Subscribe to Jansen Subscribe to Jansen

 

February 2012
M T W T F S S
« Jan    
 12345
6789101112
13141516171819
20212223242526
272829  

Dennis Jansen

May 20th, 2009

Best Year Ever: Outline of 1L Spring Semester

I think this is what they call closure.

So much happened spring semester. I started the semester in this weird place between college and “adulthood” – buses, cafes, living in a frat house in the UMN student village –shuffling to school through snow and ice

And then things changed, very quickly.

I moved into my first apartment, got my first car loan, a dog, my first legal-field job…and, and, and…

Where I am right now is closer to how imagined law school during my senior year of college actually.

My career counselor at the law school asked me if I thought No634 will ruin my chances of getting hired at a prestigious law firm. I’m really not worried about it. If ATL can recognize that most of my posts are mundane, then so will most employers.

They’ll probably appreciate the full disclosure and trust I won’t share the dog stories with the clients, or the client’s stories with my readers.

This summer I’m working, petitioning, taking classes, and training the MTC marathon. We’ll see how this goes…

And as promised, an outline of my 1L spring semester is after the jump.

I’ll parrot what I wrote for the fall outline:

This will hopefully provide an overview of the year and make my archives more accessible. The bullet points are linked to posts. This outline is not exhaustive, but hits the highlights of the year.

Continue reading “Best Year Ever: Outline of 1L Spring Semester” »

May 19th, 2009

Best Year Ever: Outline of Fall Semester

Blogging is a cumulative thing. And times like this, it is awesome to have a blog because I just finished my first year of law school and I have a record of my year. I forgot about most of the things I wrote about, and it’s nice to have a record somewhere.

So yes, I’m sitting here with a diet A&W and paging1 through my archives (cue the Wonder Years theme song) and I must say, my first year of law school was an extremely fun and hilarious experience.

An outline of fall semester is after the jump. The bullet points are linked to posts. This will hopefully provide an overview of the year and make my archives more accessible. This outline is not exhaustive, but hits the highlights of the year.

Continue reading “Best Year Ever: Outline of Fall Semester” »

March 29th, 2009

400-pound Cher

Stella and I went to the clubhouse this weekend and got sat on by a 400 pound Cher!

Pictures (and video!) of the hilarity after the jump. NOTE: not school/work appropriate. Continue reading “400-pound Cher” »

January 17th, 2009

Best Winter Ever

We kicked winter off with Jean’s graduation party:

Continue reading “Best Winter Ever” »

January 1st, 2009

Miami to Minneapolis: Best Year Ever

So what happened in 2008?

I graduated from college. During my last semester I did everything from bowling

…to exploring haunted missile bases/ insane asylums.

There were also trips to the clubhouse (South Beach, Little Havana, Wilton Manors, etc.)

Continue reading “Miami to Minneapolis: Best Year Ever” »

December 29th, 2008

Best Week Ever #18: Ciao Miami

I’m leaving Miami today.

After a brief layover in Atlanta, I’ll be back in brisk Minnesota! Vöt!

December 21st, 2008

Book Burning, leering, and the Conga line: End of Semester festivities

On Friday Paige and I went to the Outlaw end-of-year bowling event. This is her striking:

Friday night Jamie and I had a movie night and watched Reservation Road and The Flock. I was shocked to see Avril Lavigne‘s cameo in the latter.

Avril, of course, gets killed.

On Saturday Stella and I went to Mall of America and saw all sorts of awkward:

Continue reading “Book Burning, leering, and the Conga line: End of Semester festivities” »

November 29th, 2008

Best Week Ever (Weeks 12 & 13)

Law school is ballin’outrageous and don’t let anyone tell you any different.

I’m working on my constitutional law outline at Starbucks. LexisNexus paid for my latte, and the stoner-esque Barista just gave me a free coffee and cookie. I think finals makes the law school gods smile down benignly, at least in Minnesota.

Outlining is an interesting process. It’s like a marathon runner training for a sprint – same basic skill set, different medium.

I’m creating my outline (at least for conlaw) in a deliberately slow way: hand writing an extensive outline, then condensing by half, then condensing it further to two pages, then typing.

If it’s not in my head by the end of that, then it’s not happening.


The past two weeks have been breezy. Last weekend I was in Miami. Cirque du Soleil, palms, heat, and chaos.
I spent 5 hours on public transit one day…rambled throughout downtown several times, and there was that boomkat-tastic Fedde Le Grand show


Last night I traumatized Jamie and his friend with everyone’s favorite pair of girls (and their single cup.) Afterwards, instead of shanking me (which I’m sure he wanted to) Jamie took me to see Milk in uptown.

