Entertainment

This week has been entertaining.

First, the weather cooled down a little and I managed to run twenty miles over the course of the week. I haven’t done that much for a long time and it felt really good. Yay for a long fall season. And yay for sea level oxygen, which makes me feel like I’m in better shape than I really am. (The cooler weather also brings the added bonus of decreasing the bug population – or at least driving it underground.)

The neighborhood woodland trail.

Second, I took my first law school exam. It was a low-key experience (75 minutes long, worth 5% of my grade) intended to give my cohorts and me a foretaste of finals. I’ve never taken a test I would describe as entertaining before, but this one qualified. The basic format of a law school exam is as follows: the professor makes up a story containing as many wrongful acts or broken laws as possible. The student’s job is to identify the lawsuits that could arise from the story and analyze the expected legal outcome. So it boils down to writing a serious evaluation of a really wacky story. Apparently, that’s fun for me.

Speaking of wacky stories, here is the Torts case of the week: A woman’s car won’t start, so she goes inside to call a mechanic. On returning to her car, she finds it occupied by a large baboon. (Candler v. Smith, 179 S.E. 395 (Ga. Ap. 1935)). I know it sounds like the start of a joke, but it’s a true story. That would make for a rough morning, wouldn’t it?

The third entertainment of the week: I came across the doctrine of “de minimis non curat lex,” (i.e., the law does not concern itself with trifles). I found this ironic because with everything from rules of citation to minute distinctions and interpretations, the law sometimes seems to be nothing but trifles. (Even the reference I found was in an appellate opinion overturning a lower court’s decision to ignore a small event.) Sometimes I feel like Richard C. Wydick did in describing the fanatical defense of certain grammar rules: “One wonders whether there are not grander things to worry about.” (Plain English for Lawyers, 5^th Ed., Carolina Academic Press 2005, P. 95.)

In other news, the idea I had about not needing to look for a job until next spring has been debunked. My summer job search ostensibly began last Friday. It’s good to plan ahead, I guess. Especially since I’m not yet entirely settled about what direction to take my career.

I suppose it doesn’t matter too much, as long as it’s entertaining.