So another book ends and another semester begins. Winter break surely was not long enough. I wish it would have gone on forever, but alas here we are. This winter break taught me a lot about myself and how I see the world. A lot of times I refuse to standup for myself, allowing myself to become the victim, allowing myself to become distrustful of those around me, even when I just met a person. Winter Break gave me time to think about all of this and really help me to determine why I react to people the way I do, and it’s simply because I refuse to listen to their story and follow my instinct to process what they are saying. Instead, I let my ego get the best of me in everyday life which causes WAY MORE problems than it solves. And as we leave Book 4 and head into Book 5, we will see how ego can get in the way in everyone’s lives, especially politicians. But for now, let’s wrap up Book 4’s remaining chapters
Chapter 34- Priori Incantatem
So Harry is let down from the grave he was tied to and then the duel begins. Harry scrambles a bit, Voldemort taunts him a bit and then they duel. They cast curses at each other and BAM they are oddly connected. They hold the connection and start to float. Then ghost like figures start coming out of Voldey’s wand. These figures include Cedric and Harry’s Parents. They all say they are going to buy Harry some time. Cedric says to take his body back. Harry breaks the connection and runs to Cedric’s body summoning the portkey and heads back.
Chapter 35- Veritaserum
Harry lands with Cedric’s body back at Hogwarts. He tries to tell everyone Voldemort’s back and then panic sets in. Oddly enough the “My son, my son” cries of Mr. Diggory are not in the book, but it happens. Through the chaos Moody grabs Harry to take him back to the castle. Turns out he’s not actually Mad-Eye Moody, he’s BARTY CROUCH JR.!!!!! Hogwarts teachers burst in the door to save Harry. They pour veritaserum down Barty’s throat and the truth spills out. We get the whole back story of how Barty Courch Sr. broke Barty Crouch Jr. out of Azkaban and how then Jr. escaped and how Bertha Jorkins found about him and then had to die. Barty Crouch Sr. also needed to die so Junior killed his papa.
Chapter 36- The Parting of Ways
Once Dumbledore got all the info he wanted out of Junior Dumbledore moved on. Sent for Snuggles and brought Harry to his office. Dumbledore explains everything to Harry and Sirius, attempts to explain things to Fudge who refuses to hear it. Sends harry to the infirmary and everyone is whispering about things. Harry gets his winnings, Cedric’s parents are in mourning. Harry goes to sleep.
Chapter 37- The Beginning
(Of another semester…) Harry tries to give the gold to the Diggory Parents, they won’t take it. Dumbledore explains to the whole school Cedric’s death and that Voldemort is back and that the Ministry won’t recognize it. Then they eat and it’s time to leave Hogwarts. Harry gives his gold winnings to Fred and George to start their joke business.
Talk about traumatic experiences! I’m the first to admit that Harry is one of my least favorite characters in the series and we will see why in Book 5, but I do feel bad for him in these chapters. Harry has something super traumatic happen to him, but since he was the only one to see it and experience it, he is treated poorly. No one believes him. It made me start to think about how we do things in the legal field. Sometimes people come to us with problems and we have to decide to believe them and take on their case; or at least we have to believe in the system and take on their case. But sometimes it is so hard to believe someone’s story. No matter how hard we want to believe, no matter how much this person cries and tells us their tale, sometimes we just can’t believe them.
And that doesn’t happen in just the legal field, it happens in our personal lives every day. I came to law school with some trust issues already. Law school really challenges you to work through those trust issues. It challenges you to change how you see the world but to stay true to your gut instinct. But it’s hard when you are like Harry and no one understands what you just went through, where you’ve been, or who you truly are. I think it’s important to note that Harry struggles with this throughout the whole series. Not too many people know how horrible it is for him back at the Dursleys, how crazy it’s been to be thrusted into a life of magic and a life of fame, and later there’s no way anyone understands what it’s like to know that there is someone, someone very powerful, out there that he alone has to face and be killed by in order to save the wizarding world.
So while I don’t like Harry, I sympathize with him, much like I sympathized with Voldemort in the last post. We never know what others are going through, what they’ve been through, and what they are left facing. Yet, we judge them and we judge each other all the same. I’ve done it. I’ve looked superficially at someone’s life and with a jealous eye determined to write them off, even if I’ve heard their story, heard the things they don’t want to share with the whole world. And I too have been on the other side of this. The thing is, in law school and in life, you have to trust your gut and in order to learn to trust your gut, you have to move your ego out of the way. As we will see in Book 5, there are a lot of egos being thrown around which leads to a lot of disbelief and blindness.
Our egos are a huge part of this journey. Our egos tell us only what we want to hear, what we want to know, and what we think about ourselves. Our egos compare us to others, dismiss others thoughts and ideas when they challenge ours, and try to keep us in control at all times. But that smaller voice, the one that says Harry is telling the truth (why would he lie to us about this?), that’s the voice we want to listen to. That is the instinct, the truth teller, the right voice to lead us. Sure, sometimes its a very naive voice that may put you in situations that you don’t like, but that doesn’t mean you can’t listen to it.
