My sister just finished her last law school final. She graduates in another week and a half at a ceremony at beautiful Loyola Marymount University (notwithstanding the fact that the law campus is a separate location in urban Pico-Union). I'm proud of her! I've watched her grow from a hapless 1L who didn't know how to write into a polished 3L who writes in spare and efficient prose, and who knows just how much to cram for a test so she can ace it and still have time to go out partying afterwards. (She knows how to fit 'having fun' with work about as well as anyone I know.)

However, I asked her if she was excited to be done and she said no. "I have to study again in 3 weeks," she explained, referring to the California Bar.

Of course, she gets to do it while residing in our new place. Her and I are moving out starting this weekend. Living at home has been fun, and convenient, and cost-efficient, but I guess it's time for a change. (I still like the idea of carpooling every day with my dad and/or taking the subway, which I won't be able to do from Baldwin Hills.)

On an interesting and unrelated note, it's been a year to the day of my law school graduation. It's hard to believe it's been that long.

I just spent the last five hours editing one of my papers from law school. How stupid is that? I thought I was done with that crap.

The reason is that I have two papers that were accepted for publication last year that are now in the editing stage. I got one of them back a few days ago with instructions to "review the edits and make all changes requested." Unfortunately for me, I now have to deal with 60 pages of anal, redundant, and sometimes flatly erroneous changes to my magnum opus on neuroelectronic interfaces. One student, in particular, butchered all my footnotes and, confused by her own butchering, subsequently inserted frustrated comments every other sentence such as, "WHAT ARE YOU SAYING?? THIS IS WRONG!" (I know who made what changes because Microsoft Word's track changes is active in the doctument.)

If I had known this was going to be so much work, maybe I would have thought twice about publishing.

Related post: Selected Works of Eric Chan

This picture was taken last September, during the Stanford Law activities fair for new students. But I had totally forgotten about it. Good times indeed! Makes me a little sad, as my Stanford e-mail account is set to expire in two weeks.

(Yes, that's my friend, co-Editor-in-Chief, and future bar trip companion Henry.)

So, I've written two research papers this year that I've been trying to get published. (I've done it for one already..) It turns out that the online service that law students submit papers to law reviews and journals, ExpressO, also lets you showcase your manuscripts on your very own website, entitled "Selected Works of [Your Name here]." It sounds pretty nifty, so why not? Check out the Selected Works of Eric Chan.

So far, I like Selected Works. I'm probably not going to add anything else to that page in the foreseeable future, but it has a very slick interface that feels very, well, Blogger- like. It's online publishing for the hip generation. (Compare, for example, how one of my same articles looks on SSRN.)

I had two hours of introductory Bar Review class this morning. It wasn't anything substantive, but it's clear that this is going to be rough. You don't get weekends off, you are prescribed 5-8 hours of studying and test-taking a day, and you have to sit through an additional 4 more hours of videotaped lecture a day. Not cool..

So in my last post, I kind of lied. Tuesday, April 24th wasn't technically my last day of class, though it was my last day of traditional, doctrinal, Socratic law lectures (Criminal Procedure and International IP.) And it was sad to be done with those. (I will admit, I was shocked when visiting professor Chris Slobogin abruptly, and without fanfare, ended my last doctrinal lecture with a terse, "It's been great. Bye!" I would have hoped he would at least tell us how great of a class we were, or how he'll miss Stanford, but I am also convinced he prides himself on being gruff in an affable sort of way that is consistent with that not-so-grand exit.)

So anyway, it wasn't until my last 2-unit, non-graded, no-final Accounting class on Wednesday that the realization really kicked in. And that real very-last-class was not without incident.

Because I got very little sleep the night before due to the paper deadline, I was zoning out during Accounting. I thus figured I could leave at 5 pm instead of at 5:20, slip out, and take a nap before the Board of Visitors dinner. Instead, when Professor Rajan saw me leaving, he stopped the whole class and asked me to fill out an evaluation form. It was quite embarassing and he totally called me out. But what a way to go, I guess.

In other news, I just got back from two and a half days in America's Second City. I visited a couple of my friends at University of Chicago, saw a slew of tourist attractions, went on a number of tours, and checked out the nightlife as well -- Chicago has excellent comedy, jazz, and blues clubs. And so far, I'm not regretting the decision to go two days before my CrimPro final, which is on Tuesday. (I just have to cram, now.) More on all this later!

