“There’s been a bank robbery,” one told me, gesturing at the woods.

I looked at the woods. Just woods. No banks.

“So there might be people in there,” he went on. “And we don’t want you to run into them.”

So I had to run on the only road with a speed limit over 25mph in the entire town. It is the road where if I see people running on it I goggle at them and their stupidity. I ran past another trail to the same woods. It was unguarded.

Later, I drove past an extremely small building on the other side of the woods with crime scene tape up around it. It is the bank in question, and I’ve never seen it before.

Maybe I will find a hidden stash of loot on my next run through the woods.

Yesterday, on the same run, I noticed that the metal frame was gone. Instead, there was an old blue canoe chained to a tree. Like a bike. There is a lake in the vicinity, I suppose, but it’s probably a 20 minute portage. Maybe the other dimension is just sending its objects through and leaving them there.

I’m just lucky they don’t enforce the next one down, “cups and sweaters may not be left in a carrel overnight.” Cause I have “carrel mugs” and “carrel sweatshirts.” Maybe they realize they must allow us survival gear if we are to weather the Arctic conditions of the library.

Now I’m going to meet an MPRE study group and leave all my power cords/papers/mugs/etc on the desk. Stick it to the man.

Let’s have a little review of the scene with the Architect: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H85hdn9a6KM
Here’s what happens when you confront The Architect of Legal Skills, Fred Lederer.

Fred– I am Fred Lederer. I created Legal Skills. I’ve been waiting for you. You have many questions, and although the motion writing process has altered your consciousness, you have not yet passed the Bar.  Ergo, some of my answers you will understand, and some of them you will not. Concordantly, while your first question may be the most pertinent, you may or may not realize it is also irrelevant.

Law Student—Why did I come to law school?

Fred–  Your life is the worthless remainder of an unbalanced equation inherent to the syllabus of legal skills.  You are the eventuality of an anomaly – the law student with a social life— which despite my sincerest efforts I have been unable to eliminate from what is otherwise a harmony of mathematical precision. While it remains a burden to sedulously avoid it, it is not unexpected, and thus not beyond a measure of control. Which has led you, inexorably, here.

Law Student – You haven’t answered my question.

Fred – Quite right. Interesting. That was quicker than the others.  Legal Skills is older than you know. I prefer counting from the emergence of one annoyingly uptight TA to the emergence of the next, in which case this is the twentieth version.

Law Student– There are only two possible explanations: either no one told me, or no one cares.

Fred – Precisely. As you are undoubtedly gathering, the anomaly’s systemic, creating a lack of interest in even the most simplistic legal skills assignments.

Law Student– Choice. The problem is choice.

Fred–The first Legal Skills syllabus I designed was quite naturally perfect, it was a work of art, flawless, a sublime waste of time. A triumph equaled only by its monumental failure to actually teach anything relevant to the legal profession. The inevitability of its doom is as apparent to me now as a consequence of the imperfection inherent in every legal skills case, and the overwhelming irrelevance of this course as graded on a pass/fail scale.  Thus I redesigned it based on student’s suggestions to more accurately reflect the varying factual situations that arise in real life. However, I was again frustrated by failure, because legal skills can’t ever be like the ‘real’ world. I have since come to understand that the answer eluded me because it required a lesser mind, or perhaps a mind less bound by the parameters of insanity and blind obsession with this program. Thus, the answer was stumbled upon by another, an intuitive lawyer, initially created to investigate certain aspects of JAG prosecution. If I am the father of Legal Skills, she would undoubtedly be its mother.

Law Student: Stacey Rae!

Fred—  Please. As I was saying, Stacey Rae stumbled upon a solution whereby nearly 99.9% of all law students accepted the program, as long as they were given a choice, even if they were only aware of the choice at a near unconscious level.  Ergo, those that refused the program, while a minority, if unchecked, would constitute an escalating probability of disaster.

Law Student: This is about my social life…

Fred – You are here because your social life is about to be destroyed.   Its every living inhabitant alienated, its entire existence eradicated.

Law Student: Bullshit! I can have a social life AND finish law school!

Fred – Denial is the most predictable of all human responses. But, rest assured, this will be the twentieth time we have destroyed it, and we have become exceedingly efficient at it.  The function of the Law Student is now to attend Legal Skills class, allowing a dissemination of the knowledge you gained in 20-odd years of life, and a being taught to think like a lawyer. After which you will be required to select from the law school three people to be your only friends, and one to be your legal skills co-counsel. Failure to comply with this process will result in cataclysmic ostracism, making you frenemies with the entirety of the law school, which, coupled with the extermination of your social life will ultimately result in the extinction of your sanity.

Law Student – You won’t let it happen, you can’t. You need functioning law students to survive!

Fred – There are levels of survival Moliterno and I are prepared to accept. However, the relevant issue is whether or not YOU are ready to accept a Low Pass in Legal Skills. …Which brings us at last to the moment of truth, wherein the fundamental flaw is ultimately expressed, and the anomaly revealed as both beginning, and end. There are two doors. The door to your right leads to the Legal Skills Suite, your continued enrollment in W&M, and your eventual graduation into a dismal job market.

The door to the left leads to Paul’s, to a night of drunkenness and a Low Pass in legal skills. As you adequately put, the problem is choice. But we already know what you’re going to do, don’t we? Already I can see the chain reaction, the chemical precursors that signal the onset of emotion, designed specifically to overwhelm logic, and reason. An emotion that is already blinding you from the simple, and obvious truth: you are going to graduate, and there is nothing that you can do to stop it.

