Long Day

C's schedule is starting to get crazy... today (and on Tuesday) he is working 2nd shift in addition to his normal work day, so I said goodbye to him this morning around 8am and won't see him again until after I've gone to sleep. This means that I got my Contracts reading done (and watched the Daily Show - Obama '08!) and got a jump on Crim for next week. 

I cut back on gym and added some sleep this week because I've been tired lately - it's helping a little bit. I figure things will only get more hectic and more stressful from now until December 19th (when I'm freeeeeee!), so I'd better get some sleep in now while I can. Hard to believe that it will be November in 2 days... the time is really flying by.

I'll write more this weekend perhaps... 

Oh I'm back to 1.5 Dr. Pepper's per day (it's an average - I tend to alternate between 2-a-day out of necessity then 1-a-day out of guilt). Oh the side effects of law school.

K

Productive weekend

SO this weekend I was uber-cool and spent my entire Saturday doing work for the upcoming week. It was tedious at the time, but I'm very glad that I did... we have a giant chunk of our second memo due this coming Wednesday, at as of Sunday I have written all but the last two paragraphs! Definitely worth the heart-ache and energy spent on my precious weekend. Yesterday an old friend was in town, and miraculously I had time to visit/catch up with him, which was nice.

Strategy from now until the finals is to read over the weekend, then spend week nights memorizing rules/elements for each class and practicing test essay questions to quiz myself (the profs at this school are great about posting old tests and A+ examples online). There is a ton of information to absorb, so I figure it's best to get a jump on it now before crunch time. I read cases a lot faster now, which frees up more time for writing/outlining. (have I written this post already? I'm getting de ja vu... honestly, everything that isn't related to law school is starting to leak out of my brain... apologies if this is repetitive).

Today I'm taking notes in class for a friend who is out sick. There seem to be a few people in our section who have gotten sick lately... which is scary. I haven't missed any classes yet, but I imagine it's extremely tough to catch up after missing an entire day's worth of lectures. I'm taking really detailed notes so she (hopefully) will be able to follow the train of class and keep up for the next lecture... In an attempt to ward off future illnesses, I paid $25 bucks for a flu shot last week. Hopefully it works...

Final thought, unrelated to anything I just mentioned above (and again, might be something I've blogged about before.... honestly, I can tell you all the elements of felony murder yet I can't remember what I've written in past blog posts...): I think that my Classics background is really helping me with legal writing (or a combination of Classics plus my brain). In Latin/Greek classes, we'd read poetry, then pick out single words or single phrases that would shape our interpretation of the poem. In papers, we'd choose a thesis then argue our position, using these words, phrases, and any figures of speech as supporting evidence for our thesis. Legal writing for exams is very similar - we're given a pretty dense fact pattern, and must untwist the language to pull out the words or phrases that indicate various legal concepts/rules that we've studied. We then choose a thesis (win/lose the case, most often), then use each of the facts to support our position. The main difference in legal writing is that we're always arguing the contrapositive, as opposed to Classics where we'd just set forth our positive position.

Latin also helps me when it comes to memorizing elements. The basic foundation of Latin I is a whole series of charts listing word endings based on declension/conjugation which must be meticulously memorized before one can properly translate Latin text. In law (every class), each concept is made up of smaller parts, which can be tested or broken down into even smaller parts, all of which must be committed to memory for use on exams. For example, in Property we had an entire section on future interests (when a land owner decides he wants to transfer his land to another party at some point). There are about 20 possible means of transferring land based on when the transfer occurs, the number of parties involved, and conditions that govern the land transfer (the various interests have ridiculous names like vested remainder subject to partial divestment, or springing remainder interest). The change of a single fact creates a completely different interest. This section, which probably will amount to three questions on our entire final, was frustrating to many in the class... but to me it was business as usual. 

Lots more memorizing to do, many more essays to write, more outlining to do... but I think it's all possible... 

tentative relief!

OK this week was interminable... I intended to write another post on Weds, but I'll just add that post to this one and write one uber-Friday post. Again... so glad this week is over.

