Learning to Read

I bought my books on Wednesday--3 casebooks, 2 supplements, 2 "lawyerly terminology" books, 1 course reader, and 1 legal novel (yay!)-type book.

To prepare for my first trip to campus as a Law Student, I spent two hours getting ready; I had to look intimidatingly/endearingly cute in case I met anyone! Alas, those two hours were wasted on my 10 minute trip into the LuValle Bookstore. I parked at a meter (even though I have a parking permit) and proceeded to put 5 precious quarters into it before realizing it was stuck at two minutes. BALLS. With my usual nonchalance for parking tickets, I thought "fuck it" and continued on my way. While approaching the bookstore, I basked in the shade of the trees in the sunken garden and reveled in the breeze sweeping through the Royce/Powell corridor, when--*gasp*--LuValle is RIGHT NEXT to the Law School?! Wow, what hole had I been living under during my 3 years as a north campus major? At least I knew that the bookstore was hidden under the food court thing. And I will have easy access to coffee and snacks.

That's the Law School!

Upon entering the bookstore, I stopped to say hi to Mimi*, an old acquaintance from my a cappella days. However, I don't know if she just didn't recognize me or didn't want to acknowledge me, but it was definitely awkward. In any case, I walked reluctantly by the awesome UCLA Law sweatshirts (which would make a great "congrats on Law School present") and made my way to the textbook section, which is ONLY law books! I think.... Oh well. Could be wrong. LuValle is also TFT-town.


I had conveniently emailed myself my book list, so with my iPhone in hand, I quickly piled up 8 of my 9 books. The last one I needed was in a section blocked by another student and her mom, who were rifling through all the used books, presumably to make sure no pages were missing/annotations weren't obnoxious. Maybe I should have done that too, but I just checked the two used books I bought and they're fine. I like annotations from previous students, because either a) I can laugh at their stupidity, or b) they help me out!



After dropping a cool $650 (average $72/book), I lugged my two bags of books out of the store, cheerfully calling "Bye, Mimi!" as I walked by--ignored! Sigh. When I got back to my car, a little worse for wear from the 100-yard walk carrying heavy books, the meter was expired!! WTF I thought it was stuck!? I didn't have a ticket though, so all was right with the world. My newly-purchased books sat in my car for two days until I brought them in today so I could start my reading for my first week.



Ok. Legal writing is bu-hor-ang. And also utilizes extremely poor diction. I mean really, who says "this case is BOTTOMED on" instead of "this case is BASED on?" That makes me think "oh, this case was the bottom of the barrel." Or "this case is a butt." Ok, that's stretching it a little, but RUFSM (Are you Fucking Serious Me, taken from my former roomie's awesome food blog, to which post I am unable to link due to a "forbidden error")?! This is why I have a book entitled Plain English for Lawyers.

This is supposed to help me write.

I have finished the two cases I am supposed to read for orientation Monday, and will now begin my first day reading for Wednesday. I have a feeling that this blog will be a nice/evil distraction in the years to come.

*Names changed to protect the innocent