So far the main issue in this class is finding a workable limiting principle to religious freedom. How can the law protect free exercise of religion without imposing on non-adherents? Where should the government draw the line on issues like smoking peyote, animal sacrifices, and conscience-inspired action? This class is thought-provoking and I have some strong opinions about how the law should (and should not) act. I have to watch myself so I don’t get too defensive about it.

4. Property Theory: This class is what I hoped law school would be like before I came. It consists of somewhat philosophical discussions (centered on Property law, of course) of ideas and principles and their implications. For example, we discussed the idea that property is a pseudo version of the person it belongs to. In other words, your stuff is, in some sense, you, and everyone else should leave it/you alone. Our class is a small group (about 10 people), which makes it easy to participate. And we have plans for bringing food. (This may end up being my favorite class.)

I love the silhouettes of bare tree
branches against the winter sky.

5. Advanced Practice (Transactional): This is my last required course in law school. It is one of several options, the others being appellate practice, criminal law, or civil law. The transactional course is new this year (good timing, because I have no interest in the litigation-oriented classes) and focuses on drafting legal documents (contracts, wills, trusts, real estate transactions, etc.).

In this week’s reading, the book warns about typos (like the one that almost cost a company $92,855,000.00 instead of $92,855.00 ^a); ambiguous punctuation (like the so-called Million Dollar Comma ^b); and ambiguous language (somewhere in Australia, “shall” means “must”, except when it means “may”, “should”, or “will” ^c). The book also cautions against raising the ire of grammar traditionalists (some people get really upset if you split infinitives) and persnickety superiors (some judges have referred to the use of “and/or” as an “inexcusable barbarism”, or called it a “befuddling nameless thing, that Janus-faced verbal monstrosity” ^d). But the book still advocates a common sense approach to simplifying grammar and language (while still defending the Oxford comma), so it isn’t too irksome.

^(a) Prudential Ins. Co. v. S. S. Am. Aquarius, 870 F.2d 867 (2d Circuit 1989).

^(b) George W. Kuney, Elements of Contract Drafting, 4th Ed., p. 50 (2014).

^(c) Id. at 42.

^(d) Id. at 41.

This semester should be interesting. I’m not quite on the law school homestretch, but it feels good to be in the second half.

__________________________________________

We had an ice storm last week. It left
the world looking like it was coated
in crystal.

After the weather added a dusting of snow, the woods
were glistening with thick, story-book frost.

Then it warmed back up, leaving piles of
ice like shattered glass on the ground and
eventually resulting in raining trees
(by which I mean the trees were dripping
rain, as opposed to the frightening idea
of trees falling from the sky like rain).

Enough

The good news is that travelling from Salt Lake City to Williamsburg last week only took 28 hours. Last year it took roughly 48. After a last-minute flight cancelation on Thursday night, I spent the night in the Minneapolis airport, scrounging a few hours of sleep in a brightly lit corner of the airport between two loud moving walkways and a cold window. But I was back in Williamsburg the next evening after a short detour through Boston.

Maybe next year I can leave SLC and arrive in Williamsburg on the same day.

Delta wins hands down, by the way, for customer service in the event of a canceled flight. Granted, it probably helped that Delta only had a few cancelled flights to deal with instead of the dozens that occurred last year. But handing out cushions, blankets, and pillows, along with rapid and informative rebooking and an “Our apologies for the inconvenience” goodie bag made for a reasonably comfortable night (for an airport, I mean).

Not quite 5-star accommodations, but maybe 4-star for an airport.
The pillow was only a little larger than the sandwich I shared with
Mom at Grove Deli earlier in the day.

Goodie bag from Delta. (The book it's propped on is Words of Radiance,
by Brandon Sanderson; I made a lot of progress on that book while I
was stuck in the airport.)

Tiny tube of toothpaste out of my goodie bag,
with a regular size tube for comparison. It
felt really good to brush my teeth after waking
up in the Minneapolis airport.

The holidays were fun and relaxing. I saw more movies and did more shopping than I usually do in an entire year.

