Jill is harsh.

Professor W: “Those you in the class with kids! What if your kid was 15 and wanted to marry a 48-year-old guitar teacher. What would you do?” Jill: “All girls boarding school!” Professor W: “Where they beat them?” Jill: “Sure!” Professor W: “Or where they handcuff them to the bed at night?” Jill: [...]]]> The class has slowly deteriorated…

Jill is harsh.

Professor W: “Those you in the class with kids! What if your kid was 15 and wanted to marry a 48-year-old guitar teacher. What would you do?”
Jill: “All girls boarding school!”
Professor W: “Where they beat them?”
Jill: “Sure!”
Professor W: “Or where they handcuff them to the bed at night?”
Jill: “Well if she wanted to marry a 48-year-old…”

Professor W doesn’t agree.

Professor W: “Should the husband be allowed after 25 years to go “oh we weren’t married at all …hahaha fuck you?’ Well? Should he, Judge Smith? Will you let him do that?”
Jack: “Yes!”
Professor W: “NO YOU WILL NOT!”

Usually the view is great, but today’s snowstorm makes the usual view of Downtown Minneapolis a little [...]]]> The law school building contains brilliant people, but has the aesthetic appeal of a leaky basement. This is why so many of us sneak over to the business school, which has windows and a full-service Starbucks. Behold:

Usually the view is great, but today’s snowstorm makes the usual view of Downtown Minneapolis a little hard to see…

Downtown is still there, somewhere, sort of... but the snowed-out view is still preferable to the dungeon law school building.

Note: “My legal space” is a law school version of Kristy/Kootoyoo.com’s “My Creative Space” post series. The purpose of “My Legal Space” is to make law students more conscious about where they choose to study.

So how does a three-day school week feel? This sums it up:

I had two oral arguments on Monday. My moot court section has an odd number of students, so I volunteered to argue off-brief.

It was slightly awkward waltzing in and arguing [...]]]> Note: Best Week Ever (BWE) is a summary of the prior week.

So how does a three-day school week feel? This sums it up:

I had two oral arguments on Monday. My moot court section has an odd number of students, so I volunteered to argue off-brief.

It was slightly awkward waltzing in and arguing for the other side:  “May it please the Court, forget everything I said one hour ago! These guys are so totally not guilty, and US Americans…”

It wasn’t so terrible, and I survived.

I spent the bulk of Tuesday’s school day in the Sprint Store. The Rottweiler ate my phone, and a quick lunch-time phone replacement turned into an epic customer service fail.

I made a point of not being snide or pissy with the Sprint customer service reps. It is embarrassing and stressful enough for a worker to look incompetent in front of a customer. Exasperating someone’s discomfort is not going to make them provide better service.

My politeness also allowed me to adopt a sense of moral superiority while watching the parade of rude customers that came into the store.

The worst guy was a very short man with a baseball cap who walked in with his arms folded:

Chipper customer service rep: “Welcome to Sprint! How may we help you today?”
Napoleon: (dramatic pause) “I have been a customer for over 15 years! I demand service! ARE YOU LISTENING TO ME??”

I felt like I was on the set of a CBS sitcom, and it was hilarious.

We eventually got my blackberry working, and I spent the rest of the week playing foursquare and connecting with more Minnesotans.

Foursquare is this stalkerish, twitter-like application that uses your GPS to pinpoint your location and broadcasts the location to your facebook and twitter streams.

You can leave to-do tips for other users, and even see who else is at your location. This is awesome because when I “check in” at work I am instantly connected to new coworkers.¹

My workweek started on Wednesday. I’m not sure if this was a good idea.

I had the same problem last week: I went to work on Wednesday after an exhausting school day and I got behind on cases.

I did not want my quota to suffer, so I spent the rest of the week playing catch up and worked for free on Sunday.

Several of my coworkers had the same problem. You get behind, feel guilty for being behind… stress builds, productivity decreases, you wake up the next day with more to do than the day before…

I refused to get on the hamster wheel this week. I have always met my employer’s productivity quota and I’m not going to walk around like Raggedy Ann because I failed to live up to my artificially heightened expectations for one day. Cue Portia Nelson.

