Quick post

I'm rewarding myself for actually being productive by letting myself post a bit here before leaving and actually sleeping (a rather strange concept for a Wednesday night).

I played a few games of handball on Monday, then played another three or so hours on Tuesday, so this week (since Sunday) I already have about ten hours of court time in. I have a tournament this weekend too, so from Sunday to Sunday I might get the equivalent of a part-time job's hours of handball in! Turns out I probably could have gotten a job to put myself through law school. But this is way more fun, so hey, I'll just try and appreciate it.

I made biscuits yet again on Tuesday morning, and it turns out one disadvantage to them being perfectly well-done and not sticking to the pan is that sometimes when you tilt the pan to get it out of you oven racks (which for some reason have a lip on the front which prevents you from simply sliding them out), the biscuits wind up on the oven rack instead of the pan. And because they are delightfully crumbly, you panic and burn your arm trying to extract them before they fall apart and ruin everything. Then, of course, is the ideal time to realize you can just slide the pan back in on the bottom shelf to catch the pieces while extracting what you can without undue hurry. I went out with my "teammates" after handball as promised, and it was about the most anti-climactic thing ever. It was trivia night at a bar/pizza place, and it consisted of sitting around while only talking to the person directly across from me and directly to my right while they asked me silly questions. Luckily, I've gotten pretty used to bantering with these people, so at least it wasn't just question, answer, awkward silence. But it also didn't strike me as a particularly stellar use of my time. I showed an inordinate amount of enthusiasm at all their interests, and luckily I know enough about a variety of topics I can feign interest in just about anything. Zombie apocalypse? Check. Starcraft? Check. Decent books? Check. Pre-requisites for science degrees and AP credits? Check. Obscure fantasy authors and video games? You bet. Antique furniture? Well, that was pushing it a bit, but I think I covered adequately.

About the only thing I like about question-sessions is that I make sure I answer everything honestly and directly. I didn't always do that, but in college it was one thing I really admired about a particular frisbee teammate I had, and I've tried to adopt it for myself. Not to mention it's fun to see people taken aback slightly when you actually just give them a direct statement during what might otherwise be an awkward topic of conversation. I figure I have relatively few regrets (see whatever post it was where I talked about my decision-making process), and rather than treat myself as a mystery, I might as well just let them make up their minds about me based on whatever information they deem relevant by asking me for.

The handball group was bigger than usual (I gather) because a person I've never even met is moving to Texas and it was his last day in town. We had like four tables pushed together, so it wasn't like I could even talk to everyone there. Not that that was a huge loss, but that, combined with the place being virtually empty except for our one, big group, made the experience pretty atypical. It was certainly better than the last time I went to a bar, though, in that it didn't seem like anyone's goal was to get drunk. Sure, one guy had enough to start being a bit rowdy, but it wasn't like they were on a mission of intoxication like the frisbee people when I accompanied them. And people actually showed an interest in me, which was pretty refreshing. The frisbee people either felt awkward because I don't drink or just didn't really care I was there, but these folks at least took an interest. I had someone talking to me almost the whole time, while in Ames I resorted to looking blankly at my phone so people wouldn't think I wasn't so pathetic that I didn't have anything at all to do. Maybe it's just that people who play handball respect me because I'm good at that, while the frisbee folks had their group independent of me and didn't find a reason I should fit in. I'm just spit-balling. Either way, it wasn't a good enough use of my time to do it every week or anything, but at least it's reassuring to know that they'll make an effort and I won't be that weird guy not drinking, just watching and hoping the person I came with wants me to be there at some point.

As far as interesting cases go, in Torts we are talking about causation, a topic I have a real problem with philosophically. So I have to restrain myself from taking things out of a legal context when the courts are talking about what caused an injury. They adopt a "but for" definition of causation, which means that someone didn't cause an injury unless that injury wouldn't have happened "but for" the action of the person. So if someone got hit by a brick, then I'm responsible only if the brick would have otherwise not hit them had I not acted. Luckily, the courts still look at things given the totality of the circumstances, so even when they adopt what seems like a hard rule, they can rule however they want in the end. Causation seems to be disputed a lot when it comes to cancer, since two of the three or four cases we've talked about have had to do with that. I guess it's just that people still aren't sure about what does cause cancer, so those cases are necessarily hard enough to make interesting cases. In one case a person got injured by a window falling on him, which was certainly the fault of a hotel. Then he got cancer in the exact spot of the injury, and tried to recoup damages. The theory was that because healing flesh is more prone to be affected by radiation, the hotel's negligence led to the cancer. Now, in a "but-for" scenario, this actually makes a decent amount of sense, because if the hotel hadn't caused the injury it is likely he wouldn't have gotten cancer. But there's also the fact that if he would have protected his healing wound from radiation (we assume the cancer was caused by sun exposure or something), then he also wouldn't have gotten cancer. So it's probably more his fault than the hotel's. But in the case of a fire that wiped out a construction yard, even though the yard was going to be destroyed by a different oncoming forest fire, the people responsible for the fire were held responsible. In that case, the construction yard would have been wiped out anyway, so I'm not sure I agree that the people should have been found causally responsible. I don't disagree they should be punished for their negligent behavior, though, so I guess the court's interest in justice (preventing bad behavior in the future) trumps almost everything else.

I really do have to get going. This was a bit more time than I wanted to spend typing. I'm going to try and be more poetic after my quiz on Friday, but if it goes poorly brace yourself for some emotional poetry! Also, I'll be heading straight from class to my tournament, so that might not get up very promptly. And then I have a group project (though I am currently group-less (surprise!)), so we'll see. And another paper for legal writing due next week I haven't really done much for. One thing at a time! Thanks for reading!