First night of law school

Tonight I had my first law school class. WOW! It was amazing. I loved it. I am so ready for this career path.

I gave a brief tonight, and I seemed to be received well by the professor. She didn’t correct me…so that was a good sign. She is the Chief Public Defender for Sonoma County. It’s funny that she is my professor, as today I was just reading a note today from my friend Cassandra about what my morals can handle when it comes to the law. Could I defend a criminal I don’t morally support? I asked the professor how she deals with that, and she said..well I don’t always support them, or think they deserve to get off, or that they are even good people. But the law states that EVERY person is entitled to a fair trial…and someone has to represent these people…so it might as well be me.

What a profound answer. I still couldn’t do it.

Here’s a link to my first case brief tonight on Robinson v. California.

Don’t laugh…I hate my voice on these recorder thingys.

http://1thinlayer.com/my_first_law_school_brief.mp3

thankfully I finished most of the 120 pages and the 12 cases I needed to brief today. So I’m ok…I’m tired. But relieved and happy.

breathe me by sia 

Alone

I heard this haunting song today after reading my friend Rich’s blog (http://bagofraisin.blogspot.com/).

It is a glimpse into the life of many of us lonely souls. Even with people coming in and out of our lives, often our lives feel empty. It is really hard to be deep and intimate and feel connected with people, when everyone is in and out of our physical lives like a blur of color.The scene in this video where she was sitting on a bed and all these people are flashing in and out of her bed just made me realize our lives are all the same. For many of us we are so alone. People come in and out of our lives and we can’t always connect on the deep levels that we need to, and before we are ready, they are gone. We yearn to grasp and hold on to these wisps of color going in and out of our lives but to no avail. It makes us sad. But when Adrien and I are together...everything else around us is flashing in and out,,,but we remain together With these small amounts of physical and emotional connection with people, we can often feel lost, or alone, and sad. This video and the words of the song, are really impacting to me.

http://umusic.ca/site/media/sia/video/colorthemallone/breatheme_320.php

Breath Me, by Sia

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Help, I have done it again
I have been here many times before
Hurt myself again today
And, the worst part is there's no-one else to blame

Be my friend
Hold me, wrap me up
Unfold me
I am small
I'm needy
Warm me up
And breathe me

Ouch I have lost myself again
Lost myself and I am nowhere to be found,
Yeah I think that I might break
I've lost myself again and I feel unsafe

Be my friend
Hold me, wrap me up
Unfold me
I am small
I'm needy
Warm me up
And breathe me

Be my friend
Hold me, wrap me up
Unfold me
I am small
I'm needy
Warm me up
And breathe me

First law school homework

Law school classes haven't even started yet...and I have the biggest homework assignment I have ever had in my entire history of schooling.

I haphazardly decided to go into the law school last friday to pick up my syllabus's and see which section I am in, and to find out if i need to buy my books now, or if I can wait until class starts.

The law school staff looked at me like I was crazy.

"Are you kidding...you know you have assignments in all your classes before they start next week right!?!?!!?"

"NO! I didn't! Good thing i stopped by today."


"Yes...and you will ALWAYS have assignments due before your classes start in law school"

Alright...good to know...great start to law school!

Well it gets better. So i got my syllabus's for the three classes I take this year...Criminal Law, Torts, and Contracts. I went and bought the books, and the first assignment in the criminal law class was 120 pages!!!! I also have two 50 page assignments in the other two classes!! And the 120 page assignment for the crim law class includes about 10 cases to be briefed!!!!

Ok..breathe...i can do this...

So I read for about 6 hours this past weekend thinking that should get me throught the first assignment.

YEAH RIGHT!! That's the thickest reading I have ever done in my life...i heard a great quote last spring in my intro classes:

"Reading legalese is like trying to stir concrete with your eyelashes"

That's it!!! It's concrete...and I am the friekin' eyelash of a knat trying to stir this stuff.

Last night I stayed up until 1:30 reading my law stuff. I only made it to page 20. I was writing the briefs (summaries) of the cases as I went (so as to be prepared in class incase I get called on), so i was reading and rereading and trying to comprehend every word. There were so many words I had never even heard of! My SAT word lists in high school have failed me!!!! I ended up looking up all the big words i didn't know up in the dictionary. I got into the office this morning VERY tired and frustrated that I didn't get more accomplished.

So I talked to Jim (my boss at the law office) this morning about my frustration of not getting all my reading done, and he said...
oh...haha...you can't sit there and try to comprehend every word...you just have to skim it all and get through it. Otherwise you will never get it all done.

OHHHHHHH!!!!!!!! I get it now. So tonight I am going to just jam through as much as I can and hopefully finish the rest of the 100 pages i have left to read!!!!

So...this is it...the beginning of the saga of Law school. I am a 1L!

Old Souls

     “There is a remarkable quality of recognition when old souls meet again in another life time, an overwhelming sense of gratitude and joy accompanied by a deep and familiar peace. “


This quote is from a wedding site of some friends of friends I was on today. It just describes perfectly the amount of depth that my relationship with Adrien has.

