I actually have something instead of nothing now. The end isn't necessarily near, but it is in sight.

It was suggested that I quit my bellyaching. So I'll think of something else to talk about, like what classes I want to take next year. I think the classes I take will be 90% determined by which professors I like. Secondarily, I'll pick what sounds interesting. I don't think I'm going to worry myself so much about the bar. Maybe if somebody really twists my arm I'll take Evidence. I suppose I should learn just enough to represent myself well if I ever get sued or something.

If I can just get through this paper, things aren't going to be so terribly difficult afterwards. I'll only have three classes, and the usual studying and outlining...but no more writing stuff, at least until the writing competition for journals...but why would I want to be on a journal? Getting through this experience with a minimum of effort is looking more and more attractive.

I'm barely doing anything and I'm so sick of this!!! So so sick! Wanna quit! Too boring!!!

So I've been sitting here an hour and a half and I haven't even looked at my paper. This is just pitiful.

I have to get serious today. Real serious. I have less than 48 hours to finish my trial brief draft, and I basically haven't worked on it in like two weeks. I'm dreading this so much. During my last two years in college the solution would have been to drop the class (or switch to pass-fail) instead of writing the paper. That won't cut it here.

Arrrgh...my brain is still on Spring Break. Actually, who are we kidding? My entire body is in Spring Break mode. Everything pretty much still feels like Spring Break except I'm not allowed to have fun. I'm definitely in the middle of one of those "why am I here" moments.

And...it's supposed to rain for like the next five days straight! Phooey!

It's raining! WORMS! Yuck! One of the few downfalls of spring.

And...my guestbook is getting totally spammed upon. I'll keep pruning away the ads until it gets too annoying to do so. I wonder if people manually go on guestbooks and spam them up or if it can be done automagically.

On the plus side, I like the social aspect of law school. I like meeting new people and I'm not so great at doing it without a bit of an outside push. On the minus side, I'm worried from time to time that I'm going in completely the wrong direction with my life and that I should be doing something far more unique and creative.

I'm home from my adventures. I'll try to get back to talking about stuff that's actually related to the putative topic of this website.

Thursday:

• A nice, relaxing morning. Got going at like 12:30.
  
• The Varsity: Huge restaurant. Really really big. Pretty fast. Fairly greasy, but not as much as Weaver D's. But very salty. After lunch I got an Icee.
  
• I tried to find the Atlanta Contemporary Art Center but just ended up driving in circles. So then I went to...
  
• The Jimmy Carter Library and Museum. It was a small museum but pretty interesting. I kept thinking...if only we had a man like that in the White House now. There was also a temporary exhibition of a 1/12 scale model of George Washington's house, Mount Vernon. Then there was a nice Japanese Garden.
  
• Little Five Points: Sorta like a bit of wannabe Athens. I picked up a couple of used CDs.
  
• The Flying Biscuit Cafe: Awesome. For what stuff cost, I thought I was going to get tiny portions, but everything was massive and very tasty. I got a turkey meatloaf sandwich that was so ridiculously enormous that I wondered at first if it was meant to be eaten open-faced. But I managed to two-hand it okay. I also got Key Lime Pie for dessert.

Wednesday...not so exciting for some reason. Maybe I didn't plan enough.

• Drove to the Doraville MARTA station and took the train downtown.
  
• Went to the Visitor's Center and got a map.
  
• Went to World of Coke, photographed myself trying Lychee Mello, a soft drink of Thailand. Tried all the international pops (or sodas). One favorite: the apple one from China. The thing that took the cake, though, was after I had tried everything and I thought my belly was going to explode from all the fizz, I had some Nestea "Southern Style" Iced Tea...aaaahhhh...that was so mellow. It really settled me down.
  
• Went to the Georgia State Capitol. This is fairly dumb, because I haven't even visited the Ohio State Capitol. But it was weird...it seemed really informal. Once you went through the metal detector, you could pretty much wander around wherever you want and literally rub elbows with the legislators. I took a tour where I was the only actual tourist and the other people were students and teachers from Augusta. They got to meet their state representative and get their picture taken with him. I stayed out of the picture and asked the tour guide what was on the legislative agenda. Unfortunately, no tort reform or no-fault auto insurance.
  
• Sort of started walking towards the Centential Olympic Park, but got sidetracked by an Indian buffet because I was hungry. However, it was already like 2:40 and all the good stuff was gone, or wasn't there in the first place. Goat curry??? No thanks. So I had a fully veggie lunch: lots of potatoes, spinach, rice and naan.
  
