B Roy - Best Dunk of NBA Season

He just had his jersey retired by the Huskies. Now he celebrates with a dunk over/through a 7-footer. Check it out.

Class Rankings; Grades

I've finally received all my grades. I'm happy with all of them except for my Crim Law grade, which, unfortunately was weighted the most because it was four credits rather than two or three. But I think that I'm in a pretty good position to maintain my scholarship, that was one of my main academic goals. Above there is a list of how the grades relate to class rank. Students have to stay in the top 25% to maintain their scholarships.
It's only week 3 of the second semester but we're so busy again that I can barely recall Winter Break. But the good news is I'm still enjoying it all. I'll have a few more posts on grades and goals in the next few days and then I'll probably drop the subject until the end of the semester.

A Rendering of the Potential New Husky Stadium

I hope the legislature can pass the funding for the renovation! If passed this session, the renovated stadium would be ready for the 2011 season. The Huskies have a verbal agreement in place with the Seahawks to use the Qwest field for the 2010 season.

One More Grade; Bus Pass Solution

We received our Contracts grades on Friday. My grade for Contracts wasn't quite as good as my other two grades, but I'm still decently happy with it.

I just finished my first draft of our first writing assignment for the second semester. I'm really enjoying my legal writing class and I hope to be an improved writer by the end of the semester.

A friend of mine read my blog and saw the bus pass note. She said that you can get a booklet of passes for $20 that work for bus fares. Apparently you just need to say that you're from the law school. Interesting. It's a little disappointing that the week went by without any response from the administration, especially in light of the easy solution that could have been relayed.

Two Grades In; Memo 2 Returned

I just got my first two grades posted. I got the same grade in both Torts and Property. I'm pretty happy with them. I think it's funny that I got the same grade; I thought I aced the Torts exam and I thought I didn't do very well on the Property exam. I had heard that grades often don't match post exam predictions so I tried not to speculate too much. My GPA after these two classes is higher than my undergrad GPA. That might indicate that I underachieved in undergrad, but this semester was one of the first times in my academic career when I dropped all my extra curricular activities and focused on school. I'm relieved so far, but still have 3 other grades yet to come in.

I got my Memo 2 returned yesterday. I received the same grade on that as I did my first paper (it is also the same grade as both my exams). I was content with the grade but frustrated that I hadn't improved. I thought for sure that this Memo was much improved over the first memo. (Surely some improvement was expected.) My prof left me some comments on how to improve my writing and take it up to the next level. He offered to meet with me individually to help me step up my writing and I plan on taking him up on that offer.

I've noticed that there are a few more empty seats in the classroom since break. I've heard of a few students that dropped and would assume that a few others did as well. I was shocked that some students dropped, but I guess I shouldn't have been. I enjoyed the first semester and can't imagine tossing away all the hard work and money.

I have yet to receive a response from the administration on the poorly designed bus pass program.

Semester 2, Day 1

Still no grades. Apparently, we will get our Legal Writing grade tomorrow. But might have to wait up to two more weeks to get the rest of our grades.

I had my first Civ Pro class with my new Prof. I think that I will enjoy this semester of Civ Pro much more than my last semester. My new Prof is bright, funny and seems to practice a teaching method that I will enjoy.

Today we discussed Ashcroft v. Iqbal a recent supreme court case involving the legality of the Guantanamo detainment practices. From a legal standpoint the case revolved around pleading standards and qualified immunity. We analyzed the oral argument which included all the comments of the supreme court justices. If you want to take a look at the transcript you can find it here.

On an unrelated note, due to a poorly designed bus pass program, Seattle U is not offering bus passes for the month of January. They only sell passes for the first ten days of the month - school returned on the 12th of January. I can buy a pass after the 20th but it will only be good for the month of February. So, for the rest of this month I'm walking or paying 1.75 both ways. (A bus pass would save me about $30 even on this shortened month.) I sent an email to a school administrator raising this issue. I'm not sure if I sent it to the best person (I sent it to the dean for student affairs), and I'm not sure if they'll care much about bus passes, but I thought I'd see if I could at least bring the issue to someone's attention.

First Semester Reflections

It wasn't as bad as some make it out to be. Not that I thought that law school was going to be excruciating or anything but I had heard from some people that it might be almost unbearable. Additionally, at orientation they told us that some kids have anxiety attacks and think they're having a heart attack or dying or something. I had no such experience; neither did any of my friends to my knowledge.

I have a better idea of how to study and prepare for finals going forward. Those two weeks of finals were pretty intense. Four hour exams are exhausting. By the end of some of the finals I was rereading some of my last sentences and was finding atrocious grammatical errors such as putting an apostrophe after "their" to demonstrate possession. I'm glad I budgeted time so that I'd have a few minutes left at the end to reread some of what I had written.

Some of the first semester highlights: I've made some pretty good friends and found that my peers are a diverse group but a generally likable bunch; the faculty members are both extraordinarily intelligent and approachable; for the most part the reading is fun and interesting (contracts cases from 19th century England are an exception); lastly the law itself in all the courses is fascinating and fun to learn.

Grades Due Out Friday

It's been a while since I made a post. I didn't really have extra time during finals and I spent the break at my parents' and girlfriend's family's home. Now that I've got my laptop hooked up to the interwebs again, I plan on updating the blog a bit with some reflections on finals and my first semester as a whole. Grades come out Friday. I don't have any idea what to expect. I think I did well, but maybe everyone else did better. No point in dwelling on it, but it'll be interesting to find out where I stand after one quarter. That's all for now. More tomorrow.