OCI, Day Three

I purchased my books yesterday (my checkbook is still limping in agony), which officially marks the start of the school year. Just to get off on the right foot I also procured supplements and flash cards so I can begin my exam-studying-panic episode earlier in the year.

Last night I attempted to complete the first reading for Federal Income Tax and about lost an arm from the strain of toting the books from the car to a fluffy couch in my apartment complex’s gatehouse. There’s the big, imposing blue text, the even bigger and considerably more menacing book of Tax Codes (which, the text continually reminds us, changes every year, so everything we learn will be obsolete shortly) and a thick Emanuel’s Guide to Basic Federal Income Tax. I will soon add another supplement to this, I am sure, which will make studying for this course about as convenient as packing for a three-month business trip.

All the 1Ls (first years) have arrived for orientation. They either scurry about like beheaded sheep, attempting to locate their mock classes on time, or meander like unemployed sloths with their noses plastered to the campus map. Boy, do I remember that cold, unfeeling thump of dread that accompanied me everywhere. I can see it dangling in the whites of their eyes.

I e-mailed thank you notes to each of my interviewers last night. I figure if I can get my name in their consciousness one more time before they return to the recruiting committee, that can only help. Unless I spell some inane word egregiously wrong in the letter, which I am reasonably certain I did not do thanks to the miracle called “spell check.”

This afternoon I have one final interview with State Farm Auto Insurance. They’re actually located in Bloomington, IL, which is (according to the oracle called Mapquest) three and a half hours from Milwaukee. When I signed up for the interview, I entertained the delusion that it actually sat north of Chicago and hence closer to home… oh, well. I’m just in it for the experience, anyway.

Last night, I had a fantastic evening of sleep going when the most horrendous noise tore through my apartment. I dashed about with my heart drumming at a furious clip, thinking the fire alarm had gone off, before I followed the noise to the speakers of my desktop computer. This is the same one that has recently decided to start only when it feels like doing so and steadfastly refuses to access the internet. I don’t understand. The computer was not on, yet the speakers spewed the same horrid sound that microphones emit during horrible sound checks, the kind that makes your hands reflexively grip your ears in discomfort. I disconnected them from the power source and the noise did not recommence when I reconnected them, but I had difficulty falling back asleep. Too many ghost stories as a child or something – I kept imagining a lost soul trying to connect with me like Patrick Swayze in Ghost, only the spirit in my mind entertained serious homicidal tendencies. Then everything in my apartment looked foreign – had the gap in my bedroom blinds always been there, or had someone been fiddling with them in my absence? Had I really left the water on the counter? If so, why was it still perspiring, considering I had spent the last few hours asleep? Ahh, the wonders of possessing an active imagination.

On a completely unrelated note, someone needs to do away with Billy Currington. The guy is more irritating than Nicole Richie, prancing around like God’s gift to women. His songs stink and he’s not remotely attractive. Must draw the same crowd that Kenny Chesney does – one I just don’t comprehend and to which I certainly don’t belong. But the new Panic! At the Disco video is fantastic, so it’s an even trade.

My Classes:
- Business Associations (corporations, LLPs, mergers, acquisitions, etc.)
- Federal Income Tax
- Evidence (a prerequisite to many of the classes I would like to take as a third year - it covers what can and cannot be used as proof in court and settlements, what is exempt from discovery, etc.)
- Introduction to Intellectual Property (the gateway to Internet Law, Patents, Trademarks, Copyrights, and all that other good stuff)