A little knowledge

I was playing U.N. Squadron today and having a great time.  It’s an old side scrolling shooter SNES title.  Unlike most side scrollers, it’s full of remarkable customization.   You’ve got three pilots to choose from, six planes to upgrade to, and a dozen separate weapons to purchase (if you want them).  The pilot choice happens at the beginning of the game, the planes advance as the game goes on, and the weapons are only good for one life on one stage (as in, if you die you wasted the scrilla).  There’s tension at the weapon buying stage.  For one, special weapons cost money, which means you’re upgrading your planes slower.  Things change when you save enough to buy the ultimate plane.  It and it alone can hold all 12 weapons, whereas other planes only had some to choose from.  You don’t need much money anymore, so buy to your heart’s content, right?  Not so fast.  While each weapon has some niche role, the process of cycling through special weapons to find the best one for the situation requires both time and dexterity.  Needless to say, by the time you’re able to buy the ultimate plane in the latter stages, the action is coming hot and heavy.  You don’t have time to cycle through 12 weapons (and God help you if you pass over the one you’re looking for), so even at the end you need to be judicious with your weapon purchases.  Purchasing too much means you can’t use any of it effectively.  It’s a slick system and a lot of fun.

As I mentioned there are three pilots, and the one you picked is locked in for the game.  There’s Pilot A, who levels up his base weapon the fastest (Incidentally, I will enjoy any game that involves leveling up.  Do I like the reassurance of knowing something is progressing?).  Pilot C has the very useful ability to recover from damage faster, which effectively makes him harder to kill.  Useful in a game where everyone…wants…to…kill…you!  Pilot B, on the other hand, has the “special” ability that allows the use of two optional weapons at the same time.  “Special” in this case means retarded, because that ability is astonishingly worthless.  He doesn’t survive well, and he doesn’t get more powerful sooner.  Instead, he grants the player the ability to push a bunch of buttons at the same time to overkill planes that require a single shot to take down.  As an example, one good weapon is the Heat Seeker.  Another good one is the Cluster shot, which surrounds your plane with a little ring of fire for a minute.  The first is good at long distance, the second is great when you’re surrounded.  They are used for different occasions and thus would never be used together.   The other special weapons are similarly specialized, not to mention that whole weapon juggling/button pressing issue I mentioned above.  No question, Pilot B is the runt of the litter.

I was thinking today, as I was wrapping up a play session, what if you somehow found yourself inside U.N. Squadron?  Like a Last Starfighter situation.  You find yourself in this video game, presumably because you’re so intimate with the interface.  You get hooked up, buy some weapons, and take off for Stage 1.  And it’s at that point, when you’re collecting power-ups and getting shot, you realize “Oh shit, I’m Pilot B.  I’m the worst one!”  How disheartening would that be?  You’d be wasting ammo to fire double weapons for no reason but because you can.  Seems like you’d be better off not knowing how well off the other pilots are. (Admittedly were that true you might not be tapped to be a pilot anyway.  Which considering the frequent player deaths of the game, might not be a bad thing.)   What does all this mean?  I think of weird things sometimes.

However this does relate to the Alaska experience.  Work is going really well, almost dangerously so.  My duties remain vastly ahead of the curve as a 1L-2L inbetweener.  Besides drafting plenty of motions, answering interrogatories, and creating interrogatories, I just got tapped to write jury instructions for an upcoming trial.  Jury instructions are incredibly important, and being assigned the responsibility is a real treat.

The danger at work right now is that things are going well, and that could get me cocky.  Not a particularly long path I know, but I’m here to learn, rather than work per se.  I fear some point that comes along where I tune out new information because “I already get it”.  It’s not like an assumption of prowess would lead to tragedy for clients; the supervising attorney goes over and signs things before they get filed.  Rather, I’m just concerned with missing opportunities to really add to my substantive knowledge of practice; nominally what I crave.

I don’t think this has happened yet.  The attorney probably wants to assign me things that he knows I can handle, and it may seem that I want to keep performing at a strong level.  But really, I want stuff completely out of left field, that I don’t have even the smallest amount of foundation.   My stores are empty, and I’m thirsty for all of it.  Back in the Magic heyday, I was never stronger than when I was watching ever match, reading every article, trying to learn something new.  Here too, my little knowledge should only be used to facilitate more learning, not replace it.  When you’re dealing with bosses and clients however, it can be a tricky thing.