The first part of this week = anxiety and stress over the return of our first memo (as mentioned earlier). My "over-achiever" section had worked itself into a frenzy trying to figure out the mistakes everyone had made on their papers, and trying to determine how that would affect the final grades. On Wednesday we FINALLY got our grades back (40 minutes into class - torturous). I was pleasantly relieved when I got my paper back... I was one point off the highest paper in the class : ). I definitely did make some rookie mistakes (particularly citation errors I should have caught), but overall I was happy with the outcome. This memo was 25% of our grade - the second memo will be 75% (no rest for the weary... we have another big section due next Weds).

The second half of the week = keeping up with the extra work. The class topics are becoming more complex - now that we've learned the general overview of each subject, we're getting into the details that make things more confusing. In Crim we're learning the elements of felony murder (as opposed to regular murder); Civ Pro is the most straightforward - we've moved on from subject matter to personal jurisdiction. In Property, we're sprinting through lease agreements (which often seems to intersect with Contracts), and in Contracts we're studying the defense theory of promissory restitution... We have a Contracts midterm due on Weds (why is everything due on Wednesday this week??), so this weekend I'll be working on my Contracts outline/notes.

The work load for this weekend is also pretty heavy, but I think I'm getting better at reading cases. Now that we're nearing finals/crunch time, I should be focusing more on the big picture/reviewing the stuff we learned at the start of the year. Outlines are going pretty well. I also need to really focus on practice essays, since those will be the bases of most of my final grades. It really never ends. 

I seem to be yo-yoing between feeling good about where I am in terms of workload and comprehension, and slight panic that I'm not where I should be. I definitely spend most of my waking hours working... though I still have kept up my four-mornings-a-week workout schedule (it helps when you're known as the "gym" girl), and I do manage to spend time here and there with old friends and the husband : )

Anyway, I'm off to start Crim for next week (self-defense cases)... Happy weekend, all.

K

Busy busy busy busy busy

It's getting harder to find time to blog. At this point, we're more than halfway through the first semester. I'm still on top of the readings (I'm still reading all the cases - 1L tendencies). I'm honestly getting to the point where law school has taken over my life. I've accepted it (and C has too, mostly).

If I'm not reading cases, I'm working on hypotheticals/practice essays or my outlines (still sorta behind in that department). My big plan is to start making notecards and start reviewing over the next week or two. I figure dead week (which is about 6 weeks away) will be extremely stressful, so it's best if I try to review/memorize as much as I can now while I still have (some) free time.

Seriously, though, when I'm not working, I'm thinking about the work that I still have to do. I still take breaks to spend time with C and with my friends, but I really am completely immersed in law school. I think that's a good thing... I keep reminding myself not to lose perspective, but it's tough sometimes. There definitely is a point at which it's too much... it's also important not to get so bogged down that we're burned out when it becomes time to really buckle down... it's all a huge balancing act, and hopefully we're putting energy in the right places... (I just realize - I use we to indicate general ideas... not the royal we... please excuse the bad grammar in my blog! my brain is in Crim mode...)

K

Great start...

So our Property prof dropped the ball a little bit... not sure why. At the start of the year he posted a syllabus that scheduled our assignments through about October. We got behind the syllabus a few weeks ago, so he's been posting amended syllabi to reflect the changes. Sadly, this weekend he neglected to post the amended syllabus until this (Sunday) afternoon, which means we have to sprint through our Prop readings in time for class on Tuesday. 

Fortunately I took some time this weekend to do the rest of my readings (and work on outlining), so I'm not too terribly affected by the change. It's just a little irritating. I also hope this doesn't indicate the week to come... 

On the plus side, some of my friends and I entered ourselves into a Trivia Bowl, an event at our school to raise money for Public Interest Law (I think). Yay for trivia and yay for good causes! 

Final thought: it's amazing how quickly time is slipping by... I realized Halloween is coming up really really soon... I figured this out at the grocery store this evening as I walked through the HUMONGOUS aisle of Halloween candy! (I was good, didn't end up buying any of it). Crazy. 

K

Tough week

Oh my gosh, I haven't blogged in so long. This week has been pretty heinous, though, so I'm not surprised. First of all, we had to research for our second memo for Legal Writing - a pain-staking research report was due for the law librarians on Wednesday (think: we had to write every single link that we clicked when searching for cases... the other tough part was 'Shepardizing' each case, or checking to make sure that each case was still good law). Additionally, on Wednesday we had to turn in a portion of our second memo (already) because our prof believes in splitting the large assignment up into several smaller ones. Good idea, but the timing was quite unfortunate.

