My Niece Doing Flips

I hate computers sometimes....

So I left my computer at school overnight, which I usually do. The next day I came back to the library, pulled out my computer and started booting up my computer and somehow a file on my computer became corrupted. I took it to the IT guys and apparently my computer can't find my hard drive. It seems to have disappeared. So chances are that I have lost all my class notes and case briefs which I've taken over the last five weeks. I am going to try somethings so I will try to keep this blog up to date. Anyways, take it easy.

Chris

Worst Case Yet

So this is a case that they asked us to read for Torts. Torts are personal injury suits including Battery, Assault, and False Imprisonment. This case has to do with Assault and is copied right from the book with no typos.


I de S and M, his wife, complain of W de S concerning this, that the said W, in the year, etc., with force and arms did make an assault upon said M de S and beat her. And it was found by the verdict of the inquest that the said W came at night to the house of the said I and sought to buy of his wine, but the door of the tavern was shut and he beat upon the door with a hatchet which he had in his hand, and the wife of the plaintiff put her head out of the window and commanded him to stop, and he saw and he struck with the hatchet but did not hit the woman. Whereupon the inquest said that it seemed to them that there was no trespass since no harm was done.

Thorpe, C.J. There is harm done and a trespass for which he shall recover damages since he made an assault upon the woman, as has been found, although he did no other harm. Wherefore tax the damages, etc. And they taxed the damages at half a mark. Thorpe awarded that they should recover their damages, etc., and that the other should be taken. And so note that for an assault a man shall recover damages, etc.


That was the opinion given in 1348. Nice huh?

My First Week of School...

So it is the end of my first week in law school and I thought I would list my schedule and maybe jot down some things that I have learned. I wake up at 6:30 or 7:00, not cause I have to but I find I'm more productive that way, and I get ready and try to leave my apartment around 7:30 or 8. I used to walk to school, though I bought a bike so it isn't going to take me as long to get to school. So I study til my first class which what ever day is always at 10:00. Monday and Wednesday I have Civil Procedure at 10:00 AM I then have a break until 2:20 when I have Torts. Really dry professor I hope I don't fall asleep. I am free after that at 4:00 and then can study and go home.

Tuesday I have Property at 10:00 and lawyering skills at 6:00PM and then I'm done that day. Thursday I have Property at 10:00 and then Legal Research at 3:30 and then I'm done. So that's my life; school, library, and home.

So what have I learned. Well in my civil procedure class I've learned that you can be sued in any court as long as you've had contact with the state and have availed yourself of any of it's benefits or its protections. This is especially important to corporations since many are incorporated in Delaware but do business all over the country.

In Torts I've learned that intent is important when proving Battery or Negligence. One woman sued a 6 1/2 year old for pulling out a chair from underneath her. The court found that he didn't have the intent to harm her, but the appellate court said that intent was knowing that the action could bring harm and that the victim would act in a certain way. The kid knew that what he did could have caused harm and had a reasonable belief that the woman would try to sit down where the chair had been so they remanded to the original court and they found the child liable of a battery tort.

My Property class I think will be my favorite this semester. We are talking about lost, mislaid and abandoned property. Finders Keepers Losers Weepers is actually law. The law says that the finder of a lost object claims possession of it over everyone else in the world but the original owner. So if you find 20 dollars on floor, or parking lot of a store it's yours to possess. You don't get title but you get to possess it. Lost property is defined by the nature of the item and where it is found. So it is reasonable to believe that a person wouldn't put a 20 bill on the floor and therefore we can believe that it was placed there accidentally, and without the owners knowledge. Mislaid is something that is left in a place and forgotten. So if you find a wallet on a table at a barber shop it is reasonable to assume that it was left there on purpose. In that case the wallet's possession would go to the owner of the property in question.

Classes are going well and they are interesting so I'm really happy. The only thing that bothers me out here is the fact that the use the F word like it's their job, and they drink way too much. I've remember how much I hate dealing with drunk people, and I hate swearing. Both being drunk and swearing make you sound and look so stupid and ignorant. And I know people out here are as smart as anywhere. Anyways I'll stop complaining and finish this up. Take care everyone and thanks for reading my blog.

Front Door of the T.C. Williams School of Law

From the Inside Looking Out

This is the Student Building It is built out over the lake area

This is the Lake

Welcome to the University of Richmond

My Big Move

Ok so I promised that I would write about my trip every night but I didn’t realize just how tiring driving 2200 miles could actually be. So I am sitting in a Ramada with Mom. I am staying here two nights since I don’t have a bed and the one that I ordered online won’t be here until Friday. So I figured I would document my move while I sit here watching the Olympics.

