Jogged Memory of My Grandpa's death.

I was reading a torts case about intentional affliction of emotional distress. An issue that was discussed in the case was possibility to acquire physical injury from emotional distress. A bunch of tough guys in an association threatened and scared another so much that after two to three hours of threats, the guy went home, threw up, and had to remain home from work for the next few days. The court stated that he suffered extreme fear.

This case dislodged a memory about my grandfather in my head. My mother's father, a distinguished engineer, a good husband, an amazing father, a handsome fellow, an academic bookie, died the day after he was put antagonized by the USSR influenced Georgia. All I remember of the story was that he was taken aside at a shindig, held by both arms, and made to stand still as some motherfucker interviewed him and ran a knife up and down his chest.My grandmother found him in bed the next morning with no heartbeat, cold to the touch. No one ever doubted that fear and apprehension forced him to leave his loving family.

I've known this story for a really long time. Even though I only caught snatches of the story as a very young kid in adult conversations, I can't think of my grandpa without imagining a bloody tear in his shirt running down his chest.

Thinking back, there was probably nothing that anyone in my family could do to have justice done on this act. I can't hold my excitement how happy I am that U.S. law accounts for these types of mental suffering crimes. My previous tenuous thoughts about the malleability of the U.S. legal system have officially strengthened.

Wordplay

My first year at law school. When I made the decision to look into, and possibly study the law, I approached it thinking in ideals. I thought, justice, righteousness, morality, society, LAW, the American Way. I thought, truth. I thought it was all beyond those that practiced it. I thought the lawyers, the judges, the bailiffs, the jury, the coppers, were all very much the cogs in the ultimate peacemaking machine. I thought that if you keep righting wrongs, protect the innocent, and keep putting your foot further and further into that door that leads to perfect justice, the law will have the right to exist.

That was innocent me, two years ago. That was innocent me, before I read into the topics concerning the legal profession. I read "The Nine: Inside the Secret World of the Supreme Court" by Jeffrey Toobin, and I was shocked. How was it possible that these individuals, though intelligent, practiced, shockingly human, could dictate so much about what was "right"? How was it that as the proclaimed authority over the interpretation of how our society should function? For that is what the law does. It tells us what to do by telling us what we can get in trouble for.

The power of these individuals is stunning. A guy can go out, get a Juris Doctorate, one thing can lead to another, and bam, suddenly you're a judge and you've just decided that people can't take back certain promises, or that that kid can't go back to their mother's, or that crazy people and young people have the ability, despite their questionable state, to determine with substantial certainty that harm will be done on account of their actions.

The workings of the system are not the cogs. They are the system. The lawyers, the judges, they all just play games. Especially the lawyers. They're given broad rules, procedure, history, and with these tools in hand, they have to go out there and win the game; you jump over the other player's obstacles. You squirm your way through the gauntlet of wordplay, you pick up as many facts as you can for the many headed monster called the jury, and you feed it, hoping that the monster digests.
The key to all this is to be really really good at playing the game.
You can't rely on truth, you can't expect it to exist. You can only count on yourself, really. A life choice that's challenging, that will put meat on your bones.

Is there contempt to be felt for this profession? I believe that the break in thought about my younger and older self is the main reason for contempt and disgust to exist about this profession. People thing ideally, and don't imagine that a lawyer lawyers because they're good at it. But it must be something, to be good at it.

Albany seems alright

Wowow. Albany Law School!
Today, I took my first official tour of Albany via my house-hunting route.
The city is peculiar. The Village Voice stand-in, Metroland, promotes a lot of art and culture. Parks and lakes are oft-encountered. The Hudson is a familiar presence, a a symbolic and direct route to New York City. Internships are promised to be numerous.

The city was quiet on this hot summer day. Every now and then, I saw a jogger or a biker. Men sitting on stoops, cars traversing deserted streets. Many buildings are ancient and grand, others more contemporary, but just as gigantic. The suits walking around downtown remind me of the importance of the city center.Everything is neat, and tidy, and beautiful, and regal, and well-maintained. And the more I see of it, the more I suspect that the whole of Albany is a mask: a firm, trimmed and airbrushed face, posing in its role as the capital of New York. I will have to pay close attention to this phenomena. What exactly is this city?

I have a room now. It's extremely roomy. It has a balcony. It's probably the best room in the house. However, it's on a second floor of a second rate house, 'lorded by what appears to be a second rate politician/chatterbox/gossip-monger. The only other room occupied on my floor is our "floor team leader", the designated utility bill collector. Out of the four neighbors living on the first floor, two are married, two might be illegal immigrants, one is a computer genius and one has a baby cat who is "her life", according to gossip.* And of course, according to the same source, we have a physician's assistant as our neighbor, just "in case you want to marry a doctor" or something.

My landlord gave me my room at a discount of over $100. However, I can see that he is going to use me get other hard-working, bill-paying, "charming", non-drug addicts. Just like he touted the horn on my neighbor, the future doctor, I can see the words "ah, yes, future lawyer, always at the library, quiet, blah blah blah" forming on the tip of his lips.

He also would love for me to have my girlfriends and study buddies over in our little "community within a community". I have to check in with him and the house when I want my boyfriend to sleep over though.

This place might be nuts.
The rent is month to month, thank the lord.


*Groups can be mutually inclusive.