The semester has ended. It's a beautiful day and the last class is over. Time now to write exams and tie up all the many loose ends and do all the errands that I've been putting off (like having the oil changed in my car). But first, I'll take a walk down State Street, perhaps capturing some photos of Madison happenings. I'm going to make my way to a restaurant, where I plan to read the new Supreme Court case about political gerrymandering. (Ah, a new Supreme Court case on the political question doctrine comes out just as it is too late to talk about it in Conlaw 1!) Then I mean to go to a café and do a little photoblogging (if, in fact, Madison happenings were captured) and a little blawging (if I can extract a distinctive thing to say about the Justice Scalia/Justice Kennedy stand-off that left us with only a plurality opinion about the political question doctrine). So do come back. I'd like to also listen to the oral argument in the Cheney case, the one that bored all the reporters because there was too much talk about federal jurisdiction, but that will take a little time. There are also the arguments about habeas corpus in the Padilla and Hamdi cases to listen to. I almost regret that the Federal Jurisdiction and Conlaw 1 classes have already ended, just as so many interesting things are happening in the Supreme Court. Yet something tells me that this close to exams, students are not inclined to find anything "interesting," just burdensome. The lot of being a lawprof is often a matter of becoming immensely interested in things students are sorry to find out they need to slog through at all. But there are always some students who really do see what is interesting and important inside the arcana of jurisdiction and federalism and separation of powers. (If only when reading admissions files I could figure out who's who!)