I wish I could blame my bad eyes on Law School

So I've always been as blind as a bat. And I mean I couldn't tell the difference between a lawn mower and Santa Claus blind as a bat. My whole family is. My grandma was told to put my dad in a home because "he would never be able to have a normal life." My nephew's pediatrician told my sister that he was the  blindest baby she'd seen in a decade without being completely blind. One of my cousin's had a seeing eye dog. 

We just have crappy eyes. But when i was in my teens, my dad's insurance finally agreed to pay for me to have LASIK eye surgery. I was told that it probably wouldn't get me to 20/20 and it definitely wouldn't last but it would help. They were wrong on the first one. Three days later, I could see perfectly and I've been without glasses for almost 11 years. That all ended today. 

I am back in the world of glasses and I'm not sure how I feel about it. One problem is that I switched to contacts long before I got lasik and threw my glasses away. Right now, I can't afford contacts or the fitting exam so my only choice was to buy glasses. So I have these weird lines where the frames are and my glasses are making me dizzy and nauseous. They are also making my head hurt. I'm just not used to glasses anymore. More than that, I look so different in them. Not bad (glasses are much cuter now) but different. Every time I look in the mirror it takes me a second to recognize myself. Do you know how weird it is to not recognize yourself in the mirror? 

Freedom!!

Finals are done!! Finals are done!!

Yayayayayayayay!!

I'm going to go take a nap. And by nap, I mean sleep for a week. 

1L Exams

Somehow our section ended up with the most abnormal law school professors ever. We have no traditional issue spotting essay exams! All the other sections do but we happened to get the three unconventional professors. The class that came the closest by having essay questions is the most abnormal of them all by allowing us to have three exams throughout the semester. And for the final, he tries to make it easier on us by switching to only multiple choice. Wow!

My first exam is Criminal Law on Tuesday and it will consist of 90 multiple choice questions and 13 short answer. 

My second exam is Civil Procedure on Thursday and unlike the first two exams in this class, it will consist of 16 multiple choice questions with an area to write in why we chose that answer. 

My contracts exam is next week and we don't know the number of questions but it's all multiple choice. 

I've always done well on multiple choice questions (hence why I took the LSAT) but law school multiple choice questions are a different beast. Some of the questions are over a page long for just that one question. The answers are usually all true (or false) and we have to pick the one that is the most true or the most false. Tricky little things. 

Well, this was a lovely break but I should get back to studying. 

Wish me luck and I'll see you on the other side. 

Happy Thanksgiving!!

What does a law student do on Thanksgiving? Well this one studies Criminal Law! In part because finals start in just a few days. The other part is that my family is 3,500 miles away and although a few friends invited me to their families dinner, it just didn't seem worth the loss of studying hours.

I'm not alone though, quite a few of my classmates decided not to go home for Thanksgiving, even if they are by comparison, close by. Sadly, their families don't understand and are irked. Leaving the student even more stressed. Come on guys, finals start four days after Thanksgiving. No, I do not think it is fair either but it is just the way it is.

I made the best of it though. I wasn't about to cook a turkey just for me so I grabbed my books and I went to Denny's. I ate my turkey and pie while making Crim Law flashcards! Win/Win in my book.

Time for Finals

So I just finished my last class of my first semester of law school! Man, time flew. In exactly two weeks from today, I will be done with finals and I will finally get a break. Sort of. Apparently during Christmas break, I am expected to apply to the bar, apply for summer internships, and join bar memberships. Not to mention, go to the eye doctor, get my drivers license changed over, clean my house (Oh does my house need it) and do all the other little things I haven't had time for. But hey, this is law school. I don't really get Thanksgiving off so why would Christmas be any different?

But that's all stuff I can worry about later. As of right now, I'm in FINALS MODE. All finals all the time. I'm about to head to Denny's to catch up on my civ pro reading and hopefully go through my Crim Law supplement and chart the differences between the MPC and Common Law. If a potential law student ever reads this, Pay attention to the difference in class! Make flashcards throughout the semester at the end of every chapter so you're not at the end going, hmmm, I kinda remember this but I don't remember which is which.

