Like a real lawyer 'n shit

I took my very first official deposition yesterday.

A deposition is like the examination of a witness in a trial, except it's before trial, there is no judge or jury, and it's for the purpose of gathering information.

So yesterday, I sat down with my supervisor, the court reporter, the opposing counsel, and the witness, and I asked all kinds of questions and follow-up questions, and it was weird and familiar and scary and boring and exciting all at once.

It was the first deposition in the disability discrimination suit my internship organization filed in federal court in February. We just started discovery for this case, and my supervisor managed to sneak a depo in for me to do just under the wire – yesterday was the last day of my clinical.

Because the scheduling for this deposition came together very quickly, I kept expecting something to come up and for the deposition to be canceled. After all, I have had three potential clients cancel their intake meetings this semester. (After the third one, my supervisor joked that he knew who to assign new clients to if he didn’t want to take their cases.)

It wasn’t until the last few days that I confronted the idea that I really was going to take this deposition. For once, being so freakin' busy was a blessing. I didn’t have time to think about the fact that I was nervous. My supervisor and I met for two hours yesterday, and went over the questions I had prepared. We discussed them, revised them, and rehearsed. He reassured me that he was not worried at all about my performance, and that I would be just fine.

There was every reason to think that I would be just fine. Discovery for this case started just a few weeks ago, and E.W. was the first witness to be deposed. Because she is one of probably a couple witnesses who will be providing similar information about the work environment and company policies, there wasn’t a great deal riding on her testimony – she could really only help us. So this deposition was probably the least stressful situation possible for a someone like me.

Nevertheless, as my supervisor and I walked downstairs to meet the witness, I had to fight back nervous laughter. I felt like I was just playacting. Surely someone would figure out that I wasn’t in the least qualified to do this? When would they figure that out?

Well, never, as it turned out. The deposition was both harder and easier than I thought it would be. The witness’ spoken English skills were very poor, although she understood us fairly well. I ended up summarizing much of what she said and repeating it back to her in the form of leading questions – which opposing counsel objected to, of course.

My training as a mediator came in pretty handy, since one of the skills we learn is to summarize and frame information. The actual gathering of information wasn’t difficult, but being “on,” as it were, in the stagey format of a deposition, was more disconcerting than I thought it would be. I think I was more nervous about appearing a fool to the opposing counsel and my supervisor than actually doing the depo! (Nice to be all concerned with the case, hk, instead of your own vanity.)

Everyone was very nice about my performance – even the opposing counsel and the court reporter told me: “Good job!” My supervisor was very complimentary, calling it "excellent," saying I was better than my peers, etc. He called me later in the day to say, "By the way, I loved that you totally shot the opposing counsel down."

"What?" I asked, confused.

"When he was starting to explain that he'd be objecting at times and that the witness shouldn't worry about it -- you cut him off and said you'd be covering that. It was like, 'Hey, this is MY deposition.'"

"Oh yeah," I remembered, "but I didn't mean it to come off like that."

"I know. But it was cool."

Ego stroke! I love it. Whee!

There’s something very scary about being responsible for someone else’s life, in even this limited capacity, but in the protective environment of my clinical, and with my supervisor sitting right there whispering needed comments in my ear, it was kinda... fun.

Then I had to listen to the other guy question the witness, though, and that was kinda dull.

But I did a depo! Like a real lawyer 'n shit!

Wanna read a garbled rant? Here you go!

Oh, there are SO many things I need to be doing instead of writing. But writing soothes the savage beast, or so I hear...

There have been a lot of things percolating around here. I went to a panel on free speech in schools tonight, which was not well attended because it was not well advertised. But part of the reason (I think) it was not well advertised was because it was in response to a controversy in the spring over the school's Satire. In short, the show, which was meant to be funny, parodied some individuals in an allegedly racially stereotyped way. These individuals (along with a couple others who were portrayed negatively for their stance on pornography, and for their physical attributes) set up a town hall, with a professor moderating, and there was some good dialogue there. About half the room (which seats about 150 and which was overflowing - people couldn't even get in after a while, and there was security checking student IDs) were black students.

