Blog
Writing, notes, and occasional rambles.
it's good to be home
I haven’t been gone for days, but it feels so good to be home. I spent 17.5 hours away from home today, 15 of which were spent at the law school, and 17 of which were spent doing law-related and law-school-related things. My head hurts. Not like it did when I was seriously in pain a couple weeks ago. It is just very difficult to articulate any thoughts right now. I am pleased to say that Dani and I have finished our moot court brief (more than 12 hours before it’s due!), and we’ll be printing it off tomorrow morning. We’ll celebrate with mimosas. Mmm. And then I’ll clean my house, get copies made of my key, do laundry, pack for spring break, and maybe think about law school things some more. Oh, and I’ll get all the stuff for the Easter egg hunt together. That shouldn’t be so bad. I’m going to put pebbles in some of the eggs, maybe mini action figures in others, and then the traditional stuff like candy and cereal (is my family the only one that got cereal like Froot Loops and Lucky Charms in their Easter eggs?). I may fill an egg with pennies. It will be awesome. And now for my random musings: I did a pretty bad parking job this morning, and it made me wish that I could blame it on the tuba section picking up my car and moving it. I still wish the basses had started a war with the tubas. That would have been great. I got an interview with an organization I’ve been really interested in for years! My (phone) interview is next week, though, which is when we’ll be in the Twin Cities for this service trip, so I’m hoping my friends behave when I’m being interviewed and they’re all in the car. Creepy guys bug me. At times I feel like I am going to implode. Or explode. I guess maybe I feel like a neutron star, sucking mass in and getting denser and denser and then spewing it all away. Isn’t that the process for a neutron star? Astronomy was four years ago, which seems like light years away (haha). I kind of like having a vanity blog. But then I feel kind of selfish. And annoyed with myself for using “I” so much. Oh well. It’s my blog. Don’t read it if you don’t want to. I’m exhausted.
Mar 2008sooo busy
It’s kind of an inside joke. I am, however, very busy. I have a paper due tomorrow that will determine my future (I’m being only slightly dramatic), a midterm on Tuesday, a paper due on Thursday that will essentially be one-half of my grade (another paper will be the other half, I think), and a really big paper due on Friday. I’m busy, but for some reason, I’m not panicking. I’m just slowly getting things done. It’s wonderful. I steam-cleaned my carpet, couch, and chairs yesterday. I think I may mop my floors today. Or clean my kitchen. We’ll see. I’m looking forward to the 22nd very much. Spring break starts this Friday (the 14th), and I’m going to the Twin Cities with LCM. I may have already mentioned that. But someone very special will be back on the 20th, and I’ll be back on the 22nd, and we get a whole week before he goes away again until June or July. I watched Pride and Prejudice last night. I like that story so much. There was a time when I read it in a day and couldn’t stop talking like Jane Austen wrote for another few days. I should get back to writing. And not writing in my blog.
Mar 2008massive headache
I’ve had a terrible headache for the last 24 hours. It’s terrible. My mom was convinced I have the flu, but no, I don’t. Maybe it’s just stress. I have a lot of papers and things due in the next two weeks. But two weeks from today, I’ll be driving up to the Twin Cities with LCM. Hooray! I just need to make it to 3:00pm on March 14th. Fun times. I’m also really looking forward to getting back from the Twin Cities on the 22nd. I’ll get to spend an entire week with someone pretty wonderful.
Feb 2008in response to the McCain controversy
A friend asked me what I thought, so I responded. This was on Facebook, so it is a little informal: Whether McCain is a natural-born citizen has been getting press (well, minor press) for years, but it makes sense that the politicos would bring it up now. I think the US Constitution was created to define rights between the federal government, the states, and the people, and giving people rights is one of the big things, so it would make sense that “natural-born” would be interpreted broadly. Also, I just spent a few minutes perusing the INA, and sec. 303(a) says “Any person born in the Canal Zone on or after February 26, 1904, and whether before or after the effective date of this Act, whose father or mother or both at the time of the birth of such person was or is a citizen of the United States, is declared to be a citizen of the United States.” It seems to me that the distinction between “citizen” and “natural-born citizen” is just citizenship at birth. The courts should (at least I think they should) find that the use of “citizen” in the statute means “natural-born citizen.” There.
Feb 2008conferences
I’ll be attending two conferences in the next month and a half, and I’m really excited about them. The one I’m going to this weekend is the Rebellious Lawyering conference at Yale. It’s a public interest law conference, and there are two lectures on immigration. And then I’m going to the ABA Section of International Law spring meeting in New York City. I don’t think I even need to talk about how great it’s going to be. There are public international law lectures and “young lawyer/law student” lectures, which are of particular interest to me, but then there are also corporate law and trades/customs law lectures, which could possibly be interesting too.
Feb 2008why I'm lazy
I woke up at 10 this morning. Granted, I went to bed close to 2 (girls’ night last night), but I slept later than I intended. And I haven’t really accomplished anything since then. I guess that’s okay. I do have an entire weekend, sort of. I need more than a weekend though. Moot court stuff is coming up pretty quickly, and the packet for law review comes out on Monday, so I’m going to be stressing over those things and all the prep work that’s been going into classes this semester. But today, I’ve been lazy.
Feb 2008universal jurisdiction
No citations this time, just ruminations. I read a story about how some nations are using universal jurisdiction to prosecute war crimes . Universal jurisdiction is an awkward concept to me. It allows a nation with absolutely no connection to a crime to prosecute the perpetrator of that crime. The nation has no interest in it except a moral one. While morality does have a place in law, and especially in criminal law, it cannot be the sole reason for bringing someone to justice. There should be some other connection. While universal jurisdiction might be used to prosecute only the most egregious of war crimes, it sets an alarming precedent. If a homosexual were to travel to a nation where sodomy was criminalized and the law was enforced, even if the person did not engage in sex while there, the government could theoretically prosecute by using universal jurisdiction. The point of international law is to create treaties between nations. Nations have to agree to be bound (however, if a law is so fundamental as to be jus cogens, then every nation is bound regardless of whether or not the nation agrees). Hence, for individuals to be prosecuted by the International Criminal Court, that individual’s nation must be a party to the Rome Treaty. Beyond that, there are the tribunals set up by the UN to prosecute individuals for crimes committed during conflicts in certain areas, like Yugoslavia and Sierra Leone. Granted, universal jurisdiction only comes into play if the individual cannot be brought to justice under the Rome Treaty or under one of the special tribunals, but if the UN is unwilling to create a tribunal, why should individual nations be able to prosecute those people? This may be rather incoherent. I apologize.
Feb 2008what I've learned and what I think
So one thing that I’ve learned this year (and really, it’s been years in the making) is that I’m a good leader, and I certainly do well with responsibility, but I don’t like it. It makes me think that I’m even more like my mother, which I don’t mind.
Feb 2008sure
Today ended up being a pretty good day. I was more productive than I usually am, though that isn’t saying much. I’ve been reading the Economist instead of reading for my secured transactions class. It’s better that way. Sometimes I feel like a really ineffective leader. I like to say that I have good leadership skills, but maybe I’m just fooling myself. However, maybe my insecurity is just insecurity and not really a mark of how I am as a leader.
Feb 2008maybe
I may have taken on more than I can handle this year. I feel like I’m not doing a good job with all the things I’m involved in. We’ll see how it goes.