Long update
Life is good. My classes are generally quite good--I love my Employment Discrimination Law class, and am still liking clinic. I am a supervisor now and so am handling my own cases and helping out the new students. Criminal Law is fine, interesting but sort of whatev. I don't feel smart enough for Law of Democracy (voting rights), in which the professor talks super-fast and it's all policy folks who worked in Washington prior to law school.
That is one nice thing about Yale in general, though--most of us worked for at least a couple of years, and so in Employment Discrimination, we can talk about our experiences on hiring committees or firing someone (ok, so I've never fired anyone, but other people in the class have! I've been on lots of hiring committees, though). It definitely adds to the conversation.
Education and the Law is a joke class, but I'll get an important writing requirement out of the way as soon as I pick a topic and stick with it. oh, and then write the paper...
LOTS OF PAPER THOUGHTS
I met with the 2 professors supervising my paper from last semester and they want more drafts. oy. I just don't feel smart enough. They started the meeting by asking me whether I wanted to aim this to publish in the Yale Law Journal, in a secondary journal, or just to complete the requirement for a paper. I said secondary journal, because I can't imagine working on this long enough to get into YLJ, but I worry a little that maybe I undersold myself. I am not really sure how the paper would be different, but they said how I do need to aim the paper more at a particular audience. Right now it's aimed at people who do trans law and disability law, which is why I think a secondary journal (maybe Yale Journal of Law and Feminism, for which I am an editor?) would fit it better. If I wanted to do the big journal, YLJ, I would need to reframe it to say something about law more generally, about law and social movements. I don't think that's what I care about--I care about arguing that disability rights and accommodations are important narratives that transpeople should be using, regardless of the stigma of medicalization and the DSM.
ergh. This paper stresses me out. and now I have to revise it AND write another one, about special education. Also I have a short paper to write for my employment law class on our disability discrimination, as the evaluation for the whole class is 5 five-page papers, rather than an exam or final paper. I like this better, but still, lots of work.
In non-law school life, I am still enjoying being married. Kate and I took an AMAZING trip to Costa Rica, a belated honeymoon, between my January exams and the start of classes. We stayed at a lesbian-owned B&B and just relaxed. Oh, and we kayaked, zip-lines, hiked, swam, boogie-boarded and learned to surf!! l
We go to synagogue almost every week and helped out with the Kiddush Committee's big Cook'n'Freeze event. I like our shul, with a great radical rabbi, good people, and adorable toddlers moshing the bimah for ein keloheinu, but weekly services are getting to be a drag. I spend too much time in lectures each week to want to be at shul for hours every Saturday.
We are progressing with figuring out how to build our family. I dunno how open Kate wants to be about talking about this stuff so I will stop with that, but we are reading a lot. Thanks Jess for the recommendations!
Tonight I made orange-cranberry scones for a clinic potluck. They came from a King Arthur Flour mix and were both delicious and incredibly easy. I also made pesto bread in the breadmaker, which didn't finish cooking in time for the potluck. So now we have a lot of bread.
I didn't manage to get my Crim reading done tonight, but it's time to go pick up Kate from the train. (if I don't pick her up, she has to transfer buses in a dangerous area and it takes an hour, or she has to walk in the ice and snow--have i mentioned the weather here?--through a not-good area). She walks to the train station in the daytime, but she moved to New Haven for me. I can pick her up from Metro-North.
That is one nice thing about Yale in general, though--most of us worked for at least a couple of years, and so in Employment Discrimination, we can talk about our experiences on hiring committees or firing someone (ok, so I've never fired anyone, but other people in the class have! I've been on lots of hiring committees, though). It definitely adds to the conversation.
Education and the Law is a joke class, but I'll get an important writing requirement out of the way as soon as I pick a topic and stick with it. oh, and then write the paper...
LOTS OF PAPER THOUGHTS
I met with the 2 professors supervising my paper from last semester and they want more drafts. oy. I just don't feel smart enough. They started the meeting by asking me whether I wanted to aim this to publish in the Yale Law Journal, in a secondary journal, or just to complete the requirement for a paper. I said secondary journal, because I can't imagine working on this long enough to get into YLJ, but I worry a little that maybe I undersold myself. I am not really sure how the paper would be different, but they said how I do need to aim the paper more at a particular audience. Right now it's aimed at people who do trans law and disability law, which is why I think a secondary journal (maybe Yale Journal of Law and Feminism, for which I am an editor?) would fit it better. If I wanted to do the big journal, YLJ, I would need to reframe it to say something about law more generally, about law and social movements. I don't think that's what I care about--I care about arguing that disability rights and accommodations are important narratives that transpeople should be using, regardless of the stigma of medicalization and the DSM.
ergh. This paper stresses me out. and now I have to revise it AND write another one, about special education. Also I have a short paper to write for my employment law class on our disability discrimination, as the evaluation for the whole class is 5 five-page papers, rather than an exam or final paper. I like this better, but still, lots of work.
In non-law school life, I am still enjoying being married. Kate and I took an AMAZING trip to Costa Rica, a belated honeymoon, between my January exams and the start of classes. We stayed at a lesbian-owned B&B and just relaxed. Oh, and we kayaked, zip-lines, hiked, swam, boogie-boarded and learned to surf!! l
We go to synagogue almost every week and helped out with the Kiddush Committee's big Cook'n'Freeze event. I like our shul, with a great radical rabbi, good people, and adorable toddlers moshing the bimah for ein keloheinu, but weekly services are getting to be a drag. I spend too much time in lectures each week to want to be at shul for hours every Saturday.
We are progressing with figuring out how to build our family. I dunno how open Kate wants to be about talking about this stuff so I will stop with that, but we are reading a lot. Thanks Jess for the recommendations!
Tonight I made orange-cranberry scones for a clinic potluck. They came from a King Arthur Flour mix and were both delicious and incredibly easy. I also made pesto bread in the breadmaker, which didn't finish cooking in time for the potluck. So now we have a lot of bread.
I didn't manage to get my Crim reading done tonight, but it's time to go pick up Kate from the train. (if I don't pick her up, she has to transfer buses in a dangerous area and it takes an hour, or she has to walk in the ice and snow--have i mentioned the weather here?--through a not-good area). She walks to the train station in the daytime, but she moved to New Haven for me. I can pick her up from Metro-North.