That’s it for now…just a tiny thought on an enormously huge relationship.

choices

Today Adrien and I have made the decision that she will stay in LA and pursue her teaching job and I will continue purusing law school in Santa Rosa. It is sad, but good to have a definitive decision made. I think I have realized I am VERY BAD at making tough decisions. But hey, it’s never too late to make a choice. The other choice would have been to have her quit her teaching job before it started and move up to Santa Rosa and find a job up here...or have me quit my job and law school and move to LA and pursue other career options. This choice luckily would have turned out good no matter what the choice was. I have never been so lucky. I mean what kind of choice do you get that if you made the choice it turns out good either way. Well, one in which true love was involved. This is a great day. So in a few months I will hopefully be living with Adrien. Starting law school in a few days will be intense…so it may be good to just focus on that while Adrien and I deepen our relationship through the distance. I think the saying will show true though…”Absence makes the heart grow fonder”.

Creek Jump 

Adrien holds the World at her fingertips 

Our Table 

Our Dead Neigbors 

Spiral play 

Sol Fest (Soul Feast)

The Sol Fest was this weekend in Hopland at Real Goods Solar Living Institute. Adrien, Kartik and I tabled to promote the Sustainability in Motion Bike Tour in Oregon. We met so many amazing people, full of character, and so motivated to make change. It was inspiring to say the least. At the sol fest, we did partner yoga, played in the solar powered fountains, ate vegan food, drank a lot of smoothies, listened to great music, drumming, and several inspiring environmental activist speakers. We played with kids, people watched, walked around the grounds and booths and learned a lot about sustainable living, and took some amazing photos…of which are above.

This world is changing. People are becoming slowly aware that there is less and less time for this civilization as we know it to prosper. It will soon become a civilzation that is dying. Within several years the peak oil supply will become diminished and we will have less and less oil sparking all kinds of crisis for the system we have set up. People who are living sustianable lifestyles will be able to continue living without crisis. Hopefully the education for this lifestyle will have reached enough people by then that the population as a whole will not crumble in fear and violence, and will be able to quickly transform our society into one similar to Cuba's in which people make do with what they have available to them. There is much work to do. I saw a good quote this weekend...

"To the world, I may just be one person, but to one person, i may be the whole world."

Conform

Conform


I have a problem with conforming. I love my quirks. I love my idiosyncrasies. I love the ideas that I have in my mind, my heart, and my soul. I love that I have all the answers inside me.

Conforming is just there to make life easy. When we feel like we want to belong, to fit in, to be loved, to not be alone, to be safe, to be secure…we conform.

Some of spend our whole lives to conforming to things that are not really us.

I am deathly afraid of becoming an old man who has realized that he spent his whole life conforming to something, and realizes that not only is that not who he is, but that he has not been able to contribute to the world in the way that he really wants to.

I just watched “About Schmidt” last night. There was some very powerful ideas in there. He realized late in life that he had conformed. He had never really made a significant difference in anybody’s life in a way that he wanted to.  How have I made a difference in anybody’s life?

shallow

totally immersed in thoughts of love...my intellectual aspirations have been put on hold. It's amazing how "true love" can overwhelm one in an almost lovesick state. I seriously believe I have been manifesting the state of being sick lately just because I miss the woman I love...Adrien.

Love is a petty nuisance when looked at that way....but when looked at another way...it is the most precious thing there is...causing us to do crazy things like wanting to move to far away places to be with our lover, to quit our day job and follow our dreams of fancy, to throw away all our social connections and obligations and excape into a dreamy world with our lover, to change the world, and to hold on to our dreams of youth. Basically...it holds us to the most precious states we were ever and will ever be in our entire lives. Love brings out the most beautiful aspects of human beings. To me this is where love truly exists.

Balance swings all these thoughts and feelings back towards reality. Reality of my health needs, my mental needs, and my financial needs. Hmm...is this what true love is all about? This is why people say that they have found themselves in states where they have felt as they have never felt and that one will truly know when they have found "the one". Well i don't know what to think about finances, and mental, and physical, and emotional needs. But I know that I am in love, truly, and i look forward to the precious interaction with a girl that I want to go see about.

In the meantime...i guess i outta stay balanced...and focused on the law school degree.

Vigil for Cindy

Wow! What an amazing experience. There were so many older people there, and it makes sense, Cindy Sheehan is a mother. Maybe this was the older generations chance to speak out in a dignified way. It was so beautiful to see such a non-violent rally of support to Cindy's statement against Bush's lies. I support Cindy so much as she is like a bhuddist monk just sitting there silently asking in such a peacful way that she wants to meet with the president to explain the rationalle for this war that is killing our children.

here are some photos.

reused starbucks cup for vigil candle 

dread lock woman 

love and talk and candles 

heart for disabled 

bleeding heart 

camp casey at the santa rosa plaza

Young activist for Cindy 

Glowing for Cindy Sheehan 

steamy 

well this is the first post...

not much to talk about today. Just getting excited to go to Law school. I am paying my tuition tommorow...so it's official. i am a 1L law student!

I'm so inspired by Cindy Sheehan...the mother sitting in front of President Bush's ranch in Texas waiting for the truth about why her son died in Iraq, and when the rest of the soldiers are coming home.

There are candle light vigils in many cities tommorow night...as described on moveon.org.