There was a LOT of tension in the black student community about the Satire, not only inter-group, but also intra-group along socio-economic lines. Those who had been offended by their portrayal in the Satire tended to be from poorer backgrounds -- one woman felt she had been portrayed as "ghetto." (Funny - when I told this to an acquaintance of mine, he asked, "Well, is she?")

I've had several conversations, with friends, with strangers, with groups of people and individuals, about the Satire and the ensuing controversy and tension. The town hall was productive in providing suggestions about how to prevent this from happening again (and there have been criticisms in the past about the individual portrayals), but to me it seemed to miss the crucial point: non-black students just could not imagine what it was like for the offended black students to watch those portrayals on stage. There was a basic lack of understanding that went beyond artistic freedom and audience reaction -- this was a cultural, racial divide that the town hall barely touched on.

I was riveted the whole 2 hours of that town hall. Standing the entire time, I listened to people say they'd never heard such an open discussion about race at this school before now. And I thought, that's a bleeding shame. There are so many things that divide us. Why, in a community of articulate, sensitive, intelligent young poeple, can't we find a way to bridge that gap in understanding?

I don't know why. But it bothers me that the school itself isn't doing more to encourage discussion and openness about the issue -- not just specifically about the Satire, but the Balkanization of students into their ethnic organizations, the lack of communications between said organizations, the fear that nonblack students have about talking about race, the alienation of low-income students... and so on.

I'm not an activist, and I don't want to be one, but there are so many things about this place that make me angry. I get angry about the extravagance (see: outdoor ice skating rink with free skate rental -- I kid you not -- the past 3 years); the infantilization (free coffee! free feminine hygiene! free printing!); the way the administration seems to want to engage only on the "fun" things and remain silent, for example, about the peeper who violated the privacy of several women dorm residents last year; the silence about the creepy caller who was systematically calling female dorm residents last year; the silence about the Satire (which was even worse because THE DEAN PERFORMED IN IT); the way the dean threatened to pull funding from the student practice organizations, which actually attempt to HELP people; the ridiculous amounts of money thrown at us in every form; the catering to firm recruitment; the admissions policy of taking smart kids who don't know what they want to do and get channeled into firms; the lack of guidance for those who don't want to be channeled; the way you have to strategize about which classes to take, and how to study for exams... oh, and that's just what I can think of off the top of my head.

Okay, venting is over. It's past 11 and I haven't read for con law in a week, and no amount of venting changes the fact that I have exams in two weeks.

Oh, spring (The Dialectic)

- Daffodils! Tulips! Dogwood blossoms! Grass! Neon green new leaves shyly sprouting from branches! Those yellow ... flower-y ... things! On branches!

- Rain.

- Sandals! Coat colors other than black or dark blue! No hats! Flower-print dresses and skirts! Cute little jackets!

- Flabby.

- Birds chirping! People sitting outside! The reappearance of patio furniture outside the cafeteria! Love bursting forth with the ardor of new hope and passion!

- Couples kissing on the sidewalk.

- Talk of summer plans! Excitement about new places! Thrill of having nights and weekends back!

- Exams, papers, new positions and responsibilities in student orgs, work permits still ungotten, studystudystudystudystudy.

- [silence]

- Ha. I win.

Speakers and Selfishness

Malcolm Gladwell, the author of Blink and The Tipping Point, spoke last night here at Crimson, and I enjoyed it quite a lot, even though I'd read some of the same stories in his books. He's a slight African American man, dressed in very casual clothes last night, with a generous mop of springy afro curls that made me think "sproing!" several times during the talk.

Gladwell, who is a writer for the New Yorker, spoke about unconscious bias and jury trials, starting out with the story of the first female trombone player in the Munich Symphony, who only got the job because there'd been a screen put up at the auditions (for a completely different reason). His point was that biases operate within us without us realizing it, and so in a jury trial, allowing people to see or hear the defendant and (unconsciously) react to his or her race or gender or appearance, was an unreliable method of determining someone's guilt or innocence. We should put up a screen, he suggested, and decrease the amount of information juries receive. (Some studies show we have better judgement when we have less information, such as the study showingn that ER doctors make more accurate diagnoses of heart attacks when they are forced to consider only 4 factors instead of the patient's entire medical and family history.)