All of this is to say that as another semester begins, to check in with what voice you are listening to. To really take inventory of the stories being told to you and process them before reacting or making a decision about someone. Be open-minded, quiet the ego and listen to your instinct. You’ll be happy you did. You’ll find more peace. You’ll help make the world a more understanding place.
Good luck this semester!
Until Next Time,
Mischief Managed
So Dumbledore leaves Harry alone in his office, what’s a kid to do? Snoop, of course! I mean, who wouldn’t?? Harry finds the pensieve, a magical memory holder that Dumbledore uses like a giant bowl shaped jigsaw puzzle. Harry swoops into some magical memories of Barty Crouch sentencing his son to Azkaban and then Dumbledore shows up (the real one, not the memory one who apparently looks the same exact way as the current one) and is all like “Harry lesssssgo, you’ve snooped into my personal life enough now.” Then Dumbledore is all like, “oh of course you are curious, and of course I didn’t lock that thing up tight enough. It’s not like I was hoping you’d snoop.” Which I don’t buy, Dumbledore never does anything uncalculated, sort of like Beyonce or Taylor Swift, everything they do is done on purpose. They talk about Voldemort and Snape and the Crouch family. The end of the chapter.
The final task is here! Can I get a drumroll??? Okay, it’s actually pretty cool… the movie makes it look pretty lame, but this huge maze is pretty awesome! There’s even a sphinx with a riddle! Why the heck was that left out of the movie, the CGI on that alone would have been cool to see. Instead the movie just glosses over Krum’s eyes, has him attack everyone, and there’s mysterious wind that blows the shrubs around. Cedric’s and Harry’s hero complexes come out to play like normal and they both end up saving each other at some point. THere’s a giant spider. Then Harry and Cedric play a round of “you can have the cup, you are a true hero” “Oh no you take the cup, you deserve it.” They both grab the cup and BOOM, it’s a portkey! *mic drop*
For Voldemort, his whole reasoning behind his movement is the reaction his family had to him growing up. He’s not even a pure-blood wizard, but because his dad reacted in a way that ensured a hard life for Voldemort, he made it his life mission to go and seek revenge. He had a sad life, a hard life and he made life choices that reflected his inner angst. Sure, it’s not okay that he then wanted to kill all muggles, but once you know his backstory a bit, it can change the way you see him.
Have you ever watched those Real Housewives shows? I know you have, don’t try to freaking lie, we all love to watch these rich ladies get plastered and argue and fight with each other over silly things. I mean who wouldn’t love to be one of them?? Personally I live for the escape from reality into “reality tv” or really any dramatic television show. I love these scripted shows where you can tell the writers have been sitting in a small room pouring their mind power out to create a script full of “unexpected” tricky twists and turns… the joke of it all is if you watch enough tv or read enough books, these unexpected twists are pretty predictable.
A mixed metaphor is my absolute favorite english device in the world. It’s simple really, you take two metaphors and mix them together. For example: “Don’t go in there with cold turkey on your face.” The separate metaphors are: 1) Going cold turkey; and 2) Don’t go in there with egg on your face. See? Simple and cheeky. Alright, so how does this simple english device relate to law school, television, and Harry Potter? Well it’s simple really. Life is one large box of unexpected and expected mixed metaphors. Sure, sometimes life is just a single metaphor: “an endless night;” “anger bottled up inside;” “battle of the egos.” Those are expected. We all endure these… until we have “an endless bottled up battle of the egos.” Then we are like WTF is happening in my life!?!
The things about the second year of law school is everyone can start to deep dive into what they are passionate about. For me it’s Food Law, an up and coming part of law that most people scratch their heads at… except the 200 people I just spent a weekend with this past November at UCLA. The Food Law Student Leadership Summit, put on by Harvard and UCLA, is a conference where students from all over the country meet to tackle food policy issues as well as learn form some of the top food law professors and speakers in the United States. It’s an amazing conference that tackles all food related issues, from agriculture to labor laws, from foraging to SNAP programs. I met so many amazing people who want to tackle food issues! It was so nice to be surrounded by people who are also passionate about food topics.
Ron of course is still not talking to Harry and everyone hates harry like normal, now they just have pins that say ‘Potter Stinks’. Nevertheless Hagrid the friendly giant shows Harry what the first task will involve. Hagrid fancies the giantess leader of the Beauxbatons school and also shows her the first task. Harry is like “whoa what the heck, I’m a little boy, those are big dragons, this is insane, i’m going to die, boohoo.” Then he tells Cedric and Ron acts moody.
With the first task behind him, everyone celebrates. Ron becomes Harry’s friend again (dammit Ron why are you like this?) and Harry opens the egg to only hear screeching. (I get that this synopsis is weird, but this whole book is weird…and not one of my favorites because teenagers are so freaking moody, but so are law students so I guess it works.) Rita Skeeter bothers everyone, goes after Hagrid for an interview. Fred and George tell Hermione how to get to the kitchen where the House-elves are and she finds Dobby and WInky (Crouch’s old house-elf) working int he kitchens. She’s bothered by this. Hermione becomes even more determined to help these house-elves get paid and respected, even though Winky and every other elf besides Dobby don’t want to be paid. And then everyone laughs about Percy being a stuck-up brown noser.