One of my roommates prosecuted his first trial last week.  Even though he hadn’t finished school, most, if not all states allow people with the requisite credits to perform some trial work under the supervision of another attorney.  Although the stakes were small all around, it was utterly fascinating.  Exciting too, to have such an intimacy with the key players of the show.  After the defense rested, there was a 15 minute recess for each side to prepare closings.  My roommate and his overseeing attorney retired to the hall to work on the closing, and I went out to watch them.  They’re animated, writing notes, and I get conscripted to represent the jury box so that Roommate can speak in the right direction.  He gets into it and I, cocky fellow that I am, chime in with a suggestion on a passage that sounds weird to me.  The two quickly agree and that comment (and a couple of others) get added in.  The other half of owning this miniscule knowledge is not being afraid of throwing something out there, as long as you’re ready to learn at the same time.  That trial was incredibly instructive, and best of all, roomy won.

Almost halfway done and things are moving very well.  Still looking forward to coming home.

Anchorage is not a total dump

Brie flew in this weekend, so we rented a car and jaunted around Alaska.  While cruising, I noted sections of Anchorage that were quite pleasant.  Well maintained houses, scenic overviews, coastal breezes; there are parts of Anchorage that you would not be upset to spend time in.

My views were further softened when a roommate, who works with a lot of local attorneys, repeatedly commented on how nice and cool the Alaska Bar is.  He said he’s been to some very nice houses owned by these fellows over the past few weeks.  I’m sure he’s right.

Unfortunately, my views are colored by where I work and how I get there.  The midtown area is basically a void, and the bus system a “transient on display” arrangement.  Cars remain required in Alaska, but also apprecaited.

There is an apologetic stance by some of the Anchoragites to visitors like us.  There is still something off about the town’s residents as a whole (even if some individuals are peachy).  I don’t know if it’s the people enamored with Alaska,  the unusual weather, or the economy.  I do know there seems to be a warping, or perhaps regressing, effect for a lot of folk.  Running against it is a bit of a culture shock.

Still, I am starting to see the appeal.  With access to a car and some funds, you could do alright for yourself up here.  There’s a painful derth of reasonable eats, at least compared to Seattle.  But for raw natural beauty and some unique opportunities, you could do worse.  I still have no plans to live here, but I’m now less befuddled by those that choose otherwise.

A Look Back: Grades

Once in a while I’m going to spend some time reflecting on the first year of law school.  Today is one of those days, and it’s one of the more pervasive “subjects” of law school: Grades.

Grades are the elephant in the room of law school, at least in semester one.  They’re almost never talked about, but trust me, they are ubiquitous.  Depending on how much investigative work one did before starting school, the first taste of grades may occur just before the first day, when students get their syllabuses.   These pre-1Ls may note, because they’re very intelligent, that there are no midterms, or even assignments per se.  There’s a bunch of readings and then the end of the semester.  When else would you get graded?

But I’m sure most people, like me, had some idea of what the grade situation was like before all that.  Here’s that distillation:

You take a test.  That’s your grade.

For some people that’s would be pure panic.  How would a person know how well they were doing throughout the semester?  This is technically true, but it doesn’t reflect the realities of school.  You are being tested every day, by yourself and everyone else.  The first test is doing the work, which  goes hand in hand with the second test, understanding the work.  Passing those two puts you in a good spot.  There’s lots of little tests too, like networking, or combating the profs who call on you, or being able to ask poignant questions.  (extra credit if you stump the teacher!)  But those are social tests and obviously have no permanent bearing.  Besides the shame of saying something dumb, or maybe not being able to work with a particular study group, those mini-tests are more for your own use than anything substantive.  Besides, no one much pays attention to others, and certainly no one remembers any individual comment by even the next class.  People have far too much on their plate to worry about whether student X read the material for the day.

So your single test for your single grade is it.  Inherntly that seems stressful, but it begs the question.  What are grades actually worth?  The answer to that question is the answer to many other law school questions.  simply, it depends.

The easy answer is that if your grades are too low, they kick you out of school.  That’s bad.  My first goal in law school, and this is ongoing, is to not flunk out of school.  It’s relatively hard to do this, but certainly not impossible.  My original, and healthiest goal with grades was simply not to fail anything.  That goal evolved somewhat, almost against my will.  We’ll get to that in a bit.

The second goal with grades is to not be put on academic probation.  Besides adding more stress than you probably need, this low-grade status restricts the courses you can take(they make you take more bar-tested courses, effectively).  You have some options still, but not nearly to the degree that a good standing student would have.   I continue to prefer to have more options and less probation.