Also, several of my friends are out of town this weekend, so I spent one or two week nights this week hanging out with them. I still managed to get all my cases read, but that means that I have extra work to do this weekend. I need to catch up on my class outlines, which I abandoned about 2 weeks ago, and I have several hypotheticals, or practice essays, to write up for a few of my classes (not graded, but good practice for the finals). (speaking of, finals are still about 2 months away, but they seem to be sneaking into our conversations and class discussions here and there... as if our stress level wasn't high enough as it is!)

AND, in Property we had a 'practice midterm' to do for Thursday (also ungraded), which turned out better than I thought it would (I actually remembered quite a bit without having to go back and check my notes), but it did remind me to check some of the details of the class that I hadn't remembered 100%.

What else? Oh, C's job has been really taxing this week as well. On Monday, he ended up staying at work until 11:30 in order to finish some reports that were due. That didn't really affect me, since I was doing homework that night, other than the fact that I had to make myself dinner. That meant leftover meatballs and scrambled eggs doused in Stubb's bbq sauce. Yum...

I also think I might be getting sick. I'm mentally willing it not to be so... rather I'm blaming several other factors (one being severe caffeine withdrawal, which I think is actually making everything worse). 

Thank goodness it's the weekend now, which means I have time to catch up on the work I didn't get to this week. I'm rewarding myself early with Crim readings today because I'm not sure if my brain can handle much else at the moment. 

I'll blog more next week, when things get more interesting. Sorry to abandon the blog this past week... I didn't even remember to check until just now! 

K

OH also... rumor has it that my section of our 1L class is the "over-achiever" section. I figure as far as reputations go, that one isn't half bad! If the shoe fits...

Divide and conquer

As is often the case, I thought of a great entry for today when I left school, but after an hour of driving I have since completely lost it... 

Yay! OK that didn't take too long... good work, brain!

Today I wanted to write about work load. As I mentioned before, our work load has been growing and growing. At this point the work is still manageable, provided that I spend several hours every day (weekends as well) on homework, including one weekend day of overtime. The required work is not all that terrible; it's all the extra work that's difficult to fit in. Of course we have the regular classwork - reading/briefing cases - but there's also research for memo #2 (including the research report), hypotheticals, practice questions that are posted online and of course, outlining the courses in preparation of finals. 

Most importantly, we have two ungraded midterms coming up; one in Contracts and one in Property. Thank goodness they're ungraded, but we still are to approach them like full tests (which means setting aside at least 3 hours for completion). It will be helpful to take a formatted test for practice, but it probably will also be an eye-opener... I know there are rules and nuances of the cases that I need to review. 

Despite the massive amounts of EVERYTHING we are responsible for learning, I think I mostly have a handle on the work. I mentally have to break down the entire week's worth of work into small assignments, then pretend that nothing else exists. Setting mini-goals = the feeling of accomplishment when I finish them, as opposed to contemplating the workload as a whole (it never goes away - sometimes it gets smaller, but there's always more work that gets piled on).

Off to work on mini-goal #759...

K

Back to work

Thank goodness for a shortened week... I really appreciate my weekends nowadays. My friends and I were really relieved that our first memo is DONE... but I still spent much of my day off reading cases and preparing my research report for my second memo (due on Weds). By now, I have most of my research  legwork done, and I'm finishing up putting it in "report" form. Of course, I also have cases to read for my four regular classes, but that's what the weekend is for... right??

Sometimes the hubby ask me when I'll be done with homework - I usually tell him "after finals." As a 1L, it still takes me time to read/process cases that I read. I think I'm getting better at interpreting cases, but I still sometimes approach them from a Humanities perspective rather than from a Law perspective. I think that will take a little more time to iron out of my system. 

I feel like I JUST started law school (which is sort of true - it hasn't quite been 2 months - of three years); on the other hand, I also feel like I've been at it for years. C and I agreed that this Christmas break, once finals are over, we're getting MASSAGES. By then, I'll really need it!

C's making dinner so I'm off - happy Friday, everyone.

K

Success!

It's over! Today at 2pm we turned in our first graded assignment EVER in law school! I'm so glad to be done with our first memo - after reading and re-reading and editing and re-editing my paper, I was ready just to turn it in and get it over with... I feel pretty good about the finished product, but it's hard to tell since none of us has written a memo before. This paper will be a good measuring stick for the rest of our written assignments. Our Legal Writing prof told us that today we became "Baby Lawyers." Hooray!

