Closing out the Semester

Sorry for the lack of posts lately. I've been very busy trying to finish up the semester. Finally finished my Note on April 7th. I know that a "Note" doesn't sound like that big of a deal, but it was quite the undertaking! Ended up being about 32 pages with 202 footnotes. I was thrilled to finish it and finally get to start preparing for my FIVE FINALS (what was I thinking?) that I have this semester. I've taken 3.5 of them so far. First, Federal Income Tax, then Law & Accounting, then Law of Real Estate Financing, and I'm in the middle of my Land Use Law test which is a take home. I think take home finals are the worst of all because law students are ridiculous... The people in my class will spend close to 30 hours working on it and since the class is curved, I feel like I need to somehow try to match their effort....ugh. But by now I'm so sick of studying and taking exams that I just want it to be over with and am struggling to focus (hence the blog post). So after I turn this exam in tomorrow, I only have one left...Constitutional Law II this Friday and then I'm finished! Can't wait! Spencer flies in to DC Friday at 5:30pm and we're going to go out to Georgetown that night and then take off the next morning for our super fun cross-country trip! First we're heading up to Palmyra to see the sacred grove, temple, and church sites there. Next, over to Niagara Falls! (I'm really excited for this). Then to Kirtland for more church sites...pass through Cleveland. Up to Detroit to go to a Tigers game. Over to Chicago where we'll spend a day and make it to the historic Wrigley Field to see the Cubs play. Next on to Denver and finally home to Salt Lake City. We're going to have a blast!! I'm so excited! If only I could fast forward to Friday!



On another note, Callie and I are going to go to the Supreme Court tomorrow! I'm super excited!! I've been meaning to get over there to hear oral arguments for so long! I hope the line isn't too bad and we can get in!



Also, my car was hit today while I was driving along the George Washington Parkway coming home from church. The car in front of me all of a sudden started having problems...I saw the side mirror fall off and shatter along with some pieces of who knows what....so I was dodging the glass and parts...and then that same car's tire blew and pieces of that were flying everywhere. I managed to dodge the debris and bring my car to a stop safely....but the car behind me slammed into us. It actually was a girl from my ward coming home as well. Miraculously when we got out to assess the damage, there were no scratches! Neither of us could believe it! I'm still going to have someone check underneath and make sure there are no dents...but seriously there were no visible signs of the accident. I was thrilled about that (and hope everything underneath the car is fine too) since I'm leaving in 6 days to drive across the country. The guy who caused the whole thing didn't say anything to us either...which was really lame since it was all his fault...oh well. We were lucky and so was my car :)

Finally, I was a little sad last week on my last day of Constitutional Law. I have loved that class! My teacher is fabulous and we just talk about the most interesting issues: abortion, birth control, equal protection, affirmative action, free speech, flag burning, ten commandments monuments, etc. Anyways, as my teacher giving his final thoughts, he said something that I really liked. He told us that he "hopes [we] now see shades of gray in issues we previously thought were black and white." I thought that was great because that's one of the things I've loved most about that class and even about coming to law school at GW in general...getting to know people who come from totally different backgrounds and political, social persuasions and learning how that has shaped the way they view certain things. Our country is very diverse and if we're going to work together to solve anything, we need to take the time to understand various points of view because we have more in common than we realize.

***Tweet Tweet Tweet***

I think Titter is a really sad way for people (who wake up at 40 realizing they have no friends or family) to chase away their loneliness. They've mistakenly thought their careers would forever bring them happiness and are even further proud and deranged in assuming that random people care to know what they're doing or thinking at any given time. Tweets can't make up for the family one fails to nurture and create along the way. Are we going to be so busy Twittering, Facebooking, Blogging, and Texting about things and to people who are no longer part of our lives or never were? Are we spending more time doing this than working on our actual relationships? Will we never be able to move on from past acquaintances, friendships, and relationships to create new ones? We need to spend our time and energy on things that matter and things of worth. Moderation in all things right? That should apply to electronic communication as well.

National Press Room

Last week Callie and I went to a lecture series at the National Press Room in downtown D.C. entitled: "The Kalb Report: Journalism in Crisis." It was really cool. They were taping it for television. The panelists were the CEOs and Presidents of CNN, NPR, the Associated Press, and the Knight Foundation. It was interesting to hear what they thought about the future of journalism. I didn't really care for the AP or the CNN Presidents, was indifferent about the NPR President and really liked the Knight Foundation President. The moderator expressed concerns that newspapers were going under all over the nation, but the respective organizations of the panelists aren't suffering that much, so they didn't quite exhibit the level of concern that many in the audience did. The most interesting comment I heard was that with the growing surge to access News on the internet, people are able to get all of their news through a single lens/viewpoint...instead of listening to both sides of the debate in this country. Like only listening to FoxNews or only listening to CNN or MSNBC which all definitely put their own spin on stories. I think it's dangerous to the marketplace of ideas if those ideas aren't circulated widely. It's so valuable to listen to people who think differently than you do. That's one thing I love about going to law school at GW.

No one person or side has all the answers...we need to learn to communicate with each other. It's the true spirit of the old adage: two heads are better than one.

Check CSPAN for the broadcast. I was sitting near the stage on the side as was likely on camera at some point. :)