• Went to the Olympic Park for like five minutes when I realized that I had earlier bought a half-price ticket to the High Museum of Art, and then discovered at the Visitor's Center of the park that the museum was going to close at 5 PM. Arrrgh! So I dashed over to the train station and got aboard for the Arts Center, getting there with less than 90 minutes to spare. But this particular museum just didn't do it for me. They didn't really have much of anything contemporary except for a few weird stainless steel sculptures by the same guy who designed the building the museum was in. They had a special exhibit of Egypt stuff, but I've seen better.
  
• Walked all the way back to the train station. Waited for the train. Got on the train. Waited for the train to go to Doraville. Got off the train. Walked all the way to the "parking deck" (they seem to call what we'd call parking garages "decks" instead of garages), got in the car, slogged through rush hour traffic, and now I'm back here. And can you tell I'm exhausted???

Tuesday so far (I think this will substantially be it):

• Quizno's for lunch. Why do they think those disturbing mouse-creature things from the WWW will sell their subs? The subs are good, though.
  
• Cold Stone Creamery for lunch dessert. There's one of those right near my apartment, so this was another far from adventurous choice. I think I had tried one of their competitors before and found it kind of disturbing because I felt like they sort of did too much to the ice cream...sort of handled it too much. But I got something good.
  
• "Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind": very good. Funny, but even more moving. It depends on whether you're willing to follow along with the scifi-ish pretense. This movie made me feel about love like "Lost in Translation" made me feel about Japan: even though everyone in the movie seemed really miserable being there, it seemed wonderful to me and I really want to go. Oh, and before the movie I was there really early so I played pretty much all the video games they had except Tekken 4. I'm awful at those kind of games. Other than that, they had like five different shooting games with plastic fake guns. I'm terrible at those. I wonder if there's something about guns around here...there's also an "indoor shooting range" just down the street half a block from the motel.
  
• El...El something...wait, let's check the receipt in my pocket...did I put the receipt in my pocket? It was something like El Capitano. El Capastrano. El Calamari. The waitress told me that it was her first day. Usually, you don't want to tell people stuff like that. At first, I was like..."Great!"...then I was like, "Well, it's my first time here too." I think she liked me!
  
• Back at the motel now. My tasks for the evening are to try to study some, read some, and plan out tomorrow's activities.

So yeah, the plan for today is to get some lunch cheepnis and then see the 3:45 showing of "Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind".

Monday in the happiest place on earth: Athens, Georgia! [Editor's note: this ended up a real long post! It was because I liked the place so much! But you can skip over it if you get bored.]

• I went to the Welcome Center and got tipped off about a sweet secret parking spot. I planted my car there and walked around town the rest of the day. Sweet! And no, I'm not telling you where!!!
  
• The grand R.E.M. tour: The "Murmur" railroad trestle, the steeple of "The Church" where the band played their first show, and Weaver D's Fine Foods (of "Automatic for the People" fame). That was probably the greasiest meal I've had in years. YEARS.
  
• I shopped 'til I dropped. I was throwing down so much cash that at one point I had to simply haul my treasures back to my car and lock myself in for an hour so that I didn't totally go broke buying comics and CDs (the winner, and new champion...best store in the world: Low Yo Yo Stuff) and junk/treasures (Agora...almost sorta like a flea market except awesomer).
  
• I chatted with many locals. I think people are really friendly there! I talked to one fellow who ran a store called the "X-Ray Cafe", which was a weird name because they only sold plain coffee, and then everything else was videos, books, CDs, and records. He asked me if it was just Athens where people, in a nutshell, were getting "preppier", or whether it was a national trend. If it is, I suppose I'm contributing to it. I kind of felt bad and disappointed with myself that I wasn't doing something unique and creative with my life.
  
• I had the Grand Opening Special $2 Mocha at Hot Corner Coffee, twice. Once in the afternoon, when it caught my eye while walking past, and once at 2 AM to keep me awake for the drive back to Atlanta.
  
• I had an utterly inspiring meal at a diner called...CLOCKED! Everything was just exquisitely perfect. All the ingredients I liked were in everything, and nothing I didn't like, and it was all just the right amount. And I was reminded that RC Cola is real good! I was so inspired that I took the excess change I had in my wallet and left it on the table arranged in the shape of the word "TIP"...photograph duly taken and so it shall be posted here when I get it developed. In fact, I almost unloaded a whole roll just on Athens stuff.
  
