Relax Moms

Well, even though our address says Albany, we technically live in Colonie (it's a zip code thing). In the interest of allowing our mothers a better night's sleep, we thought we'd link to this recent study. Please note number 6. Please also note that Lincoln, NE, is not listed anywhere in the top 25 safest cities at all.

Tests, Rugby and Costumes. Oh my!

Well, I had quite the entertaining week and I’ll try and recap if I can remember the whole thing… Actually I can’t really distinguish the beginning of the week from the previous weeks so this is basically about Thursday on.

Torts:
All of my entertaining stories are about Torts. You may remember me talking about a joke contest in Torts. Well, I submitted my joke. I will be the first to admit that it was probably in poor taste, but I thought my prof would enjoy it. She did and I got a book and a bag full of candy on Friday. Yay for Torts! Also, my prof apologized once again in class for implying that I had presented the wrong case.

Class that is the bane of my existence:
I don’t feel comfortable mentioning much about this class, because I wouldn’t be surprised if the professor was monitoring this blog. But since the confidentiality agreement is over. THAT WAS THE WORST HOUR OF MY LIFE! Seriously, that “test” was ridiculous! There was no need to march us into the class two at a time. There was also no need to march up and down the rows glaring at our answer sheets. AHHHH! Okay, I’ve probably said too much.

Contracts:
The same day as the aforementioned test we had a contracts practice test. It went okay, although I was completely brain-drained by the time I took it. I did manage to write an entire paragraph about the “fairness” of the contract. That should earn me a few points. Yay for liberal contracts profs!

Rugby:
We had our last game of the semester this weekend. I was hoping to post pictures but His chickened out and refused to take his gloves off so he could take pictures. I’m sure it was tough for him to stand on the sidelines with the puddles and all.

If you had caught the news recently the Northeast was in the middle of a torrential downpour. But Rugby is played rain or shine. So we bundled up at 6:30am to drive the three hours to Vermont Law School for a match. It would have been a beautiful drive if I could have seen anything through the rain. We got to the pitch about 10:30 or so. The guys Rugby team was just starting their game. We stood around and huddled, trying to stay warm, but then it was our turn to go out into the deluge.

It was a really fun game, even though we lost. We’re terrible though, so I’m not at all surprised. I did however become a one woman wrecking crew. I channeled the previous mentioned “class that is the bane of my existence” and used that anger on the pitch [field]. The game was muddy, physical and a blast. Unfortunately I’m too old and inexperienced to be playing rugby which my body is telling me today. I have the mother of all bruises on my knee and can’t move much, but don’t worry mom His is taking good care of me.

Halloween Party
Albany Law had their Halloween party last night. We got back to our apartment at 6:00 pm and made it to the party around 8:00. I can not believe how creative the costumes were. His and I went as “the married couple”; the costumes were easy. Some of our favorite costumes:

• The Spanish Inquisition
• Pac Man & the Ghost (they took turns chasing each other)
• Two American Gladiators: One was assault, the other battery
• Displaced Tree Fairy (Since all of the trees at our school have been cut down)
• Sam Adams & St. Paulie’s girl (because they read our blog)

Anyway, it was a great party with lots of beer and we only made it to 9:00. I’ve spent the whole day in bed and hobbling around the apartment.

More fun with Torts!

It was at the end of Torts yesterday, when the professor posed this answer: "It would be considered the Iowa equivalent of ...[a case on proximate causation that we had just read]. Ms. [my last name], you should know this."
I racked my brains for the case and couldn't think of it. I looked around at my fellow classmates who were obviously as perplexed as I was. But she kept hounding me: "Ms. [my last name], its an Iowa case, you should know this, shouldn't you?"
I finally responded: "I'm from NEBRASKA, they're not the same state."
The professor looked really embarrassed and apologized. She didn't even know that I was from the Midwest, she just thought that I had presented this case to the class (I hadn't; was another girl with a last name that started with the same initial).
I found this to be a very important educational moment for all of my Yankee classmates. The Midwest is actually compromised of individual states. Shocking, I know.


***Update***
I received an apology email from my torts professor. She admitted that " [my] mystification at [her] suggestion...was entirely appropriate."
In case you're keeping score:
Law School 613
Hers 3
Its been a long long semester.

Anniversaire Aeureux à Nous

We were determined not to celebrate our first anniversary in the library (even though as hers will tell, it might have been the more practical decision). One of the great things about Albany is its location. The Adirondacks and Catskills are just about an hour away. Vermont and New Hampshire (which, by all rights, should be beautiful this time of year) are just a few hours away. The city and Boston are only about three hours away and Montreal is about four hours. The only question was where we were going to end up on our anniversary.

We drove north through the Adirondacks, across the border into Quebec, and into Montreal. We arrived early in the afternoon and set out right away to explore the city. We started off following a walking tour in our guidebook. We started on Notre Dame drive at the statute of the town founder Jacques-Cartier. The building in the background is the oldest bank in Montreal.



