Fangirlin' It

Man, who needs hockey for fights?  Just watch taped depositions.  We saw part of one tonight from Texas (of course) where the various lawyers in the room nearly came to blows over whether one of them who was frequently objecting to things actually represented the witness being deposed, thus having an actual right to do so.  So you've got a bunch of fat, old, white guys insulting each other, claiming they'll object if they want to, and calling each other fat boy and threatening to fight.  All of this in the stereotypical Southern hick accent.  It was hilarious.

I took extra ADD meds before class today, since I've been having so much trouble concentrating all the way through three hours of class at night, when most of my normal dose has worn off, and it seems to be going marginally better.

We're sitting here in Litigation class, and the professor just showed us a copy of a handwritten 'letter' a juror wrote while on a jury.  It was badly spelled and stuff, but mostly it was in the vein of 'I can't believe this case, these people are all idiots, what do you mean four more weeks of this' and rambled on.  The best parts, though, were where the guy was saying he wanted to die (not really, but yeah) rather than be there anymore, the plaintiff's lawyer looked like The Penguin (misspelled), and he was fantasising about killing the lawyers if it would make it stop.  Needless to say, someone decided this guy was just a little unstable, and he was dismissed.

Well, so far I really like this class; the professor is funny and interesting and the other students seem really cool.  I was a little worried about this, so this is a relief.  The professor is talking about the assignments right now, and I'm thinking, 'Sixty-page chapters?  No biggie, not after that WWII class!'.  This is a good feeling.

In other news, we've already been here two hours and I haven't lost my focus yet.  Of course, we aren't doing a real class today, so that's maybe not an entirely accurate prediction of classes to come.  

It seems like every class ever starts out with you being behind on the reading already because you don't get the syllabus or whatever beforehand, and this is no different.  I've got three chapters to read for today and three more for next Tuesday.  Then I've got a class that's actually on Thursdays, which I won't actually go to until the 12th.  The professor did say that we should be getting out a little early, which will be nice.  Oh, this is nice, we just noticed that the three chapters for today are essentially an overview, and there's no actual assignment associated with it.  So the work that's due next Tuesday is on the second set of three chapters.  Whew.

Now we're starting.  Hm, I think I will probably be very bad at knowing when a client is lying to me.  I have this really bad habit of believing things people tell me, even though I know better.  It's weird, because when it's not someone actually telling me things, I'm a very incredulous person--I don't take things on faith, period.  But when someone is sitting there telling me things, unless the story is so unbelievable my ten-year-old cousin couldn't have come up with it, I'll probably believe it until someone else points out, 'You know, that's probably not true.'.  ::facepalm:: 

Wow, as a paralegal, you can get paid to troll facebook, etc., as part of gathering information--that makes your job really easy.  Thank you, social media.  So, let this be a lesson: if you don't want it used against you in court, don't put it on the internet.  Some paralegal will find it. 

This state was the first in the nation to have a certification process for paralegals--wow, we're normally not this forward-thinking here.

Twenty 'til nine, now.  I'm getting a little ready to stop concentrating.

Hm, at the end of all this, I can call myself an NC Certified Paralegal or and NC State Bar Certified Paralegal.  It sounds pretty good.  :) 

It's weird thinking I'll only see this professor six times--one class per week for six weeks and it's done.  Each class is like that; this last history class was a little like that in that we met once a week, but a semester is a lot longer than six weeks. 

Quarter 'til.  These desks are a little uncomfortable because they don't let me stretch my legs out.  Wow, one part of the paralegal profession trademarked Certified Paralegal, so they invented a new word--certificated--to make up for it.  Certificated, guys.  I just, no.  Quit making up stupid words when there are already words in the English language to express your thought.  Or at least let someone who is more talented create the neologisms.  

Nine on the dot.  And we are done.

Hah, it is done, and I have done it!  Well, sort of.  I finally completed the first real draft of my big huge history paper today.  And my hands feel like they're about to fall off from all the typing.  But.  It is currently 16 pages, with a 2-page bibliography.  It's supposed to be 15-20 pages when I turn it in on the 15th (yikes, that's so soon!), and I have a meeting with my professor on Thursday, so I think I'm on track.  I totally just worked through lunch and am currently inhaling a burger and fries in the Union.