It's an interesting suggestion, and no one in the audience was openly derisive of it, in part because his ultimate point was not that putting up a screen was the best and only solution, but that there is evidence of terrible bias in the criminal justice against black defendants (particularly in sentencing black defendants on drug charges versus white defendants), and we should do something about it.

Gladwell is an anecdotal writer, and not terribly interested in the nitty gritty of the studies, so he gets slammed a lot (and probably rightly so) for extracting points from various sociological studies that wouldn't stand up to rigorous analysis. As a speaker, he was funny and engaging; knowing that he wasn't a sociologist or criminologist or lawyer, he didn't try to get into the nitty gritty of his arguments or suggestions, often taking refuge in the tried-and-true, "That may be true. But that doesn't mean we shouldn't try." I can respect that, actually. If there's problem, you gotta try to fix it, no?
------------------------
Selfish?

Disclaimer: This may be a very unfairly titled section, and I'll admit up front that I am writing somewhat out of pique. I admit it! hk is only human, after all, and sometimes she gets annoyed/hurt/irritated by humanity.

I am friends (I think) with Elegancia, a very elegant woman in my class who has been very hard to get to know. She always dashes out of class the moment it is over, and sometimes it's so she can review for the next class, but other times, I don't know. It's like she can't just hang out and relax.

Elegancia and I were in a class together last term, and would meet briefly before class sometimes to talk about the reading. And this term, we're in two classes together. We share one of those classes with Sally, who today proposed we get together and review next week for the final. I agreed, and then Elegancia walked over and Sally asked her if she wanted to join.

She thought about it for a moment, clearly thinking about what to say, and then: "No." We must have shown surprise on our faces, because she quickly said, "I would love to, but I have to start studying for my other class, and that's going to take up a lot of time." She then asked if we'd figured out some point from class that was unclear, and I (rather coolly, I admit) said we'd probably figured it out. She murmured that maybe we could explain it to her sometime. And then she asked what time it was, and dashed away.

So me and Sally will meet next Monday, and that'll still be good for us, I think, but I wonder about Elegancia. My immediate reaction was kinda, "Whoa! Way to shut us down!" Elegancia, Sally and I have hung out a couple times this semester; we're not BFF, but it's not like we're utter strangers, either.

Hers was not an entirely unexpected reaction, because I've observed that Elegancia doesn't necessarily like to talk over the things we're studying (for example, we've sat silently next to each other before the start of class, going over our notes instead of talking with each other about the content), and I assume it's because she gets more out of studying the material by herself rather than talking it over with others.

But I wonder also if it's not the overachiever syndrome. You know -- where the subject has never failed at anything, wants to keep it that way, has extremely high standards for himself, is extremely structured, and, yes, doesn't really do anything for anyone else that doesn't benefit him. I mean, I'm like this to a certain extent, but age and experience has mellowed me out, and I try to accommodate friends and guests the best I can. Elegancia, however, has been in school all her life, and from several conversations I've had with her, isn't the type to bend her personal standards (for herself) in order to accommodate others. Which, again, could be said of me as well (just ask my ex), but everything and everyone on a spectrum, you know?

Okay, yeah, I don't really have a point to make here, and I have to go running now (to keep my own damn internal and regulated schedule), but ... I don't like it when people aren't generous! I think that's my point. I wouldn't want to live Elegancia's elegant life (and no one's asking me to, I know) because I think it an impoverished way of living. I don't have much ambition (at least in terms of becoming famous or well-known), so I guess it's not as much of a sacrifice to me to deviate from my self-imposed standards. I guess it's more pleasant for me to hang around people who feel the same.

So there's a question for you. Where do you draw the line between maintaining and staying true to your own standards, and bending or breaking those standards for the benefit of others? I know I have high standards for myself. Am I really doing enough for others that I'm not being a hypocrite here? Hm.