I am not helping to organize Admit Weekend this year, but I did my part tonight by going to a gathering of Asian American admits for Minority Admit Day and schmoozing with them. In fact, I was the only 3L to do so. Ah, apathy..

The problem is, at this point, it's hard just to care. On one level, it doesn't really matter to me who comes to Stanford next year. I'll be gone. But though I could have better spent my time tonight outlining for Criminal Procedure, I still feel a pretty strong sense of obligation to my school, and in particular, to APILSA's minority admit recruiting efforts.

One thing that I really do like is the admitted class's enthusiasm and energy -- they all lead interesting intellectual lives, they all want to change the world, and they're excited. Did I used to be like that?

And man, schmoozing.. it really takes so much energy for me to turn it "on," to get to know strangers you know nothing about and keep the conversation going, be all smiles and laughter and make them think everyone at SLS is like this all the time. I think I do a pretty passable job, and I think I make a good recruiter. But it takes a lot out of me, and I'm not sure how much more I want (or have) to give.

For reference:
Admit Weekend, 2006 vs. Sleep
Admit Weekend, 2005 vs. Appellate Brief

It's over dude, it's over.

I am amazed how suddenly the end of my law school career has crept up on me. It was only a year ago that I was a 1L (actually, it's been two); at the very least, it's only been a blink of an eye since last summer (actually, it's been nine months.) The memories still are fresh, and it's been all too easy to convince myself that time hasn't passed, that I can stay in the same frame of mind and in this frame, the world will remain in geosynchronous orbit.

But if there is a fundamental rule of life, it's that nothing stands still. The only thing you have control over is how you choose to remember as it passes you by. Even then, you will never get to re-experience things as they really were. The tyranny of memory imposes its own version of the story on the events. Perhaps it's something unavoidable, something our minds have to do in order to spin a coherent narrative out of an incoherent world. In any case, it sucks.

I graduate in just over three weeks. I take the California Bar in just over three months. I leave Stanford after that. There is no way to pretend that there is plenty of time left for my current way of life. Change is coming, and in large quantities.

Then again, what am I afraid of? I thought I accepted long ago that it's not the destination in life that truly matters, it's the ride. (It would be nice to be remembered some day, of course, as a good person who did worthwhile things.) I have already vowed to live every day as if it were my last, and to accept things as they are, and enjoy moments when I am in the middle of them. I no longer feel the need to write extensive journal entries documenting what I had for lunch every day (although it's interesting to go back and read them), and I no longer feel the urge to constantly take pictures when I am with friends. Those were my ways of trying to freeze time in place. At least this is what I have told myself.

In the meantime, I am just going to try and cram as much enjoyment of life as I can into the next 4 months... finals and the bar be damned. Because from what I hear, once you start working..

then it's really over.

"This is your last spring break," my friend Clark said as he tried to convince me to go to a wild trip to Morocco with him. "Don't spend it writing a paper."

Well, I did, and I'm not sorry. I've spent the past six days, off and on, concentrating mainly on writing a paper on international patent law. I have written about 24 pages and feel that I could probably go for another ten if the draft weren't due on Monday..

I also managed to have a good time. The weather was beautiful, and I enjoyed just being in LA and taking it all in, from the gritty streets of the San Fernando Valley to the winding turns of Sunset Blvd. in the Westside. I met up with a couple of friends, had Thai food in North Hollywood, went suit shopping with my mom, hiked up to the Observatory, and went out and bought the camera of my dreams. (More of this, of course, in another post.)

You know, though I've worked hard this, my 3L year, I don't think I would have it any other way. I'm not burned out -- from what I understand, burnout is not the result of working too hard, but from a combination of working too hard for too little personal reward. That is certainly not the case here.

Would I like to have spent my spring break running around a foreign country where I don't even know the language? Yes, i would. I still intend to do so after I take the bar. But for now, I am happy as things are..

Anyway, I gotta drive up tomorrow morning. Good night!

Previous law school spring breaks (Notice a pattern? It just seems to be the way I roll):
Spring Break 2006
Spring Break 2005

It has been a while since I last posted -- I've been busy. Far too busy, perhaps, for my last semester of law school (has it really been that long?) I'm being kept busy by a couple of regular classes – Criminal Procedure: Investigation with Slobogin and International IP with Goldstein; a couple of one-day-a-week classes – Advanced Patent with Lemley and Accounting with Rajan; and on top of those 10 law units, I am also taking fifth quarter Chinese, a 5 unit undergraduate class. Just for fun. (More about this in another blog post.)

