Barely an Admiral

Gleaned this test from the podcast "Make It So." My score was 939 (or 93.9% correct)--what's yours?

2YS, Teaching, Fountain, Iron

Reading: The Last Lecture, Randy Pausch, with Jeffrey Zaslow
Watching: To Rabu Ru #1 (To Love Ru, pronounced "tora-buru" which sounds like the Japanese pronunciation of "trouble")

I have a ritual that I like to go through when it comes to academic papers. I like to front load the work, and that way have a polished draft ready for professorial consumption at least a day or two in advance of the actual due date.

Why?

Because at our core, we're all show boaters, in our own little way. Some are more overt at it than others. Me, I subscribe to the precept that the loudest voice isn't necessarily the one with the biggest impact. Like the old proverb, it isn't the howling winds or pouring rain that defines strength amidst a hurricane; it's the tiny leaf unmoved by the storm. Turning in a paper 24-48 hours before it's due is just my way of saying to myself (and OK--a subliminal message to the professor) that I'm confident in the work I've done, and that I recognize when a work is as done as it can be. Running backs do their end-zone dance when they score a touchdown; I turn in papers a bit early when I'm sure that they're ready to go. Different manifestations of the same sweet, sweet feeling.

*

I've been putting a lot of thought into how I will spend my remaining year of law school, especially since I most likely won't be using my degree to practice law any time soon. As I plan to be parlaying my experiences into a writing career, I've been actively searching for ways to tailor my remaining law school courses to best suit that objective. A part of that search made me decide to apply for positions as a T.A. and a S.W.A. next fall.

The first acronym you probably know: as a teaching assistant for the 1L Legal Practice course, I'll be helping the fall's 1Ls muddle through their transition from undergraduate writing to full-blown legal writing and research. It's a sometimes tumultuous road, I know, so I'm happy to help. And you know the funny thing about teaching? Often times the teacher learns just as much in the process. I just got the OK earlier this week, so I know that I will be one of the TAs this fall.

The second acronym builds off the first: senior writing associates make themselves available for one-on-one sessions with anyone who needs help with a paper, giving them feedback and advice. I'm especially looking forward to this, since this writer-to-writer critique is more up my alley than the general guidance that T.A.s provide, but I don't yet know whether I'll be tapped as one this coming semester.

Here's hoping!

*

I can't quite recall what exactly spawned my initial interest in fountain pens. I do remember my first one: a blue Pilot Birdie that should still be around somewhere--but which I haven't seen for ages.

I promised pictures of my fountain pen acquisitions, so:






This is the first of my recent acquisitions: a Lamy Vista. It's basically a clear (or "demonstrator") version of the very popular Safari, which is widely regarded as the best entry-level fountain. Great flow, solid design, and an optional converter for using your own inks.

This is what I stepped up to last week:



It's a Pilot/Namiki Capless. In the States, the "Capless" is a single model, known as the Vanishing Point. In Japan, it's three: the Capless, the Decimo, and the Fermo. The Decimo is a lighter, skinnier version of the Capless, while the Fermo uses a twist mechanism rather than the clicker. The pen pictured above is a blue Decimo, which I had to import from Japan. Very, very smooth, some nice flex in the tip, and the clicking mechanism works like a dream. The only downside? The click can be awfully loud in a quiet room.



These are Noodler's inks--the one on the right is "Bulletproof Black"--so named because of its resistance to UV light, time, water, and other solvents. The other ink is a colonial-style indigo blue called "Baystate Blue," which is very finicky and feathery to use, but has a very appealing hue.

*

This Friday heralds what for me is the best superhero film of this summer, and--just perhaps--the best of all time. Others may be more skeptical, but every indication I've seen tells me that Iron Man will be up there with Spider-Man 2 and Batman Begins at the very pinnacle of the superhero genre--if not above them. Robert Downey, Jr. wouldn't have been the one I'd peg for Tony Stark, but from the trailer material I've seen, the role fits like a glove. I may be biased, since Iron Man is my favorite superhero among the U.S. Marvel/D.C. pantheon, but I have a very good sense of when a movie is shaping up to be something special. (Yes, count that as a prediction: sight unseen, Iron Man will be the new benchmark for the superhero genre.) More than that, all of the best movies I've seen in recent memory have had a release date only a day from an important due date on my schedule. Serenity, for example, I saw on opening day--the day before the LSAT. Here, Iron Man will open the day after the fore-mentioned 2YS paper is due.