So starting in Salt Lake we took I-80. Before I even left the state we had a problem. So I am trailing a truck by about twenty or thirty feet and I see him go over something flat about the surface area of a medium cardboard box. As the truck passed over it, it flipped up in the air and smacked my front bumper. Turns out it was a white board and I just missed what was written on it. It didn’t do much damage; it bent a little part down by the grill, and cracked the plastic rocker panel underneath the front end, so all in all a great way to start the trip.

Other than that the first day was really long. We didn’t stop to do any sight-seeing. We did stop to eat at a place in Wyoming called Chappy’s. It was a nice place that served a variety of foods. On the menu they had American cuisine, burgers and what not, they had Italian, Mexican and of course seafood, all in this little truck stop dive. Good patty-melt though. So we finished driving and made it through Nebraska and got into Omaha/Council Bluffs, but couldn’t find a hotel with any free rooms. And if Nebraska is hell then Omaha is Satan’s navel. It was late I was tired and all I wanted was to find a place to stay and get some sleep but no. So we drove on until we found a little place that was a gas station and a freakin’ dive; the kind of place about which they make scary movies. This place had only one decoration and that was a dirty stuffed panda in the corner. My bed didn’t even have a real bottom sheet so whenever I moved I found myself lying right on top of the mattress. So when the morning came we just got up and sped out of there as soon as we could.

The second day was more interesting then the last. We had a pretty normal trip from the West of Iowa to Chicago. The only thing that was very interesting was the windmills. They are everywhere between Wyoming and Illinois. While we were driving we even came across one that was being assembled. They build them in sections up and then use a crane to lift the fan up. I would have to be the guy that has to hold it steady while someone bolts it into place. So that was really cool. Well we got to Chicago but unfortunately we didn’t have time to see Wrigley Field and get some food so I had to make the tough decision. And I chose right. We went to a little restaurant that I had found online called Bucovina that serves authentic Romanian food. It was as good as I remembered it. It was also really nice to talk to a real Romanian again. I haven’t forgotten the language but it just doesn’t come as easily or smoothly as it used to so I will have to work on that. Chicago is a really nice city, we were able to get a few pictures of the skyline and it was beautiful. I have come to hate toll ways though. We started using them in Illinois and didn’t stop using them until just inside Pennsylvania. They were worse in Illinois. You had to pay every ten miles or so, where as in the other states you just picked up a ticket at the border and then paid whenever you got off the road. So if any of you decided to drive across the country, I would advise you to avoid the toll roads.

After Chicago we stopped in South Bend and took some pictures and then I let Mom take over driving. Everything was going fine until that night when we were looking for the hotel that Dad reserved for us. Well Mom was coming up on an on ramp and she moved over to the other lane and all the sudden lights are going off behind us. Mom pulls over and the patrolman comes up to the window and asks the classic question. “Ma’am do you know why I pulled you over?” And of course Mom answered, “Because I was speeding a little.” The patrolman said, “Well yeah you were going a little fast, but I pulled you over because you made an illegal lane change.” I automatically thought of Dad and thought how unlucky it was that Dad never signals and never gets pulled over and the one time that Mom fails to she gets caught. Anyway the guy was nice and let us go with a warning. Oh and the hotel that Dad got had to be the worst Howard Johnson in the world. It was just as bad as the first hotel, but it wasn’t Dad’s fault. The website rated it as a two star hotel. I don’t know what they were thinking but that’s place didn’t deserve two lucky charms stars. So we canceled that one and stayed at a Super 8.

Well the last day was nice. Pennsylvania is beautiful. William Penn must have peed his pants when he got the charter for that land. It is amazing. Maryland was beautiful too. It is just so much greener than Utah, I will miss the mountains though. Today wasn’t very exciting. We stopped in Hancock, Maryland for lunch at a place called Weaver’s. We decided to stop there because it reminded me of Weaver D’s in Athens, GA and if you don’t know Weaver D’s talk to Brooks. It was good, and the little town was really nice. D.C. was horrible. We didn’t actually go through D.C. but the road was jammed for ten miles and it took us nearly an hour just to go that far.

We are finally here and it is really nice. I am going to really like Richmond, and I think that I will enjoy the area in which I’ll live. It seems like a nice place, quite and safe. I think I will like my roommate, turns out that he was in Waterton for one of the days that we were there. I am really excited to start this part of my life, and I am looking forward to school. Thank you all for all the help, support, and love that you have shown. I look up to you all and look forward to doing my best to make you all proud!