All this aside, I've also been going to a spate of conferences, a different one each weekend. It's been insane.

• I started off with my own Digital Privacy Symposium three weeks ago; that went incredibly well, but it was exhausting. (In an experiment born of idle curiosity, I "live-blogged" the event on my Center for Internet & Society blog. Check it out, and yes, I have another blog! Audio recordings will also be soon available.)
• The week after that I volunteered to help out with the Bay Area Asian Pacific American Law Student Associations conference, also held at Stanford. Sadly enough, as a "national" law school Stanford does an exceedingly poor job of keeping in touch with the local legal community, including the vibrant Asian American legal community (perhaps stronger here than anywhere else in America); this was a rare opportunity to be exposed to it. Plus, I never pass up a chance to meet students from other law schools.
• By last weekend, I was getting sick of conferences and only attended Congressman Xavier Becerra's keynote address at the Immigrants' Rights symposium. I didn't help out, but I did make the symposium flyer for my buddy Gloria, who put it on.
• And finally, this weekend was the Stanford Law Review's symposium on Global Constitutionalism. What the hell is Global Constitutionalism? I still have no idea, but I went to see Lord Goldsmith, Attorney General of the U.K., deliver a dry and erudite speech on the need for Britain to have a written constitution.

I have got to stop go seeing famous people come to campus just because they are famous. Symposia aside, just this past week I just went to go see playwright David Henry Hwang talk about his latest play, Yellowface; I also attended a staged reading (basically a run-through where the authors have their scripts in front of them) of the play. And I also came out to see Ralph Nader talk on campus about the evils of corporate logic, the impotency of academia, and the imperative need for civic leadership. Then again, I probably won't stop. My time here is running out, and I may never have the chance to see so many movers and shakers again. (I already missed out on John Edwards.)

I guess I'll never have a chance to experience senioritis, after all.

This is what has been driving me crazy for the last 2+ weeks: preparing for my technology journal's big symposium event next Friday. The topic is a timely and always-catchy one: digital privacy and the Fourth Amendment. We are hosting five authors, including former DOJ cybercrime prosecutors, an ACLU attorney, a counsel from Yahoo!, each of whom will speak about a draft of his/her paper.

Planning a symposium has been much more involved than I anticipated. My co-editor, journal staff and I had to put everything together ourselves, from the welcome packets to the website to the hotel bookings, catering, dinner plans and facilities reservations. But everything is coming together.

Oh, and in case you're wondering, I designed the flyer in Photoshop. The jagged building in the design is actually a real photo I took of a building on Kearny and California streets in San Francisco.

For more information (including the authors' drafts), go ahead and visit http://stlr.stanford.edu/symposium.html. If you're in the Bay Area, come!

Prof. Greely is having his yearly Law and Genetics Seminar for federal judges (via the Federal Judicial Center) again, so today I got the opportunity, for the third year in the row, to attend the keynote speech and chat with the judges in the Faculty Lounge. (I didn't go last year because of the timing.)

It seems that every year, he gets another biology Nobel prize winner to give the keynote lunch talk. Two years ago, it was Paul Berg, and that was a zany experience. This year, however, Greely got the much more congenial Andy Fire, a virologist who won the 2006 Nobel Prize for his work with RNAi (RNA interference). It was actually a subject that I knew very little about, so I found it fascinating. I got the impression that the judges this year were actually catching on, and learning something. And they always seem excited to interact with law students (I don't know why, but they are.)

Anyway, I'm going to miss events like these once I leave law school.

In other news, things are quite hectic. I am taking four law school classes (but only ten units) and I'm also trying my hand at second-year Chinese -- exactly where I left off in December 2003. Right now, it is a disaster. But we'll see how that goes.

It's harder to study when you only have one final and you are a 3L with 5 days to study for it. Less pressure, for sure. But also less motivation.