Highlights:

• Watching the annual Bacchus Elementary Christmas Singing assembly (with many of the same songs and poems I learned when I was there . . . “AntieFlo” by Jack Prelutsky, anyone?) and spending the rest of the day with my mom.
• Going for a bike ride with my dad (in 23 degree weather) and helping him find some good-looking sunglasses (in a much warmer mall).
• Running with my brother (who is, as usual, in much better shape than I am).
• A late night grocery store visit with my sister (just like old times).
• Myriad games in the church gym with my whole family: basketball, “500” - played with a football, Frisbee, soccer, volleyball. We even did a ladder and a 60-second drill, reminiscent of high school basketball – because why wouldn’t you revert to basketball conditioning drills after not doing anything remotely similar for over a decade?
• Making chocolate frosted sugar cookies with my niece (with sprinkles).
• Board games (Tsuro was the most unique; Play Nine was easy to pick up and pleasantly diverting).
• Monopolizing a table at Village Inn for an evening of catching up and laughing with friends (thank you for your patience, Mr. Waiter).

Above all, I was just glad to spend time with my family. I had one of my most pleasant Christmases ever because it was laid back and simple and spent with the people I miss the most.

Dad & Mom, at the Oquirrh Mountain Temple.

The aftermath of presents. We got a late start this year
because my brother accidentally left his phone on silent
after we went to see Into the Woods the night before (and
thus didn't hear any texts, alarms, or phone calls to wake
him up as he slept in late the next morning).

It was 23 degrees when we went for a ride.
Dad very kindly gave me his huge, poofy gloves
halfway through the ride. They made a huge
difference (literally).

Skilled baker in the making. (The cookies were delectable.)

My niece brought her new doll jeep (which she is sitting
on in this picture) up to the church for our fun-day in the
gym. As she ran, pushing it up the sidewalk over ice and
snow, I wondered if she was going to slip and fall. That
meant, of course, that I was the one who slipped and fell over.

Lego Dude.

After three weeks, it was hard to come back to Williamsburg.

But come back I did.

The other good news is I’m now halfway through law school (assuming I didn’t fail my classes last semester – I’m still waiting for some grades to be posted).

I miss my family (and yes, I miss being in a state with mountains and appropriately cold winter temperatures). But three weeks enjoying the strength of my home and family was enough to keep me going for next semester. So, onward and upward I go.

Since my grandpa died, my aunt has been collecting and cataloging his artwork.
One night, her family was hosting a family pizza party when a man knocked on the door
and handed this statue to her. He told her he had received this statue from my grandpa
back in the 1970s, but he felt inspired to give it to our family. It was one the family
didn't have. What a generous gift and blessing.

* * *

One final tidbit from last semester:

If you get stir crazy in the early hours of the morning after nearly a straight week of working on a paper and staring at your computer, it’s useful to have a long apartment to run back and forth in.

Sitting in front of Grandpa's statues at the Oquirrh Mountain Temple.

Music and Scientific Progress

I’ve discovered that I prefer take-at-school finals to take home finals. I’d rather have the compressed stress of a few hours of testing with a definite start and end time than the elongated discomfort of an all day (or three day) take-home exam.

I had my first regularly scheduled final exam this week. After a Monday of studying Business Associations, I spent four hours on Tuesday morning writing as much about partnership law, fiduciary duties, and corporate law as I could come up with. I don’t think the end result was very good; I just hope it was enough. While I enjoyed the class and felt like I understood the legal reasoning, I don’t think I did very well on applying the law to the facts given in the final.

But at least it only lasted four hours.

Tuesday night was much more enjoyable. I was invited to join a friend for some respite from school and studying at a Tallis Scholars concert in Newport News. The Tallis Scholars sing Renaissance choral music – no instruments or microphones, just ten people singing on stage and absolutely filling the concert hall with pitch perfect music. It was beautiful.

Though I feel such music should, as a general rule, be heard in a concert hall or a church, YouTube works in a pinch. Click here to listen to Vigilate, by William Byrd.

I spent the rest of the week researching for my supervising professor. He asked me to research organ (as in kidneys and hearts, not musical instruments) donation  and alternative reproduction technologies (such as in vitro fertilization). This led me on a nice tangent into 3D printing, which has expanded to the realm of printing human tissue. One of the major companies working on organic 3D printing uses “Bioink”, an substance made out of living cells and support material (if I remember correctly). That term made me smile; to paraphrase a Calvin & Hobbes cartoon, “Scientific progress goes Bioink.”

On Saturday I was treated to another concert, this time at the Williamsburg Community Chapel . Their Christmas concert was performed with a lot of heart and enthusiasm. It struck me as halfway between the Lawrence Welk show and the Mormon Tabernacle Choir. Not something I’d go to every year, but a nice evening out after a week of staring at my computer.

The week ended on another musical note: the ward choir Christmas program. Our performance made me realize how quickly this semester has gone by. We started practicing Christmas songs in August; now all of a sudden the program is done and the semester is nearly over.

