Can I Graduate?

Mom & Dad
I wouldn’t have been able to graduate from law school if it weren’t for my mom & dad for two reasons: (1) Their ceaseless love & $upport; and (2) If my parents didn’t come together a mere 27-years ago to consummate their love, as was the style at the time, I literally, literally would not be here.

Joey Brntt
I’ve had a few classes with Joey and he’s always been a nice, stand-up individual who seems to have a legitimate passion for the environment, unlike me who has a sham passion. I’m sure we’ll be seeing plenty of each other this summer, and possibly the next several years, in Chicago.

Anna Skbkwsk
Anna’s the kind of person you’d want to hate. She’s super smart and super ambitious and she’s essentially set for life career-wise, but it’s impossible to have any feelings toward her short of delight. Ivy league schools only award accolades for academic achievement, but if they bestowed diplomas for humor and personality, Anna would have still graduated from the same elite institutions.

Jonathon Hldk
I thought Jonathon was a total shithead when I first met him because he was living at the Rugby House, which, in 2007, was basically a law school frat house. It was a house of wanton ill-repute, but not in the crackhouse way. It was an alright house, but it was decorated and filled with the sort of things that only vapid frat dudes would find appealing, like beer paraphernalia, and a beer pong table. Plus everyone else at the house was kind of a shithead. Jonathon had just graduated from the University of Nebraska, so I just presumed he was some redneck cornhusker with a drinking problem, which actually turned out to be totally true, but in a good way. Jonathon’s best quality is his unpredictable weirdo-ness. He’s a grab bag of personality traits. He’s a lot like President Teddy Roosevelt - a dichotomy of interests and principles that appear to have formed randomly, but somehow, in the end, are habitually effective.

Nick Mngld
I can’t pinpoint the beginning of my relationship with Nick. One day he just started calling out my name in the hallways around campus. I didn’t know his name, and wasn’t even sure if he was in any of my classes. I suppose I had probably met him at a party and had an alcohol-fueled conversation with him then totally forgot about it the next morning. After a few weeks of responding to his “Hello, Brendan”s with “hey, guy”s I followed him to his mailbox in Chase Breezeway and read the name on his cubby hole. The state of New Jersey gets a lot of shit for its residents, but I don’t think it’s because the characteristics of the people from New Jersey are any different than the characteristics of people from any other state, it’s just that they’re more effusive. The housewives from The Real Housewives of New Jersey aren’t any dumber or more materialistic or petty than the housewives of Orange County or Atlanta or N.Y.C., they’re just more amplified. Nick’s a really swell guy, but the volume of his personality is turned up a little louder than everyone else’s, yet he’s still a stand-up individual. Except for the interminable trash talking.

Prof. Giuliana Rbrtsn
Prof. Robertson is the hottest professor I’ve ever had. I’m personally not a MILF man, but I think that’s because MILFs are moms. Prof. Robertson, is an older lady but she doesn’t exude any mom characteristics. She’s kind of mean and intimidating. She’s not going to blow your nose and use her spit to subdue your cowlick. She’s going to demand that you pull your head out of your ass and give it 110%. Save the mom-characteristics for the woman you’re going to marry. Prof. Robertson is the kind of woman that secret scholastic crushes were made for. Plus she’s a good teacher.

Kira Bryrs
I didn’t like Kira at first. I thought she was sort of stuck up and humorless when I first met her. But then I spent a semester sitting next to her at the clinic. I talked shit for hours upon hours and she sincerely seemed to enjoy it and found it amusing and took it all with a grain of salt. So as far as I’m concerned, anyone that thinks I’m funny has to have an at least exceptional sense of humor and superior intellect, and therefore is alright in my book.

Aaron Chrny
Aaron is sartorially the most consistent and honest person at VLS. He always looks like he just stepped out of Ralph Lauren Thre3 ad. Like a sloppy, more upper-middle class version of a Kennedy. Which is sort of what Aaron is. He’s from Connecticut, a very nice, very wealthy, very WASPy New England state, and he went to U-Conn, a nice school, in a nice state, but no Yale or Wesleyan, but still in the same vein of academic elitism. I think most people work out a look that doesn’t really reflect who they are. I, for example, dress 25% more punk, 90% more lower class, and 18% less hipster, than I really am. Plus it varies from day to day. Aaron dresses dead on. All the time. And he’s done it every single day of law school. Aaron, I tip my straw fedora to you, sir.

Peg Lmr
Peg, like most faculty members at VLS, was (and possibly still is) a hippie. She doesn’t have any Grateful Dead posters or incense burners in her office. She doesn’t need them. You can tell from talking to her. She’s got these idealist principles about curbing development and restricting business and an unblinking devotion to farmers and the all-purpose worker of the world. Plus half the time I meet with her I think she’s high. However, Peg does have what you’d want in any scholastic faculty member: a sincere devotion to the area of academia they teach to their students.