• Bars! I tried Woodchuck Peach Cider. Very tasty! And then a PBR. Tastefully priced! At the same place, called Lunch Paper, I played both pinball machines and rocked the jukebox with my awesome selections: "Jeepster" by T. Rex, "Aggressive Perfector" by Slayer (although on second thought, I would have picked "Criminally Insane"), "Johnny Hit and Run Pauline" by X, and "Stop Breaking Down" by the Stones (I actually meant to pick "Happy" from the same album, but hit the wrong buttons). I also got a High Life at the 283 Bar. Somebody said during the day that law students from UGA hang out there, but I saw no evidence of it. But that was my drinking for the evening.
  
• The Caledonia! Don Caballero! I got there really, really early. In fact, I got so bored waiting that I decided to get my hand restamped and leave the club to find and photograph the Double-Barrelled Cannon and the Tree That Owns Itself (wait til I show the photo to Prof. Braunstein!!!). So then I came back, and saw the opening band, Concrete Duck. Pretty excellent and cool. Then the "new" Don Caballero...drummer to the gods Damon Che was set up front-and-center. Musically, awesome. Che was either surly or faux-surly, but definitely 1000% rock star. There were two annoying drunk guys that Che was bantering with. Again, annoyed or faux-annoyed? Not sure.

Sunday activities:

• Walking tour of the Grant Park neighborhood and eponymous park. Only one other person on the tour and the tour guide so that was a nice social thing. The tour guide was a volunteer who lived in a neighborhood nearby and arrived on a bicycle, and the other tour patron was a San Diegan who arrived by cab clutching a Ritz-Carlton coffee cup. So that was our motley crew.
  
• Lunch at Ria's Bluebird. I had to wait a really long time, but I tried an interesting dish: Southwest Tofu Scramble. I can never get tofu to come out with the consistency it does in restaurants.
  
• Another walking tour: Historic Oakland Cemetery. They made a special point of calling it "historic", and it was.
  
• The Martin Luther King Jr. National Historic Site: I wasn't there early enough to do the tour of his birth home. Unfortunately, I have to report that his tomb is in shockingly bad shape. If the eternal flame near it was going, I couldn't tell. It looked like gas was coming out of it but it actually wasn't lit. It was also surrounded by puddles apparently leaking from the reflecting pool. There were also pennies in the pool, which seemed kind of inappropriate, but definitely inappropriate was the "CNN Studio Tour" badge in the pool. Then again, the man himself would probably have preferred that more resources be spent on the living in need instead of plunking down a couple million dollars to make the place look decent. The visitor center looked very nice though.
  
• Drive-thru dinner at Arby's. I'm still a starving student! I can't go and get two fancy meals every day, this is supposed to be a cheap vacation!

I think when it first came out I confused "The Sopranos" with "Falsettos".

Hello from Norcross, Georgia! I just discovered that there's a computer with a little tiny monitor here in the lobby of the motel! And the gentleman at the front desk has just informed me that the whole building is hooked up for wireless!!! Awesome! I'll have to try that. It's hard to believe that it was only two days ago that I took my Contracts final.

I stopped at the Cracker Barrel in Sweetwater, Tennessee for lunch, and then got a very nice Italian dinner at Dominick's in downtown Norcross. I think today I'm going to go into town. Then tomorrow I'm going to drive to Athens.

I guess all this is off my usual subject, but I'm just rather excited to be able to get online here! So whoo hoo!

Contracts is over!!! Hatlanta here I come!!! If I take pictures, maybe I'll post some here.

Two people have suggested the World of Coca-Cola Museum or whatever it is. The Lonely Planet Guide says it's overrated, but I went the last time I was there and I remember that the free samples you get at the end of the tour are exquisitely perfectly mixed and at exactly the right temperature and exactly the right bubbliness. So how much would I have to drink to make it worth $6? Well, we'll see.

What is something fun to do in Atlanta? If you give me a good suggestion and send your postal address, I'll send you a postcard from the road. Any takers?

Whine, whine whine...I'm tired...don't wanna study no more....whaaaaaaa!!!

Wow...someone in the adjacent study room is studying Contracts real LOUD...

Welp, it looks like I'm going to Atlanta! Thanx Priceline!

I'm getting all distracted thinking about my trip next week. Also, we have to hand-write this exam, and I get really tired having to actually push a pen. I just need to get through a few more practice exams and print up a halfway decent outline and I'll be all set.

