Go to the Library….or….Play With My Weener (Dogs)?

As I sit down to study – ahem, write this post, two weener dogs (for the uninitiated that means dachshunds) have just snuggled onto my lap, pushing under the blanket with their cold wet noses, attempting to displace the laptop on my lap.  The battle of the laptop vs the lapdogs is joined.  Cooper the Red has just wrapped himself in the blanket, managing to pull it off my feet.  Thanks Coop.  Jimmy Dean the Sausage Dog has finally,after much wiggling, come to rest with his head on my arm, cold nose and all.  The laptop is hanging precariously off the side of my lap making it hard toe typ effcienly.

How am I to study in this environment when there’s no room for the laptop let alone all the books I need…?  I guess I could go to the library, which would be void of all lifeforms except the living dead (law students), but people might look at me funny if I bring my snuggy and prop my feet up.  What’s that you say – are you making fun of my snuggy?  Don’t be a hater – at least its not a “Forever Lazy”.  Those things creep me out.  They remind me of two things: 1. the full body underwear cowboys used to wear (“escape” hatches and all), and 2. the pajamas worn by the Whos in the Jim Carrey Grinch movie.

Anyways, I could go to the library, but then who would look at me with adoring eyes when I stroke their silken ears?  Certainly not the professors (well, some of them might).  Who would go for a walk with me when I need a break?  Certainly not the law librarians.  Who would play fetch, wrestle,  snore, and/or sit up straight like a prairie dog to make me laugh when I want to cry at the amount of reading I need to do?  No one at the library comes to mind (except this one guy, but the restraining order would make it difficult for me to get close enough).

So why would I want to go to the library when I can stay home and play with my weeners…?

Philosophy of Technology?

As an undergrad, my classes had important sounding titles such as “Philosophy of Science” and “Philosophy of Religion”.  Unfortunately, I never came across Philosophy of Technology.  P of Science may have touched on it, but not in any sort of satisfying depth.  None of the crunchy bits came through at least.  I wonder, how would I design such a class?

Is technology supposed to make life easier?  Or more complicated?  Most people say automatically, duh, it’s supposed to make it easier!  But think on it for a minute…hasn’t life become more complex with each new invention, each new electronic device, each new system?  And let me be truly philosophical here  and ask another question: what exactly is technology anyway?

I don’t have all the answers.  All I know is that today, in my life, technology struck again.  Not destructively, as is often my experience, but technology struck as in struck gold.  I finally opened and used the LexisNexis CaseMap program that I downloaded last year (if you have no idea what I’m talking about, it’s software for lawyers/law students) and I can’t believe I waited til halfway through law school to start using this amazing organizational tool that helps keep track of documents, parties, facts, and how they all relate to one another.  For once, a tool that has already simplified a task!  This only underscores my original point though: more often than not, technology requires a lot of overhead time for learning to operate the program/machine/device, performing maintenance, and my personal favorite: troubleshooting.

Is it worth all the trouble and hassle?  Moderate technophobe that I am, I’m still not willing to give up my iPhone, my Kindle, my laptop, my car, or my CaseMap program.  So maybe it is worth it.  But at what cost?

Constitutional Law, Part II

Grades are in.  I have NEVER never never been so happy to get an A in my entire life.  I didn’t do as well in ConLaw I last semester and so I finally feel vindicated.  After all, studying and understanding the constitution motivated me to go to law school in the first place, so I assumed I would do well in this class at least!

That’s the problem with assuming anything about law school.  You make an ass out of yourself and you make an ass out of yourself.

Ever accomplished something that – before you started it – you thought would be easy, and then found out it was anything but?

Danger

I drove out to the barn to see my horse today and someone looked at my belly and commented (not for the first time), “Oh, I hope you’re not going to ride.  Isn’t it too dangerous?”  Now, since I’m 6 1/2 months pregnant and as round as a basketball beachball a planet, their concern is understandable.  But, as usual, I replied “I’m in more danger driving over here than I am on the horse.”  On the way over, a large white van swerved around me, “merged” into my lane directly in front of me when his own lane ended and then slammed on his brakes when I honked in protest.

So did I ride after all?  Nah, he’s too big and feisty a horse for a pregnant lady to be riding around on.  Even so, I still feel safer around him than I do around some of my fellow drivers, specifically those who forget they’re behind the wheel of a several-thousand-pound, potentially-lethal, fast-moving metal and plastic and rubber machine.  Maybe I really am a technophobe.

Traitor

My husband the electrical engineer bought me a Kindle Fire for Christmas.  Not knowing (unsurprisingly) the difference between the Fire and the original Kindle, I was grateful, and excited, but a tad perplexed at the exact use of this full-color, wi-fi enabled, mini relative of the iPad.  I already had a laptop and an iPhone – which was pretty advanced for me – what was I supposed to do with this new bit of technology?  Besides, I’ve often proclaimed that ebooks are to reading real books as a blow-up doll is to real sex.  Something seems to be missing.

Then I actually downloaded a book on the Kindle (In Her Name by Michael R. Hicks, omnibus version).  And spent the next three days reading it.  Just like I would have read a regular “real” book.  I feel so…guilty.  Am I a traitor to the paper book?