Forgiveness

I have been thinking a lot about forgiveness lately. Giving and receiving and the imports of both, and though I am no where close to having perfected these thoughts I decided that it would be beneficial to write down and share some of my thoughts.

I figure the place to start would be to discuss the role of the offender. As an offender trying to make amends asking for forgiveness is of utmost importance. In our desire for perfection we must ask forgiveness, but why? Why is someone else's opinion of us so important? The fact is that asking for forgiveness isn't about receiving it, it isn't about changing the offended's opinion about us; but rather it's about recognizing our own short comings and faults. For instance if I have a problem with stealing the first thing that I need to do is to return that which I have stolen and next must ask forgiveness. No matter if I never steal again, no matter if I'm never tempted again as long as I refuse to ask forgiveness I deny any wrong doing on my part. I leave a sliver of the sin or mistake in me to fester. Asking forgiveness is about humbling ourselves and rooting out all parts of the sin that is inside of each one of us. Failure to ask forgiveness will ruin all progress we make to rooting out the flaws in our character and will only reinforce our prideful natures, and there is nothing more harmful than pride. Therefore receiving forgiveness isn't as important as the act of asking for it. For the offender asking is all that's important. If I ask forgiveness I don't care if the other person forgives me. If the refuse to forgive that is there problem not mine. Which leads to giving forgiveness.

If asking forgiveness is the most important thing an offender can do than giving it is the most important thing the offended must do. I say must because it isn't a question of should I or shouldn't I, it is a matter of necessity. I have often wondered at the command that we are given in the Bible and elsewhere to forgive our debtors, to forgive everyone and why we should. Are we commanded to forgive so that we ourselves learn mercy? Yes, but that's not the prime reason. Are we commanded to forgive because it isn't our place to pass judgment but rather that role belongs to someone else? Yes, but that's not the prime reason. So what is the prime reason? I believe the reason we are commanded to forgive isn't for the forgiven but for us. Think back to a time where giving forgiveness came slowly for you, how did you feel? When I think about the times where I have given forgiveness grudgingly I remember how the offense ate at me. Me the one that was offended and not the one that caused the offense. It is a sick twist of fate that when we are affronted that remember the insult causes us further harm, maybe even more harm than the original offense. This is why we are commanded to forgive, so that the mote of a single insult doesn't coalesce into a beam of anger, hatred, and worse--vengeance. One of my favorite lines from the Doctrine and Covenants is found in the ninth verse of section 64 and I quote, "Wherefore, I say unto you, that ye ought to forgive one another; for he that forgiveth not his brother his trespasses standeth condemned before the Lord; for there remaineth in him the greater sin." I think this says it perfectly, if we fail to forgive we are the condemned, we are the damned.

In conclusion my greatest fear is that I will be too proud to ask for forgiveness and that when it is asked of me I will be too vain, too ignorant, too stupid to give it freely. I fear that even should I give it with my lips that I will retain the offense and let it poison my relationships with others in the future. To retain the offense is a failure to forgive and I will stand condemned, I will falter and stumble in my desire to achieve perfection, and I would dare say that there are those in my family, in addition to me, that are failing to forgive and to forget. Again failure to forget and move on is a failure to forgive.

Insights from My Readings

So for Christmas Tara and Dov gave me a book called The Year of Living Biblically: One Man's Humble Quest to Follow the Bible as Literally as Possible by A.J. Jacobs. It's a great book. A.J. Jacobs is a writer for Esquire magazine and also wrote a book called Know-It-All which I haven't read but which I gather is a book about him reading the entire encyclopedia.

When this book started A.J. was an avowed agnostic. For those of you like me that don't have a clear-cut definition of what an agnostic is this is how Merriam-Webster defines it. A person who holds the view that any ultimate reality (as God) is unknown and probably unknowable; broadly : one who is not committed to believing in either the existence or the nonexistence of God or a god. So I would say that he started out this project as a neutral party. But the book is quite good, it's written as his journal and he records the experiences the frustrations and the epiphanies he undergoes. One of them struck me as something so simple and yet something that I and a lot of us forget and at which we fail. I'm going to include his entry. It's header is "Honor your father and your mother..." Exodus 20:12

'Tonight Julie (His wife) and I are going over to my parents' house, and I plan to make a conscious effort to be more honorable...Despite the embarrassingly early curfew they game me in high school, despite the daily guilt trips about not seeing them enough, despite the quibbles, they've been, on balance, very good parents. Just last week I figured out something about my dad. i realized that he checks my Amazon.com page every day, and if there's a bad review up there, he clicks on the "Not helpful" box. It makes me want to hug him - if we weren't both so repressed."