I have to go into slash-and-burn mode on my Contracts outline so I can get out of here and eat and sleep. Word tells me that the outline is at 72 pages. I think I would be happy if I could get it a nudge under 50. It is, after all, a year-long class.

Oooh!!! Somebody gave me a present! They didn't say who it was from, though...but thank you very much! I'll put it on my locker!

I just saw the school production of Trial By Jury. Great! Lots of fun! Some of the singers were really fantastic! I saw a tape of the production six years ago, and I think this one was even better. Way to go!

Grrraarrrrgggh! Where's my concentration at? I just have to keep telling myself that in a week I'll be on the road, getting someplace warm...but for now, I've got to buckle down and take care of business.

Okay...time to get so serious and intense...for real this time.

Okay, it's 10:40 and I'm still home. I'm taking it a little bit easy before I get hardcore Contracty all week long. Then I really think I'm going to do this trip. I think I'll try to find Internet access points along the way so I can say something about where I am.

There are two NASCAR races over Spring Break: one in Darlington, SC, and one in Bristol, TN. Maybe I should have a cross-cultural experience. I went to the rodeo in Alabama over Spring Break three years ago. Another thing I was thinking about was trying to make it to Key West. That's two long days driving or three normal days. I also haven't been to Atlanta in almost ten years. That would be worth another trip.

Glargh! Can't concentrate! Contracts outline is at 108 pages and is getting smaller very...very...excruciatingly slowly.

I'm thinking of taking my laptop and my casebooks and such on the road and doing a road/study trip for Spring Break. I just want to pack up the car and drive south until I get someplace warm. Maybe the Carolinas...I've never been there before. Then once I get there, maybe I'll sit on the beach and write my trial brief. I figure I can't quite bring myself to stay home all Spring Break and study, but I don't think I could afford to just take off and do nothing for a whole week. Does anybody have any suggestions of where to go?

I got called on today in Property and did some problems on estates and future interests. I always get them about 90%, but only when I can look through the book, especially to remember whether "so long as" is a condition precedent or a condition subsequent. But get this...the test is closed book!

Anyway, no need or reason to worry about that now...I have to get my mind around Contracts exclusively and put that bad boy to bed.

So I'm going to watch Wrestlemania XX at my cousin Adam's house (him of the guestbook entries) on Sunday. It seems that Brock Lesnar is quitting the business after Sunday. Well, that was fast! But if I could retire at 26, I think I would do it too.

I hope maybe there are more future 1Ls reading this. There is a guestbook note from one. If you're getting ready to start in the fall or you're trying to decide whether to go or whether to apply, please feel free to e-mail me. I've been known to give out advice in the past. Also, let me know if I can post your question here. I'd like to think that I know something about something by this point.

So exhausted today...and it can't be that I didn't get enough sleep. What is it? Maybe not enough caffeine. Or too much the rest of my life, and then the right amount now.

Okay, I have two heroes for the day and a beverage of the day.

My first hero of the day is Fred Rogers. He was a great man. Somehow I managed to accidentally catch "The Neighborhood" yesterday and today at 6 AM on PBS, but now I'm thinking I should set my alarm to be able to watch the rest of the week. When you're little you don't notice how cool the music is. Johnny Costa was a very fine jazz pianist. I love when they do the "how things are made" short films and the musicians improvise along to it. If I could do anything one-tenth as good with my life as Mr. Rogers did with his, I'll be very satisfied.

My other hero for the day is Warren Buffett. Yeah, the rich guy! I just discovered his Berkshire Hathaway shareholder letters. So cool! He sounds like such a smart and thoughtful guy. And funny! You could almost forgive him for being a billionaire a dillion times over. His letters really make me want to be a Berkshire Hathaway shareholder. Maybe that's really the point of the letters. But then again, one share of Berkshire Class A stock is trading at $94,300 today. Of course, the spread is enormous: the ask price is actually more like $150,000. Then again, for the little people like you and me, there's Class B stock, which is a bargain at just $3,142 a share today. Of course, you or I would pay more like $4,500 for it.

And my beverage for the day is blue drinks. Like blue pina coladas or blue martinis. They used to have a blue shake at Max & Erma's that I think was called a "Smurf shake". They might have run into some copyright issues with that one. There's also blue Icees or Slurpees or Arctic Blasts that will turn your tongue totally bluish. Blue drinks are fun and colorful and fruity.

So...what about today? It takes me most of Monday just to realize it's not the weekend anymore.