Friday was epic, Saturday was calm, and today is my day of work and homework. It is like prepping before cooking the feast. The more work I get done today, the easier my mini-school week will be. We’ll see how this goes….

I already RSVPed for the Outlaw happy hour and told people I would be there, so my presence is mandatory in that “don’t be flighty” sort of way.

I shower and have a sing-a-long with the dogs.

After I perform Hot Chip’s “take it in” [...]]]> It is 5pm. I don’t want to go out, but I have to.

I already RSVPed for the Outlaw happy hour and told people I would be there, so my presence is mandatory in that “don’t be flighty” sort of way.

I shower and have a sing-a-long with the dogs.

After I perform Hot Chip’s “take it in” and Beyonce’s “kitty kat” to a confused set of dogs, I feel ready.

I walk to my car and see a cloud of crows hovering over my Nissan ala B-horror movie. All that was missing was ominous music and a husky voice over: “This March, terror hits Minneapolis! Somali Chainsaw Zombies II: The Reaping.”

This is the best picture I could manage to take with the blackberry before my fear of crow-crap and Somali Chainsaw Zombies set in:

I arrive at the The Eagle without getting bludgeoned and make the rounds while avoiding the awkward eye-darting of law professors. I then join the mass of law and grad students in the video room and watch the… entertainment.

After a few hours of amusement and hot-messitude, Jeremy and I leave The Eagle on a mission to find contact-friendly eye drops. We eventually find the eye drops at a Target after rebuffing beggars at the downtown St. Paul SuperAmerica.

By the time we find the eye-drops we no longer want to slum it at St. Paul bars, so we zip back to Minneapolis and sit down at Palomino, swank skyway restaurant in downtown Minneapolis.

Our waitress at Palomino is a Zooey Deschanel lookalike but I resist the temptation to request a song with my margarita.

At a nearby table, a woman with a cute bob-cut tells Zooey about her fiancé. We are disappointed when the hair plugs/blazer-with-sneakers fiancé arrives.

Jeremy and I swap stories about the Saloon and watch the drug dealers on Hennepin from our-second story seats. There is rapid-fire talking, short pauses, wine, and greasy pizza.

We spend a few hours at the Saloon, accidentally dose the video bar in Jag, and then trek home without further incident or hint of chainsaw terror.

The “couch with dogs” photograph is now mandatory for all of my guests. You’re on notice.

See also:

On Friday, February 5 at approximately 12:30 a.m., a 19-year-old male who is not affiliated with the University of Minnesota was the victim of a robbery. The robbery occurred off-campus, [...]]]> Since the University is obligated by law¹ to send an email about every robbery that happens near² the towers, another crime alert graced our inboxes today: 

On Friday, February 5 at approximately 12:30 a.m., a 19-year-old male who is not affiliated with the University of Minnesota was the victim of a robbery. The robbery occurred off-campus, but very close to the University’s West Bank campus. 

The victim was near the intersection of Cedar Avenue South and Third Street South when five males exited a dark colored SUV and approached him. One of the suspects implied he had a gun, and the suspects threatened the victim and demanded valuables. After the victim handed over his wallet and cell phone, the suspects got back into the SUV and fled southbound on Cedar Avenue. The victim was not injured and was able to confirm that the SUV had a Minnesota license plate; however, he was not able to obtain the plate’s characters. 

The five suspects are all described as black males between the ages of 18 and 21 who reportedly spoke with Somali accents. It should be noted that the suspect descriptions do not match the descriptions of the suspects involved in the robberies and shooting on and near campus on January 25. 

As alluded to in the crime alert, other campus amusements include botched crime sprees with random shootings, biking gropers, shooting threats, riots, and of course, ominous young black men in dark clothes!

I smile, but I am tired, irritated, and ready to defect to Verizon.

I spent about three hours in the Sprint store on the day Gertrude ate my phone. The plan was to pop [...]]]> The Sprint customer service rep chuckles and says, “If you were here any longer, we would give you a shirt and an IRA.”

I smile, but I am tired, irritated, and ready to defect to Verizon.

