Fun with Blackacre

Bar/Bri has really taken over my life. Like, in a way that law school never did. I come home and think, shoot! I'm so behind! In law school when I was behind (um, always) I just shrugged my shoulders and reminded myself that cramming works just fine for law exams. Not so, unfortunately, with the Bar.

Today was the first of three real property lectures. I actually really like the property professor -- she's a mom and she'll randomly break out into a song most of the students in the room actually know, and then apologize for humiliating herself. She even did Triumph and Dr. Evil imitations at some point. And they were actually pretty good.

So, property: entertaining, which is good after the last two lectures, which consisted of a guy who, despite being I'm sure a very likable fellow, has the. most. annoying. voice. I have ever heard in my life, EVER. And he spent much of the time assuring us that we were sure to pass the Bar exam, no matter how badly we screwed up, if we just followed directions on the performance exams. His assurance came in the form of him telling (numerous times) an amusing story about some horribly stupid thing an exam-taker did, followed by a pregnant pause, followed by him cackling "PASS!" and giving a thumbs-up. He said "PASS!" loud enough to wake me up several times, which angered me. I hope he doesn't yell at me if I don't pass the Bar. It might make me jump off a bridge. At one point I turned to my friend and told her, "I need to hit something." And I meant it.

Even if not for the favorable comparison, I'm really enjoying property so far, and I think I've figured out how it became my best grade in law school: it's just like math. You learn a bunch of different formulas, you read a problem, you figure out which formula fits it, you apply the formula, you have an answer. Clean, direct, simple. No messing with questions like, "what would a reasonable person think?" Nope, it's basically all simple rules of construction. It's algebra, all over again. Or -- not even algebra. It's basic arithmetic. Unlike the stereotypical law student (and we've all made the jokes about how we went to law school so we wouldn't have to do math), I was actually really good at math and science and such. Better than I was at things like history or social studies. So why the hell did I go to law school? Good question. I should've become a mathematician. Man, now I'm just depressed.

Another random thing about me that matches up with maybe five other law students. Why is it that I just don't see what's so confusing about the Rule Against Perpetuities?? It is, I shit you not, one of the EASIEST things I had to learn in law school. Now, you wanna talk about Res Ipsa Loquitor, THAT'S a confusing rule. I seriously finally just figured out what it means this past month. And I still don't have a *great* handle on the topic. But the Rule Against Perpetuities? Give me a RAP word problem, I'll have an answer for you in under a minute, with probably 95% accuracy. I'm not trying to demean the struggle other people have with it, but the most mystifying thing about it to me is that law students are as frightened of it as they are of Prof. Kingsfield from The Paper Chase. Maybe it's just that whole math thing. I don't know.

But at least I'm enjoying real property. And now, off to catch up on my practice exams!