In this chapter, Sirius arrives back in the country (hidden of course). Beauxbatons, a french school (of BOTH girls and BOYS, unlike the movie) and Durmstrang, a school who doesn’t want anyone to know where its located arrives! Of course that means Viktor Krum, Bulgarian Quidditch star also arrives. All of the Hogwarts students are of course still in awe… and Hermione is still trying to get people to buy her S.P.E.W. badges to help her cause, but no one is biting.
OMG everyone is in shock… how dare Harry put his name in the Goblet and how dare the Goblet name four champions? Clearly nothing bad or weird has occurred here… this is normal. Oh and its a magical contract… interesting the way wizarding laws work. Anyways from this chapter the masterful Old Dumbledore vs. New Dumbledore casting crisis of the movie is born from the line “Did ya put your name in the Goblet of Fire?” My good old friend Hank loves to use this line as evidence that the old Dumbledore was far superior to the new Dumbledore. Anyways everyone is upset and Ron starts acting like a jealous twit… end of the chapter.
So, first semester sucked, reality of poor grades made second semester worse… then the summer happened, my GPA rose and so did my pride. I entered into the second year, a little less likely to put up with people’s shit, still insecure, thinking I was independent, alone and didn’t need anyone telling me otherwise… the thing is, the universe doesn’t put up with that crap. The universe will be the first one to knock you down… hence why pride is the killing curse, because if you become prideful, the universe will knock it out of you. So here I sit, trying to figure out what to do next.
It’s hard to see what you are destined for from the perspective of where we are seated. When you are in the midst of the mess, the hard work, the emotions, the world which tells you to conform, when you are in the midst of all of that it’s hard to see the big picture. We are all destined to do something in this world. Some of us are meant for the traditional paths of the world, meant to make an impact where we are. Some are meant to revolutionize the whole world to bring together the masses. Some are meant to make small ripples in the world through untraditional paths.
I love this interaction between Hermione and her friends. Hermione’s friends all try to talk her out of being so “dramatic.” When Hermione starts to really stand-up for something she believes is a problem, but to most people is just a normality of wizard life, she pushes back.
“Ohhh look what you made me do.” Taylor Swift’s new album, Reputation, comes out in a little over a month, and man I CANNOT WAIT! It’s going to be great. Taylor Swift’s concept for this new album is taking her “ruined” reputation back into her own hands. There’s nothing better than seeing someone stand up for themselves in life, even though we still don’t have control over who lives, who dies and who tells our story. But it made me start to think a little deeper about reputations and law school.
Faculty and staff always preach reputation at the law school. Your professional identity, the small Denver community, being nice to your peers… the lectures go on and on. While they mean well, and of course they do, I think there is something to be said about reputations. To me, reputations are simple perceptions about people usually made through the lens of your own insecurities added to half-truths about the actual person. Take Draco Malfoy for example. He has a reputation for being a brat, a snotty, rich brat. Most people dislike Draco terribly. His reputation does nothing but hurt him, over and over and over again, until you get to the end of the series. Draco puts up a front, he elaborates on his stories, he lives a half-truth filled life, attempting to make things seem better or make himself seem more important so he doesn’t have to face the real him inside.
I have an Bachelor’s of Arts in English. I wonderful degree that everyone said would be very useful in law school. It is actually useful for knowing basic sentence structure, knowing basic words, and knowing basic punctuation. When a professor returned my first writing assignment in a class, I. WAS. DEVASTATED. It was torn apart. There were so many marks on it I could barely see through them. I was embarrassed to have a degree in English. See 1Ls go through this and some do not, but it’s a good lesson if you do go through this. You see, I could have all the punctuation right, the ideas correct, and the format down, but without the proper word choice, my papers would never be good enough. And that’s what this week’s theme is: choosing the right words.
This semester I am taking Legal Professions, an ethics course required by the school. It’s an interesting class, full of the dos and the don’ts of the legal profession. Being in a clinic too, I get real clients to apply these rules to while still in school. Loyalty to the client is one of the most important things we’ve learned thus far. This can come in so many forms: confidentiality, competency, diligence, and ensuring there are no conflicts with other clients. Loyalty is a huge part of the legal profession. You want to be loyal to your clients so they feel comfortable giving you information so you can advocate for them in the best ways.
It’s funny what the breaking of loyalty can do. In the legal world it can create so many problems for a lawyer. From losing the client’s trust, to being disciplined for Professional Rules of Conduct violations, to even being disbarred. Everything we do as lawyers is looked at from a loyalty standpoint. We are forever responsible of making sure our actions are not adverse to our past clients and present clients needs. We must keep confidentiality at all times (unless under the enumerated exceptions found in the rules) and must work diligently on all client matters.
The Wizarding World of Law School 