Crunch Monday

It's just past 5 pm, and I've successfully turned in:

- taxes
- revised prospectus for history class (not the biggest load of crap ever written, but fairly disorganized -- especially next to those way-too-smart-for-their-own-goods undergraddies)
- case summary and discussion questions for the clinical workshop on Thursday

Oof.

Now, time to start catching up on con law reading. The fun just don't stop, yo.

Grievances
(a.k.a. whining)

Why does it cost $97 to get a passport?

Why do I have to turn in my (original!) naturalization certificate to get a passport?

Why does it cost $15 at the post office to get the ugliest passport photos on earth (and possibly several other planets)?

What are the chances I'll get the new passport before I leave for New York? (because if I don't, it'll take another 2 weeks for the post to forward my mail)

Why the hell did I lose my passport in the first place? (along with my Social Security card, list of vaccinations, and an extremely cute passport holder)

Why am I inside a library on a beautiful if slightly muggy spring day, wearing two sweaters because the air conditioning is just that intense? (I mean, SERIOUSLY, people. Turn the air down. It's not like we have a Gutenberg in here.)

Why does spring come just when we have to start studying for finals?

Why does TurboTax do the federal taxes for free but charge twenty bucks for state taxes?

Why do I have taxes, my clinical rounds memo, and a revised prospectus all due on Monday?
----------------------------------
An Actual Grievance: The Race Card

I found myself voting along racial lines two days ago. It was for nothing serious -- some 3L class position, whose major role appears to be planning parties for the third years. I received two lobbying emails from the leaders of two Asian American groups on campus, asking recipients to think about voting for Parkimlee, the only Asian American running for this position.

And you know? That's what I did. There are four positions, and I knew three candidates, all of whom I thought were fine for the role, and though I barely know Parkimlee, I voted for her too, because she's Asian. (She won.)

This is the second time in as many months that I've done this; last month, a somewhat prestigious public interest award committee was taking votes for recipients, and I knew two out of the three candidates. They happened to be married to each other, and I've had dinner with them, and they're both dedicated, thoughtful people who equally deserved to win. Between the two, I voted for the Asian American. Because he's Asian American. (He didn't win; neither did she.)

I was thinking about this, and I feel fine about it. And then I started thinking about other things, and feeling not so fine about those things. Here's the dilly: According to US News & World Report's America's Best Graduate Schools 2006, Crimson Law School was (as of last year): 12 percent of the student population is Asian American. Ten percent of the student body is African-American.

Of the 80 total tenured and untenured faculty, there are 5 tenured African American professors (four men, one woman). There is one (South) Asian American tenured (male) professor.

In 2004-05, the Crimson Law Review's board of editors was: 75% White, 10% East Asian, 7% South Asian, 7% black. (Not to mention: 73% Male; 27% Female, which is of itself alarming.)

The U.S. population as a whole? In 2004, the Census Bureau estimated that 3.8 percent of the nation's population was Asian American. African Americans made up 12.7 percent.

How do all these numbers add up? African American representation in the law school is slightly lower than in the general population. African American representation among faculty here is slightly higher than the general population. Asian American representation in the law school is roughly 3 times its presence in the general population. Yet less than 1% of faculty are Asian American.

There is something wrong about this.

(to be continued)

The Dreaded Spring-itis

It's a warm, sunny day outside.

I have a shitload of research to do today (my one day of the week devoted to history research).

I've been sitting here in the library for an hour and half doing busy work and wasting time because I don't wanna work.

Damn you, spring! Damn you!

Nepotism and Niceness

I am VP-elect for a student group that I've never served on.

And I am a co-President-elect for Student Org #2, mediation. (That one I at least worked on.)

Nepotism: Not a nice word. I'm generally against it. And yet, I got first pick in the housing lottery this year (literally: I was #1 in the room draw, out of 300 people) because of nepotism, so really, what I am is a big ole hypocrite.

Okay, lemme 'splain: Joiner, through nepotism last year, got on the board of Shady Student Group (and yes, it is extremely shady -- it basically plans events for dorm residents, and for that, we get priority pick in the housing lottery. No other student group gets priority housing pick). She was made the VP, in fact.

So this year, as president-elect of Shady Student Group, she made me the VP.