Dustin Brchr
Not everyone in law school goes there right out of college. You’d think the average age of a 1L would be 22 or 23. But it’s actually like 28. VLS is on the younger side at about 26. Often times, when interacting with classmates, I’ll forget that they’re several years older than me. But not Dustin. I’m constantly aware that Dustin’s older than me. It’s only by approximately 2.5-years, but he seems much older. Not because Dustin looks old, he just feels old. He strikes me as a guy that’s seen it all before. I don’t know if it was the ice cold Wisconsin winters, the years working as a bouncer, or the years in childcare, that made him that way or if Dustin was just born with the soul of an elderly 19th-century sea captain. Either way he’s got the demeanor of a broken in denim jacket.

Sam Wvr
I don’t know why I didn’t hang out with Sam more. As far as I know, we were the only dudes from the class of 2010 with a persona clearly forged by skateboarding and punk music. I knew Sam was legit because I had quizzed him during various interactions over the last couple years. I presumed that he perceived me to be a fraud. Maybe he did, but that didn’t interfere with us becoming clinician friends that last semester.

Sahiti Kmrpd
If anyone has an excuse for not relating to people at VLS and blowing off the whole law school experience, it’s Sahiti. She’s Pakistani, or Indian, or Bangladeshi, or whatever M.I.A. is, and based of what other people have told me, all her friends in a previous life were fratguys. But her interface with VLS has been quite the opposite. She participates in most VLS events and I would always see her at parties. Plus she was one of like three people that accurately identified me as Karl Lagerfeld on Halloween.

Jon Cpp
I feel bad for Jon because of his last name. I’ve been in about a dozen classes with Jon, with a dozen different professors and they’ve all uniquely butchered his last name. And the cherry on top was when Dean Kujovich flubbed it when he called Jon to the stage to accept his diploma. What makes it even worse is that the names on the list Kujovich was reading off of had been phonetically written out by the Office of Alumni Relations. It’s like when metalheads fought really hard to be recognized as a legitimate musical genre by the Grammys, and then the Grammys finally gave in and agreed to include a heavy metal category in their awards presentation, but then gave it to Jethro Tull. I know Jon isn’t responsible for his last name, but I still thinks it’s kind of his fault. I don’t know what Jon’s girlfriend’s last name is, but it can’t be any worse than his. He should probably marry her and assume her last name. That would be the honorable thing to do.

Caroline Lfbr
Caroline’s worst enemy has got to be Caroline’s niceness. She is so staunchly nice that it’s bound to be her downfall. She’ll encounter some strung out junkie seeking assistance and invite him to move in with her with the intent of nursing him back to health and then he’ll snuff her out with her pillow in the middle of the night right before he raids her medicine cabinet. Not only did Dustin move in with her the entire week before graduation, but his smelly, flakey, hair spewing, half-German shepard, half 8-year old boy, dog did too. Caroline’s a saint, soon to be martyr.

Jeffrey Hnrck
In almost all states, there’s a rivalry between the ‘University of’ school and ‘State University’ school. Arizona is no different. (I don’t know who Northern Arizona University rivals against. Possibly Grand Canyon University.) I never really cared that much about the rivalry because I didn’t really care that much about my school’s mediocre sports program. Perhaps if the rivalry played out in some other arena, like speech & debate, or mathletics, I’d be engrossed. I went through my whole four years at U of A never caring about or knowing when my assumed team squared off against ASU’s. I don’t think Jeff can imagine this. If I told him how I really felt about my college’s sports, he would probably think I was lying and accuse me of being ashamed. I think it’s because he comes from like 3 generations of ASU grads, which is something that someone should rightfully be ashamed of. It’s essentially an 85,000-student junior college with a football team now, so I can only imagine what it was like back in 1952 when Jeff’s grandpa was attending. Either way, I like Jeff a lot more now than I did my first year when he had this long, gelled, straight ironed hairdo, and I’m glad I’ll get to see him around Christmas for the next several years.

The Baumans
Hooray, Baumans!

Ashley Lny
Going out with Ashley was by far my greatest achievement in law school. I feel like everything in my life up to that point had actually been for the sole purpose of winning her affection. Learning to sew, indie rock, form-fitting clothing. It’s like Signs where everything in Mel Gibson’s life was leading up to him thwarting a home invasion by alien assailants. Any joy I experienced on graduation day was tempered by the knowledge that I would have to say goodbye to her. It’s, of course, heartbreaking and painful, but mostly, it feels unnatural.

Cara Cksn
Later that night, I went to Cara’s house for a fire party. It was a delight! She had a keg of Dogfish Head IPA, and as a precautionary measure, a keg of Long Trail as back up. I know a few people from our class that found jobs out of law school, but what makes Cara’s job cooler than all of theirs is her employers willingness to pay for her to move. As I’ve stated before, one of my goals in life is to get paid for services rendered with something other than money. Way to go, Cara!