Roughly A Month In

  It's been almost exactly 5 months since I returned from Namibia. I am not living in Boston and about a month into law school. It's a massive change, as one can imagine. My schedule is far more structured and people actually care about you being somewhat on time. I no longer stand out, which fits me better. I know it's been a while since I last wrote here. Turns out, law school is very time consuming. Who knew?

  The weather is turning cold. Something I have not experienced in a very long time. So long, that I am entirely unprepared. No winter coat, minimal long pants, like 2 long sleeve shirts, no windbreaker. Crap. Turns out, a year in Israel, a few in New Orleans, and a couple in Namibia do not lend themselves to having a wardrobe meant for a Boston winter. I foresee some shopping in my near future.

planting my flag

  So, Jay, what is it like? One great thing about law school is being surrounded by people on my level again. It's been a while since I was surrounded by this many people as smart, as educated, as well read, as well spoken, and capable of speaking English on my level. Here, most of my classmates are as smart or smarter than I am, English is the first language for most of my classmates, they've read as much as I have. Spending night after night debating cases and hypotheticals, thinking of the future, why we're here, ideas for co-ops, etc. It's been great. Plus, in Boston, the beer is much better than the selection in Namibia, and Sam Adams is far superior to Windhoek.

  So, what are my classes like? I have my 3 core classes with the same group of people, in the same room. This semester, that's property, torts, and civil procedure. Civil procedure is taught by Steve Subrin, a legend in the field who wrote our casebook. Sadly, this is supposedly his final year teaching law. I'm certainly lucky to have gotten him. My other two classes are enjoyable, and less about the technicalities than they are about the substance. While the liberalism of this school drives me crazy ('that's not fair" and nonsequetor shots at Trump, Scalia, and the GOP as a whole are not intelligent arguments), I've found my core group, and settled in nicely.

  My other classes are "Legal Research and Writing" and "Legal Skills in a Social Context/Social Justice Project/Law Office" (all names for the same class). Legal Research and Writing is exactly what you'd expect. They're teaching us how to write like a layer. Turns out, being a solid writer in an undergrad setting is very different. I've had my writing here ripped to shreds, and my ego severely damaged, but in the long run this is going to help me quite a bit, and I wouldn't want my professor going soft on me. Learning to use "The Bluebook" has made me hate "The Bluebook," but I'm starting to get the hang of these citations. Until I realize I'm actually not. Well, eventually this'll make sense, right? I mean, everyone who becomes a lawyer does eventually get the hang of this shit, or so I've been told. One interesting thing is that my section is part of an experimental program at NUSL, where my courses involve overlapping work. So, I'll have to write a memo for LRW based on an assignment in my Civ Pro book, based on whether I have grounds to amend a complaint based on causes of actions taught in Torts. It's given LRW a more real-word spin, I guess. Shows how the various 1L courses interplay in the day-to-day life of a lawyer.

  Which brings us to my Legal Skills in a Social Context course. This is a very NUSL-specific course. Basically, we're going to be working for an organization called The Southern Legal Counsel, based out of Florida, working on improving trauma-informed education. Memos, policy briefs, maybe videos and handouts, not sure exactly what the specific deliverables will be, but these ideas have been floated around. Truth be told, this project is still very much in the abstract stage, and for now, we're simply researching the basics. Essentially, this is about giving us a chance to really apply what we learn, get some hands-on experience, and improve our stocks as we look to compete for those co-ops.

  So, Mr. Salus, what do you do for fun? Well, mostly I read and debate cases. Because, you know, I gotta keep up in class. We have a sort-of-weekly Bar Review (law school speak for "a bunch of students meeting up at bars and getting drunk and arguing about law stuff"). Last night, my roommate and I went to the Northeastern vs. Colgate hockey game, our season opener. It was my roommate's first ever hockey game, and he enjoyed seeing us beat the #20 team in the country. Occasionally, I find time to just wander around Boston. I practice guitar. I try and find time for pleasure reading. I Skype/IM friends in Namibia. If I find time, I sleep. I sip tea and cocoa. I know my way around the NUSL law library, as well as good places to sneak off to for a short nap without going home. Oh, and I enjoy Law Movie Lunes (a weekly tradition, movies having to be somewhat connected to law, though some of them have been stretches).

  A small side note, I got to enjoy a little coincidence when a couple weeks ago my property professor assigned us a reading about a conservancy in Namibia. For avid readers of this blog, you may recognize the conservancy mentioned. For those of you who don't remember, here are the photos. The conversation related to Namibia granting its indigenous people sovereign property rights over their land, the people on it, etc., in contrast to the US. Just a fun little coincidence.

  So, I conclude with something that for many readers will seem simply out of the blue. I'm sorry. This is neither the time nor the forum to elaborate. For those of you who read this and understand what I mean, well, it'll make perfect sense without any further explanation. Moving to Boston has not been the easiest experience, and one thing that I've come to realize, whoever said "time heals all wounds" was either wrong or, at age 26, pushing 27, maybe I need more time to see the truth in it. Either way, I'm coping, taking things as they come, appreciating being somewhere I actually feel I fit in, and simply trying to get myself in a position to take my life where I want it to go.