This experience with his father made me think. What do our parents do for us that we don't realize, or that we don't see. We always expect that we know everything. We feel that when our parents aren't perfect we have every right to criticize, or mock them and their decisions but the truth is that we don't know everything they do or have done for us. We don't realize, or comprehend everything that they have or will sacrifice for our benefit and it seems really childish for me to hold a grudge, or for me to think I know better. This extends not only to my parents but to those around me. I find that when I'm judging someone I'm doing so on such limited knowledge that it makes me appear arrogant, selfish and prideful. I know now why the scriptures teach us 'judge not lest ye be judged for with what judgment ye judge ye shall be judged." I would hate to be judged by anyone else on their limited knowledge and I would hate to think that if I judge someone in this manner that the Savior would use this same limited judgment on me as a punishment or as a lesson to me. We should be less arrogant, less prideful, less selfish and refuse to judge someone else by what we know of them because what we don't know is probably much more than what we do know. This is just one thing I realized from this part, but to continue with his entry:

"I don't treat them nearly well enough. I honor them only in a lip-service way. I call them every weekend, but I spend the twenty minutes of the phone call playing hearts on my PowerBook or cleaning the closet while tossing out the occasional "mm-hmmm. " I delete without reading my mom's emailed jokes about vacuous blondes or wacky etymology."

This reminded me of Isaiah 29:13. "Because this people draw near with their words And honor Me with their lip service, But they remove their hearts far from Me, And their reverence for Me consists of tradition learned by rote" Not only do we do this with the God, but we do it with our parents as well. We think that we can honor them in body but not in spirit. We don't truly honor them we just make a show, or pretend to honor them. I think this commandment wasn't meant for outward show but like so many that God has given us it was meant to change the way we think, and feel. We are meant to change our hearts, to soften them towards our parents so that we feel that we honor them, deep down in our hearts. Because no matter how good of an actor we are we can't lie to ourselves and we can't lie to God. Both know whether we truly honor our parents or not. I guess I digressed there but the point is that we should not just show honor to our parents but to truly change our hearts, and our outlooks. Further speaking of the night he and his wife were having with his parents, A.J. said:

"Tonight is dinner and a DVD...About forty-five minutes in, during another musket loading scene, I look over and notice my mom asleep in her chair. And not just light dozing. We're talking mouth-agape, head-slumped-on-the-chest deep slumber. I nudge Julie. At this point, I am planning to whisper something clever along the lines of 'Looks like my mom is really enjoying the movie.' Or perhaps I would have gone with a sight gag - an impression of my mom with her jaw slack. But I stop myself. This isn't good-natured jesting. It has a tinge of mockery to it....I just smile vacantly at Julie, who then goes back to watching Jeff Daniels."

This las paragraph was what really moved me. My family and I like to joke around and I like to think that most of the time it is good-natured jesting, but more often then not what I saw has that tinge of mockery to it. Isn't it better when confronted with this dilemma just not to say anything. Especially when directed to someone we are supposed to honor. I think that I can hold my tongue more often when some jest comes to my mind and I will place this filter most seriously on my conversation and dialog with my parents and I would recommend that to everyone.

I really enjoy this book and I think that I will continue to post insights that I have from all my readings and my everyday life. If I bore you I'm sorry but I'm still going to do it. Hopefully this may start some talk amongst us all but if not I still feel that it was a good entry.

Chris Steele

More Law Schools

So I thought that I should keep you all updated on the law school front. I have been accepted to the University of Richmond, the University of South Carolina, and DePaul University in Chicago. DePaul is offering me a merit scholarship that will cover full tuition and it will apply all three years as long as I keep a 3.5 or higher. I think that's about it. Have a good day.

Law School Update

It's been a long time since I last wrote so I thought I would get you all up to date. I have finished sending in all my law school applications and I have to say there are a lot of them. I'm going to go ahead and list them:

Baylor University
Boston College
Boston University
The University of Chicago
DePaul University
George Mason University
University of Georgia
Harvard - That one was just for fun...
Lewis and Clark
University of Maryland
Michigan State
New York University
Notre Dame
University of Richmond
St. Thomas University-Miami
University of St. Thomas-Minneapolis
Seton Hall
University of South Carolina
Temple University
University of Utah
University of Washington
Washington University
William and Mary

I told you there were a lot. I have heard back from St. Thomas University-Miami and they accepted me and are willing to give me a scholarship. Temple has accepted me as well. St. Thomas is a tier 2 school where as Temple is a tier one. I am going to wait to hear back from everybody so I haven't made a decision. I will naturally keep you up to date as I hear more. Take care.