DONE!

Done, done, done!

I just stepped out of my fourth final - Property - quite rough because it was 9am-1pm, but now we're DONE! I felt pretty good about the test - it was tough and quite thorough, but I blasted through the multiple choice questions (felt confident about most of the topics tested) and spent a good two hours on the essay (after which I could no longer focus on the exam and thus was finished). Thank goodness, we're done!! Survived! 

Looking back on this semester, I think I did pretty well. I came out with basic law school study skills - now that I've taken finals, I know mostly what to expect, and to what end our classes were heading. I'll have a better sense of what studying/finals entail once I get my grades back (in five weeks), and hopefully will be able to tailor my subsequent semesters accordingly. I definitely became a more efficient case-reader and briefer by the end of my first semester, and that can only improve from here. I'm just thankful that I survived my first semester of law school, which is supposedly one of  the hardest. Hooray!

In terms of my original goals/concerns: working out, husband, and friends, I think I did alright. I definitely stuck to my exercise schedule - especially as my stress levels continued rising. It helps that I have access to my school gym - hopefully I keep that up next semester as well. In terms of husband - definitely sometimes it was harder than others to balance school work/being an attentive wife. There were definitely many nights that C hung out with our friends alone, or stayed in with me while I studied, where he most likely would have preferred doing ANYTHING else. For the most part, I think I gave him attention where I could, and the good news is that I will be free for the next month! This means that I'll be much better about CLEANING the apartment (which has definitely stopped happening) and will be more able to spend time with him and go out with friends... segue to friends. I definitely dropped the ball in the 'spend time with other friends' department. Even though I made a bunch of new law school friends (yay), I mostly spent my "free" time studying, sleeping, cleaning the apartment, running, or spending time with C. Next semester, hopefully, I'll be more efficient with my school work, and thus will be able to devote more time to my friends. I do feel that I'll be able to do better in that department next semester.

More later, I'm just elated to be done! Off to party with the law school clan! More later, when I'm coherent again.

K

ONE MORE FINAL

AAAHHHH! Property final on Thursday and then we are DONE for the semester! I am so tired. Lots of studying - I feel as though I put a lot more stress and energy into studying over the past two weeks - the day before each final, I've found that everything is already memorized (thank goodness) so I spend the last days going over specific complex topics or doing problems in the E&E. 

(As I'm writing this entry I keep losing focus and my brain keeps wandering off - buurrrning ooouuut)

One more day.5 of studying, then Property final on Thurs. This one will be tough - 4 hours of final, 9am-1pm. LOTS of essay to write. Not sure what to expect, but it's going to be crazy. Celebration/relaxation are definitely on hand.

Tired.

K

One final push

Here goes... I will be DONE on the 18th. 

Today (the 15th) is study-for-Crim day. 

Tomorrow is the  Crim final.

The day after that is study-for-Property day.

The day after that is Property final.

DIRECTLY after the property final (a four-hour monstrosity), we'll be heading to a friend's house for burgers/drinks/celebration/secret santa gift exchange/RELAXATION!

So close... just a few more days... trying very hard not to get burned out. I don't know how much more my brain can take...

K

2 down, 2 to go!

Second law school final, done! Friday (yesterday? feels really long ago) was my Civil Procedure final. At our school, this was a 2 credit class, thus a 2 hour final. Coupled with the fact that our Civ Pro professor is the slowest most methodical teacher known to man, we had very little information covered during the semester (far less than any other class). This means that everyone taking the exam probably knew everything that was going to be tested, so the only thing separating us from one another was the amount of points earned on the essay. The essay was pretty rough - it was a three-parter that covered two arms of subject matter jurisdiction and personal jurisdiction. Really, the essay prompt only left out two or three topics, requiring us to write about EVERYTHING else. It was a race to the finish, and race to be as complete as possible. I was happy that I at least finished the essay (some people did not). That doesn't necessarily mean I did well, though, because someone could have answered just parts one and two but could have gone into such an in-depth analysis that she earned more points than I did. [The 2L's told us that the A+ essays tend to earn only 60 or 70% of the possible points - it's not possible to earn more in the time we are given!].

The point is, I feel as though I did my best on Civ Pro, which is all I could do anyway.

After the final, I went down to Redondo to get a massage!!! (a Christmas present from one of my friends... exactly what I needed!). The massage was called the "I sit at the computer for eight hours a day" massage, which focused on the neck, shoulders, back, arms, wrists and hands. It was pretty sweet - I had some huge knots in my neck and shoulders (that seems to be where I center all of my stress). My masseuse kneaded the knots out, which was pretty painful, but this morning I feel less tense (sore from the massage, but not tense). Yay for Christmas massages!

