Old blogs never die, they just fade away.

2005-08-28T00:04:00.000-04:00

Earlier this year, somebody started writing about the life of a patent examiner. I thought the blog was well written and chock full of interesting information, and that it shed some light on a process - patent examining and the inner workings of the PTO - that could use some illumination. The whole point of granting patents is to make information publicly available, and so it would seem to make sense to have the process of obtaining a patent more transparent and open than it currently is. Alas, Mr. Just A Patent Examiner ceased blogging about a month ago.

JAPE decided to end his blog and delete all the entries. That makes me sad. It doesn’t look like the wayback machine keeps track of live journal or blogger pages, so once somebody deletes their blog, it appears to be gone, only to live on in the hearts and memories and internet explorer caches of its loyal readers.

The patent examiner blog got me thinking about other professions that are underrepresented in the blogsphere. Here are some other jobs that I’d like to see blogged: customs agent suitcase inspector, airplane lavatory emptier, junior assistant boil lancer, animal husbandrist, toll booth operator, department store mannequin dresser, highway line painter and pickle slicer.

Now for the some beginning-of-the-year-advice for 1Ls from a 2L post.

Abandon hope, all ye who enter here.

That’s pretty much all the advice you need.

Seriously. I’m not simply saying that to be glib.

The above advice applies to all, unless you’re one of those annoying “smart” kids. In which case, you wouldn’t be reading this blog for advice on how to do well in law school, because 1) smart kids don’t need advice on how to do well, and 2) smart kids don’t waste their time reading stupid blogs. Instead, they study so that they can get good grades.

Keep in mind that the whole point of law school is to get a job. A job as a lawyer. Because lawyer jobs pay well. Really well. Really, really well. And lucky for us they do pay so well. With tuition so outrageously high, you’re pretty much required to have a job when you graduate, and that job must be as a lawyer in a soulless Biglaw firm. Otherwise, you’ll be paying off your student loan debt until you die. Not that law school will guarantee you a long life, I’m just saying…

So if you don’t want a job, and especially if you don’t want a job as a lawyer that pays really, really well, quit law school now, and quit reading this post. Use the time and money you would have spent on law school to travel the world, buy lots of beer, learn yoga, or live in a commune that weaves peace blankets.

I guess if you’re still reading, that means that you want a job as a lawyer. If you have that desire, and you were accepted to law school, then you don’t need any advice from me on how to succeed. You’re already successful, and you’ve already done all the heavy lifting you need to do until you start that first job. Sure, 1L year will seem like a lot of work, and there will be some stress about grades and finding jobs, but I’m sure that after a few years of 70+ hour work weeks, we’ll all look back on it fondly and chuckle at what foolish young whippersnappers we were to think that nothing could be harder and more stressful than law school.

I have a confession. I lied a little bit when I said the abandon hope thing wasn't meant to be glib. It totally was. I apologize for trying to mislead you. Law school is all about hope. Without it, you'll never get through. Hope that you won't get called on in class on the one day you didn't prepare, hope that you get that half-grade bump for class participation, hope that you pass the bar on the first try, hope that you get that sweet job you want when you graduate. In other words, please ignore the previous advice about abandoning hope.

I’ve know for a while that, as fellow blogger J.A.P.E. discovered, blogging takes a lot of time and energy, especially if you want to do it right. Even making a half-assed effort like mine is a lot of work. For example, this post took me most of the day to write, and look how it turned out. You may have noticed from the infrequency of posting over the summer that I was finding blogging too onerous. And we all know how much I hate to work. Fall semester is going to kick my ass. I worry that I’ve bitten off more than I can chew this semester, with my job, the drinking, the internship that requires work beyond my required forty hours, a research paper for the co-req, regular classes, more drinking, a real moot court competition, UT football, and the fall fashion season. My spiritual counselor advised me to cull the herd, and while blogging pays better than my internship and the drinking, and while I’ll miss the adulation of my legion of loyal readers, from the above list, blogging lost two-out-of-three in rock-paper-scissors to UT football, and has been unceremoniously kicked to the curb. I think the status will officially be near-permanent hiatus, because one never wants to rule out the possibility of new Hasselhoffian recursions that beg to be shared. I might keep a few of the good posts up, if I can remember which ones were good.

Peace out.

p.s. Thanks for reading. I do (did) appreciate it.

Hoist by my own petard!

2005-04-20T03:54:00.000-04:00

I’d like to admit that I was calm and collected enough to catch it the first time he said it, but, to be honest, even though I knew deep down that it was inevitable, when he called my name, I was slightly unnerved, and I wasn’t paying enough attention to what came immediately after to remember the exact wording. I was, however, able to reconstruct the intro from the remembrances of my classmates, some who had hazy memories, but others who may have transcribed word-for-word what was said. Apparently, it went something like this:

“So, Mr. X.”

“Yes sir.”

“I know you’ve been sitting up there idle in the grass the whole semester, and you may have thought that I tossed the seating chart into the hopper, but I haven’t forgotten about you.”

If you haven’t yet figured out what I’m talking about, let me be clearer. It happened today. Still not clear enough? Okay. PCP called on me today. Yep, I got cold called in CivPro. On the last day. The very last person to be called. But I wasn’t just called. Oh no. As you can see from above, PCP called on me in a way that let me (and a few select others that know my semi-secret identity and who were paying attention) know that he knows. About the blog. And about my identity. So I guess that makes this post an “I know that you know” post. Hmm. Maybe, if I’m lucky, the A on my final will show that “I know that you know that I know.” Or maybe that is what the C was for last semester. I think I may be getting off track...

I’m not sure how I feel, knowing as I do now, that PCP has been reading my blog. Part of me is…. intimidated? I mean, a practically tenured GW law professor, who worked at DOJ, who clerked for a Court of Appeals judge, who graduated from Harvard, and (according to our best estimates) who is not much older than me – those are some pretty impressive credentials that demonstrate how far qualities like knowledge, determination and hard work will get you. Qualities that I happen to have been seriously lacking lately. And by lately, I mean since birth.

On the other hand, how cool is it that one of the best profs I’ll have in law school (if not the best, but I’ve only had three so far, so the sample size is still too small) takes the time to not only read what I write, but also took the time to call on me in a way that took a tiny bit of effort to craft, while knowing that few, if any, of the class would find it humorous? Pretty freakin’ cool.

I’m sure by now you’re wondering about my in-class performance? Average, at best. Many in the class (at least my LRW and study groups who knew that I had yet to be called on) found it amusing that I was finally called on. Luckily, I remembered to listen to what was being asked of me, instead of thinking “Wow, I got called on!” I got the Anticipatorily Encouraging Head Nod once, but mostly what I remember was my inner Homer saying “Don’t say anything too stupid!” The saving grace was that I wasn’t asked specific questions about the cases from the reading, but instead about an in-class hypo. It’s always easier to sound intelligent when talking about an in-class hypo than when answering questions about a case, IMO.

So, all in all, while being called on last meant that I had to be prepared for class every day, the amusing manner in which I was called almost made up for having to read and ostensibly understand the cases each week. Almost.

idlegrasshopper

Old blogs never die, they just fade away.

Hoist by my own petard!