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!