Chipped Polish & Wornout Jeans

I've hit a bit of a blogger's block recently, probably because I've been so busy with classes; between reading cases for class discussions, outlining notes for finals, which I know are months away but I have to start early, and writing my first memo, which sounds deceptively short, I haven't had much time to breathe. I barely had time to work in my workout, which consisted of the 1/2 mile walk to classes and the 1/2 walk back last week because I had car trouble. Any way, I figured I would give my readers a little information about what its like to be in law school and some bits of wisdom/snark that I've picked up recently. After all this is week six of fourteen.

First of all, in undergrad I took McDaniel courses, had Clyde for quite a few classes, and did mock trial, which were actually really good preparation for the adventure that is law school. There is a lot of reading and studying, and I spend at least three to four hours a night with the laptop up, my casebooks out, and a set of highlighters. This is just in preparation for class discussions; I have to brief between two and four cases per class in order to keep up, and then I go back and type up my briefs and compile my notes after each class in order to be able to create my outlines, which are very important. having McDaniel has taught me to read massive amounts of material, synthesize it for class discussion, and to manage my time between readings well. Mock Trial gave me something extra to balance, and learning that art of balancing it all has really helped me get through, I will talk about that later in this entry though.

Outlines are also very important for studying for finals, which begin right after Thanksgiving Break. So I guess I should explain why I am already working on them with finals so very far away. In law school you cover a large amount of material in a relatively short amount of time, which means that if you wait too long to get started on compiling your notes from class then you will spend the last three weeks of classes in full on panic mode worrying about how you will study your wide and varied notes thoroughly enough to be able to pass your finals. So I started outlining about a week and a half ago, and I spend at least an hour and half, often more, updating them after we finish a chunk of information in class. I have a separate spiral notebook for each class, and I am currently writing out my outlines, but when it gets closer to crunch time I will be typing them up and reorganizing them so that I get a second massive dose of working through the materials. It's not fun or exciting, but it is important.

I've been spend a good two hours a night every other night working on my Closed Memo for BLS. Now you might think that working on a memo would be a quick task that would take an hour max to finish. And you would be wrong. The memo is actually a 1600 words or less monstrosity that is right now looming over my head and haunting my like Jacob Marley. It's due October 5, and I am only about 1/3 of the way through my draft. It seems that every time I try to make some progress on it I get stuck. I did, however, finish my statement of facts, and it actually looks like it might be right. The thing has four basic parts, and I haven't even really gotten deep into the hardest part of it. But with a little more perseverance I should be able to get through it. It's frustrating, but not impossible.

I've made several discoveries over the past six weeks. First of all, there is an art to being able to balance law school and the rest of life, and I'd like to think I am doing a fairly good job of it. I manage to stay pretty much caught up and ahead in classes, find time to talk to Jake and the family on a regular basis, eat decent and pretty healthy meals, have at least an hour or so of relaxation every other day or so, and make time to go down to the fitness room in the apartment building for a workout. I have only had one melt down, and that was over something that was not completely law school related. Now if I could just find time to read my new Dan Brown novel; I'm afraid I will start reading it and get nothin' done until I finish it. They aren't lying to you when they tell you that law school is a full time job. But it is managable. I even figured out a way to be able to occassionally go home to TN in order to visit my family and the boyfriend. My "To Do" list grows, but with a bit of hard work I can keep it pruned down. I'm managing to keep up.

I've discovered that there are a lot of different kinds of law students around here, and then there are just plain strange people. I sit by a variety of characters, and at some point I will have to make a list of the "species" I've encounted. For now I'll just tell you about a few of the more annoying ones. First, there are the entitled people; I figure they feel entitled to two or three chairs to theirselves no matter how busy and crowded the room is, since they insist on not putting their bags on the floor and will use an extra chair just to put their bags in. Half the time those bags are ratty old things that are just not that delicate. There are also the people who sit next to you in class and smack their gum. I have nothing against eating in class or drinking in class, I do it all the time, especially if I'm running late and breakfast for me is a couple of Pop Tarts and a bottle of water. I at least try to eat quietly. But honestly, if you can't chew your food or gum quietly and must make loud smacking sounds as you roll spit and gum/food in your mouth, just refrain from eating in class because its distracting to those of us who are trying to pay attention so that we are not caught off guard when the professor calls on us. No one is going to accept "I'm sorry I couldn't hear the question over the cow next to me chewing its cud."  as a reason for not having the anwer. In addition to these, we also have some of the same kinds of people you have in undergrad, like the guy in the front or back of the room who will without fail complicate the issue at hand an insert random commentary based on his life experience.

Well considering the length of this post, which is crazy long, I'd say my blogger's block is broken.