In fact, there are three school days left: one for six more hours of research, one for studying Trusts & Estates, and one for taking my last exam – which will happily only last three hours.

On the Impossibility of Finding a Familiar Face in a Dark and Crowded Street

Fireworks framing the roof of the magazine.

This post might also be titled “On the Ease of Watching Fireworks After the Leaves Have Fallen Off the Trees.”

Or, as I originally intended, “On the Evolution of Panic.”

I’m speaking here of academic panic – the experience of having a big paper or project to work on all semester and procrastinating until the mounting pressure and shrinking time impel you to get it done.

The grade for my Public International Law class is based on a 30 page “major academic paper” (my professor’s description). In law school, that means lots of research and citations to authoritative (or at least trustworthy) sources. I made some progress on my paper through the semester – mostly because we had due dates for our topic, outline, and rough draft –but I still had a lot to finish this week before it came due at 5 pm on Friday.

As I slogged through it, I traced the evolution of my emotional reactions to working on it:

• For most of the semester, my attitude was best exemplified by a James C. Christensen painting titled “Lawrence Pretended Not to Notice that a Bear Had Become Attached to his Coattail.”
• On Monday, that feeling changed to the sort of feeling Harry Potter had in The Goblet of Fire when he was desperately trying to find a way to breathe under water for an hour.
• On Tuesday, I thought seriously for the first time about the possibility of failing the class. But, I decided I preferred grinding out a mediocre paper to outright failure, which was some comfort. This stage also felt a bit like Harry Potter, specifically when he decides he’d rather face a dragon than give up and hide in the Muggle world (also in The Goblet of Fire).
• On Wednesday, I was a bit numb. About 1:30 am I paused to decide how long to stay up. At that point I wasn’t quite halfway done. I worked for two more hours before I ran out of steam.
• On Thursday I felt calmer; I’d gotten far enough that I felt reasonably certain I would not fail the class. About 4:30 am I decided to get a few hours of sleep before finishing.
• On Friday, I reached the “Never again!” stage. After an achingly long time cleaning up my citations and footnotes, I uploaded my paper to the school website, printed a copy, and drove to school to slip the copy under an office door.

At that point I was wound too tightly to feel relieved. And I discovered it is very hard to go to bed at midnight after a week of staying up until 2:30 or 4:30 am, even with only 4 hours of sleep the night before.

But my paper was done.

My weekend was much more enjoyable. I went to help with the stake’s monthly Bishop’s Storehouse delivery, I watched It’s a Wonderful Life, and I went to the Grand Illumination – Colonial Williamsburg’s official Christmas season kickoff.

The Grand Illumination is what prompted the title of this post. I knew some members of my ward were congregating in the same general area to watch the events, but I never managed to find anyone I know. As I wandered around the crowd, I met only dark (albeit friendly) shadows also milling about, watching the Fife & Drum Band, huddling around the fire baskets on five-foot poles, or waiting for the fireworks to start.

The pinwheel.
Huzzah!

They Grand Illumination program includes music and other events, but I just went to watch the fireworks finale. And I have never seen fireworks like these – they weren’t imposing and impressive like the typical 4th of July fare, they were just fun and showy and sparkly and celebratory. They were the firework equivalent of a 5-year-old’s Christmas Eve excitement.

I watched the show from in front of the magazine, which was a great place to be. A ways off on my left I could hear more fireworks going off at the Colonial Capital. A ways off to my right I could hear even more fireworks going off at the Governor’s Palace. The show right in front of me was so close it was almost on top of us. The crowd was perfectly responsive:

*first explosion* = “Gasp!” (with a communal jump of surprise)

*BANG!* = “Ooh!”  . . . *BOOM!* = “Ah!” . . . *BANG* = "Ooh!" . . . *BOOM* = "Ah!"

*long sequence of brilliant flashes and showers of light* . . . “HUZZAH!”

(Ok, I didn’t actually hear a “huzzah,” but that was the general spirit of the reaction.)

The fireworks went off right around the magazine, allowing some of the sparks to tumble cheerfully down the guardhouse roof. Some of the fireworks looked like the classic Christmas Star of folklore, a bright shining light with a long tail. The pinwheel was a bit hit. The evening ended with the Fife & Drum Band’s customary march down DOG Street.

It was great.

Maybe next year I’ll bring hot cocoa.

That little white speck in the background
is the full moon.

Fire baskets on poles: not as warm
as fire barrels, but much more
colonial and festive.

The only time traffic backs up in
Williamsburg is after a big event at the Colony.