Did you know that there are hats that cost $500? Did you know there are coats that cost $4000? $300 shirts? $1500 boots? $670 leather pants? Somebody must think they're really great to think they ought to wear such stuff. And this is just from looking at Amazon. Not to mention women's clothing. $50,000 fur coats! I don't get it. I'll never get it. Why pay more? I mean, ever? Than anything!

And oh yeah, these Multicolored Asian Lady Beetles are getting all up in my business.

Oh yeah, and he's the Democratic National Committee Treasurer. So all your money is already going to him, why not just vote for him too?

How did I know that a rap song called "Hotel" would contain the words "hotel, motel, Holiday Inn (say what?!)"? There's probably a formula here: originality is inversely proportional to the cash value of the jewelry that appears in the video.

Meanwhile, I came up with my ideal presidential candidate: Andrew Tobias! That guy is awesome! "The Best Little Boy in the World" and "TBLBITW Grows Up" were the best and least pretentious books I read in my Bert Cohler class. Then, all the of the sudden, I realized: Andrew Tobias. As in Andrew Tobias's Managing Your Money. So he's funny, smart, iconoclastic, a great writer, an inexorable promoter of no-fault auto insurance (boo trial lawyers!), and an erstwhile purveyor of Apple II software! What's not to love?! Tobias '04! Well, or maybe '12, let's take care of business this year first. How about an Andrew Tobias/Garrison Keilor ticket?

You tell me why I woke up in the middle of the night and ended up watching the second half of Rocky III and the first half of Rocky IV. Ugh...well, only two more classes until the weekend.

I haven't gotten any e-mails lately from new people. If you're reading and haven't e-mailed me before, drop me a line! I promise to write back! Also, sign my guestbook! I promise I'll read it repeatedly!

I haven't looked yet, but I have a feeling that I'll have no idea what the heck I was talking about last night.

There's no section in the traditional office memo where you can write what you really think, or what you think is fair regardless of the law, or what should happen as opposed to what will happen or what we can finagle for our client. Clever, huh? What a good way to keep us from really thinking about right and wrong! It's just "QUESTION PRESENTED", "BRIEF ANSWER", "FACTS", "DISCUSSION", "CONCLUSION", and that's it!

If it were up to me, who would I really want to be president? I think I would prefer a weak, genial administration. Hmmm...maybe I would reelect Carter! Or, for that matter, Ford. I could go for Voinovich too, I think he's pretty moderate. I like McCain pretty well. What about a McCain-Feingold cross-party ticket? That would have instant name recognition! I like Patrick Leahy pretty well. Jessie Ventura maybe. No, but really...who would make a good president? Or who would I agree with on stuff? How much experience should someone have in order to be president, and what kind of experience? What about E. Gordon Gee? Maybe you don't need experience, but you just need to be able to hire smart and capable cabinet members. I feel like there's somebody right under my nose who would be perfect, but in the real world could never get elected.

Some days I feel good, like a case briefing machine. Maybe it's the caffeine. Caffeine and sugar. Coke from a fountain in a tall glass (made of glass) with ice served to you on a platter by a friendly waitperson and drunk through a straw tastes really good.

It is 100% classless to sit around before class and insult other people in your section, by name, in their absence in front of a bunch of your classmates. If you want to have a private conversation in private and insult people, it's not okay, but it's sure better than having a private conversation in front of 20 other people who can perfectly well hear what you're saying. And by the way, many of them are trying to study while you're chatting. Like right now, I'm hearing you insulting blogs in general as being stupid. Well, guess what? You just made it on a blog! Congratulations!

I have a pretty high tolerance for annoying behavior, but I have a very low tolerance for mean behavior.

Okay, I'm home now and calling a truce with my memo for the evening. I'll get you next time, memo...NEXT TIME!!!

It's all about willpower tonight. I've gotta, gotta, gotta put in some time on my memo. A good grade in Legal Writing means a shot at one journal (JDR), at least. It's hard to imagine how working on a journal could be bad. Likewise the sameways with a clerkship. I want to get all clerky!

Jessica hasn't posted for nearly a week! Come on, get your head in the game, J!

I don't know if I'm getting lazier or if I'm getting more efficient, but my cases are getting read less carefully and fewer notes are being taken. Maybe it's just a matter of making the most of the time I choose to devote to school stuff. For example, as long as I have stuff to write for Legal Writing, there is absolutely no way that a 28 page unedited case is going to get read in full. And with the Contracts final less than three weeks away, there's no way I'm going to be working on any outline but Contracts.

Wow...not much more than two months to go and I won't be a 1L anymore! That went pretty fast.