Continuing down Notre Dame drive we came to, not surprisingly, the Basilica of Notre-Dame de Montreal.



The inside was impressive, but as you can see, it was a bit dark. Most of the pictures came out blurry. Yea, I could've opened the flash, but it seemed a bit disrespectful to everyone there who was praying (it is, after all, a church). The downside is that it cost $4 (Canadian) to get inside. It's not a whole lot, but I hope they didn't charge the people who were there to pray.



Shortly after leaving Notre Damn, we passed a French book store. It eventually dawned on us that this was a law bookstore. Among the other books, you can make the civil procedure code for Quebec.


Not bad a town hall eh?



One of the best parts of the trip was our little wine and bread picnic in the park. We picked up a cheap bottle with a twist off cap (we really need to start packing corkscrews) and asked the woman behind the counter if it was legal to drink it on the streets. She didn't say much, just placed a brown paper sack in the plastic bag with the wine.

Next, we visited a small candy shop that had a few large rolls for sale. We told her we wanted two rolls and nothing else. She seemed very disturb and offered us, in broken English that matched our broken French, if wanted jam on it. We politely refused. She asked if we wanted something to drink. We said no. She was becoming increasingly distraught. At first we thought she was just trying to sell us something else, but it became clear that she really didn't like the idea of us eating bread by itself. Finally, we held up the wine and said "avec vin."

"Ah! Vin! Vin!" The woman seemed relieved and almost overjoyed. We took our bread and wine to a park in the old port and enjoyed a ghettorific anniversary picnic eating our dry bread and drinking our wine from a paper sack.



After our snack, we wandered through the streets and stumbled upon this church that was modeled after St. Peter's Basicillica. Inside was a beautiful alter. They were just concluding a small mass when we walked in.



Eventually, we stumbled on the Centre Bell, where the Montreal Canadians play. Yes, it was the Canadians who beat my beloved Los Angeles Kings back in 1993 to win the Stanely Cup, but they are the freaking Canadians! At one time, this team had won more championships (24) than any other professional team in North America. Since 1993, the New York Yankees have won four World Series to bring its total to 26. As it so happens, the Canadian's home opener was the next day. Scalpers wanted a premium for tickets but said if they couldn't unload some tickets just before game time, we might be able to find a cheap pair.

We finished the day with a delicious Mexican meal (yes, good Mexican food in Montreal). The next day, we decided we hadn't walked enough and decided to walk up Mount Royal. This small mountain in the middle of town provides a great view of the city. We could've gotten to the top quickly by walking up a set of steps, but we opted for the gradual switchbacks instead. The paths were beautiful with the falling leaves.



When we made it to the top, we were treated to an amazing view of the city.



After Mount Royal, we went back to the Centre Bell and eventually found two tickets for the game. The scalpers all seem to work together and one guy knew of a pair of tickets he could get us from someone else. We stayed with one guy while the other tracked down the tickets. As we stood there, we started wondering what we had gotten ourselves into. I quickly passed my wallet to Hers just in case they decided to try and jump us. In the end, we got the tickets and everything worked out fine. We were a little concerned that the tickets might be fake, but they scanned our bar code and let us into the building.

The game was fantastic. The Canadians fell behind early, but there was a great fight in the first period that lasted a good five minutes or so. The Canadians tied it up late and had some good chances to win it in overtime. Unfortunately, Ottawa won the game in a shootout after a scoreless overtime. Unfortunately, we don't have any pictures from the game. Cameras are not allowed. A lot of people did smuggle cameras in, but I didn't want to run the risk of checking a camera somewhere were I didn't speak the native language.

We left early the next day so we could take a scenic route home through the Adirondacks. Along the way, we found Ausable Chasm. We didn't have the energy to walk it (plus, I think you had to buy tickets to get in) but we had a great view from the bridge.


It was nice to get away from the school for a weekend. As you can probably tell by the lack of posts, however, we had a busy week when we got back. It was certainly worth the extra work though.

Party over Here!

His and I had a party for my section last weekend. We were dying to get into the kitchen and show off our awesome decanter. It's infamous around the law school =).
We had such a great time. We laughed and drank, laughed and ate, made annoying legal jokes and got to meet the significant others of our classmates. I'm sure it was nice for the "others" to see who their partner is spending the better part of their lives with. It explains a lot.
Here are a few pictures from the party. Well they are mostly of the food. Because that's how we roll.
Heres everyone hanging out in the kitchen. Why is it people always hang out in the kitchen. Our food was in the dinning room. I guess the booze ws in the kitchen, maybe thats why.

We made:

stuffed potatoes

Our favorite plantain chips and crab dip.