ANYWAY upon completion of this entry, I switch back to study mode. Crim is Tuesday and Property is Thursday. I haven't touched either of those subjects in a week (due to studying for Contracts and Civ Pro), but all the information I memorized and studied before last week is coming back to me quickly. I'm not as worried about Crim as I am about Property. We'll see how the next week pans out.

K

1 down, 3 to go!

First law school final is over! This morning was my first final - Contracts (the one I felt the least comfortable about going in). Now I'm 25% done with my first 1/6th of law school! Wow. Time is flying : ) Do I say that a lot?

It's funny, too, I wasn't nervous at all going in - even when I started the exam. I think that some time before this weekend I had a stress overload (because I was definitely ultra-stressed up until this weekend). Then, after the system overload, I apparently re-booted and restarted in normal pre-finals mode (apparently I am a computer). I figured I'd at least get stressed out when drove to school, or when I was sitting down in the classroom with my computer open, or when the proctor said "You may begin." ... but it never happened. 

I'm not sure if that's a good or a bad thing - I missed having that surge of adrenaline. Usually I feel like the adrenaline rush helps me - hopefully I did alright today without it. I felt like I did a solid job - I know I missed a few of the multiple choice questions, but all told those went well. There's no way to tell about the essay, because the grading is subjective and because other people may have found issues or made arguments that I missed (and vice versa). Just need to wait.

Our prof told us that the majority of us would make "some kind of a B." That is what I'm expecting on this exam (B's in law school are good). That way if I do better, I'll be pleasantly surprised, and if I get a B, then I'll be right (both good options). Friday is Civil Procedure, then next week are Criminal and Property (both of which I feel much better about). Now that the first final is over, the next two weeks will be downhill. Don't get me wrong, I'm still going to study my butt off, but at least I feel better about the remaining finals. 

I'll post again on Friday after Civ Pro - between now and then I'll be studying, of course.

K

UN-stressed?

Today I find myself decidedly un-stressed, oddly enough. Maybe it's just the calm before the storm, who knows? At any rate, today I'm feeling great. I drove up to school today for the first time in a week, just to make sure that my exam-taking software was working (as far as I can tell, it is, and I've downloaded all my documents already). Since I was already there, I worked out, then drove home. On the way home, C called so I drove down to pick him up for work and we ate lunch together. 

Now that I'm at home, I just finished taking a Contracts practice essay, which went pretty well (as long as we don't have to write an essay on UCC 2-207, which we probably will not). I will do another practice essay tonight, and another tomorrow, but I feel pretty good! I think I have everything memorized that I can memorize, and I have most of the concepts down cold. Tomorrow I'll go through the E&E book to spot-check some of the more complex topics, but for the most part, I have it down. Contracts is my least-comfortable topic, too, so maybe that's why I'm feeling calm. 

I think that after Wednesday, the entire finals process will be downhill. The first one will be the most stressful (because we've never done it before and it's hard to know what to expect), but after that, the time will fly by. 

I've come to peace with the fact that we are graded on a curve, and thus that my grade will be STRONGLY influenced by how everyone else performs. My philosophy is that if I perform better than at least half the class (which I think I can do), then I'll end up with some flavor of a B (for law school, that's a good thing). I figure the curve distribution (and not how fiercely I study) will determine who in the class receives the few A's, so there's no point in trying to stress or muscle my way up to that grade, since there's no way to guarantee that you'll be at the top. If I get a solid distribution of B's and B+'s on my finals, I will be happy (also, I think that will be sufficient to keep my scholarship). Obviously, I would prefer to have A's, but there is no logical reason for me to be fixating on that grade, since there is really nothing more in my power to do to ensure that I receive one. Now, it's all up to the curve... and which topics our prof picks. 

The nicest thing is that we've only had one semester of law school - thus the topics we can be tested on are pretty narrow and straight-forward (except in Property because we sprinted through the entire book, so anything is fair game). Plus, Property isn't until the 18th. So there's still time.

Until then, I remain in my bubble of Zen calm, which hopefully will last until the end of next week. I'll write again to post-mortem my first law school exam!

K

Welcome to my world

SO I thought I'd take a study break to show you my study spot. Taped to the wall are concept maps I've written for each of my four classes, complete with a summary of my outlines. I taped them up so I could quickly reference my notes where I have questions. It's kind of hard to see, but there are also post-it notes taped to some of the pages where I needed to add things. 

The one clear spot on the couch is where I sit when I study. I don't study at school because I feel like the nervous energy/stress of other people would cramp my style. Also, I like being able to eat snacks while I take breaks. All in all, it's a pretty good system. 