On a side note: yes, I am getting tired, a little bit, about thinking about the UCLA win on Saturday. But not that tired. There are a few aspects that are particularly satisfying:

• UCLA won fair and square. UCLA administered a beat-down in all aspects of the game, a point that even the most obnoxious Trojan fans are forced to concede.
• Pete Carroll and the Trojans, frankly, really didn't know what hit them. After the game, Carroll was flabbergasted, at a loss for words or for any explanation for how his team was so thoroughly dominated.
• The number of SC statistical streaks that came to an end that day. The first time in 63 games they were held under 20 points -- way under. The first time in eighty games that USC has been held scoreless in the second half. And SC's rivalry winning streak was stopped at seven, short of UCLA's longest streak of eight in a row.
• Finally, to some extent, USC's, and Carroll's, own hubris did them in. USC did not make its famed halftime adjustments, because it felt it was so much better than UCLA, that all it needed to do was execute. Well, we all know how that turned out. Negative 7 yards on the ground, anyone?

Pete Carroll'is facial expressions were priceless. Here's some more of them:

Wow, it's my last day of class! I would be sad if I didn't have a Trademark final wasn't 6 days from now. I'll tell you, though, I'm not going to miss this 9-hours-of-class Tuesday schedule.

I just spent an hour and a half writing a memo summarizing all the projects I've done this semester for Cyberlaw Clinic. I've done nine, including six to seven pretty substantive projects, all on the BT case. Some of that stuff I had already forgotten about, it's been so long. I can't believe that over three whole months have passed, and that so much has happened.

I seem to have this sentiment every time a school semester ends. Why is that?

Where to start? My mind has been going off in a hundred different directions in these past few weeks. It's now the fourth week of school, but it doesn't feel like it's been nearly that long.

So far, I've been heavily preoccupied with the Cyberlaw Clinic. This is a seven unit "course" in which students work with Center for Internet & Society lawyers on various public interest-related cases that deal with law and technology, and it's fascinating. The past two weeks, I have had the good fortune to help out on a copyright infringement case as CIS has prepared for their motion for Summary Judgment, due today. Our client is BT, one of my favorite electronic artists of all time, and he is a defendant in a frivolous copyright infringement suit in New York.

Basically, the kind of legal writing and research I'm doing now is the same as what I was doing this summer at O'Melveny and Quinn. I've even been working the same kinds of hours -- between 15 and 25 hours a week. I'm more well-versed in the law of copyright infringement right now than I've ever been. And it's sort of fun.

My only complaint is that this Clinic stuff is totally throwing my schedule out of whack. I have Trademark class, as well as a Negotiations seminar that requires 4 hours of activity a week, as well as ample preparation. More on that in another post.

Finally, just in case you're curious, "This Binary Universe" is BT's latest album, which strikes off in a new and creative direction. Each audio track was apparently developed by BT in complete synchrony with a global cast of visual artists, who created accompanying video shorts that are on a DVD that comes with the album.. pretty unique. Though I haven't been able to find the album in stores, I've been able to listen to it because BT gave one of our Clinic lawyers a copy when he came over for his deposition back in August. Nifty..

I am in the midst of applying for judicial clerkships (okay, all 94 of my paper applications are due in about 24 hours) and, while doing this, I decided to open up some of my old files (from my last two years of college) and give them a read through. One was a letter entitled, "Advice to the Next Facilities Chair of Rieber Hall"; the other was my law school application essay. I was shocked.

What do I mean by that? Well, I learned a couple of things by reading through these two things that I wrote just three years ago, in 2003.

First, I was as good of a writer then as I am now, at least as far as non-legal writing goes. If I have improved at all in law school, it is because I have become a much more conscious writer, much more precise, more organized at the outset, and more able to muster my writing ability at will. I used to have the toughest time starting writing, and was the biggest procrastinator.

Second, I had already forgotten what my life was like back then. I am of the belief that, you can tell at least a little something about who someone is, what they're thinking and where they're coming from by examining their writing style. When I read my application essay, in particular, I see naiveté, I see optimism, I see ambition. What happened to all those things, now that I feel so much older and jaded? I miss being at UCLA, and not worrying about as many things as I worry about now, and just enjoying myself.

But what am I saying? I'm still young. I am in the prime of my life, in at least some respects. I have a bright future. (I think.) I'm at the school I always wanted to go to.

But there's still that feeling that there is something I've lost..

It's hard for me to believe, but I'm finished with my second year of law school.

My last final, Secured Credit, was Tuesday and it was a breeze, despite the fact that the only studying I did for it was to read through my notes, once. I may have missed a golden opportunity with this class, as there are only eight people in the class and I think half of them 3K'd it.

After that, it was just a matter of revising my three ten-page papers for Complex Litigation and turning those in.