Yummy Fondue

Cheesecake (what else could we serve, we are in New York!)
RISOTTO CAKES! These were bye far the favorite of the night. Thanks to the wonderful chef who gave us the recipe.

That was our party, thanks for stopping by!

My Mother Will Be Happy To Know That I'm Apparently Very Polite

After 12 hours at the law school yesterday, we went to a fund raiser for the Intellectual Property Society here at Albany Law. We ended up staying way later than either of us had wanted and after just five hours of sleep, we were back at the law school. Hers had an 8:00am Torts class and I had a 9:00am Civil Procedure class.

At the start of class, we went over some subject matter jurisdiction problems. The professor went up down the rows in my section systematically calling on people to answer each question. For those of you who aren't law students, the federal courts have to have subject matter jurisdiction to hear a case. That means the case has to involve a federal issue (First Amendment rights, for instance), or it has to involve citizens from different states (called "diversity of citizenship"). The federal courts, however, can get "supplemental jurisdiction" over claims it could not otherwise hear hear if the claim is part of a case that involves a related federal question or if it envolves diversity of citizenship.

My question looked like a supplemental jurisdiction problem because the plaintiff is from the same state as one of the defendants (thus there's no diversity of citizenship). I answer the question as a supplemental jurisdiction problem because there's a state claim related to a federal issue that a federal court could hear (still with me). The professor listens and then says "Well, you're right, but do you need spplemental jurisdiction in this case? Isn't there an easier way?"

I look at the probvlem wondering what in the hell I'm missing. She's clearly hinting that there is diversity of citizenship, but it really doesn't look that way. Furthermore, the claim the question is asking about is clearly a state issue. Finally, feeling compltelte defeated, I meekly utter "Well, it doesn't look like there's complete diversity, so I really don't know what else there is."

The professor looked at the problem again, looked back at me, and apologized. "I was thinking of another question. You're absolutely right. Supplemental jurisdiction is the only way to go here. I'm so sorry, but thank you for being so polite about it. It makes me feel even worse that I made the mistake."

Polite? Well, my mother would be glad to hear it, but lets face it: the last thing I'm going to do is get snooty (snoty?) with a law professor, especially because I do, on occasion, miss small details. After a late night I was in no possession to just assume the professor was wrong.

One more class and we get to go home!

Oh yeah, he went there.

We had a mandatory review session today on exam writing. There is nothing like having class from 9:00 - 3:00 (with only a 30 minute break) and then going to a "mandatory" review session. My brain is fried, please just let me go home. I'm no good to anyone. I can't separate the rule of adverse possession from the paradigm of an argument. And if you asked me anything about supplemental jurisdiction I may just go crazy. (Yes, I know it is a short trip).
Back to my point. We had this review session today. And it was actually entertaining. Our previous session have been 2 hour lectures on grammar. Those are riveting, trust me. The presenter was entertaining, informative and topical. The best line of the day:
Do not write your exam like an email or in instant message format. In fact, just leave the instant messaging to congress.
Bad taste or not, this left me ROTLMAO! It was certainly a well needed diversion.

As an aside, one of the presenters for today's session came up to me afterwards and said that she noticed that I was really engaged in the presentation. It looked like I was taking lots of notes and nodding in agreement with the presenter. I'm glad it looked like this since I was watching the Yankees game on my laptop =)

Memo To ABC: We Have TiVo & We Know How To Use It

I have a TiVo, but because we don't pay for service, I prefer to watch my favorite shows live (rather than set a manual recording). Unfortunately, if the season premier of Lost is any indication, ABC is making the show impossible to watch live. By our count, there was a four minute commercial break every seven minutes. That's roughly 35 minutes of programming in 25 minutes of commercials.

There are two problems with such a high ratio of commercials to programming: 1) Disruption of the narrative flow and 3) Decreased content resulting from what amounts to a shorter show.

TiVo can help resolve the first issue to a certain extent by allowing us to fast forward through commercials. Incidentally, I would think this is one reason why ABC would be judicious with the number of commercials packed into an episode. Lost is a water-cooler show. The kind of show people love to talk about the next day and thus it's exactly the type of show people with DVRs are more likely to watch live. By inserting commercial breaks every seven minutes, ABC is driving away fans that would normally watch the show live.

Even a DVR, however, does not completely elevate the disruption of narrative flow. Sure, a 20 second break while you fast forward through commercials is better than four minutes, but I suspect having to fast forward every seven minutes is going to get old. It breaks up the show too much. Just when you're getting into the story, there's another break!

The second problem can't be solved by a DVR. The show was about forty minutes last year, which still isn't great, but it's better than 35-minutes. We have five minutes less story line in each episode and if you watch Lost you know that a lot can happen in five minutes,

If nothing else, I'll at least feel a little better skipping the commercials. It makes me feel like I'm sticking it to the man even if I know ABC could care less.