Today I've been working on Crim and Contracts. I wrote a Crim essay this morning that made me pretty happy (I only missed one issue which was minor, and I hit all the points that were on the cut sheet). Switched to Contracts this afternoon, which is going alright. It's so hard to know what the "right" thing is to study... I'm doing my best... hopefully it pays off. As of now, I have a feeling that Contracts will be tough for me (mostly because it is the first final we're taking but also because it is the subject my brain is the least comfortable with, naturally), and that Civil Procedure will be tough (because we have covered the least amount of information and will be given the applicable statutes, so the playing field will be really level and the curve is going to wreak havoc on our grades). I feel good about Criminal because I spent so much time/energy on it at the start of the year, which has really paid off, and I figure Property will be a beast of an exam for every one of us, so I can't really worry too much about that. We're taking the finals in the aforementioned order, so I'll get my hardest two out of the way starting next week. Hooray.

On that note, here is the view out my window:

Recap of today

Wake up - study - snack - study - practice essay - find all mistakes - snack - study - brain hurts, go running - study - shower - study - break for Top Chef - snack - study - drive C to work to get the motorcycle - study - dinner - study - study - blog - study -  (doesn't the word 'study' look funny? It's starting to lose meaning)

[Sadly, I have the nagging feeling in the back of my head (that I'm trying to suppress) that I'm studying the wrong things, or that I'm not doing as much as I should.]

That was my today. The rest of the evening looks about the same, though I'm going to help C pack. He's leaving for a business trip tomorrow morning and will be back on Sunday. I'm glad that he has something to do this weekend so I don't feel guilty for abandoning him for my studies, which are my sole priority for the next two+ weeks. It's kind of bad that he won't be here, though, because I feel that he's my link to the sane world, and that I'm slipping off into the frenzied mania of studying (though I try to remind myself that there is a world that exists that is not law school). It's tough.

Slowly losing my mind - everything that isn't law school is falling away rapidly. Trying to remain positive, calm, collected, sane, etc. while also cramming several months of information into my brain. YIKES.

I'm hanging in there. Barely. This is the ugly side of law school - but I'll be done on the 18th. Thank goodness.

K

Law school = pain killer?

Let me explain... law school appears to be taking both my sanity and my ability to operate heavy machinery, thus the title of this post. Today I took the car to the dealership because a belt was squeaking (the same belt that didn't get fixed last time we brought the car in). I was quite irritated that I had to go out of my way (read: stop studying) to take in the car, and that I have to take it back again next week to have the part replaced (EXTREMELY close to my first final). Because I was so in my head and focused on the work I still had to do, I proceeded to back my car directly into the metal sign outside the dealership. Small scratch on the car, big scratch on the ego. 

Our legal writing prof warned us that this would be a dangerous time - she said she always fears for her life during dead week because the 1Ls are so intense and in their heads that they fail to notice things like pedestrians or stop signs... we all laughed, but she was so right. Fortunately, the sign I hit was not a living creature or another car. Sadly, our bumper now carries the permanent mark of dead week. Hopefully it's the last thing I destroy before finals (fingers crossed).

This will be the longest/shortest December of my LIFE, I think. Everyone says it gets better after the first round of finals... I hope they are right.

K

P.S. I just read over my old posts and noticed two things. One, it's really cute how excited I was about starting school, and two, my posts have become increasingly more and more boring. I apologize. I will work on this.

Last day of classes

WOW that semester was quick. Today we had our last two classes of the semester... which means dead week is officially here. Contracts final is exactly one week from tomorrow, already. WOW. Lots to memorize still... I also need to focus on essay structure. Based on the hypos that I turned in for critique, I need to make sure that my structure is clear and well-organized. I mostly have the ideas and concepts down, and I mostly spot all the issues, but I need to make sure that my essays are more clear and concise (after all, we only have an hour or so to write, which seems like a long time but is definitely NOT).

Off to do more work... and more work... and more work... hoping it will pay off... I'm so deep in it now, it's hard for me to see the end... also there's no way to know if I'm on the right track because we don't have any grades yet. Rough.

K

Failed!

Oh man, I'm too busy... I had somehow unintentionally created 13 posts per month in this blog since I started it, and I was determined to do the same for November. Sadly, it seems that my busy schedule trumped my desire for equilibrium and balance, and November only made it to nine.

Tomorrow are my final two classes of the semester, of 2008, of my first crack at law school. Since Thanksgiving, I've been alternating between mainly Contracts and Property, reviewing the most difficult/complex topics in preparation for dead week. I hope to have most elements/class structure memorized by... two days from now? I realized that flash-cards don't work for me, so I carry around a notebook in which I scrawl the class outlines from memory, filling in the parts I missed afterwards. Starting probably in two days I'm going to switch my focus to practice tests/essays to gear up for the actual finals.

SO much to do!

K