Last Sunday, it had seemed that my Ames brief was closed to being done. Who knew that I would then proceed to spend more than 40 hours on it, including pulling 3 (well, 2.5) all-nighters?
Who knew that the damned thing would take so much time?
Who knew that there were still so many cases that I hadn't read, including two cases that ended up being extremely relevant, and on which I basically relied the entire brief?
Who knew that J and I were wrong about who our opponent team was the entire time, and didn't even realize that we had picked up the wrong brief until 11PM the evening before the brief was due. Thankfully our Lawyering professor was forgiving, although not too pleased.
Who knew that bluebooking and making a Table of Authority and Table of Content would take me and my partner like 8 hours?!??!
Who knew that my Internet was going to go down at 3:30 AM on Thursday morning (less than 6.5 hours before the brief was due and 1 minute before J emailed the master file for me to bluebook and proofread). Who knew that I would have to then put on clothes and trek 2 completely deserted and creepy blocks to AC's dorm room to complete my brief there?
(AC was so sweet. She was done with her own brief but hung out with me. She gave me chocolates and was in general so pleasant and helpful. She finally fell asleep around 5 AM and then snored a little. She was the best companion on a very stressful night.)
Well, so that's why I hadn't posted at all for the past week. On Monday, Tuesday and Wedneday I basically didn't sleep, and instead just took sporadic naps during the day. I only went to 2 classes today the entire week. The rest of the time was spent either napping, frantically reading, or frantically writing. With some meals thrown in in between.
On Thursday night (after our briefs were due), I crashed and slept 13 hours. My sleeping schedule is now completely messed up.
This reminds me a bit of my college days, in an unpleasant way. I hope to never do this again.
(Except, well, I'm becoming a lawyer and apparently this is what I'll be doing for the next 40 years or so.)
My only consolation was that ABS and S, for the most part, stayed up with me on those nights, so at least it wasn't as lonely as it could have been.
The sad part is that after all this, I still don't feel my brief was that good. I think I just completely lost perspective at the end. I began obsessing over the minutiae instead of paying more attention to the bigger picture of justice and equity. Instead of enumerating all those "factors" in hardly binding authorities I should have been more eloquent in advocating for our client. I should have addressed the human drama a bit more in my brief, instead of making it into a dry and boring piece of writing. But alas, it's hard to be eloquent at 4:30 AM.
But, I'm glad it was over. Spring break began yesterday and many people left in the morning. A record low of 33 people attended contracts. (I wasn't there to witness this sad spectacle, as I was sleeping and then having lunch in the Square with S and AR.) Later, I heard from J that the contracts professor called a series of 15 people, none of whom was there, before he reached someone who was actually present. Amazingly, in the 3 weeks that I have been absent from contracts, he hasn't called on me once yet.
On Friday, I visited DPP and his mother who was in town visiting, and the three of us played scrabble together. DPP won in the end, and his mother came in second. I was soundly beaten, alas, because of a few very bad strategic plays. I blamed it on the lack of sleep, but that was just a convenient excuse. :)
This weekend, I'm taking care of ABS's cat. ABS is in Chicago visiting his Boyfriend C, and today I got to spend some quality time with the kitty. Definitely the high point of my day...
:D Leaving for warm Austin on Monday!
:( Need to re-orient myself and do some major studying in the next few days, so the spring break won't be that relaxing after all...
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