The semester began on January 5. I got off to a horrid start, coming down with food poisoning at the very end of my trip. It kept me out of 2 days of classes, which is not a good way to begin a semester.
I still have my civil procedure class and contracts. No more torts or criminal law, instead we've picked up Constitutional Law and Property. My property teacher is funny. He tells a lot of stories in class to explain concepts, and uses lyrics to rock songs as other examples. My Constitutional Law professor takes on a scary persona in class, using the full-on Socratic method to grill students on the principles learned from our cases. Most of the class is terrified but I kind of like it. The professor isn't really evil, and Constitutional Law really requires a rigorous examination. People generally have assumptions about the powers of the judiciary, separation of powers, when federalism is appropriate... and it's becoming clear that most of these common assumptions are at minimum not understood in context, and frequently entirely wrong. Pretty much any assumption that leads one to believe that any of these issues have been definitely resolved is wrong. Wrong wrong wrong. Constitutional precedent is a mess, with paradoxical rulings between different Supreme Court eras, and even within the sitting Court itself.
I met with my civil procedure professor the other day as we were discussing still more cases, and in frustration I blurted out that I was amazed our country functions at all.