I feel a lot of relief finishing this draft, though.  It's been hanging over my head, and I finally got enough material to add almost ten pages to the original draft, which was admittedly kind of crappy.  That's what procrastination will do for you.  I think this draft is pretty decent, though I'm sure it will benefit from me printing it out and going over it again later.  I love working on computers, but some things about writing I just have to have hard copy in front of me.  

I've still got to write a 'reflection letter' for my English paper (::eyeroll::) and then create a 6-8-minute presentation, including a clip from the show no more than 2 minutes.  As if I didn't already spend enough time on this.  I did get about a 98 on the paper itself, though.

Well, I'm finished with lunch, so I guess I'll head home, before the crappy server here annoys me too much more.

Well, it's a little late for Halloween, but if you're looking for something horrifying, try the book I'm reading in my history class: Bloodlands: Europe Between Hitler and Stalin.  I've had to stop reading this before bed, guys.  Seriously, this is the most sickening thing I think I've ever been exposed to, and it's worse because it actually happened.  This actually makes the Western idea of what the Nazi concentration camps were like look like a picnic in spring, it's so horrifying.  This is the stuff that makes you go, "Oh, god, I never, ever wanted to know that," but someone's got to learn it.  I kind of just wish that someone wasn't me.

In other news, I finished my rough rough draft of the English paper (the one on the portrayal of the military in SG-1 and SGA) this morning.  We were supposed to 'workshop' each others' drafts; pass the draft to someone, they fill out a sheet about it, repeat.  Well, the people in my class are a bunch of slackers.  I mean, even more than I am.  In my group of four, I had six pages (missing some detail from a few sources and a conclusion for the eventual 8-10-page final paper), and one person I think had three pages.  The other two people had two pages.  One girl didn't even get to her actual thesis statement!  ::facepalm::  I finished up the rough draft to turn in this afternoon; it clocks in at just over 8 pages right now.

Now I have to really get going on the paper for said history class.  I really need to sit down and devote about a day to going through all my research material and making dedicated notes.  Then, I think we have a 10-page draft due soon-ish.  Yikes.  This paper is not horrifying, however; it's on British home front propaganda, official and unofficial and officially unofficial.  It's actually fairly interesting (to me) but I won't bore any of you with it.  

All right, the year is off to a good start; I got the short paper we wrote for my history class back, and I got an A on it!  The professor thought it was excellent. 

Well, I have been busy (only sort of) with my class for the first summer term: Caribbean History.  Man, talk about tainting the enjoyment of things; we've focused on the slave trade and sugar, then I just wrote a paper Monday (in two hours before it was due!) on race and labour in Central America, which was on banana plantations in Costa Rica. 

We also learned that fictitious (as in, the author didn't even do actual research before she wrote the book) slave owners in the American south had absolutely nothing on the cruelty and sadism of the sugar plantation slave masters in the Caribbean.  We read an excerpt from a slave owner's diary (in exhaustive detail, including every single sexual encounter) and it was so gruesome I had to quit reading.  But the class is still really interesting.  It's almost over, though, and then I have another class next summer term, which is also a depressing history class on something to do with the Holocaust.  Why oh why is my interest in things that are invariably depressing?

In other aggravations, my laptop power cord (the one I use at school) finally bit the dust Monday, so I had to write that paper on a school computer.  The replacement one I got a few months ago is really persnickety, so I try not to move it from my room, but I've had to use it yesterday and today, and it's a fight to get it to work every single time.  So I went ahead and ordered a new one from Amazon last night for a whopping 2 bucks, then paid ridiculous shipping to hopefully get it here by the end of the week.  While I was at it, I decided to replace the battery, which is the reason the power cord thing is an issue, for under 30 bucks.  That one at least had free shipping, but will take longer to get here.  *crosses fingers that this is the end of the computer woes*

Yeah, totally wrote that annotated bibliography in an hour and a half, right before it was due.  And I totally made some shit up on it, too; nothing huge, just a few generalizations because I didn't actually read much of the sources.  ::shrug::  I should still get well above a C in the class, which is all I need.  Class tomorrow, then two exams next week, then it's over!  (Until summer, about a week later.)