Desk, Keyboard, Pen

Watched: The Green Mile; Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street; Dan in Real Life
Typing on: Diatec Filco Majestouch FKB104M/EB

I promised updates about the new desk, so:

The new desk is really three pieces: the hutch (top part with cabinets), the credenza (the desk space where my computer, monitor, lamp, etc. reside), and a mobile 3-drawer pedestal. The pedestal can be wheeled out a bit to provide additional surface space.

Of course, the purpose of the six-foot long desk space is to spread things out.


Up until today, I've been using a Kinesis Ergonomic Advantage Keyboard, which is very comfortable and easy to touch-type on, but is a bit too thick for the new setup. I discovered a specialty keyboard shop the last time I was in Akihabara, and spent a good forty five minutes testing the various display models--including a Happy Hacking Keyboard, which I found to be something of a letdown, given the hype and the price tag. However, I fell in love with another Japan-only keyboard: the Filco Majestouch. The Majestouch is actually a series of keyboards, all of which impressed me mightily. Unfortunately, the keyboard was approximately five pounds, and bulky--not something I wanted to lug back with me (along with ~25 pounds of doujinshi and other anime/manga paraphernalia) on the overnight bus to Kobe. (I did end up lugging back a metal airsoft gun, but that's beside the point.) Only recently did I find a website willing to ship a Majestouch to the U.S., which brings us to today:

It uses the brown Cherry keyswitches that most typing enthusiasts recommend (though I recently discovered that the Kinesis does too), but the typing sound and tactile quality are, for lack of a better description, utterly addictive. The anti-slip matte finish on the keys, overall heft, and, to top it all off, blue LED lock indicators (all Filco keyboards using Cherry browns apparently use the blue variety) made this a must-buy for me. One user on a keyboard forum describes this model as "a typist's nirvana"--and I'd have to say that, for the most part, he's right.

Oh yes--and the tiny computer that crept into the last few pictures is my 2G Asus EEE laptop, which is now my primary school computer, allowing the Vaio to assume the role of desktop computer. Both seem happy in their roles.

I've also been dabbling in fountain pens again, but I'll save the pics for next time.

Break, SYS Revisions, Hutches & Credenzas

This coming week begins the law school's Spring Break, which, as always, is welcome. It coincides with the end of the required Professional Responsibility classes, which means that even when school starts up again, I won't have classes until the afternoon, and only one class each on Monday, Wednesday, and Thursday. (God bless once-a-week clinical courses, though I'll be paying for them come next semester, when I'll likely have to fill my schedule with traditional classroom courses.)

*

My schedule ultimately evens out, as the other casenote editors and I have begun the processes of selecting a case for the write-on competition, and my SYS prof was kind enough to return our papers the Thursday before the break, so that we can make full use of our time off to work on revisions. Revision has always been my favorite (if time-consuming) part of the writing process, so I'm looking forward to polishing up my work. The goal--whether realistic or not--is to have a finished draft ready for a quick second review by the end of the week. Just so long as my
other tasks don't interfere--the fore-mentioned case search, a client meeting, an environmental law paper to be cite-checked, and the subject of the next section.

*

I went out and bought a credenza, hutch, and rolling 3-drawer file to replace my current desk, which has been in my service since the third grade. (A quick bit of math makes me admit, to my general disbelief, that that comes out to fifteen to sixteen years . . . .) The desk is really built for a third grader, with a hutch too low for a computer monitor to fit on the desk itself, and a surface too narrow to accommodate the mounds of papers that necessarily accompany legal scholarship. So, taking that into account, the new credenza/hutch is 72 inches--6 feet--wide. The expansion requires the removal of one of my two remaining drawers (which, incidentally, date back to roughly the same period as the desk) so from now until the time when the new desk elements arrive and are assembled tomorrow afternoon, my room looks like it has been overrun by books, anime figures, starships/warships, and electronic equipment. More updates once the new desk is in place.

Two Weeks, 24, & SYS

(Re)Reading: Armor, John Steakley
Watching: Minami-ke ~Okawari #8-9
Playing: Professor Layton and the Curious Village (weekly puzzle updates); Apollo Justice: Ace Attorney

Here I logged into my account thinking that it had been a week since my last post, only to discover it's been two. Oh well--baby steps, right?

Today I turned twenty four (hey, like the TV show!). In a lot of ways, twenty four seems to resemble twenty--one year away from the next milestone (here, 25--though instead of being able to imbibe liquors, you're half the way to thirty and can finally rent a car on your own).

For the reasons below, though, the greatest birthday gift I'm liable to get is one I can give myself: a good night's rest.

