“E-Mails and Outlines”

The hardest thing about being home for break has been not getting nearly as much e-mail as usual. I really like getting e-mail. It makes me feel like someone is thinking of me, even if it’s just a faceless organization or a company seeking to help me either lower my interest rate, lose weight fast, or get cheap prescription drugs. Like the woman who sends out the e-mails every Thursday telling us that the Adviser is available to read online. I really love those e-mails. I missed getting it this past Thursday. I guess there are no new administrative announcements regarding a special holiday-themed resume workshop, or a clinical project helping the unfortunately-injured sue the city for not clearing the snow away fast enough. There were a couple of days this week I didn’t get any e-mail at all. One day I actually sent myself a test message to make sure my e-mail was still working. It was. Of course.

I was a bit disturbed by the news that Harvard will now be virus-checking our e-mails. Not actually disturbed that they’ll be virus-checking, but just that they weren’t before. Did it bother anyone else that on the first day they virus-checked they caught 175 infected e-mails? I don’t know how many e-mails are sent every day on the Harvard system – none to me that day (see, I can make my paragraphs flow together so well) – but 175 seems not completely insignificant. If they starting checking the students for viruses and found 175 of us were infected with something, it would be pretty big news. I guess e-mail is different.

The snowstorm in the Northeast this week forced me to actually sit down and study (I’m at home in New York). It’s ironic that in elementary school, the snow means you don’t have to do any work. Home from law school with exams looming, it means you have no choice but to. At least it’s miserable outside. I’ve been trying to incent myself to study by lavishly rewarding myself for each bit of work done. For every thirty seconds I study, I get to eat a meal. For every five minutes I study, I get to watch six consecutive holiday-themed episodes of South Park on Comedy Central. For every hour I study, I get to spend a day hanging out with friends. For every full day I study, I get to… uh… not fail my classes.

I’ve been generally unimpressed with some of the study aids I’ve referred to, to try and get a sense of some frameworks for organizing my notes. “Civil Procedure for Dummies” isn’t really helping me much. “Chapter 1: Courthouses are Big” was especially unhelpful.

The HL Central Outline Bank has been somewhat useful, although the law of diminishing returns (Is that really a law? It’s not in my notes…) seems to kick in pretty quickly. After reading, say, fifteen contracts outlines, there’s probably nothing in number sixteen that one hasn’t seen already. There are only so many different ways to say “value promised minus value received.” I was in a bookstore a few days ago. And discovered that, unfortunately, “What to Expect When You’re Expecting” is not about expectancy. Also, “The Intent to Be Bound” was not about consideration. I found that right near a treatise on covenants not to compete for legal recruiters, called “Servicing Your Clients.” And in the video and DVD section of the bookstore, I noticed an exercise tape without a warranty of fitness. Sitting in front of my computer for too long makes me think that’s actually funny.

Almost as funny as chapter five of “Civil Procedure for Dummies,” called “One Law, Two Law, Red Law, Blue Law,” all about the Erie doctrine and choice of law provisions. Or chapter three of “The Idiot’s Guide to Criminal Law,” “Oops! I Didn’t Think It Was Loaded!”

Not to be confused with the chapter about the Goetz subway shooting case, “Oops! I Didn’t Mean to Merely Injure!”