rock star

Last night was my last night of test-prep teaching. I don't know if I'll do it again.

On the one hand, I enjoyed it - I had a great class and we had a good time. Last night they expressed their appreciation - one saying that she mocks the other students saying, "Haha! We got the good teacher!" The guy who observed my teaching thinks I'm a rock star, according to the director. Glad to know that all my training and experience pays off occasionally.

But, it's not a lot of money, and it's quite a bit of prep. But more than that, I don't really agree with it. They charge $1300 for people to improve their scores - but the average improvement is only five points. Which can be significant, but they could do it on their own with a book and all that. Or, they could realize that law school isn't for them. There's a guy in the class - a nice guy - but he is really slow. It always takes him forever to catch up to what we're talking about. He does not have the mental acuity to handle law school. He should not be a lawyer because he is not quick enough to adequately represent people.

That sounds so anti-American, but I think people do need to honestly recognize their limitations. Law school isn't for everybody. It's hard. Medical school isn't for everybody. Same thing. And PhD programs shouldn't be for everybody, but the one I was in sure was. There was only one professor there who would really be honest, and people thought she was mean. OK, if you can't write, you don't deserve a PhD. Suck it up. You can have a perfectly happy life, but you should not be in academia if you aren't among the brightest people in the world. Period. It makes it meaningless, but more important it dilutes the quality of the program for people who actually can handle it.

Today this 2L was telling the person I was standing next to (they were having a conversation and I didn't want to interrupt - see yesterday's post) about how little pieces of her soul died inside her during finals of her 1L year.

Well, fortunately I'm a rock star without a chemical dependency, so hopefully my soul will survive intact. Shrug. There are people who will still love me even if I'm not all that with law school exams.

But, I still better study. K says if the Lord wants her on Law Review (top 5-10% of the class), then He'll make it happen. Well, I have little faith that things line up for me that way, so I guess it's on my own merits. Things are just so mushy in my brain still, especially about Civ Pro. I can't smartly snap out all the Rules and their applications. I have this sort of blurry concept of, oh yeah, there has to be personal jurisdiction, subject matter jurisdiction, and venue, and some people can be impleaded or joined. Is there complete diversity? Is this a nonwaivable Rule 12 item? Rule 8 is permissive (or we call it the promiscuous rule - it loves everybody), but that's about the limit of my understanding of it. Colored tabs aren't going to help me much, I fear. I work through problems and I get them right about 75% of the time, but I can't always articulate WHY. Yes, she can be sued in Maine state court if the long-arm statute works, and can then remove to federal court on diversity - 1362 - and then transfer under 1404 if the court approves ... but so what? Is that all there is, or am I still missing the big picture that's hidden somewhere under all the mists? Unshrouded Civ Pro truth. That's what I seek.

Not helping is that he gave a huge-ass reading assignment with lots more info to digest for tomorrow. Our final is in five days, and we're still learning new difficult stuff. This sucks and I glowered at him all class period. It startled him, but he should have expected some unhappiness. There's no good reason for it - if he'd better budgeted our time we could be working on application of all we've learned on our last days instead - which would make a whole lot more sense.

Anyway, pretty much everything I'm eating now is orange. Persimmons, red lentil soup with carrots, baked sweet potatoes with paprika, harira (Moroccan stew). Hopefully it helps my eyes live through finals. I was thinking I was craving those nutrients, but I think it's the season - autumn makes me crave orange.

OK, an hour until my next class. I couldn't sleep last night - again - which makes my brain even more fuzzy than usual. Great.