Sacramento to Vegas to Dallas

So after the official graduation ceremony, I rushed home, finished packing, called my friend, and got a ride to the airport. Took with me some clothes, some books, and my camping stuff (tents, camp stove, sundries).

Arrived late Saturday night at the Dallas/Ft. Worth airport. Actually, before I did that, I flew on the plane. It's only been within the last year or two that I've started flying again. Before last year, it had been a long time since I'd flown anywhere else. There was a short flight from Oakland to Orange County, and then a flight to Minneapolis/St. Paul to visit a law school there, then a flight to Arizona for a summer missions trip with my church. And then this flight from Sacramento to Dallas.

There was a commercial a while ago for an airline that made fun of other airlines by comparing their attitude towards their passengers to that of people herding cattle. Milling herds cramped in close quarters, shuffled in and out. For most, if not all, of the flights in the past year or two, I've been reminded of that commercial. Which is all o.k., because I've always wanted the cheapest flight available.

The flight went from Sac to Las Vegas, then from Vegas to Dallas. On the second leg, I saw next to a woman from Dallas who hadn't flown before this trip. Things were going fine until we hit some turbulence. She was a little freaked out, and the woman on the other side of her helped calm her down by talking, making jokes, and sympathizing. I had the window seat, near the wing, and I could see how the wing wasn't solid and immovable. Instead, pieces of metal riveted to other pieces of metal bucked a bit, and tried to get away from each other.

"A bad sign," I thought. She may have good reason to be freaked out. I really hope the ground crew in Vegas thoroughly checked out the plane, and didn't miss anything. I've flown (ridden) through turbulence before, but I think this was the first time I could see the plane's wing as we went throught it.

I was reminded of the Twilight Zone episode in which the passenger sees a monster on the wing of the plane as they fly through a storm, but no one else does.

Into Thy hands I commit my spirit, Lord. Give us traveling mercies. We were in the air, held up by the push of air beneath the wings. We were in the heavens, God's territory. And really, we were in His hands. I was stripped of the illusion of safety. Whether in the air or on the ground, we're entirely at His mercy, every moment of every day.

And, too, should we be taken from this life, there would be terror, and pain, and things left undone, but also goodness and mercy, peace and light at the throne of judgment.

"Where, O death, is your victory? Where, O death, is your sting?" 1 Corinth 15:55.

I much wanted to be strong in faith, comforted by His promises, and I think I was, a bit. The fact that the woman next to me was pretty scared also helped me to stay calm. And, it also helped that about 3/4 of the other passengers all just sort of took it, and didn't feel any fear, or didn't express it if they did. (Now that I think about it, they didn't have window seats and didn't look at the wing.)

But it's easy to go with the flow. To be impassive, phlegmatic. Like a herd of cattle.

So I arrived late Saturday night in Dallas

End of finals and graduation ceremonies

Wow--it's been a while since I've last written, and there's lots of stuff that's happened. So I'm going to break it up into several entries, which should update y'all to where I'm at now.

Let's see--where did I leave off with the last entry? Torts and Property. Yes.

Torts went fine--it was a mostly predictable final, fairly similar to the past years' exams that our professor had released. No big surpriese.

Property, on the other hand, was a surprise. Our professor, who we only had for spring semester (we had a different professor fall semester), had announced that after every lecture, he would go to his office and write a couple of multiple choice questions. Then, at the end of the semester, he would put them all together, and that would be the multiple choice portion of the exam, to be combined with an essay portion. It was his aim to make the test give the same proportion of weights to different topics as was found in the lectures.

He did indeed do so, but unfortunately, it seemed that after each lecture, he had written questions on some of the most obscure subtleties (did I spell that rights?) he'd mentioned in lecture. Thus, the exam was quite frustrating.

It wasn't quite as bad for me, because I had not made an outline for the class. This had actually worked to my advantage, because I studied by reading over my notes. Most people, on the other hand, had made outlines. The thing about outlines is that you don't want them to be overly voluminous, so you edit out most of the smaller points, the subtleties that don't seem connected to the bigger picture of the course.

I'm hopeful that the curve will allow me to have done well in the class, to raise my dismal performance on the midterm in Property. And I feel much trepidation about my grades in general.

So, that was it, the end of finals. The Property final was on a Friday morning, and then I went with another CLS member (Christian Legal Society) to get gifts for our graduating seniors. Friday evening we had a CLS graduation ceremony, a simple affair with some songs, a message from one of the law professors (I believe he and perhaps one other professor are the only Christians on the faculty), and a message from the pastor of one of the local churches.

The faculty speaker spoke about the role of lawyers as educators. Because of their knowledge of the law, they have a responsibiliity to their clients, and to society to educate people about the law.

The pastor spoke about fighting injustice locally and around the world. And if you aren't directly in that fight, raise awareness about it, and encourage those who are in it.

Friday late night I spent packing for my trip to Texas.

Saturday morning: went to the official law school graduation ceremony. Given that there were about 150 3L's, I was surprised at the number of people who attended. But I suppose I shouldn't have been, since each graduate had family, friends, etc there.

The faculty speaker was my Consitutional Law professor. A fairly young guy, in his early 30's. Very very smart. Openly homosexual. Won't be around next year because he'll be a visiting professor at Stanford. There's been much speculation that this may signal that he won't be back, but no one knows. He spoke, and I remember trying to hang onto his words, because I really did develop some respect for him this past semester, and if he never comes back, I'll be a bit sad. But as I sit here writing, I can't think of anything he talked about.

The guest speaker was Joyce Kennard, a member of the California Supreme Court. She spoke about having grown up in Indonesia (or was it Irian Jaya?), the daughter of a Dutch father and Chinese mother. Her dad left early in her childhood, she only had a school education to about 8th grade, and struggled much. Eventually her mom brought her to Europe, and then she made her way to America.

"I never felt that America owed me anything. Rather, I felt I owed so much to America. It was my dream, and the dream of so many, to just have the chance to enter this land, and America opened its doors to me."

"Coming from that background, to working as a secretary, to finishing college, then law school, then becoming a judge, to sitting on the California Supreme Court--this is an incredible privilege and honor for me. It could only happen in America."

(Not an exact quote, but just based on what I remember.)

It reminded me of the irony that immigrants sometimes are the most patriotic of all. We take living in America for granted, for we've always lived here. But outside of the U.S., people long just for the chance to come. And they appreciate it, value the ability to live here.

Because I had to catch a flight out of Sacramento, I couldn't stay after the official one to say congratulations to the recent grads.

I enjoyed the CLS one much more.

So those were the graduation ceremonies.