The final goal of grades on any obvious scale is the reward side.  Specifically the school offers academic scholarships and, at the tippity top, invitations to the Law Review.  These lofty heights were not my goals.  Well, I wasn’t working against them and I wouldn’t have turned anything down.  But as opposed to flunking out of school or being put on probation, failing to make the top 10% or 5% of my class would not label the entire year a failure.

After the flunking out/scholarship dichotomy things get a little more muddled.  There’s the self-competition metric, but no matter how high a standard you put on yourself it does not equate to the misery that exams create.  There are some programs that require a certain rank to attend, generally above 50%.  That’s a value, but many students go through school never entering any of these programs.

Of course, grades (famously) affect your job status.  Specifically what kind of job you can get and what kind of job you can’t.  Interestingly, the good grades—>good job concept is kind of misleading.  It’s true that certain jobs are much harder to get with weaker grades, at least before you have some career experience under your belt.  The question that is often unasked is whether you want that kind of job in the first place.

In my first year orientation, one of the panelists said it best.  He explained that if you do 80-100 hour per week of school, and have the grades to show for it, you qualify to work 80-100 hours a week at a job.  Those jobs pay handsomely of course, sometimes obscenely.  It’s simply a matter of whether that’s what you’re looking for.  To me, it really put things into perspective.

After those interests, the value of grades drop off sharply.  Your JD is worth exactly as much if you’re first in your class or 99th.  No matter your grades, every graduate still has to pass the bar.  When you’re standing in a courtroom, the judge won’t make a ruling based on your GPA.  They may affect your initial hiring status, but they may not.  If you’re starting your own firm, as many grads do, GPA is utterly meaningless.  Who cares if you bombed your Trusts and Estates exam, if you’re (eventually, inevitably) doing what you love?

Those are the theories anyway, although for the most part I agree.  I don’t really want a 100 hour week job.  I don’t particularly care about my rank to other students.  My only desires re: grades was to not flunk out and be able to take the classes I wanted.  As I said, scholarships would have been nice, but I wasn’t going to cry about not getting them.

That being said, exam time is insanely stressful.  An unbelievable experience.  It’s a post for another day, but clearly grades had an impact on the tension.  If I was so nonchalant about grades, as I felt I was, why was it such an (often) miserable experience?  Partially it’s a reflective thing.  While I may be calm, the people around me were going crazy.  That probable rubbed off a little, although I like to think my calmness affected them.  There’s a culture to law school, and I guess you need to be tougher than I was to fully withstand it.

But than again, it’s competition.  With yourself or others it doesn’t matter; the very act of ranking creates winners and losers and tension  The grade curve, lauded or despised based on your (perceived) talent, made this process in some ways even more distinct.  True, it took some pressure off exams, knowing you were on average going to end up at the top of bell curve, i.e. average.  But, a: everyone thinks they’re special, and b: you have to do pretty damn well, or pretty damn shitty, to escape that peak.  The fact that your performance has to be extreme, on one end or the other, magnifies the experience.  Incidentally, the curve is why it’s so tough to outright fail a law school class; your bombed exam must be truly epic to escape the designated bottom end of the scale.  This truth did not prevent people from obsessively reflecting on the idea of course.

One more thing on grades in general, it’s suggested people do not share their grades with others.  It makes perfect sense.  Ranks make winners or losers, and doing it in person seems extra crude.  Imagine human nature as it relates to being the top or being the bottom, and you can see this is a fine suggestion.  I did share my grades with one of my closer friends through school, and I don’t regret.  We followed a remarkably similar path, and it was fun to complaint about exams and profs as required.  Although I felt out a few friends more, I never asked anyone their grades, nor did anyone ask me.  I’m sure some people shared with other others, and I’m sure some people regret it.

By the way, SU doesn’t give you all grades at once.  Cruelly, it sends them to you as soon as the teacher is done grading the exams.  This is a truly harsh system, as besides agonizing delays, your entire worldview changes upon receipt of each one.  For example, the first law school grade I received back was a good one.  Certainly higher than I expected.  While I was happy to receive it, it made the next grade I received less appreciated on its own merits.  The next grade was above average, quite good in fact, but it wasn’t as high as the first.  Now I can’t enjoy the new grade on its own, it’s inevitable compared to the first grade.  And now I start getting dangerous thoughts, like scholarship and summa cum laude and so on.    What a shift!  Before I didn’t want to flunk out, now thoughts of accolades swim through my head.

