MIDTERMS!!!!!

Ok, so i just finished taking my midterms. I only had two, which is pretty normal in law school. Most classes have an all or nothing final and just skip the midterm all together. So my first midterm was a paper which I didn't do too hot on, but not terrible.

The paper was multicase analysis of the use of deadly force in self defense. Basically we were assigned a fictional client who killed someone in self defense, and we have to defend him. We were given 3 cases to break apart and analyze to use in our defense. For this paper all we had to do was take the three cases break down the elements that proved that deadly force was used for self defense and apply our client facts to those elements to see if we come out with the same result. I rocked the analysis but i lost major points for grammar and style. Here is a tip, if you ever think that grammar rules are stupid and you don't need to learn them, go ahead and punch yourself in the stupid face. I got a C+ on an A paper because of my grammar!!!! I bought a grammar book and decided the excuse that i'm just not good at grammar isn't going to cut it anymore.

My second Midterm was in my Civil Procedures class. This was an essay and multiple choice exam, pretty straightforward. I spent a long time studying for it and I even broke down the professor's previous exams to find patterns. I went into pretty confident, and left the exam completely defeated. For starters, the essay exam mentioned a statute that i didn't realize was provided on the back of the page that gives us the hypo for the essay. So with about five minutes left for the essay portion, i realize people are flipping back and forth on the hypo page. So i flipped my page and saw an enumerated statute that we were supposed to use in essay. So at that moment I felt that sinking feeling you get when you are on a roller coaster and i became drenched in sweat . . . instantly. I was freezing and every pore in my body popped open and let out all the sweat in my body. If that wasn't bad enough, i didn't even get close to addressing all the issues i wanted to address. There just wasn't enough time, and I don't feel like i managed my time as efficiently as i needed to. So the essay portion was over and I just had to get over it and move on to the multiple choice part. I figured if i did well on the multiple choice it might balance out my poor essay grade.

The multiple choice was one of those where they give you three or four real options, then two or three options that say "only answers A and B" or "non of the above" etc. There were 15 questions and i was really confident about 5 or 6 of them, and was really struggling with the rest. I just trusted my knowledge and gave my best guess. The cool part was that the professor allows you to challenge multiple choice answers. So after each question there are lines where you can challenge or explain your decisions for full or partial credit. So i finished that portion, challenging about 7 of the questions, and rushed out of the classroom without looking back. I didn't even go to my next class because i was so down about the test. Nobody really talked about the exam after, because everyone assumed they did poorly.

The test was on a Thursday and we got our results on the next Monday, so that was about 3 days of depression. The professor put our exams out on a table for us to pick up at the beginning of class on Monday. We take exams by exam number, not name to save people some embarrassment. So I walked up and grabbed my test, and too my surprise i scored a B on the essay. I was on cloud 9, i thought i got an F, so a B was welcome surprise. The professor explained how she graded, and in the end it didn't matter that i didn't get all issues or use the statute. As long as the analysis was right on the stuff I did write about, she would award the points. I picked up my multiple choice part as well and i got a 12.5 out of 15. Not too great, but better than the 6 out of 15 I thought i was going to get. I was actually awarded a couple points for my challenges which was pretty cool. The professor mentioned that the highest score on the Multiple choice was a 13, which means i was .5 away from the highest grade in the class for the multiple choice section. Not too bad!!!! This was all without the curve, so I assumed that a curve might bump my final grade up a few points maybe too a B+ or an A-.

A week later the final curved scores came out and I was excited to see what I had earned. I opened the email with my final curved grade and I got a . . . C-!!!!! A fucking C-. Talk about the most brutal curve on the planet. Talk about a bad morning. So I emailed the teacher about the final grade and how i was very concerned about my performance. I worked really hard and that grade was a punch in the nuts. I felt pretty worthless. So the professor sent out an email about how the curve worked and why the grades were different than what we expected. She hadn't responded to my personal email yet so I assumed that there was no mistake and that is just the nature of the curve. Wallowing in self pity i tried to do my homework for the day, but i couldn't get motivated. I even started to think that law school wasn't for me and that maybe i won't cut it in the legal field. Basically i was acting like a BITCH!!!! We all have our weak moments. So by midday i finally found my testicles again and started to regroup. Then, as i was giving myself a pep talk, i received an email from the professor. It basically stated that based on my email, she reviewed the formula for the curve and found a MISTAKE!!!!

She re-worked the formula and re-submitted our final grades and at the end i came out with a B+!!!! Only a few points away from an A-. Talk about a miserable morning.

Kishimoto in Denver

The Kishimoto family came to visit Denver this past weekend. They made the trip up from Santa Fe to catch some soccer and enjoy all of Colorado's natural beauty . . . actually not really. They mainly came up to eat Peruvian food. Apparently there is no Peruvian food in Santa Fe, Wilt was going through serious withdrawals. So after a busy day of soccer watching we went out to a small restaurant called Cebiche. The food was really good and Wilt returned to his old self after having some lomo saltado. He had a smile for the rest of the night.