I spent about three hours in the Sprint store on the day Gertrude ate my phone. The plan was to pop up to the Roseville Sprint store during my lunch break, buy the phone, and drive back to school for Family Law.

I had insurance, so a replacement phone would only cost $50. How long could it take?

I make it to the store and a hunky Sprint customer service rep tells me that the $50 replacement plan includes an upgrade to a Blackberry.

I have never owned a phone with internet access before, so this is exciting! I can finally play foursquare! It’s a whole new world, and not in that scary-Alice-in-Wonderland, “What the hell is that cat?” sort of way.

Hunky leads me to the Blackberries and I feel like doing an Ashlee jig.

Two hours later, the Blackberry is not exciting anymore. I am STILL in the Sprint store and the hunky Sprint rep is no longer hunky. He is now short, balding, incompetent, and officially renamed “Hank.”

It takes Hank 20 minutes to realize that the first Blackberry he showed me (the $50 one) doesn’t work with my phone plan. Fail. Hank then convinces me to buy a generic-PDA, also $50, but subsequently realizes (oh, just kidding!) the generic-PDA is not in stock. Epic fail.

Finally, Hank suggests the Blackberry Tour, which is older than the first Blackberry he showed me, and $100 more expensive. I am tired, late for Family law, and just want to leave so I agree to the older, more expensive phone.

I then watch Hank spend a half hour trying to set up the Blackberry.

Hank gets frustrated and has to call a tech support line… then something still isn’t right so he calls them again… then the internet on the phone doesn’t work…and, and, and. The customer service at the Sprint store makes health care reform look like a scene from Crank.

Once we hit the two hour mark, Hank sends me off with the Blackberry. The internet doesn’t work yet, but he says it should magically pop-on at any moment. If not, then call him.

So after my Family Law class I call Hank because (surprise!) the internet does not work. Hank tells me how to refresh the phone’s settings, which doesn’t work, so I drive back to Roseville (which isn’t terribly close to school) and waste another hour watching yet another customer service rep fiddle with my overpriced-yet-not-working phone.

The new rep gets frustrated. He calls the Sprint tech support line. He fiddles with phone. Reboots it. Looks into the distance… and then finally gives up, reformats the phone, and it worked!

New Rep: “Sorry it took so long!”
Hank: “Yeah, you spent like all day here!”
Me: “Erm…I guess the bright side is that I missed rush hour…”

Right.

But I finally have a functioning Crackberry. Behold:

I barely know how to use it, but I like it. This is the start of something dangerous wonderful.

I think the pictures stand alone:

This will be used to contest any rent increases.

There wasn’t a good reason for me to be in the computer lab since I left my student ID in my gym bag and therefore could not print. I think I [...]]]> Yesterday I had two oral arguments for moot court. I spent the majority of the afternoon holed up in the library’s computer lab to prep.

There wasn’t a good reason for me to be in the computer lab since I left my student ID in my gym bag and therefore could not print. I think I just like scribbling holdings and doctrines on pieces of paper while watching more prepared students print.

Here was the view:

That’s Riverside Plaza/Crackstacks, a sprawling public housing complex that house’s America’s biggest population of Somalis. The building feels like the Death Star is looming over the law library…which felt oddly appropriate during my oral argument prep…

I called Lens Crafters between my oral arguments because my eyes have been blaring-red lately and people are starting to suspect  that I am a crack head.

Me: “My eyes have been really red lately when I wearmy contact lenses and I’m wondering if it’s something I’m doing.”
Optometrist: “Are you following my cleaning, rubbing, and storing directions this time?”
Me: “Yes, yes!”
Optometrist: “Hm. Are your eyes getting dry when you wear contacts?”
Me: “They shouldn’t be. I’ve been going through ClearEyes like mad…”
Optometrist: “You’ve been doing WHAT?”
Me: “…uh…using ClearEyes… you know, the eye drops?”
Optometrist: “…yes. The eye drops you’re not supposed to use while wearing contacts…”
Me: “Doh.”

Outside of the oral argument room I ran into Jill, my opponent.

Me: “Apparently you’re not supposed to use ClearEyes with contacts.”
Jill: “Oh duh! There are special eye drops for contacts…”

Well crap. At least I learn something new every day?