Why Homebrewing Is My Favorite Hobby

With finals roughly two weeks out I am desperately trying to cram in fourteen weeks of class for five classes into my head to regurgitate rules, cases, tiny details and exceptions on five different exams that, over the course of two weeks, totals a smooth fifteen hours of exam time. Law school finals are tough. This semester I have more classes than I have ever taken and only two let me bring in any notes and they are on the last week. The first week I have three finals, one each of the first three days, in which I have to come in with everything memorized. One class I am glad to be getting rid of is criminal procedure. It sounds like it would be a very straightforward class but it is actually the most gray and least defined. In the words of my professor, "On the exam just make the best argument you can." Not very encouraging.

Homebrewing is both a blessing and a curse during school. On one hand, it gives me something to do to take a break from school work. It also gives me delicious and cheap beer. On the other hand it is a cruel temptress. I would rather write about beer, brew, or drink beer than spend my time doing school work. It is very fun and very fascinating. Sometimes it is hard to avoid drifting onto to homebrewtalk.com during class when things get boring.

What I like most about it, that overrides all the negatives, is that it calms me down. Even when things go bad on a brew day, it's way less stressful than staring down a final. My beer doesn't care if I used the "right" grain or added the hops at the right second. It is generally forgiving and enjoyable. Brewing is a relaxing hobby for me. I do have other hobbies. From time to time I get into writing electronic/dance music. I'm not really great at it and often it really frustrates me. To be fair, I have put a lot more time into learning how to brew than how to write music. I probably like the idea of writing music more than doing it. Someday after I get situated as a lawyer I'll sit down and read some books and learn to play the piano or something so I know what I'm doing.

Well that's enough for now. It was nice to think about brewing for a few minutes but now it's back to reading about the warranty of fitness for a particular purpose in the landlord-tenant context...