Milk is the Harvey Milk biopic. It was interesting and well done…although the hair was awful. I also have the biography (Mayor of Castro Street). I like reading the bios to supplement the movies. I did the same with Capote…although Capote’s biography was a brick of a book…

Naja. After Milk, we went to this diner and had the coolest waitress ever: she was about 6’2, 250lbs, piercings, full-sleeve tattoos, platinum blond hair, and this little layered denim get up. She was absolutely the business. She was like a voluptuous, female version of Rainblo

November 16th, 2008

Best Week Ever #11

Thursday night, Paige and I find ourselves staring at an old brick building on a side street near downtown. We are trying to find the Lavender Bar networking event at Clubhouse Jäger.

Me: “Is that Clubhouse Jäger?”
Paige: “I don’t think so…WAIT IS THAT A HAND?”

I look up and see a hand reaching out of the second floor window. It looks like the hand from the Crypt Keeper.

After stepping back into the street we see that it’s an iron statue of a wizard crawling out of a fake second-floor window. What the…

The entrance of the building was behind a stone wall that had a large onion dome…it looked like an abandoned Disney exhibit…and was definitely not Clubhouse Jäger.

After calling 411 I realized our mistake: Clubhouse Jäger is at 921 North Washington Avenue. We were at 921 South Washington Avenue… about two miles away.

So Paige and I started our adventure through downtown Minneapolis – first to the Metro station, then on foot, past a seedy strip club district, and onward to North Loop, a swank gentrification/overpriced condo neighborhood.

We finally got to Clubhouse Jäger….although we were so late that there were only a few (somewhat tipsy) lawyers left. It was fun though. The bartender freaked both of us out. He started annoying me by the end of the night…

Me: “May I have a Diet Coke?”
Bartender-Jester: “And what? Vodka? Rum?”
Me: “No. Just a Diet please.”
Bartender-Jester: “Just Diet? South Beach? Adkins? Trimspa Baby?”
Me (With the hissy glare): “Diet Coca-Cola. Thanks.”

Just give me my damn beverage. No one asked you to be entertaining. And even if we did… fail whale fail.

Paige and I ran into a law student from another law school that we remembered from the Outlaw Pub crawl. He was plastered, and didn’t remember us from the last event, (which he was plastered at too).

Good thing he won’t remember us bringing it up. Yikes. I met another 1L (from a section I have no contact with), a recent UMN Law grad, and a hilarious (fiery!) judge/former prosecutor. This networking thing is fun…


Went to the 19 Bar on Friday and Saturday night. Good times. Although the pool players were ridiculous on Saturday. One in particular sorely needed a belt…

People were pretty sloppy on Saturday. I think it’s because Jamie and I got there so late. I opened the bathroom door and the door accidentally hit someone. At first I thought someone was standing in front of the door, but I was wrong – there was a guy sitting on the floor. Of the bathroom. That pee soaked floor.

Ew. Ew. Ew. Ew – for real.

His friend was giving him the tsk-tsk look and said, “I’m going to get some water and then we are going to try to stand up okay?”

He nods. I judge.


Saturday was bizarrely productive. I did all of my contracts reading for the week at the Hennepin Library. Although my first spot was distracting – there was a guy watching a football game on a laptop and providing running commentary to the entire library, “RUN! RUN! RUN! SHITFUCK! FUMBLE!”

Indeed.

I moved to another section when the guy behind him started snoring loudly…

Stella and I were at the Hennepin Library earlier this week. And yes, the library has flickr.


The first thing I did today was go to the movies. I saw Quantum of Solace. Afterwards I went to Mrs. Fields and got what was a small bucket of oily pretzels. Delicious. I swear.

I got back to campus and realized that I had no highlighters in my locker. I went to the school bookstore on the other side of the river.

It was closed.

I then walked throughout stadium village and there wasn’t a single store that sold highlighters. Every other store sells beer, but I can’t get a single highlighter. Great.

I read torts at the new Dunn Brothers Café…underling instead of highlighting… I went home when they started playing Copa Copacabana on repeat.

November 11th, 2008

Best Week Ever #10

The ice has arrived. It legitimately snowed early last week, but for the rest of the week we got sparse, gnat-like snow. Continue reading “Best Week Ever #10” »