*

Today was also the deadline for the rough draft of our second-year seminar papers. I forewent sleep the morning of March 5th to finish it up, attending the morning class as a walking (or, I suppose, sitting) zombie, took a four-hour nap, headed back for my afternoon/evening class, then went through the draft from 8 pm to 12 am. (I never realized how long proofreading a 41-pager could take when you're sleep deprived.) I emailed the paper to the prof at 1 am, and called it a night. (Should have called it a morning, in retrospect.)

Headed to school early today to borrow the high-capacity stapler from the law review room, only to have the blasted thing destroy my printed copy with a tangled mess of industrial-strength staples. God bless LexisNexis, which along with Westlaw, gifted the law review with complimentary printers, so I could reprint the paper (on LexisNexis-branded paper, no less) and get the stapler to do its job properly. Turned it in, only to notice by sheer luck the plagarism statement attached to another paper, which reminded me that I needed one too. So, with less than five minutes remaining before the morning class, I rushed back to the law review room, printed out the form, signed it, and clipped it to the draft. Made it to class with a full thirty seconds to spare.

What lessons can we learn from this fiasco? One: never trust a high-capacity stapler (or the bastard who used it before you, gumming it up). Two: thank God for law review's free printing privileges.

*

Speaking of SYS, I suppose a general summary of my topic is in order. In a nutshell: doujinshi and fansubs both constitute cases in which loose enforcement of copyright actually benefit both public domain and the economic and creative incentives for the copyright holder (which, though often diametrically opposed, form the dual purposes of copyright). From those cases, I seek to establish a definition for a class of "fan-based activities," which I then use to propose two addenda to the current four-factor test for fair use, as prescribed by 17 U.S.C. section 107(1)-(4). These addenda expand fair use to include overarchingly beneficial (though technically infringing) uses like doujinshi, fansubs, fan fiction, etc., thereby furthering the purposes of copyright while requiring no legislative change because the addenda aren't for the specific factors described by section 107, but for the courts who employ the four-factor test.

Reticence, SYS, Clinics, and Professor Layton

Reading: Lawrence Lessig, Free Culture: How Big Media Uses Technology and the Law To Lock Down Culture and Control Creativity; Peter Drahos, A Philosophy of Intellectual Property;Kembrew McLeod, Owning Culture; Susan Scafidi, Who Owns Culture?

Watching: Minami-ke ~Okawari #5-6; Harvey Birdman, Attorney At Law Seasons 1-4

Ah . . . so let's see. It's been more than six months since my last post; eight months since I promised to end my dereliction of duty in the blogging arena. Admittedly a lot has passed since then, but in a way, that leaves me even less of an excuse for the long, languishing drought between posts.

Maybe baby steps are in order: one post per week. Here's this week's:

*

This semester at law school is the dreaded "second-year" paper semester, where every 2L has to come up with a topic for and write a lengthy scholarly article. Law reviewers have an advantage here, as they are in the scholarly mode of writing due to their casenotes the previous semester. My topic? As you can infer from my reading list, it has to do with intellectual property: doujinshi, fansubs, and a fan-based commons expansion of the fair use doctrine.

What, you say? Do I dare combine my legal interests (IP) with my philosophical interests (e.g., Lockean property theory) with my personal interests (anime and manga--what else?) into some crazed amalgam of scholarship and obsession? Do I stake a 4-unit grade and publication opportunities on a niche subject that most people at the law school probably haven't given so much as a passing thought.

You're damn right I do.

First of all, if I were obsessed with nothing more than acing the class (maybe getting the top grade, etc.) and getting a publication credit out of the exchange, this semester would probably be one of the most miserable ones in my entire law school career. I was loathe to do the same with my casenote topic last semester, which is why I went with a patent law issue that had as much of a chance of being selected for publication on the law review as a shoreline access case would have in the law review of a land-locked state. The result? Yes, the casenote wasn't selected, but I actually enjoyed writing it. If I'm married to a 40-page scholarly composition for the better part of four months, it'd better be about something 1) that I care about, and 2) really needs some scholarly work to be done on the subject matter. Both criteria are implicated here.

1) is a given, but as for 2), there is a lot at stake in the issue. I've been a beneficiary of fansubber support for nearly ten years now, and I've seen firsthand the good and bad sides to the practice. It's my contention that the good far outweighs the bad, and for specific reasons that not only make sense in the light of the rationale behind copyright protection, but that point toward a specific change in copyright law that, at this point in my inquiry, appears to be a significant step in the right direction.

More details as I finish up my research and begin drafting the paper this weekend.