This wasn't done without a fight -- the current members of the board weren't happy with it, but she stuck to her guns, wrote extensive email "briefs" of her position, and they backed down in the end. While the fight was on, I regretted ever agreeing to get into it, but I could hardly back out with Joiner lobbying so hard for me, could I?

And thus, I am VP-elect of Shady Student Group. And last night, I was able to pick my room for next year, assuring myself of dorm housing for my last year here.

I am so shady. I hate myself. But I'm also like, Whoa! Nepotism makes life easier! Who knew? Let's get me some more of that! (Hate. Self.)

Onto niceness: tonight we had "elections" for Student Org #2. I say "elections" because it's really just interested people sitting around and figuring out who wants what. Nary a vote was taken. That's what happens when you get a bunch of facilitative types in a room.

Now, with Student Org #2, there were four people (all second years) who were each qualified for and deserved the head honcho position. We were, respectively, co-directors of Task A and co-directors of Task B.

Now the co-directors of Task A (me and Boss), were willing to run as a team for head honcho. But one of the co-directors for Task B didn't want a high position, leaving her a bit at a loss. But she also was interested in other positions besides head honcho, and last month said so.

Last week, though, she changed her tune and expressed some regrets about our arrangement (me and Boss for co-head honcho, and her for Fancy Made Up Position). But tonight, she seemed okay with going ahead with Fancy Made Up Position, and said so.

Now, in an odd twist, she is also involved with another organization that Joiner was just elected head honcho of, and Joiner gets to appoint the other positions on that board. She's not getting the position she originally expressed interest in, but Joiner will give her something else.

Where does the niceness come in? Well, it's not exactly niceness, I guess. I don't know what it is. It just perplexes me that this girl, who is perfectly nice and capable and interested, came off the worse in both "electoral" processes, whereas Joiner and I, who are nice and capable but not very interested in our respective groups (at least, on a policy level), came off very well in them. Joiner actually went through an election, against an extremely bright and intellectual (and probably more qualified) candidate who didn't have the social connections with members of the group. Joiner and her running mate totally lobbied people, and made nice with the first years, and they won. So interesting. It really is who you know.

As for me, I don't know. It could have been quite different, if both of the other co-directors had wanted head honcho position. My co-director is extremely efficient and capable, if bossy at times. I am not efficient, nor even very interested in the administration of the organization. In fact, I think it's utterly boring, and rarely speak at meetings, and never volunteer for extra duties. Yet somehow I ended up as co-head honcho, whereas that other girl, who is really interested in the field, ended up as something else less glorified.

Politics. I tell ya.

I am not Professor Inspirata

Professor Inspirata is the professor that three of us had drinks with a couple weeks ago and were stunned to find that she behaved and talked like a normal human being; i.e., was socialized to a fairly high degree. (She's also the one who offered me a Tootsie roll on Tuesday after I complained about Crimson for 20 minutes.) I was curious about how Prof. Inspirata (who had OJ cut with sparkling water as her "drink") balanced her family and her many, many duties (teacher, human rights activist, board member of half a dozen organizations, scholar, etc.), and so asked her: "How do you do all the things that you do?"

This caused her to laugh, and thank me for thinking that she did manage to do everything. I pressed her again, though, because I was really curious, and she admitted, "Well, I don't sleep very much." I immediately shot back (because I was just that rude/fearless/tipsy): "How much sleep do you get?"

"Five or six hours a night," she replied. She goes home and dedicates her evenings to her kid and husband, then after the kid goes to bed, gets back to work. Which sounds like the schedule corporate lawyers keep, actually. But you know, you don't get to know the justices of the Supreme Court on a first-name basis by sitting around and watching reruns of Law and Order.

Sort of inadvertently, I put myself on a sleep deprivation schedule this week; in trying to actually read for con law and research my history paper and uh, hanging out and watching Jon Stewart and Stephen Colbert (who has really grown on me -- anyone see his skit on the immigration bill last night?) with Joiner, I've been getting to bed quite late this week (about 1:30 am). Determined to also keep my sanity by exercising regularly, I also have been getting up around 8 or so in the morning.

