Summer Breeze

Summer 2009 breezed by for my wife and I. It was the fastest summer of my life thus far. The Monday morning after finishing spring final exams the Friday before, I began clerking at a local law firm and writing a paper for a competition to become a writer for the Louisiana Law Review. The first two weeks were the slowest, balancing time between writing about the constitutionality of Louisiana's anti-smoking ban for the competition and working in a law firm for the first time. But thankfully the time committment paid off; I have been accepted as a junior associate for the law review this fall.

The rest of the summer was spent both working part-time and in school full time. I had the privilege of clerking at two different law firms in downtown Baton Rouge this summer. I was at Kantrow, Spaht, Weaver & Blitzer for half the summer and at Taylor, Porter, Brooks & Phillips for the second half. Just as my professor had forecasted, Legal Research and Writing was the class most useful during my clerking experiences, mainly drafting research memoranda in support of legal theories and motions for summary judgment. Clerking was a great experience. It showed me how much I had learned in only a year of law school...and how much there is left to learn in an ever-changing and vast body of law. It's great to get extracurricular work in such areas ranging from products liability and commercial litigation to bankruptcy, taxation and employment discrimination.

The hardest thing this summer was balancing time between class and work. Whenever I was at work, I felt like I should be studying. Whenever in class, I felt like I should be working. I took Evidence with Professor Maraist and Constitutional Law II with Professor Baier. Both were rewarding and uniquely challenging experiences. Evidence proved to be my favorite subject thus far, and Constitutional Law II allowed a survey of nearly 350 cases, each of which we were responsible for. These past few months have been the most disciplined of my life, requiring trained monkey adherence:

7:30 a.m. - 8:45 a.m. Evidence class
8:55 - 10:10 Constitutional Law II class
10:30-4:00 Work
4:00-6:30 Studying
6:30-7:15 Exercise
7:30-11:00 p.m. Eat, more study, Bible, domestic life

Recreationally, I used my spare moments to play through Half-Life 2 for the xBox console, play softball for the law firms, had an outing with law students to play laser tag, and visited my mother- and father-in-law in Houston over July 4th. I turned 23 years of age this year, and was able to go jet skiing for the first time with Amanda while at Navarre Beach, Florida, in addition to acquiring my first ever thorough sunburn.

Amanda has been quite busy as she went through the Teach Baton Rouge program to become certified to teach this summer. She just began teaching last week and now educates a class of 21 young, eager minds in the third grade. I could not be prouder of her.

In other news, we finally got a pet, as we are not ready for a human child yet. I think we picked a good pet to simulate the 2-year-old experience, though. Ten-month-old Rocky is a sweet, constantly purring and people-loving kitten who loves to play with anything that moves...or does not move. I have been bonding much with him of late and he and I will be on even better terms once he stops assaulting me whenever I try to eat, requiring me to put him in the other room if I am to finish my repast in peace.

Other than the sunset in Navarre Beach and walking out onto a sandbar with my wife, one of the most beautifullestest things I have beheld this summer was a full, glowing rainbow across the horizon over the lakes at LSU. This was only a week ago and was the first time I have ever seen a full rainbow.