happy halloween

Hello everybody, just checking in, letting you all know I am alive and kicking (barely - there is still a tiny bit of brain activity left). Today I had my first experience as a prosecutor in my Criminal Law class, unfortunately for me, I believe the class was video recorded. So one time offer here, email me at jason_mau@yahoo.com in the next couple of days and, if possible, I will email you a copy of the video when it becomes available, then you can all join me in thinking "what the heck am I doing here."
I felt a bit brain dead today, I just finished my assignment for Writing Class late last night and had very little gas in the tank this morning, I didn't start moving in time to bike to school, so I begged for rides, hopefully this doesn't become a reoccurring event (although I did get a chance to watch Spongebob this morning waiting for my ride). If I wasn't brain dead after all of that and class today, I definitely am now after preparing for Civil Procedure class tomorrow over elements of personal jurisdiction in Supreme Court opinions - man if that doesn't get the blood pumping, I don't know what will! :)
Take care, I'll talk to ya all later.

case in school

Found out something pretty interesting about Lenny Bias. I found out about it in Civil Procedure in a section about summary judgment of all places. I was always under the impression that Bias just used cocaine after he was drafted, living it up per se, and died because of an overdose at that point. I found out in a case from his parents suing his agents for not getting a life insurance policy (which was ruled in favor of the agency because a drug user couldn't get a million dollar policy) that Bias had used cocaine on numerous of occasions and had supplied others with cocaine in college.
It was probably already common knowledge, but here I am reading a court case to find out all about it.

kickin' it with Tom & Abe

I figured it has been a while since I put on some pictures and right now I could either do an exercise for my Writing class or actually post here on the site & I am sure you all reading would much rather have me post some pictures. Here are some pictures from Myrtle Beach and D.C.






As you see above we finally made it to Washington D.C. We went on Saturday, our Pastor and his wife from church took us down and took us on a day tour of D.C. The kids stayed with a couple of families from church, it all worked out very nicely.

a new day

A new week has begun here at school. Not much to look forward to at this point, the Cubs are done, the Huskers have no desire to perform like a Husker team should, our sucky flag football team has to win on Tuesday night just to make the 'playoffs'.

Hey, but.. um ..., never mind, there isn't much to look forward when it comes to reading CivPro.

A picture of Luke and his host

go cubs

The Baseball playoffs are going to reek havoc on my schedule, these East Coast Times are killing me (although they are nothing like what Luke is dealing with and the FAR East times). The other night I stayed up and turned on the one game tiebreaker between the Padres and Rockies, of course it went into extra innings, I could only handle up until the end of the 12th inning, and of course the 13th inning was the decisive one, and quite a decisive one at that. The Pads scored two in the top of the inning and the Rockies still came back and won in the bottom of the inning. Tonight the Cubs/Diamondbacks game doesn't start until 10, same for tomorrow night, so I am going to try to get as much done at school today as possible so maybe I can catch some of the game. Then of course this weekend the Huskers game v. Missouri doesn't start until 9:15. At least that is a Saturday night.
We played an intramural football game last night, our team sucks. Last week we didn't score and got beat by at least 60 points, last night we actually scored and only lost by 1 touchdown in the end. We have a couple of people on the team, one of them is the captain, that take it way too seriously, but the rest of us are really enjoying it, and one of the girls on the team always brings cookies or brownies.

Letter to my bro

I just got done writing to Luke in China and decided to save a little time and just paste it here as well, most of it is about my week and I am sure you are interested in what Luke is up to, so you can infer some info about him as well:

Luke (the Duke of Pu Dong),

Hey bro, thanks for the pictures, it looks like you won't have to worry about being alone, overcrowded is probably an understatement. I had a busy week, was about to write weekend but all of last week was pretty filled as well. We had a practice exam on all Intentional Torts in Torts (basically torts are civil caused of action for compensation) on Friday so I had to start outlining the class on Tuesday so I would be ready. Wednesday I had a fruitful day here at school and among other things, found out that I needed to do more in depth preparation for Criminal Law, but once I got home I didn't accomplish anything, although Elijah and I did come up with a secret handshake. Thursday I got through my classes and then revisited the torts outline, re-reading it several times trying to really just memorize what the rules of law were. That night a few of us got together and had a "Glannon" party. Glannon is the author of a supplement text that goes through many hypothetical examples to help you grasp the concepts. We actually did study, I was kind of doubtful when I headed out, but I decided to give it a try and was pleasantly surprised we went through so many examples. Friday was the practice test and I feel that I did well on it, was able to locate all of the cause of actions in a fact pattern and state the rule of law and apply it to the facts of the cases. Later in CrimLaw I was well enough prepared to make it through another class since I had read so far ahead the prior week in our trip to S. Carolina. Friday night the family headed over to Wegmans, a classier grocery store, about 15 miles away. We ate dinner first, the kids got some grub from the salad bar and Nicole and I hit the asian bar. It was 6.99/lb so it was hard to keep the weight down, my eyes were definitely bigger than my stomach. After eating we went through the organic aisles and the health food aisles, they actually had a bunch of gluten free stuff for Elijah. After there we ended up stopping at a small strip mall and Nicole did some clothes shopping and we all ended up in at another store checking out their sale on shoes. After that our night was pretty much shot, I don't think I did any studying when we got home, maybe some reading. Saturday I got up and started putting together the first part of my Civil Procedure outline. Talk about torture! It took me all day - all day and all I had to show for it was 4 pages. After I got that done I read for my assignments in CivPro this week and it was on joinders. I should have just thrown in the towel at that time but I went ahead and struggled through it all while I watched the College Gameday final and headed to bed at about 3. The next day I skipped church and started working more in depth on the Criminal Law stuff and then worked on my writing assignments for my Legal Analysis/Writing class.
So here I am just at school now, thought I would give you a run down before I dug back into the next cases in CrimLaw. Hope you are doing well, I'll try to keep you updated since you are not sure you will be able to set up a blog. It is kind of weird, I didn't really think much or worry much about you stateside, but now that you are over there you are definitely on my mind now, not that you are in any more danger over there, but that it is just a totally different 'world'. I talk to kids here at school about my bro in China, but they just think of it as a study abroad trip (all these rich kids that have been everywhere), but I see it as so much more, I am really proud of you. Keep in touch.
Jason