Well, those thoughts were dashed when the rest finally trickled in.  By all accounts it was a good term.  My total GPA was above average, and far above my failure metric.  Going into school, had I been told what I was going to be receiving, I would have been ecstatic; a huge weight lifted.  And I wasn’t unhappy, but I wasn’t brimming with pride either.  So much work, such difficult exams, and I had a single letter to show for it.  At the least it could be a letter as high in the alphabet is possible.

And that’s the essence of the grade system.  Your grade is the distillation of hundreds of hours of work, per class, per term.  If you were given hundreds of hours with a knife and some wood, you would hope in that time you could whittle something pretty.  Your grade is your opportunity to demonstrate your skill, and you only get one shot.  Most people, lay-people maybe, think of grades as the doorway to a better future.  But I think for the students, grades matter so much because they’re your only connection, your proof, of your past.  “Not failing” is the clearest example of this, but just showing yourself that all your efforts weren’t a waste has plenty of value too.  Tough system really, but at least they give you an easy way out.

Two Weeks Down

Admittedly this has been a short week, with an extended bachelor party the previous weekend and a trip down to Seattle Friday morning.  But still, a bit of a milestone.  Let’s see how the elements have stacked up so far:

Work: Work is tough but going well.  Right now we’re in a holding pattern with clients, which is no fun.  But we’ve had some really interesting strategy pow-wow’s over the week.  Enjoyable, nitty gritty strategy stuff.  Really informative on how the game is played, and how the game can be played, which obviously fits my interests nicely.

School:  Ain’t nothing wrong with school.  Class is moving along at a fine clip, although having the tiny class size is a new experience.  Abstractly the class subject is interesting, if probably NA to most of my legal career.  Apparently no one knows anything about Indian law, so I suppose even having a little knowledge sets me apart.  If things stay on this level I expect no problems.

Anchorage:  Anchorage, it turns out, is a bit of a dump.  It’s not so much the depressing infrastructure, although there’s that.  And it’s not so much it’s pricey, although there’s definitely that.  It’s that the people are really removed from civilized norms.  Women friends here seem to be on the defensive from the populace way more than Seattle.  I find that it takes a particular type to come to Alaska, and those instincts don’t always mesh with we travelers.  I’m not really against the town per se, but I well understand the reason every hits the permafrost each weekend.  There’s no reason not to.

And that’s where we are almost a third through.  So far so good.

The Alaska Native Heritage Center

On Wednesday we went down to the ANHC, which is the premiere institution for Alaska Natives(Indians and Eskimos) studies and exhibitions, etc.  A neat place, but pricey to get in.  If SU hadn’t picked up the tab, it would have cost one of us $28.00!  As it was, nada.  I mean, it cost tuition dollars, but those are never happy thoughts.

Anyway, it was fun.  We had an Inuit tour guide, who was quite good.  We walked along this pond area, and each stop had some information on the main Natives of a particular region.  Alaska has both Indian groups and Inuit groups, although the distinction was hard to describe(apprantly if you’re in one, you can tell).  There were also authentic habitats for the native people, with artifacts, home gear, hunting gear, and so on.  What really drove it all home was the fact that these people were still out there living their lives.  It’s not quite like how it was 100 years ago of course; they use chicken wire instead of birch bark strands on their fishing nets for example.  But a lot is the same, as many of the elders intend.  Some random factoids:

*One group separated each lineage into Raven or Eagle.   Besides whatever mythical standing the label meant, one of the rules forbade Eagles from marrying Ravens.  A rather clever way to prevent village inbreeding.

*Two of the groups from the far north created their own sunglasses out of wood and rope, to reduce snow blindness.  We tried them on, and they work!

*A group that lived on a series of islands crafted these amazing arrows for fish/otter/sea lion hunting.  The tips had waterski bottoms to skip along the water towards their target.  The arrows had pieces of bone in a forward-spike pattern, so that if the arrow’s head missed, the hooks could still get the animal.  And they were weighted to allow the arrow to bob in the water, so that the hunter could paddle over to the arrow and retrieve it.  Neat innovations.

*One of the mainland groups smeared bear fat on their berry stores.  To a bear, this would smell like another bear, and hence competition, keeping them away.  I wonder if that meant only the meanest and strongest bears would wander over?  Needless to say, bear protection was a major part of a lot of these peoples’ way of life.

