assorted thoughts of the last few days

for the first time in years, i'm starting to feel like i have a long-term career plan, one that i'm happy with. i'll work in my next job for as long as i'm enjoying it, spending some time on the side continuing the legal scholarship i've been doing in law school. and when i get tired of that, i'll go teach at a low-tier law school, continue the research, and try to start a clinic, one focused on writing amicus briefs for domestic appellate cases in technology law. my emphasis is slightly different from the EFF, Public Knowledge, the CDT, and similar groups, so i don't think it would be that redundant; i expect my techniques (which are influenced by my research) will be slightly different as well. anyway, i'm very excited about this. and it might even leave me time, down the road, to create my dream gourmet beer bar.

i've spent a lot of time over the last few days enjoying the warm florida air and reading 'Catch-22', but i've also spent a lot of time cleaning up footnotes for one of my papers (and, as soon as i finish with that, i have to clean up the other one for publication), and proselytizing for my journal. i'd have to say, if i were to rate the level of enjoyment of these activities on a scale of 1 to 10, the first be a 9, the third a 7.5 (yes, that high), and the second somewhere around -40.

why is it that, when i actually feel lonely and want company, i cannot stand to be active on instant messenger? i think it indicates that such forms of communication are, fundamentally, inadequate substitutes for actual human contact. and i think it taps into the ongoing debate concerning the formation of real lives and of virtual lives, and the extent to which it is healthy to develop the latter if it even slightly impacts the former. but that's a conversation for another day... with a human, and not with an unresponsive computer screen...