School: Center of the Universe

I'm sitting in a chair in my dining room. The windows and doors are black outside. I can't even see streetlights from where I'm sitting, since the curtains are drawn. My place is quiet; the only light comes from the iridescent spotlights that shine down on the dining room table.

I'm studying U.S. antitrust law, which started with the Sherman Act and is fiercely relevant today. The basics are pretty easy to understand, but the actual process of analysis often includes lots of economics. I've heard that most lawyers (and judges) are poor economists, so this can be a problem. I'm figuring out how the market was calculated in the ALCOA case, when I notice a voice.

"What's it for?," a song by my favorite composer, Yoko Kanno, is playing on my computer:



I listen to the song for a bit, then go back to the Court's "virgin ingot" passage. It's times like these when I feel like I'm at the center of the Universe. I suppose other people have these moments - when you're alone and you're so absorbed in studying something that you forget you exist.