*

The research paper class is the only one I'm taking this semester for a grade; the other courses are the requisite professional responsibility course (ABA required), and two clinical courses: Environmental Law and Small Business Clinics. Those clinic courses are basically opportunities for law students to try their hand at actually practicing law--a concept that might seem novel, at first, but really isn't. After all, before the first law school even came into existence, people became lawyers by an apprenticeship system--in essence, learning to become a lawyer by doing the things that a lawyer does. The same principle applies to the clinic course.

Even though I've begun to question whether the partner-track lifestyle of a large firm--or even law practice in general--is the right place for me, I jumped at the opportunity to get some real-world practice experience, and I've yet to regret that decision. The Environmental Law Clinic's first client is a group of Moloka`i residents who are opposed to the development of 200 luxury homes along the pristine southwestern coast of the island. I've never done any work with Environmental Impact Statements or water use issues before, but the more I've researched the development, the more I realize how important a cause those residents are fighting for. Meanwhile, in the Small Business Clinic, I'm getting a crash course in the various types of business entities, as well as the pros and cons of choosing one entity over another, especially from a small business perspective. Moreover, one of the instructors is something of a revolutionary as far as his views go on how a law firm should be run--in fact, his views led him to leave his post as a senior partner at the firm which topped my list of potential employers (topped, not because I no longer hold them in high regard, but because my goals have shifted)--and the benefit of his insights is more than enough payment for the lengthy hours that the client work will exact.

*

Finally, a short mention of Professor Layton and the Curious Village (Leiton Kyouji to Fushigi na Mura, I think, in Japanese). While some gamers may have a slightly different response to the puzzle-laden format:


From Penny Arcade, at http://www.penny-arcade.com/comic.

For me, it's a delightful throwback to the hours I used to spend reading logician's puzzles at the back of the high school library. Moreover, to sate the storyteller in me, the overarching mystery surrounding the town that the titular character visits only adds to the interest. Highly recommended.

Shorts, Case Notes, and Natty Clothes

Reading: The Civil Law Tradition: An Introduction to the Legal Systems of Europe and Latin America, John Henry Merryman and Rogelio Perez-Perdomo
Watching: Glutton for Punishment, Moetan, Chef At Large
Listening: Bird, Mikuni Shimokawa

I've heard of others for whom a whole story concept sprang full-grown from some dark recess of their mind's eye--much like Pallas Athena from Zeus' migraned noggin. Considering the amount of musing and forethought that normally accompanies anything I tend to write, I always harbored some doubts as to the veracity of those claims.

As of this past Thursday, I stand corrected.

I'm not even entirely sure how it came to be. I had just finished penning thank you letters to Judge and his staff and stepped into the shower when I began to reflect on the differences between the Anglo-American legal system--which could be dubbed "the common law"--and those of continental Europe and Latin America, dubbed by the authors of the above-mentioned book as "the civil law." Those thoughts brought me to a sidelong reflection on the War on Terror, the Cold War, and on war in general.

And then, the perfect idea for a short story sprang into my head. I blinked once, twice, in disbelief, then challenged myself, on the basis of this mere notion of a story, to compose the first line of the story, which normally, for me, is like using your fingernails to give yourself a haircut.

But in a matter of mere seconds, the opening line formed itself, and lo and behold: it was first-person unreliable, and in the present tense.

A small word on my writing style is, perhaps, incumbent at this juncture. I am firmly ensconced in the camp of third-person limited, and though I have ventured into first-person before, I was never quite comfortable with it. And I've never so much a penned a narrative line in the present tense.

I have, however, read numerous works of fiction (most of them in the contemporary genre) that thrive in first-person present tense. The short fiction of Jim Shepard (see Love and Hydrogen, a great anthology) is my prime example. As a result, I've come to recognize that for certain types of stories, first-person present tense is leagues superior than any other narrative form.

Though I've only managed to transcribe a page worth of narrative (along with a few quick jots of notes as to where I think the story will go), I'm certain such is the case here.

And then, here's the rub: I'm loathe to work on this short story any further at present, because I'm still in the midst of revising Book One. That story has too strong a grasp on me; and, like a jealous god, it will tolerate no false idols, at least until my prostrations have been performed to its satisfaction.

All this amounts to yet another reason for me to get off my duff, get the Book polished and as done as I can myself, and send it off to be read by others who can help me the rest of the way.