Well friends, I ain't no Prof. Inspirata, because after 4 days of 6.5 hours of sleep a night, I pretty much sleepwalked through today and am ready to crash. I managed to stay someone awake through the hearing I observed this morning, partly because the opposing party, who was serving as his own lawyer, was clearly full of rage. At one point, our client didn't answer the way the guy expected during the guy's cross-examination so what did he say?

"Freakin' liar."

Right in front of the hearing examiner! It was freakin' hilarious, is what it was.

Random thoughts:
- maybe I don't want to run Student Org #2 (mediation). I freakin' hate administrative shit. And policy. And leading people.
- I did a nice thing for someone yesterday morning, and calmed them down about their workload, helped them figure a schedule to keep for their paper, assured them they'd finish and do a good job -- in other words, life-coached 'em. But after I did that, I thought, "Dude! You so do not have a lot of work. I have quite a bit more work than you do. Huh. I need MY life coach."

Whither spring?

I don't believe it, but -- yes, it is April 5, and it is snowing -- SNOWING! -- right now.

Of professors and politics

I talked to two professors today, which is an extremely rare and stressful thing for me.

It’s always awkward when you go see a professor. You never know if he or she will be the type who sits there expectantly, waiting for you to ask your question and get out of their office, or whether he or she will engage with you and demonstrate some interest beyond your immediate reason for being there.

The first prof is a visiting legal history professor for whom I did some quick and pressured research in January. We had actually never met before today; I applied and got the research job over email, and communicated strictly through that medium throughout the job. But I’d heard he was very nice, and thought I should go talk to someone about my interests in history, so I did, even though I didn’t really have a specific goal in mind.

Mistake! Because although he was pretty nice about it, he clearly thought I should have come to see him with more specific questions in mind. I suppose I should have – I simply said I was interested in history, wanted to stay away from tracing changes in doctrine, and was otherwise open to any topic. Which, now that I think about it, must have been quite frustrating to him, because he couldn’t direct me to any sources, could he, if I didn’t have a direction in mind. On the other hand, if I were in his shoes, and a student seemed interested in my field, and had done some work for me sight unseen, I probably would have chatted about the field in general and asked about the student’s interest in it, and tried to make the student feel more at ease. Because it is quite awkward, you know, to go and see a professor.

I didn’t actually mean to see the second prof, my con law professor. But I and two classmates had had drinks with her with a few weeks ago, and she had said something really interesting to me: that of the students she talked with, the students who felt most alienated and isolated at Crimson were those who came from lower-income families. We had been talking about a recent controversy about a racially insensitive portrayal in the school’s Parody, and I mentioned I had gone to the town hall about it and thought that it had missed an important point – that the non-black students (including me, of course) simply did not understand what it was like to be a black student watching that portrayal on stage. Along the same lines, how many students here, coming from middle or upper middle or upper class families, understand what it is like to step into a world of unbelievable privilege and opulence? So many students here come straight from Ivy League colleges, into this environment, and step straight into $125,000-a-year jobs (and starting this fall it’ll be $140,000 – it just went up) with no experience of anything but privilege and wealth.

So I was thinking about this, and was troubled about it, and decided, what the hell, I’ll just go into her office and tell her what I was thinking. And lo, she turned out to be one of those professors who engages with students and puts them at ease. She even asked me – twice! – “But what about you? What do you want to do?” We talked about institutional change, but she turned the topic to me, as if she were really interested.

(Fascinating! A law professor who is actually interested in students!)

At some point, she said that Crimson would be disappointed if everyone who graduated from here became a lawyer. That the goal was to turn out people who would understand the gradations of the power structure and use that knowledge to change things.

I nearly teared up at that, and told her so. It was really pretty freakin’ inspiring.

So I told her how I thought Crimson shouldn’t have accepted me, that I wasn’t meant to be a lawyer, wasn’t meant to come here, that the admissions office could have seen that from my application essay, which didn’t even talk about law. So she asked me, “What was your essay about?” and I told her briefly: the dissolution of my family and how we never talked about it, and how I slowly, through the years, began to think that I didn’t want to be silent about things that bothered me anymore.

