RAing, Procrastinating, Friends

I would be lying if I said that I have been crazy busy with RA work. I have certainly been doing a lot of that, but I have frankly been doing more procrastinating. :)

I did finish editing Professor B's urgent stuff, so now I'm left with the less urgent and a lot more boring stuff like editing down cases so his future family law class could get the benefit of not having to read a gazillion pages of useless analysis (kind of like what we did with this case Wendt v. Wendt... The original case opinion was over 300 pages. Prof B. -- or some poor assistant -- edited it down to 50, and it was still way too long. ABS never bothered reading it because of the length.) So I have about 20 cases for which to do this, including Wendt (hee hee).

Then I am editing this essay by Prof. S, which is in a rough shape (the essay, not the prof), and I think some aspects of the argument needs work. But overall it's interesting to see how people work, and reassuring too b/c it seems totally doable.

I had excellent sushi with RH, LC, AC, and AC's boyfriend J last night. Afterwards, RH and LC came by my apartment for some wine (my favorite: carmenere) and chocolate (truffles from Whole Foods), and we talked about everything from gossip re professors to our dating lives to legal history to critiques of law and literature. I don't hang out with RH and LC much, but last night I was reminded of how much I like them, and especially RH, because he is always so witty and funny and smart.

LC had a funny story about two of the professors at the law school. They are married now, but apparently before they were married, the male professor was married to someone else. Then the male professor and the female professor began having an affair. At a faculty meeting, the male professor's then-wife walked up to the female professor and said to her: "Stop fucking my husband." The female professor very calmly replied: "I can't."

I have no idea whether this story is true, but we certainly had a good laugh over it.

LC is brave and NOT doing a firm this summer. She worked for a firm last summer and absolutely hated it, so she is looking for non-profit opportunities and thinking more specifically about West Africa. She is also thinking about getting a PhD in anthropology after law school. RH already has a PhD in literature, and is therefore in no hurry to return to endless grad student life. I think after long years of poverty he is finally to make some money, though of course academia is such a prize that I doubt anyone would turn it down if given the option.

We also talked for quite a bit about my pessimism re law and literature, but strangely, from the conversation, I actually got some idea for a paper that I am quite excited about, and I began thinking that I perhaps would write it next semester under Professor M. Today I thought about this some more, and talked it over with my dad, who knows nothing about law, and not that much about literary theory (I mean beyond what a reasonably well-educated person usually knows), but who understood what I was talking about and seemed to like my approach.

So I have been thinking about THIS all day (in lieu of working, hehe), and keep on turning the idea over in my head and trying to make sure that it still is a viable and appropriately interesting and original idea, which is also substantial enough to turn into a solid paper. I probably need to do some secondary literature research before I start, just to make sure I am not writing on some obvious and cliched points that people have already written about. But from the way Professor M talked about it last semester, it sounds like no one is writing on this stuff anymore. Perhaps it's time to... um, revive the field. :)

In a bout of virtuousness this morning, I went to the gym for 1.5 hours, did quite a few situps, and then ran/walked for 5.5 miles. I still am not close to reaching my new year's resolution of running for 5 miles nonstop. The maximum I have done ever is 3 miles. I think my problem is that I get bored before I get tired, so next time I go to the gym, perhaps I should make sure to go at night when prime time TV is on, with a good show that I like, such as Lost. Then I bet I could run throughout the whole episode.

Hmmm... that actually is not a bad idea... Of course the weather needs to cooperate and not drop down to single digits at night so I can actually not be deterred to walk to the gym in the first place. :)