I bombed a quiz today. And by that, I mean I probably missed three or four points. Unfortunately, the quiz is only out of twenty. And even more unfortunately, the average on the quiz last year was nineteen. So I probably got the equivalent of a D. That's pretty bad. It's even worse because two of the points I missed were because I just didn't get back to questions I only partially answered before moving on. Each question asked for three things, and I put down the first two that popped into my head and got on with it. Then I went back and double-checked some stuff, the two-minute warning hit, and I didn't get back to finishing those off. Very annoying.
Then I went back to my apartment. I've been alternating between telling people I live in my kitchen and telling them I have a kitchen in my bedroom. One girl from handball is leaving for a month, so another girl asked if it was okay for her to sleep at the first girl's place while she's gone. I jokingly said she was going to lock her out, and she said she'd just come stay with me if that happened. I asked if she wanted to sleep in a sink. That's my guest bedroom. A sink.
Anyway, I knew I needed to get to school a bit early. The bookstore was closed (for lunch, I assumed) when I left, and I needed to buy the supplementary reading material for my afternoon class and take notes. It was only like 14 pages of reading, so I wasn't that concerned. However, upon returning to the school, it was immediately apparent the book store was still not open. I did what I should have done earlier, which was to walk over and look at the stupid thing, and sure enough, the hours were for Monday-Thursday. I was screwed. Plus, this was the only class I hadn't been called on yet for a response. My time was drawing near. I walked upstairs and saw a guy from my class. I asked him if he had his supplement handy, and he said sure, so I grabbed it and frantically took notes for fifteen minutes I made it about halfway through the assignment, handed it back, and went to class.
We talked about a bunch of stuff, and I was enjoying the discussion. He had called on a bunch of people in quick succession about minor details for the case we had covered before. Then it came time to talk about this new case (the only one I had gotten through in the supplement), and sure enough "Mr.... Pesch?" I acknowledged I was there, and he asked me to give the facts of the case. (It's called Clapper v. Amnesty International USA) I said that basically the problem was that the plaintiffs were concerned the government was invading their privacy, and wanted to sue for damages and to make it stop. He asked how they could claim damages, and I said they thought it met both the "imminent damage" and "actual damage" requirements for standing (this whole unit is on standing, which is a complicated thing I might go into later). They believed they were in imminent danger of having their privacy breached, and they were incurring current damage as a result of trying to prevent that from happening. He asked how that could be, when they couldn't know they were being observed (it turns out the government isn't very forthcoming about who they are conducting their surveillance on). I said it was a likelihood the plaintiffs felt approached certainty due to their resemblance to past cases, the government's obvious interest in their communications, and the government's capability to observe them.
He then turned to another person for a reason the case lacked standing on the injury grounds. She stated the court's opinion (given by Alito) that it doesn't meet the imminence requirement due to the fact they can't prove the surveillance is taking place, and theorizing about it perhaps taking place requires too many assumptions. Among the assumptions listed were: that the government was sure to be interested, that the government would pursue action under the act the plaintiffs were suing under, that the government's court for surveillance would approve their request to observe the plaintiffs, that the government would succeed in carrying out the surveillance, and that this would have the result the plaintiffs were concerned about. Now, I had only read the case for about ten minutes before class, so I was wracking my brain trying to think of a rebuttal to this laundry list of criticisms I knew were coming. In case you don't know, the case was actually thrown out based on its lack of standing, so I'm arguing for the losing side. I was drawing a blank the whole time the girl was talking, right up until the professor looked at me for my response. Then I remembered my good old philosophical training, and I'm pretty sure my eyes lit up as a light bulb popped into a cloud over my head. "Yes, there are a lot of conditions that need to be met, but a long list of likely conditions doesn't make the outcome unlikely necessarily. If each of those things is actually reasonably certain to occur, then the hypothetical situation might still be imminent rather than unsubstantiated." Sure enough, he took that and ran with it. He asked me some leading questions, like "So, Mr Pesch, how likely is it that the government would want to observe known terrorist connections?" "Pretty likely, I'd say." "And how likely is it that the government agencies will use this statute (the most current one, rather than others still on the books, but from years ago)?" "Again, I'd say that would be the most reasonable assumption." "Have you ever heard of an agency having its request to survey known terrorists turned down?" "I can't say that I have." "And would we be correct in assuming the government is capable of such surveillance?" He didn't wait for my response here. He just continued with "I think we'd all be pretty uncomfortable if the government couldn't do that." With that, class was over. I had nailed it.
Then the most remarkable thing happened. The two girls sitting in front of me (both from my section; this is a two-section class) turned around and said I did a good job. I said "I know, especially for not actually having the supplement!" and raised my notebook to show my half-page of frantically-scribbled facts. They said something to the effect of "no way!" Next, one of the smarter guys in the section complimented me, saying "Wow, he really stuck with you for a while. Nice job." I thanked him, mentioning again that I didn't have the supplement. Greg told me that he probably called on me due to my choice of clothing. I guess a shining pink beacon at the back of the room is a likely target... Then, on my way out, yet another guy said I did good, and then asked if I was going to play magic this weekend, as there is a new set coming out. I said I wasn't, and that I generally didn't play magic unless I had a bunch of free time, as it eats up both time and money. I stopped during undergrad, and I was pretty sure I wasn't going to play much during law school. He said he was buying a box, and that he might get some drafts or something together, and I said to look me up for sure if that was happening.
I walked outside, only to realize I didn't really need to leave yet, so I went back into the library to type some of it up before I departed. On my way back into the building, the millionth guy in a row congratulated me. Then he asked if I was going out with the section right after class. I said I didn't do the bar scene since I didn't drink, and he said I was welcome to come hang out anyway. I made a noncommittal noise, and he let it drop. I got to the computer lab and started typing, only to have a girl come over and ask if I was going out tonight. Again, I declined. She said she figured, and that she hadn't seen me at any of the events. I told her she was likely to keep not seeing me, but to have fun. It was about 3:40 when the guy who lent me the supplement walked into the library and came over to ask if I had done the online assignment for 4:00. I panicked a bit, and said no. He asked what I was doing then, and I said blogging, but that I really needed to get that assignment done since I forgot about it entirely. I thanked him again, and was like "That sure came in handy!" He looked confused and then said "Oh, that was you?" Yes. Yes it was...
I rushed through the online assignment and forgot to print it once, but got it in with a minute or two to spare. Then I remembered I still hadn't mailed my entry in to the handball tournament next weekend. So I biked home and got the envelope. The only mailbox I knew about was most of the way back to the law school, so I returned with banana bread in tow to type the rest of this up while watching some videos online. Typical Friday evening for me after all. Computer and food. But things are certainly better than they were right after the quiz. All those compliments totally drove that from my mind, even though that was worth a grade and the participation wasn't. So that was my day. I wanted to get it all down while it was still fresh in my mind, but I have even more to type, so I'll start the next post right away. Thanks for reading!
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