Friday, November 30, 2007

Hints for non-law students who have to be around law students during finals

Classes will be officially finished for the semester next Thursday, so I thought I’d prepare a helpful little guide for all of those significant others, close friends, and family members that are unfortunate enough to have to be in contact with law students (e.g. ME) during finals.

1. Do not nickname your law student wife/daughter/sister/friend “Nagzilla” while she is studying for finals. It doesn’t matter how cute you say it or if it is simply supposed to be an affectionate pet name, she is stressed, bitchy and is not going to take it well.
2. Do not ask your law student to do chores after she’s been at the library for the last 15 hours. If the house is dirty it will stay dirty for another two weeks. If the garbage needs to be taken out, take it out yourself. If there are sticks in the yard that need to be picked up, well, they aren’t going anywhere in the next week, so it can wait.
3. In the event that the law student is actually home for dinner do not make her decide what she wants to eat. Making any decisions that are not related to issue-spotting at this point will only make her burst into tears.
4. Do not try to make any plans during finals period that include your law student. If it’s important she’ll try to make it, but don’t expect anything. Any time that you get to spend with your law student during finals is simply a bonus, so be grateful for what you can get.
5. Do make her dinner and/or pack her a lunch. Throw a few snacks on the counter that she can take to school with her. Law students diets—while most are not that good to begin—get even worse during finals. By prepping snacks for them you’ll help prevent them from living off the vending machines for the next week.
6. Do provide her with caffeine. Either leave a fresh-brewed pot of tea, or charge up a Starbucks card for her use.
7. Don’t comment on the last time she bathed, how bad she smells, or how terrible her hair looks. Just let her do her thing.
8. Better yet, don’t even talk to her unless she talks to you first. Her mind is probably somewhere else the entire time you are talking to her, so when you ask a question and she replies, “huh?” it will just leave you mad and her confused. Best not to talk to her unless she talks to you first—because at least then you’ll know she’s engaged in the conversation.
9. Do understand that the outside world, for the most part, ceases to exist for a law student during finals. Finals are a time students have to learn an entire semester’s material in a few short days—grades in classes are determined by what happens during these 48- or 72-hour time spans. Law students are on emotional, mental and physical roller coasters. Let them ride it out and simply be there for them after its over, preferably with martini in hand.

Thursday, November 29, 2007

Steven King thinks Jenna Bush needs a good waterboarding

It seems weird to think of respecting a pop-lit author like Steven King, but when you read gems like this, how can you not love the man?

“So I said something to the ‘Nightline’ guy about waterboarding, and if the Bush administration didn’t think it was torture, they ought to do some personal investigation. Someone in the Bush family should actually be waterboarded so they could report on it to George. I said, I didn’t think he would do it, but I suggested Jenna be waterboarded and then she could talk about whether or not she thought it was torture.”
-Excerpted from a Time interview

Wednesday, November 28, 2007

I lost the “bus race” game

I was walking up the hill from downtown Seattle to school yesterday. It was like most other days, and I had high hopes of winning the bus race game two days in a row.

It’s the game I play to make the routine walk a little more interesting. Here’s the premise: There are no buses that go from Kirkland anywhere near Capitol Hill. My best option is to take the 255 to downtown Seattle and find a way to get from there to school. The trouble is, the buses never seem to be in sync. If the 255 and 12 were timed better, I would make it to school in record time. As it is, by the time the 255 drops me off, I miss the 12 by a few seconds, requiring me wait 15 minutes for the next one. The faster thing seems to be simply walking 20 minutes up the hill from downtown. I say seems, because about half the time, the #12 passes me as I’m walking.

To quash my frustration, I made up a simple, little game. If I make it up the hill (to the corner of Madison & Broadway) before the 12 passes me, I win. Otherwise, I lose. Of course, there are special nuances to the game, that only a Calvinball player would understand. If, for example, the bus passes me, but I catch up to it at the corner of Madison & Broadway before the light changes, it’s a tie.

This got me to thinking about the other games I play to make routine activities more interesting.

The turtle game is one that both Nick and I play. When you’re driving on the freeway, you win if you can change lanes without running over the road turtles.

I also play the cruise control game. To play, you set your cruise control to a hair faster than the average speed of travel on the freeway and see how long you can go without slowing down. This is far more interesting, because there’s some strategy involved. You have to estimate the speed of cars in the lanes to the left and right of the one you’re traveling in and make the right choice when passing so you don’t get “boxed in.”

The other game I invented doesn’t have a name yet. I play it whenever I’m riding my bike along the Burke Gilman Trail. For every biker I pass, I get one point. For every biker that passes me, I subtract one point. The goal is to end your ride with as many points as possible. I have to confess, I’m an average rider and only ever end up with 0-3 points.

In this age of iPods, Blackberry’s and other distracting devices, I wonder how many people get bored enough to make up silly games like this. If you’ve made up a game, I’d love to hear what it is and how you play. Or perhaps you also play the turtle game or the cruise control game. Leave a comment and tell us about it!

Tuesday, November 27, 2007

Bring on the Banff Film Festival!

Hip-hip-hooray! The Banff Film Festival comes to Seattle for three nights starting tomorrow. Nick and I have been to Banff twice for the festival and love everything about it - especially the shared inner drive for adventure, testing personal limits, and doing things no one has ever tried before. The hairs on the back of my neck tingle just thinking about it. We can’t afford to go to Banff right now, the Canadian dollar being what it is. (Just kidding. It actually conflicts with school.) We can’t wait until we have the time/money to go again, though.

If you don’t have tickets to the local tour showing at the Mountaineers...um...too bad. It’s probably sold out. Put it on your calendar for next year, though. It is an excellent evening of fun. In the mean time, here’s a snippet of some of things you would have seen.

The Banff World Tour intro video (I just love the music):

“Weekend Warrior” (the best Banff Film Festival movie of all time). It was created in 2003 as part of the Filmmaker Showdown in Whistler in only 72 hours from start to finish.

Then there’s the amazing Ryan Leech doing a little trials riding in Prague:

“Shock and Awe 2” is the counter point to Ryan’s flawless riding. It’s probably a little more realistic of the real work that goes into this type of riding.

I don’t remember seeing the following videos at Banff, but they star some of the folks you’d see there. Introducing the notorious Timmy O’Neil in “The Guardian Angel”:

And my favorite of all, “Everyday Extreme.” This movie and “Sister Extreme” are the inspiration for my upcoming video production - “Extreme Snowshoeing.”

She’s crafty

I don’t have much energy to read in my spare time anymore. (Shhh! Don’t tell any of my fellow law school students that I actually have spare time. They’ll think I’m lying.) On the other hand, this deficiency has stimulated my crafty side. This weekend, I created a special coupon book for my mom, who was celebrating the 40th anniversary of her 18th birthday. Whoa!

The book included all sorts of goodies like a loaf of homemade bread, backrubs, afternoon tea, gardening help, and a snowshoeing adventure, among other things. She seemed more excited about the coupon book than she did about the gift certificate for a manicure. Perhaps this was because the homemade box that the manicure certificate came in was cooler-looking than the certificate itself.

A template for the box is available courtesy of Mirkwood Designs if you’d like to make one to wrap small Christmas gifts in this year.