To celebrate (and because we don't have any classes tomorrow), my group and I went bowling. We played with stakes... and my team won one game and lost the other. Thus for one day next week someone else will be carrying all my bags... but we also have to bring tasty treats for the other team every morning for a week. I had forgotten how much fun it is just to goof off and NOT mentally worry about assignments or readings. Tomorrow is work day... for now, it's time to relax. We earned it! 

(relaxation will be short-lived, though, because our first writing/research assignments for our second memo are due on Weds and Fri next week... and I have to read for this Friday's Contracts as well) Such is life...

K

Memo in T-2

Monday... today wasn't bad. We had Crim then Civ Pro, and in between was a speaker series about some of the cases that will be tried by the Supreme Court. It's really interesting when profs bring current events and current cases in to discuss in class. It definitely makes the things we're learning in class feel much more applicable. I look forward to following those cases as they unfold; this also makes the presidential election crucial since the new president will probably be picking justices who will be making these crucial decisions. 

Lots of work this week, but I did a lot of it on Saturday. I still have to finish Contracts, but right now I'm putting the finishing touches on my memo. At this point I've read it so many times that I can't tell if it's any good any more... I'm just picking it through for minute grammatical errors, since we'll lose fractions of points for every mistake. We'll see how it turns out...

No class this Thursday, so I just have to make it through Wednesday, then the week is essentially over! Setting mini-goals (like making it through Wednesday) makes law school much more digestible. I've been mentally dividing my days in half. In the mornings I focus on everything I have to do before lunch, then after lunch I focus on everything I have to do in the afternoon. This makes my really long days much more manageable and makes my goals feel more attainable (so I'm not bogged down with an entire day's worth of responsibilities all at once). 

K

Homework update

Another quick post... this weekend will be very work-intensive. Our first memo is due in Legal Writing. Though it's only 25% of our whole LW grade (2nd memo is 75%), we're still feeling the pressure since this will be the first actual graded assignment we've had in law school so far. Our second memo will be graded as well, but besides that the final exams are our only graded assignments. Pressure!

We've all completed our memo drafts already, but they all require some heavy editing. Our LW prof is a STICKLER for grammar and words (which I appreciate), but that also raises her expectations for our papers. On Weds she showed us a 'Hall of Fame' list, which essentially was a collection of horrible sentences that students had submitted to her over the years. Some of them were so painfully bad... we laughed at them in class, but also secretly swore not to make the list ourselves...

The other classes have moderate to heavy amounts of reading. In Contracts we started 'consideration,' which is a somewhat tenuous concept, but is necessary to understand. In Property we're covering tenancy and divisible property, which actually is a nice change after the brain-breaking future interests section. In Civ Pro we're just starting Personal Jurisdiction (finally - we've been crawling through Diversity for weeks). In Crim we're reading about murder - last week was first and second degree murder and next week we start voluntary manslaughter! I shouldn't be so excited about murder, but after slogging through some pretty dense cases about lease agreements, murder cases are a breath of fresh air!

I must be very dull these days, evidenced by the fact that this entire post dealt with my homework assignments... apologies to all my friends! And to C! Good news is I'm learning a lot... and I still enjoy law school, for the most part.

K

Almost the weekend!

One more day! Feeling much better today... week's almost over and I've done all my reading but Contracts. Woo hoo!

Chatting with friends before class right now - thank goodness for my law school friends : ) They help me keep my life in perspective. It's also nice that we're all in the same classes together, which means we remind one another of deadlines, syllabus changes and other assignments. They also remind me to approach school with a sense of humor!

Longer post later when I have more free time.

K

Easy week

After last week, this week has definitely been nice. Monday was my 'Friday,' then Tuesday I had off completely. To me, of course, this meant that I spent Tuesday finishing my memo, reading cases for my next memo... and movie/TV! Very nice to take a break from classes mid-week. Oh the life of a 1L...

Anyway, I've been feeling a little run-down lately (mostly sore throat), so I'm trying to take it easy. I don't want to burn out this semester before finals... or at all... preferably. 

Work load has been nice this week, which helps. Halfway to the weekend...

K