Bleh...

I meant to write earlier, but the shadow of final exams looms large and I have been swamped, as usual. I was studying mainly for tax this weekend. I took a look at a sample tax exam yesterday, and reallized with dismay that I don't really know how to answer the majority of the questions. The exam for tax is 3-hours in class -- the worst kind, basically. It is open-book, but it might as well be closed since no one will have time to look anything up.

So I have been spending most of the time this weekend re-reading sections of the Internal Revenue Code, which really sounds worse than it is. Individual provisions of the tax code is actually not badly written, though many phrases still require copious judicial interpretation, phrases like "ordinary and necessary" and "away from home" and even the definition of "home" (which, just as a sidenote, is so ridiculously convuluted that even our toneless tax prof chuckled during class). Still, even when individual provisions are clear (at least as clear as language on an extremely boring subject is going to get, I guess), there are just too many of them. I think I have a good grasp on the individual concepts, but as the sample exams demonstrates, the real skill is to synthesize the knowledge and understand how these different sections intercept, interact, and sometimes contradict with each other and then apply them to complicated real life situations. Just like all other law school classes. Sigh...

Property reading these days has gotten mindnumbingly boring. Right now, we are doing equitable servitudes and restrictive covenants. Please don't ask me to explain what they are. Just saying these words put me to sleep. I'm sure there's a nice article on Wikipedia or something that will explain it all. :) It's not even the subject matter itself that is boring, but just the cases that are badly edited and convoluted and quotes chapter and verse from these incomprehensible covenants that no one (at least no law students) gives a damn about.

And to prove that I'm not just whiny for the sake of it, here's a sample sentence from one of those ridiculous opinions that I have had the misfortune to read:

"And the party of the second part for the party of the second part and the heirs, successors and assigns of the party of the second part further covenants that the property conveyed by this deed shall be subject to an annual charge in such an amoun tas will be fixed by the party of the first part, its successors and assigns, not, however exceeding in any year the sum of four Dollars per lot..."

Yeah, I'm not kidding. I read this sentence at 12:35 am and just cursed outloud. It's like, what?! Can these people write?! And what are those (not one, not two, but) THREE "party of the second part" doing first thing in that sentence?!?

Food-wise, this has been a good weekend. Boyfriend and I went to dinner with a whole bunch of couples in our section on Friday, to this little Italian restaurant tucked behind a dumpy looking Italian grocery store that turned out to be fantastic, and fantastically expensive ($40 per person! We did have wine and appetizer, but still...). ABS, his boyfriend C who's visiting him this weekend, RH and his wife S, DA and his boyfriend M, JM and her husband J, LC, and (weirdly) the director of the First Year Lawyering program and HER husband, were all there at a long table. So dinner was good, but also weird.

I also had drinks Friday night after dinner with J and her husband. We finished the night early and everyone felt tired.

This morning, Boyfriend and I had dim sum with J and her husband in B-town, at the Chinese restaurant that we always go to. It was delicious! After that, we came back and I played a few rounds of monopoly while contemplating property rules and taxing regulations in the game. :P Then started reading tax for real.

:D Playing indoor soccer on Friday with our sectionmates against another section and WINNING (for the first and only time this semester)
:( Rainy and cold all weekend. Too much work. Horrible allergies (though better in the past few days b/c of rain.