That’s when she started laughing and pounding her fist in her other palm, and said, “That’s what I’m talking about! That’s exactly what I’m talking about.”

As I got up to leave, she offered me a Tootsie roll from the bowl on her desk, randomly saying, “You know, I never knew this, but they aren’t vegan! I’ll have to look into vegan Tootsie rolls – although I shudder to think what they taste like.” And that sealed it. It was about the best professor visit I’ve ever had.

And now to the politics...

It’s about Student Org #1, the mediation program. The four of us who are second years pow-wowed a couple weeks ago and figured out positions for next year, which I thought we’d settled, but tonight one of the four expressed some discomfort with her position, saying that she actually was interested in the top role.

Now, I feel considerably rumpled in the mind about this, and so did everyone else, because the three of us who are interested in the top role are all qualified and all deserve it, and if anything, I’m the least involved in the policies and developments in the field, but I wouldn’t mind holding the top role if it fell to me either.

It’s strange. I did want the role a couple weeks ago, when we hashed it out, but now I sort of feel like, “Who cares?” I hate board meetings, I never contribute to policy discussions, I don’t want to make decisions. Why should I run for the top role?

Well, elections are next week, and as it stands now, I’m in line to make top role with someone else as a co-position, but I have to say, I’m considerably rumpled in mind and spirit about it. The woman who was dissatisfied is more interested in the field and has been more active about it than I have – isn’t she more qualified than I am? More deserving, even by just a little bit? I don’t know. I do hate the sense of tension and unhappiness that was there tonight. And yet, she didn’t want to be part of a trio of top roles.

Sigh. I hate politics.

Mortality

The dean emailed the entire law school this morning to inform us that a student had died over the break, in a boating accident in Peru.

The woman was in my 12-person sub-section last year, but I did not know her well. She was at a firm dinner in the fall that I also attended, and she later asked if I was going there this summer. No, I replied, I decided to go with another firm in New York. Oh, we should hang out this summer, she said, in that offhand way of casual acquaintances. Equally off-handedly, I said: Definitely, that would be awesome.

It seems like it can't be real. How could she be dead? I saw her around campus once in a while, at the gym or walking to class in heels or trendy sneakers. She was pretty, and young, and had slightly buggy but startlingly green eyes. She was a partyer and a drinker, and she seemed like one of those carefree young law students, fully intending to go corporate, in New York, and someday get married to an equally highly educated and well-paid professional. But her brother is coming back tomorrow morning from Peru with her body. She'll be taken straight to an Islamic center in New York.

I've thought about the inevitable deaths of my folks and my older relatives with not infrequent regularity. It's not something I can really comprehend. I can't tell how I would react to the death of someone close to me. I wrote about the death of another acquaintance, Father Joseph, in January. His death shocked and saddened me too... I don't know what to say. I can only think: It could be any one of us, at any time, anywhere.

Spring forward and outta here
(Apologies for the rambling and incoherent style of the following)

Both parents left today, a gorgeous New England spring day with a touch of breeziness and azure skies above.

It was an interesting trip. The parents got along fine. It was the first time in years I have spent time with them together. I think my mother still loves my father. I'm not sure my father loves anyone. But he does have a sense of duty towards people, including me and my mother.

She was at first somewhat difficult, making incendiary comments about various relatives and in-laws, being her bitter-in-the-disguise-of-caustically-realistic self. But after two days of touring around Crimson City and having a good time at museums and shoe stores and the like, she seemed almost jolly. I think she enjoyed herself.

He was as he always is. Effortlessly likeable, steady, uncomplaining, and with yet another surefire business plan in the works. He was already at baggage claim when my mother and I got to the airport, and she spotted him standing with his back to us. I sneaked up to him and said his Korean name in his ear, upon which he turned around in surprise, gave me a hug, and after a half second, gave my mother a hug too.