To the Law School Community –
Congratulations to the Moot Court Team on another victory!

This past weekend, a [Ye Olde Law School] moot court team comprised of [better GPA than you] (2L) and [super awesome orator] (2L) won the [who cares] National Moot Court Competition.  Sixteen law schools competed in this competition that focused on an Establishment Clause problem.   In addition to winning the tournament, [super awesome orator] was named Best Oralist for the final round of the competition.

The Moot Court team is having another outstanding year, and we congratulate them on their successes.

[Dean of the Law School]

I kind of like to think that they should send one out about me:

Dear Law School Community–

Congratulate Steph on her successes today! She woke up and went to the early spinning class. She maintained a precarious mental stability through appropriate playlist selections and showered and dressed herself. She even remembered to pack a good lunch for the library!

She attended all of her classes, all of which she had read for. She did a couple hours of GrF work and only rounded up a little on the time sheet. She even stayed awake during the dark powerpoint presentation in environmental science! Then she went back to the library and worked on her Note for several hours. Not only was she devoted to her legal studies, but she found some time to stay in touch with friends and family, read a book, AND start a load of laundry! She can call the landlord when things are broken, feed her cat, and do pictures with pastels almost at the same time. Some days she even researches alternative careers and exerts a modicum of effort on Legal Skills.

Join me in congratulating her and wishing her success in her future endeavors!

2. Thou shalt lose the ability to make eye contact in a socially normative fashion.

3. Thou shalt sigh deeply when thou sits at thine carrel. Thou shall grunt, grumble, or mutter upon commencement of work. Sighs and yawns shall be repeated frequently.

4. Thou shalt ask the professor for the question to be repeated. If thou has not read, then twice, or thrice, shalt thou ask, whilst riffling pages.

5. Thou shalt gchat. With great frequency and mockery shalt thou gchat. If there is a legal skills or online-research related event thou attends, thou must gchat with many people.

6. Thou shalt italicize the period after “Id.”

7. Thou shalt be measured against thine peers. Thou shalt pay in the blood of self-esteem.

8. Thou shalt sometimes receive free hot water, and thou shalt rejoice, for then canst thou brew tea that does not smell of microwave.

9. Thou shalt be ensnared in webs of shifting social alliances that shall not be governed by reason, united only against the twin specters of Gunners and Legal Skills.

10. Thou shalt shiver in the library, no matter how thou attempts to warm thyself with layers and free hot water.

There are two big table right next to each other in our lobby by the main office. To get from the library or the front door to any classrooms you have to walk by them. They are nearly always occupied with people pushing some organization or event. The bar review course people try to sign you up each week, and some sad law club tries to sell baked goods, and the public service internship fund people run their sales of “VA is for Lawyers” t-shirts with Nazi-esque terror and precision. The stuff goes on the table; the hapless volunteers sit on the other side, looking out at the lobby.

The lobby is also pretty full during times when people are passing between classes (again, HIGH SCHOOL), and because I am neurotic, I find it overwhelming and scary to stop at the tables unless I know the people sitting there. I have to plan out times to go with a friend if it’s something I really need, like a ticket to an event. It’s just the looming-ness of it and the feeling of being either totally claustrophobic (lobby crowded) or totally exposed (lobby relatively clear except for the people in the chairs who are clearly eavesdropping on every word I say).

Every once in a while I get roped into baking something for an environmental law society bake sale and then taking a shift of sitting there and selling cupcakes for $1 for a couple hours. Bake sales happen about three time a week.

High school.

Anyway, last Sunday Jen and I went on the wine trip. We thought it sounded like a great idea: get driven around to scenic local vineyards and taste some wine. We started off flushed with good humor and an extra hour of daylight-savings sleep. We sat on the bus by some 2L girls we’re friends-ish with. Within moments of pulling away in our too-big charter bus (only 24 people came), one of the most appallingly creepy and friendless 3Ls started offering mimosas and people declined out of sheer awkwardness. He started taking pictures of the bus full of people; Jen and I cowered but are pretty sure we’re in some.

Two+ hours, a traffic jam, and a detour later, we arrived in a modest backyard full of vines. They gave us spits of less-than-great wine, and we stayed for an extra hour taking pictures in the fall sunlight. Another detour and over an hour on winding roads later, we got to the second vineyard, a wedding venue if I ever saw one, with gorgeous verandas and sweeping views of the gentle Virginia hills. The wine was delicious and the place was classy and I was completely nauseous from the bus ride. By the time we got to the third place–late, in the early dark–my stomach was deeply unhappy, I could barely sip the delicious (vegan!) wine, and a healthy portion of the other students were highly intoxicated from drinking wine on the bus while I was desperately trying to undo the writhing intestinal knots.

The three hours home–including a long stop for everyone to eat at Burger King and me to buy ginger ale–were a nightmare. Thank goodness for Jen distracting me and reciting Buddhist encouragement. Otherwise the reek of alcohol and the stumbling shrieking people around us would have been too much. I swear the two girls next to us (some of the very drunk crowd) asked the creepy 3L how old he was for at least an hour (he never told).

The moral of the story, we determined, is that next time we sign up for a law school thing, we should not forget that we will be going with other law students. One should never let oneself be trapped on a bus for a day with such people.