I should just feel relieved at this point. I'm running the Bay to Breakers on Sunday, driving down to LA, and starting work on Monday at O'Melveny & Myers in Downtown LA. But two things pop out in my mind.

First, I look back and it doesn't feel like two whole years. It's been forever, and at the same time, no time at all.

Second, I don't know how else to describe how I feel, except to say that when I look back at this whole academic year, I don't feel like celebrating. I don't feel overjoyed. Nor is my first and foremost reaction a sense of accomplishment -- although I guess I probably am entitled to one after 6 finals, 12 papers (counted loosely), surviving CIP/recruiting, running the Tech journal, Mock Trial, and innumerable social and extracurricular events. Instead, I look back upon all I've done, and I feel..

an incredible weariness.

Why?

things fall apart; the center cannot hold,
mere anarchy is loosed upon the world…
William Butler Yeats, The Second Coming (1921)

I had my Admin Law final today. I did okay, I think, but I'm disappointed.. With a week to study, I had a chance to really kill it, show all those gunners a thing or two, and I didn't. See, the test was only three hours long -- and I haven't taken a final for six months. I really should have sat down and taken a practice test, got my mind in finals mode -- but I didn't. Instead, I got off to a cold start, and it was 45 minutes before I had finished reading the lengthy fact pattern and started writing. After that, I didn't stop, and the ideas flowed, but I ran out of time. My answer was competent, but after a week of studying I knew the stuff so well, I am disappointed I didn't do better. Now I am left picking apart my answer and thinking of all the things I should have written down that I didn't.

But maybe I'm not going to bother. Because, all I have to do is not fail Secured Credit tomorrow (literally -- I am "3K'ing" the class which means I just have to score above a 2.7) and then I'm done with law school -- and the summer will be here. I am really looking forward to it.

But -- and this is the reason for the title of the post -- this also leaves me a little bit sad. When I first moved into Rains, I thought I was going to live in this apartment with Joel and Eddie until the end of law school. But Eddie and the Parkmaster are moving out and doing their own thing next year. I really had a great time this year, and I enjoy the location. But I guess even good things have to end..

The Fellowship of the Ring has been broken.

Okay, that was nerdy..

Warm weather spoils you, it really does. Tuesday was a whopping 77 degrees (I swear, had forgotten how it felt like to sweat on a warm day); but yesterday, though rated at 70 degrees, featured a pretty chill wind. So I'm delighted to see that today actually feels warm again.

I took my first gratuitous nap yesterday, and felt guilty about it. All semester long, I have always kept a tight leash on my time management; I use naps only when I am too tired to function efficiently, and when I'm done I can get up and start working again.

But for now -- so much free time, I don't know what to do with it. I finished my last readings, my last presentation and paper on Tuesday. All I have left is one serious final, Administrative Law, in a week and a half. (The Secured Credit final is the day after that, but I'm not taking it for a grade.) This means I can do a great job studying for it, and take it easy while doing so.

Life is good.

Last week, a rumor surfaced that President Bush was coming to campus. There was heavy security and the exact time and details of his arrival was shrouded in mystery. Me and Henry went down to check out the scene..

The plan was for Bush to meet with the Hoover Fellows from the conservative Hoover Institution, located, appropriately enough in Hoover Tower. The Fellows were supposed to give him policy advice in a one-hour meeting. However, it didn't end up happening because protesters blocked some route that Bush needed to take to take to the tower.

( more of the spectacle )

Last night I went bowling with former SLS Dean Sullivan, Joel, Gloria and a bunch of friends at Palo Alto Bowl. Dean Sullivan picked up the tab, and even treated us to a pizza dinner at her pad beforehand – loads of fun. Gloria had won the rights to Dean Sullivan's bowling night at the SPILF auction back in March, and we all chipped in.

In any case, a good time was had by all. Sullivan is incredibly awesome -- she's the one who sold me on Stanford Law School two years ago, and (apart from being one of the foremost minds in American Constitutional law) is personable and a great sport. For someone who claims she hadn't been bowling in 40 years, she sure picked it up again fast.

Oh yea, I broke 100 for the first time ever. I achieved the awe-inspiring score of 131 in the first round, leading the pack. (I then proceeded to get the second-lowest score of any bowler in the second round, 88.)

You've lost that loving feeling..

I bet you didn't know I did karaoke! Well I do. Or Joel does and I tag along. We had our friends and a whole crowd of strangers singing and waving their hands along with us.