OK, Dad. Time to Pat Yourself on the Back

End of the third day in law school. To answer Jill's question from an earlier post, law school is not like undergrad. They post the first day's reading assignment in advance so the first class of the semester starts off with a solid lecture. A weclome exception was my Law of Professional Sports class today. We met for only 50 min of 2 hr, and the entire time we spent going over the syllabus.

Those who know me will ask, "Law of Professional Sports?" And, yes, I'll admit I don't know (or care) much about sports. However, 1) I love the prof. (best 4-credit-hour grade I've had in law school thus far), and 2) there is no final, just a series of written assignments. The prof. said that we'll pretty much determine our grades by how hard we work, insinuating that you pretty much would have to royally screw up to get a bad grade. This is a nice change from 1L classes, where you can bust your ass and be rewarded with a C for your troubles.

I think I'm gonna like being a 2L.

In fact, in the last few days, I've gotten pretty good at spotting the 1Ls: the innocent, wide-eyed stares, occasionally supplanted by terrified wide-eyed panic. It feels like being a Senior in high school when the Freshman class arrives; hell, they seem shorter for some odd reason - a perceptual thing, I'm sure. However, I have no intention of "busting" on the 1Ls, or "cleaning them out" (F&G reference). No, I'm really nice. I'm going to tell them all the things I wished people had told me when I started.

Law school seems to be separated into mainly 1Ls and everyone else. The knowing conversations I've had with other students have been the same, regardless of whether the other student is months away from the bar, or years. An extraordinary number of people have lost their scholarships after first year; there was much commiserating. That's the nice thing about being in the middle - most of the people are in exactly the same spot as you. It doesn't feel as bad when lots of others were "this close" to keeping scholarships. I talked with a 3L who lost his scholarship after the first year, and was hoping to regain it. He said that one has to attain a 3.0 after the third semester to do this. So, this semester will have that riding on it. If I can pull it off, I might recapture some bucks. If not, oh well.

I met with my legal writing teacher today. My first assignment as a TA will be the grading of 55 student assignments tomorrow night (ouch!) She has 55 students this year, as opposed to 43 students last year, so she is going to have a "backup TA," in addition to me.

Also, as much as I was stressing over getting on the International Law Journal, but not getting accepted to Tulsa Law Review, it looks like it's really working out for the best. It's a more relaxed, low-key journal, for one. One of the main things we need to accomplish during our candidacy period is writing a forty-page paper of publishable quality. My first thought was to do something on immigration, copyright, or the effect of international law on the decisions of the Supreme Court - pretty broad topic. Then, I thought it might be good to do something on the Bahá'ís and their situation in Iran.

One of the things we have to do is run a "pre-emption" check, and make sure that no other law review articles had been written on the same topic. The Bahá'ís in Iran had several articles, as the revolutionary government's abuses of the Bahá'ís are some of the most egrigious in the world. The articles I pulled up were from the mid-nineties. However, I thought I might be able to revisit the topic as Iran has, unfortunately, picked up its persecution in recent years, going so far as to destroy several Bahá'í holy landmarks in broad daylight, to the protests and objections of several secular newspapers, whose objections were founded on the intrinsic historic and architectural value of the landmarks, not their importance to the Bahá'ís.

However, my Dad had an alternate spin. He suggested doing an article on religious rights in post-Saddam Iraq. This, ultimately, is the topic I'm going with. There is a tension over what the new Iraqi constitution's proclamation of Islam as the official government of Iraq, and "a fundamental source of legislation," will mean to the religious freedoms of its minorities. The Bahá'ís, a few years ago, formed their first National Spiritual Assembly in decades. I'll be able to discuss this, as well as other religious minorities and their experiences. My student candidate paper editor said the topic was "cutting edge" when I ran the suggestion by her. She said to just be sure that I had enough sources.

Today, the finalized topic was due. I felt like a goober, because all I did was type "The Rights of Religious Minorities in Post-Saddam Iraq," run my pre-emption check, and slide the results under the door of the ILJ office. However, I soon ran into other students who had typed one or two-paragraph blurbs on what their paper would cover. A friend of mine, Alisha, took great delight in my blunder, because it would make her look good by comparison! Fortunately, I had enough time to go back and correct my error before the five o'clock deadline.

One of the aforementioned nice things about ILJ is that the paper will be due on November 7th, a month before finals. This means I'll have ample study time.

On a separate, unrelated note: I got my first comment spam last night; a significant right of passage. What kind of a lame-o would even bother to spam a blog read by, at most, ten people? It was something to do with timber, or paper, or paper made from a special timber (I don't know).

When I started the blog, I thought it would be a nice way to stay in touch with friends and family and let them know what I'm up to. Now, sadly, I realize I'm just in it for the comments. So, to see an extra comment pop up, only for it to be spam, was a slap in the face.