ABS and I picked up our competition packets at around 4 in the afternoon with a bunch of friends. In case you're wondering, the legendary packet is about 4 inches thick, and too heavy for me to hold on one hand. It required 3 humungous binders, and almost didn't fit into my bookbag. Such is the back-crushing realities of law school.
After picking up the packet, ABS and I sat in our favorite spot on campus and read the directions. The competition is divided into 2 parts: subciting, and writing a case comment. The subciting part is tedious work: editing and simple bluebooking of a 30-page case comment that has been "doctored" by the editors. Errors abound. Then, we have to write a case comment about a Supreme Court case that was decided last term. Our case is on a very technical aspect of the death penalty. Since I'm not allowed to talk about it, I won't discuss it here. :)
On Friday night, I did very little work, just read the article that we are supposed to subcite for, and the actual case itself.
Yesterday, worked around 6 hours. I did nothing but subciting, and ended up finishing about half of the subciting section. However, didn't touch the case comment part. The case was very complex and I wanted it to swirl around in my mind a little more.
Last night, ABS and I met for dinner. We are strictly bound by the honor code to not talk about the competition, so we didn't. Instead, we made up a schedule and realized that every single day of the next week is going to incredibly full. Think 10-hour days.
Today, I got up too late (around 11) and started working about 1.5 hours later (procrastinated before then, of course.). I started out with case comment (read a few central cases, jotted notes down, etc.), then finished my first round of subciting just around now. Subciting is tedious... there are so many errors, and it involves reading every source closely and making sure the source supports the statement. It's pretty much like normal subciting, except now the errors that we find have point values.
I worked in Starbucks today for 7 hours, sitting there in the center big table (selfishly taking it all up myself!) and drinking first a huge latte and then a big green tea. It was pretty nice. Perhaps I will go back there tomorrow just because it's a nice change of pace.
Around late afternoon, there was a big thunderstorm, which I really liked. People streamed into Starbucks to take cover from the heavy downpour.
Afterwards, there was a single rainbow that shimmed in the sky in a perfect arch. Then, there was another one! I ran outside and took photos with my cell phone. (It's the one time that my camera phone actually had some use!) Since my cell phone camera is crappy, the colors are not as rich and dramtic as it was in real life. But take a look, they are still pretty cool.
:D see photos above.
:( nothing but self-imposed work today!
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