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.