Mom and I went around Crimson Law School on Wednesday night -- I showed her the library, which she liked, and the enormous classrooms for 200, for her to get a sense of what I do during the week. On Thursday, the day after she arrived, we went downtown and looked at some historic sites, ate in the Italian district, went to DSW. On Friday, we had brunch in the school dining hall, where I saw Not-Gay Boyfriend, looking very cute in baseball cap and t-shirt, but looking very questionable on the not-gay issue in his red velvet casual loafers. We went to a museum afterwards, which Mom enjoyed, and strolled through the fancy part of town, before going to pick Dad up.

After picking him up at the airport, we rented a car and drove to Crimson City Zen Center, where he stayed. (He got up at 5 am both mornings he was here to chant and meditate.) Then we went around looking for a (what else?) Korean restaurant, but nothing was open, so we ate dinner at a Japanese restaurant instead. We also downed 3 small bottles of sake. The family that drinks together stays together! (Or some such shit like that.)

On Saturday, Dad picked me and Mom up and we went out for dim sum in Chinatown, after which we drove to Providence (actually, Cumberland) to check out the Zen Center there. After that, we drove to Brown University campus, to frolic along memory lane, I guess -- the last time my parents were in Providence together, it was on a pre-12th grade string of college visits.

The area around Brown was littered with tattooed, eyelined, and pierced youths smoking on the street -- not quite what I remember from my college visit, but that was 14 years ago. Dad seemed amenable to eating there somewhere, but I wasn't, so we got back in the car and eventually wound up in a menacing part of town, where we finally found a cop to direct us to Federal Hill, where we expected to find restaurants and shops. But the hill turned out to be disappointing, and it was raining, so we gave up and came back to Crimson City, where we ended up at (what else?) a Korean restaurant.

This Korean restaurant, however, did not serve liquor. I offered to get the two bottles of Korean moonshine that bigbro and J1 had mailed me for my birthday, and after a few offers, Dad handed over the keys to the car. Driving down the street to my dorm in the rented red Pontiac G6, I had to laugh: I was going to get booze from my house so I can drink with my supposedly estranged and separated parents, whom I haven't seen together in -- god, seven years? eight? I stuffed the bottles of soju and wine, and the two shotglasses that were included in the birthday pack into a blue Westlaw bag and headed back, capturing a perfect parking spot in front of the building. When I got back to the restaurant, I made the young waitress take a picture of the moment. It was (and is) supremely weird. Soju -- bringing people together for centuries!

Today was the last day of the parental visits. Dad came by around 8:30 in the morning, and we headed out to the airport, where we had breakfast. Coming back from the bathroom at one point, I saw them talking to each other over the table, just as if ... as if things were normal? As if they hadn't had a huge fight two years ago where my father refused to let my mother stay in the apartment if she didn't apologize (for what, it is unclear) to his mother? As if they had a marriage? As if we were a family? Man, it was weird. I process emotions slowly, and I kind of teared up just now, writing that. At the time, it just seemed unreal.

Mom left to go through security at around 11:20. I hugged her. She told me to eat regularly. She hugged Dad. It seemed friendly and sad at the same time. I insisted that Dad and I stay until she passed through detector and got all her stuff together, and she turned back and smiled and waved. We watched until we couldn't see her red coat anymore.

On the way back to the dorm, Dad suggested, "Let's see how much we can save to buy a condo for your mom." I was pretty pleased by that, even if his infallible business plans always go awry. We figured out his travel arrangements to Providence, where he is meeting a business partner, and then he left too, waving goodbye from the front of the red Pontiac G6 as he drove away.

So the parents are gone, and I've been hiding out in my room, reading Harry Potter and eating junk food for the past four hours, trying to digest the past few days. The last day I did any school work was Wednesday morning (and only an hour or two then), and I've got to write a prospectus for my history paper tonight, as well as read 45 pages of con law. But I've got my running clothes on, and there's a good 2 more hours of daylight left, and it's not the most important thing in the world, is it? School, I mean. It's going to be an incredibly stressful month, in which a whole lotta shit needs to get done, but I think a good thing happened this week, and though I'm not sure yet if it'll stay good in the minds and memories of the visitors and hosts, it was less stressful and more happy than I feared it would be. It was nice to feel like a family, as unreal as it was.

Mom's here, Dad's here, we're all a big happy family.

Shoot me now.