It was a fun day, and we ended with a “welcome to Alaska” dinner at the Snowgoose Brewery.  SU picked up the tab again, so I proceeded to order too many beers and make fun of the professors and law school and Canada all dinner.  It was a fun day.

The Rest of Day One

After dropping off the bags, I met two(of three) of the new roommates.  They seem like good guys.  Both had been in town for a few extra days, so were eminently helpful in giving the lay of the land.  Even better, one has a car for the summer.  While I’ve resigned myself to be bus-centric for the seven weeks, the option of a vehicle was very nice.  To illustrate the point, we took a trip to the grocery store where we bought $220 worth of food, some communal and some not.  There were a lot of bags.  I expect the food to last a week.

The original afternoon plan was for me and a couple SU friends to go to the UAA’s university center.  Bizarrely, the center is in a mall, many miles from campus.  While I could get a UAA “student” card at the center and ride buses for free, sadly they were closed on the weekends.  Which meant a day of hideously expensive bus fare.  ($1.75 per ride with no transfers?  Seriously?).  We took the bus to downtown, theoretically to visit a farmer’s market.  The market turned out to be a street fair deal, with lots of the Alaskan souvenir tourist junk you’d expect to find.  And wow, do these people love their bear/moose puns.  We didn’t pick up anything, but I know what I’m going to have to try next time I’m there:

We finished the day with a long stroll around the downtown area, including some time on the coastal trail. Very beautiful, of course. We got back and I collapsed in exhaustion, as noted below. Sunday was quiet as I more fully unpacked, went to the gym, did homework, and bought some liquor. Good stuff.  Tomorrow the trip begins in earnest.

-Noah

Hole in the Wall

One more thing.  I noticed these holes in the wall by the window today:

It’s as if former residents hung stuff around the window.  Why would anyone do that?  Welllllllll, here’s a shot from my window:

Nothing too special, except that picture was taken at 10:30 pm! Didn’t I say this was a long day?  Luckily I don’t have any trouble sleeping in semi-lit, perma-lit rooms.  Here’s hoping anyway.

Arrival

Waking up at 3:30 am to get on a plane?  Yes, today was a very long day.  On the plus side, here’s the sight that greeted me as soon as I stepped into the airport.

Those mountains hit you like a tidal wave.  Icy caps in May?  I was quite taken.

Getting the rest of the luggage was no issue, and although the cab was pricey, I felt more confident with it than the rather impenetrable bus system(more on that later).  Arriving at the University of Anchorage campus, I went to the main hall to check in and receive the room key.  Two young women were manning the desk.  Here’s a very close approximation of our conversation:

Me: Hello, I’m here to check in.

Them: You can’t check in until 3:00 pm. (It’s nine in the morning)

Me: Well here I am.  I’ll need to check in now.

Them: [type type type] And you’re all set.  Have a pleasant stay!

With key in hand, I head over to see my room for the next seven weeks.   See it for yourself.  It’s quaint!

The day didn’t end there of course.  More soon.

Day Zero

Welcome to the beginning of my  extended trip to the frozen north.  At this moment I have a plane to catch in six hours and more packing to do.   Seems as good a time as any to take a break and explain why I am flying to Seward’s Folly for these  next seven weeks.

The trip is solely a result of being a law student at the Seattle University School of Law.  On the cusp of completing my first year, the opportunity arose to spend some time in Alaska taking a course and interning in a legal setting.  This was an enticing offer.  Getting some school credits out of the way is certainly beneficial, and summer classes have reduced tuition rates.  Working with a judge or law firm over the summer is just as useful, filling in that oh-so important résumé with legal underpinnings.  Most authorities agree you don’t have to work in a legal setting or take classes in the summer.  Many of my law school friends will be at “civilian” jobs over the next few months, helping to pay for this astonishingly expensive program.  The only real rule about your 1L-2L summer is that you must do something.  Alaska, appealingly enough, offers two somethings.

Just as important is where the Alaska program is located.  Namely, Alaska!  While I enjoy travel, I’ve never been.  In fact, I never studied abroad through college.  I know Alaska isn’t precisely “abroad”, but considering where I am academically, it’s the closest I’m going to get.  Besides, it’s not exactly a domestic destination either:

I will be spending the majority of my time in Anchorage, the most populous city in the state.

So this blog (my first!) will be a little experiment.  Along the way I’ll be posting on the work experience, the class experience, reflections on my first year of law school, daily living in the dorms, food, and anything else that springs to mind.  If you would like to read about anything in particular, be sure to drop me a line.  In the meantime, I better finish packing!

-Noah