Wilt came up with the whole family so i had the pleasure of enjoying the company of Abby and Sophi as well. Those two are way too much fun. They are little balls of energy that transform into dinosaurs, monkeys, ducks, chickens, and strange raspy voiced characters that i didn't quite understand. The best part was when they were showing me their best dance moves. It was a good time.

It was a glimpse of what is to come in my future. I just found out a few days ago I might be having a little girl. I really didn't know what to think about that. I don't know anything about raising a girl. Don't get me wrong, I'm ecstatic about having a girl i just don't know the in's and out's of female psychology and their development. With a boy its easy, beat the fear into him when he is little, keep his labedo in check when he's 13, then kick him out when he's 18. bada bing bada boom your done. I think I'm entering a world of dresses and barbies. I think I'm going to resist it though. The first thing my little girl is going wear is a pair of soccer shorts and a Barcelona jersey. Then when she is old enough, i'm going to buy her her first Brazilian jiu jitsu gi. I wonder how long i can hold on that, before she wants to wear make up and dresses, and be more interested in boys than breaking arms, but i'll give it a good fight. Hopefully the jiu jitsu training will make my job easier, otherwise i might need to buy a gun.

Watching Wilt and Ali handle these two little hurricanes was really interesting. They do it with so much grace and patience. Up until now i've always enjoyed hanging out with kids, but in the back of my head i knew at some point i'd get to go home and they were another person's responsibility. I don't know what kind of parent I'll be, but i hope i can have their patience. Their arrival into Denver couldn't have been timed any better. I was in the midst of all this confusion, but seeing that family made me even happier that all this is happening to me.

Now i get my very own hurricane, one i get to take home with me everyday and every night, and i can't wait.

ULTRASOUND

I know its been a while since I've posted anything, but here is an ultrasound picture of my kid. We still don't know whether it is a boy or a girl, but the doctor says that it is developing nicely. The doctors originally gave us a due date of Feb 6, but now it looks like the it will actually be born a few weeks later. It's pretty amazing seeing my kid for the first time.

I apologize for not keep you guys more updated but this whole law school thing has been sucking up more time than i could've imagined.

FIRST WEEK OF SCHOOL

It's Saturday night and i can't sleep for some reason. So i figured now would be a good a time as any to blog about my first week of school.

On Monday i had Civil Procedure with professor Duvivier. She is a nice lady, but not very good at explaining things, or maybe in not very good at understanding things. I had her 3 times this week (Mon, Wed, and Thurs) and I always left more confused than when i walked in. Civil Procedure is basically the rules that guide how you progress in a law suit. They will teach us how to figure out who has jurisdiction, what laws to use, what court to choose, what cases are applicable, etc. Its actually pretty interesting, its kind of like a puzzle.

Torts is my second class. Professor Russell teaches that course and he is definitely entertaining. he did his best Shawn Johnson impression the other night by walking on a wall about 6 inches in width and 5 feet off the ground, in an attempt to illustrate how a plaintiff was hurt in a case we read. We spent most of the first day discussing the McDonald's Coffee case, where the lady burned herself with coffee. It was interesting to say the least, and i left with a lot more sympathy for that poor old lady that spilled the coffee. At first i just thought she was an idiot, but after seeing the facts of the case i'm surprised she didn't get more money.

My third class is lawyering process. I think this class is supposed to teach us how to be lawyers. How to read statutes and cases, how spot issues, how to write letters and briefs, etc. Its my smallest class and so far we've done a lot of group work. The only thing that sucks about this class is that i have it on Friday nights. The law school looks like a ghost town at that time.

The first week was pretty intense. They weren't shy about giving us reading and outside projects. I've already read about 6 cases and we've only finished the first week!!!!!!! Everyone was pretty nervous and i would even say a little overwhelmed. You could feel everyone stressing out a little. Luckily the professors have a little more respect for us night students than they do for the day students, because they realize we have lives. One girl in my class almost popped out a kid during my first session of torts. She stayed for the whole class even though she was going into labor!!!!!!! now that is commitment.

VERBS . . . FU@K VERBS . . . I PUNCH VERBS IN THE FACE

Tonight was the last night of orientation, and i have to say my classmates turned out better than expected. Most of them are older, married, with children, and careers. There is actually quite a bit of people from San Diego out here. The last two days has been mostly speakers. They all open up their talk by congratulating us first, then explaining how difficult life will be for the next 3-4 years. They even make sure to point out how it will be extra difficult for the night students.

Tonight we took a writing diagnostic. It is a test to gage our grammar and punctuation skills. I scored a solid 78%, which was 69 out 88 questions correct. Apparently i don't know what a dangling modifier is . . . and i don't. My use of commas is also suspect. I should probably add to that list pronoun usage, quotation marks, and parallelism (whatever the hell that is).