*

The orientation for Law Review was yesterday, and my biggest fear has been assuaged. Considering that only the top-eight students grade-wise, and up to the top-eight case notes from the write-on competition are invited to join (care to guess which one was my poison?), I had no doubt that the others would represent some (though certainly not all, or even, necessarily, the pinnacle) of the sharpest and most industrious members of our class; I did, however, have doubts as to whether any would possess equally sizable egos as well (which, considering that I would be spending a great deal of time among them for the remainder of my law school career, ranked up there with dining on crickets and cockroaches and bathing in industrial waste).

Given that our associate dean, when struggling to describe how our class had defined itself during the 1L year, did so by saying "you're all just really nice people," I should have known better.

A few individuals were a bit unfamiliar to me, though I did recognize them at least in passing. Others were more familiar, but their names escaped me (though, at least in one case, my name didn't escape them! Lucky for me I managed to divine her name before my virtually non-existent ability to retain names became embarrassing). But all were amicable, good-natured individuals who I can honestly say I look forward to working alongside, the 3L editorial board included.

Which leads me into a discovery I've made as I've ventured farther and farther down the career path of a lawyer. Though I'm sure the same can be said for virtually any profession under the sun, nothing seems to define the career and life of a lawyer more than smooth and amicable social interaction--the buzzword, of course, is "networking." While this can seem like a potential festering point for facetiousness to the jaded, my experience has been that the emphasis on such interaction results in the legal community being populated largely by some of the most friendly and friend-worthy individuals one is likely, in the course of every interaction, to meet.

Yes, the Editor-In-Chief (EIC hereafter) stressed what we all probably knew: Law Review is a hella lotta work, and it'll probably be the most work any of us will ever put into earning a single, solitary unit of credit (per semester, mind). He even said that we all will likely come to hate whatever topic we decide to write about (the previous EIC told that to him as a 2L, and though he thought things would be different, it eventually happened to him), and that tech editing is an arduous and mind-numbing pursuit. But one odd thing that I've learned about myself is that I tend to relish in the editing process--both with my own works, and those of others, as my time copyediting chapters of my Prof's book and editing and cite-checking student papers has shown me--more than any red-blooded human being should. If such grueling tasks will 1) make me a master of the stylistics and bluebooking (read: citation format) of the legal world, 2) a far more discerning and accurate editor of any piece of writing, including my fiction, and 3) allow me to get to know those fore-mentioned amicable individuals, and hopefully befriend them, then Law Review may be the best thing that will ever happen to me at law school.

In the meantime, it falls to me to ascertain the topic of my soon-to-be casenote. It's due, after all--being the first of many, many deadlines in my near future--on the 20th.

*

I went through 1L OCIs and Oral Argument wearing the same blue blazer and charcoal slacks that I wore to high school graduation, all the while surrounded by peers who had broken out their best single-tone suits for the occasion. I don't necessarily subscribe to the adage that the clothes make the man; but for someone as unsure of himself as I, wearing a suit that is at least as proportionally nice as those worn by my peers is a sizable contributor to my overall confidence--and in the lawyering world, confidence speaks bounds. I had, at the beginning of the summer, made it a goal to procure a suit that would serve me well in the (rapidly) upcoming 2L OCI session.

After looking around Macy's business attire department in vain, I ended up finding a proper-fitting black suit at Banana Republic (a store that has increasingly invaded my wardrobe over the past decade). Given my sore lack of vertical proportion, The coat and pants had to be hemmed and recut (by the same wonderful tailor/designer who helped to short the arms of my leather jacket). After an erstwhile fashion lesson from Judge, I recently went back and picked up a pair of french cuff shirts, along with my first pair of cuff links.

And along with a spiffy machined-stainless Seiko with gold markings (and a blue face!), and the most expensive pair of shoes I've ever owned, I'm now ready for OCIs. Because the true purpose of a properly tailored suit is not to attract attention to its wearer; its purpose is to keep the interviewer's attention focused on its wearer's credentials: his resume, his responses, his overall demeanor. The best suits are like the finest butlers--they tend to blend in with the walls, performing their duties flawlessly and without the notice of their masters (or those who hold their master's future in the palm of their hand).

*

On the subject of fashion, I've noticed that my own casual preferences have begun to shift as of late, away from single-tone t-shirts to plaid linen or seersucker short-sleeve collar shirts. I gravitate toward them because they are just as cool (if not cooler) than an ordinary t-shirt, appear slightly more presentable and, by their very fabric, obviate the need for ironing. Along with the fact that switching eyeglass shops has allowed me to get the rimless frames (and transition lens) that my previous purveyor had, for reason now inscrutable, long denied me.

The aggregate result is, along with my generally lower weight and slightly slimmer waistline, I'm feeling more comfortable with my appearance than I have in a very, very long time.