You gotta have friends...

The other night I was talking with the husband about friends. Before starting school, I had heard horror stories about the ultra-competitive law school environment where people ripped pages out of library books, stole papers and wiped hard-drives in order to win academic advantages over one another. I knew before starting that I would be assigned to a section and that everyone in the section would be in ALL of my classes all semester. Basically, I'm stuck with these people all year... so I went in hoping that I'd get along with the people in my section. 

Let me just say... my section is really awesome. We're three weeks into school and I have made friends with about half the people in my section. Of this half, about 10-12 of them I consider my close "group" of friends (I hesitate to use the word "clique" because of the negative connotations, but we're a very tight group already). Several members of our group are extremely organized and proactive, so we have already started a Google group through which we can email one another questions, briefs, comments about assignments or other such things. We have one another's contact information and we regularly meet at lunch or between classes to discuss cases, commiserate about difficult assignments or just chat. [Right I'm now on the phone with one of my section, talking about our Contracts assignment for tomorrow].

I bring this up because one of the girls in my group brought me a dozen cupcakes today from a popular LA cupcake shop. She knew my birthday is on Saturday so she woke up early today to buy me cupcakes before class (and they were AMAZING cupcakes). I ate my cupcakes (chocolate with white icing), then shared the rest with other folks in the section. Usually I don't like having an early September birthday at a new school because I don't know anyone yet and I feel awkward announcing to people that it is my birthday. 

The work is tough but manageable, some of our profs are difficult and the classes are tedious, but I still am enjoying the experience so far... mostly because I like my law school friends (I told them so today). I know that the stress of finals will probably strain some of the friendliness eventually, but at this starting point it's nice to have a group of supportive friends and it's nice to know that we're all in this together.

(gotta cut this entry short because C wants to play Guitar Hero and is getting impatient)

K