But the point where i did excel was on VERBS!!! YAY BOY!!! I dominated verbs. Perfect score. Verbs came up, i put'em down.

ORIENTATION . . . WHAT A BUNCH OF DOUCHE BAGS

Orientation is underway, and for the most part it has been fairly interesting. Orientation goes all week from about 5-9pm. Its a mixture of information sessions, forums, and time to handle administrative tasks. Monday night was the first night of orientation, and it was basically an intro into what to expect as a law student. Last night they spoke more about the services available to us as law students.

Last night was also the first time i actually got to talk to a few of my classmates. Well to make a long story short, they were douche bags. I'm a pretty nice guy . . . I'm an ok guy, but I was tempted to hip throw some of these guys and arm bar them. They were seriously asking to have something broken. To be fair, i didn't meet everyone, i didn't even meet half of them. The individuals I met last night fell into three categories:

1. The know it all: obnoxious people that know everything, have done everything, and are always right.

2. The story topper: these are people who have done everything you've done but better.

3. The I hate Los Angeles crowd:

Douche bag: "hey where are you from?"

Me: "LA"

Douche bag: "oh . . . i hate LA"

Me: [thought bubble] "go F@*k yourself!!!"

They all seemed to get along with each other, which actually saved me from getting trapped in a conversation with these people. They seemed to understand each other, but you could tell that some were faking sincerity. I observed a few conversations as i was waiting to get food and it basically consisted of one person being a douche bag, and another person humoring the douche until it was there turn to be a douche. I was going to be an ass, but i decided to just ignore them and move on to more important things, like whether or not one butter packet was enough for my roll.

I know there must be some good people at the school. I think it was a mixture of nervousness and being over eager to impress. Another thing i noticed was that I'm one of the few minorities in the program. Maybe i don't know how these white people communicate. White people are crazy!!!! I made an effort to mingle but the conversation left much to be desired. The deepest conversation i had was with one guy from Salt Lake City about the lasagna. The lasagna was really good, i had three plates of it. I was stuffed after the third serving, but i didn't feel like talking to anyone so i ate some chocolate cake. Anyways I'm just going to move on from this experience, I'll just call Tuesday night "strike one."

Hopefully tonight will go better. I think I'm going to try and get there early and see if i can't talk to people more one on one. All let you know how it goes.

FC DENVER TRYOUTS

Sunday was the first day of tryouts for the Football Club of Denver (FC Denver). FC Denver is a non profit, competitive, adult soccer club. Currently we have 4 men's teams and 2 women's teams. I serve as a player and coach for our premier team. I'm also a director so i handle a great deal of administrative tasks for the club. For example, the night before tryouts i drafted several contracts for the players dealing with liability, codes of conduct, and commitment to club. I've also drafted by laws and letters for the club. I also serve as somewhat of a coaching director. Mainly i just make sure there is a standard of coaching for the club, and help the coaches design training.

This weekend was our first tryouts for the fall season. We had about 30 new players turn out, which is pretty exciting. Most of the players were recreational level players, but we have teams that will suit their abilities. A few premier players showed up to tryouts and we went off to side to work on fitness. We did a long warm up to get some of the rust off, stretched, did a little more agility based warm ups, then headed off to do sprints. We did 6 back to back 100 yard sprints, and 6 back to back 50 yard sprints. Its pretty tough when you don't give the guys a lot of time to recover. After that we did a drill to work on explosiveness, and finished off with a cool down and stretch. Needless to say i was exhausted after. I think a combination of the heat, elevation, being way out of shape, and not having a good enough breakfast came together to wreck me.

The guys seemed pretty satisfied with the running, but little do they know that it was just the beginning. i have far more sinister drills in my repertoire that i have yet to unveil. i figured it wasn't a good idea to scare them away on the first day so i'll leave that for next time.

After seeing some of the guys on the premier team, i think we need to up the level of quality on that squad. Most of the guys are excellent players, but I would love to bring in players of a slightly higher caliber in a few positions. We need players with some type of college or professional experience, who might not be physically or technically superior to guys we have but are smarter. We might be a little naive for the level we are trying to play at this next season. We have enough heart to get good results, but I'm questioning our ability to manage games properly. So that is my task for the upcoming season. I need to find a way to get us up to par tactically and mentally, as well as physically.

Personally i need to get in shape, otherwise i might be out of starting job as well. It takes me about a month to acclimated to the elevation, which isn't good cause that will only leave me a week or two to do some hard training before the season starts.

Ok that is enough about that. I'm working on getting a digital camera, because the whole disposable camera thing really isn't working for me. So hopefully soon i'll have more pictures.

Things to look forward to this week: Law school orientation, Gaby gets her ultrasound and we find out if it is a boy or a girl, i return to jiu jitsu training after a long lay off do to illness, and i finally get to move off the sofa and move into an actual room!!!!!!