As a side note, my professors were nice enough to give us all an outline today. Of course they did, I finished my outlines last night! No, but it's actually really helpful because I can compare mine against theirs and find out what I missed. I'm sure I missed something! Or lots of somethings. So Whooo Hoo for nice professors. Apparently, this is a rare thing. My civ pro professor told me that when he first started giving handouts/notes he got a lot of crap for it and other professors accused him of spoon feeding the students. I'm all for spoon feeding! My goodness professor, you look so nice and pretty today. And you're obviously the smartest person in the world. Now about the final . . . 

I feel that writing my own outline helped me understand the material in my head and getting theirs helps me find what I missed. Plus, I have a feeling that at least some of the students won't bother making their own even though our professor's version is incredibly short and brief. Mine are not the monster outlines that people warn you against but it's not five pages either. So we'll see.

Back Up Your Back Up!

Way back when, before I was a law student, my best friend was a 1L at the law school closest to us. And one day someone stole all of her notes. Just bam. Everything gone. And I remember her sobbing on my couch at three o'clock in the morning telling me she was going to drop out of law school to become a hobo.

So when it came time for me to start, I bought a ton of thumb drives and I backed up everything. Every day of class notes, every bit of research, everything. However, somewhere after the first month of school, my thumb drive became corrupted/damaged and it screwed up the files on my computer. I freaked. Straight up FREAKED. All those hours of notes just poofed. Now it eventually turned out okay and I managed to only lose a few days of notes and everything was fine. But it has made me paranoid. I have my computer pass coded and I back up my back ups. Oh, and I send myself an email with all of my class notes at the end of each week. Is it overkill? Absolutely. Does it help keep my stress level down? Oh yes. 

Today I was proofreading my memo and my computer crashed. I couldn't remember the last time I had saved the current draft but I knew that I had sent myself an email with it only a few hours before. So while my computer was rebooting, I went outside and played with my dog instead of having a nervous breakdown and forgetting how to breathe. 

Being paranoid isn't always a bad thing. 

Classroom Shenanigans

So yes, we use the socratic method. Yes, we go through eight times as much material as we would in undergrad. But if someone tells you class in law school is never fun, they lie.

The other day in Contracts, I walk in and see that Chapter 17 is pulled up on the powerpoint. Wait? What? We weren't assigned Chapter 17. I look over at the guy next to me and he's frantically flipping through the book apparently hoping he can read it in the 3 minutes before class starts. Whispers are flying around the room. What is going on here?

Eventually, a guy walks in with a guitar and my professor pulls out a ukulele.

"I can teach you everything you need to know about Chapter 17 in under five minutes."

And then they sang a song about men in prison, frigid women and who know's what else. And they made us sing along with the chorus. Guys, we had a sing-a-long in contracts.

It was genius. And I truly understood mistake, impracticability, and impossibility in under five minutes.

I think law school should be a musical.

Ode to Law School Exams

Siiiiiiiiiiiiiigh

We finally got our grades for the second civ pro exam. Mine wasn't terrible but my grade from the last test went down 9 points while the class average went up 20 points. That is unfortunate. Plus, I feel the reason I did less well was very arbitrary. The exam was a mix of essay questions, short answers and three multiple choice questions. I did great on the essay and short answer portion but out of the three multiple choice questions, one was worth 10 points out of a hundred while the other two were only worth 3 points each. Which one did I miss? Of course it was the 10 point one.

On the other hand, it has definitely given me a kick in the butt to start getting serious about finals. Only one more week before they start and I will take any form of motivation I can get!

The last couple weeks I have been focused on my memo. I have more or less finished the writing of it and now I am adding citations and polishing it a bit. Oh, and I have to cut around 400 words. But I have all weekend before it is due and as soon as I'm done with that, I am going to finish my outlines and buckle down.

Fun Times Ahead!

Observations on Florida

Okay, this post took about four months to write. I started it when I first got here and any time I noticed something about Florida I just wrote it down and saved it. Each paragraph was written at a different time. So it's random. And weird. And makes me look like an idiot at times.

The drivers truly are awful. People keep telling me it is because of all the old people here but they are fooling themselves. Everyone speeds about 20 over which on its own doesn't bother me. However, they also follow about two and a half feet from the car in front of them. Added to the fact that no one uses turn signals or stops for stop signs and it all equals to a lot of totaled cars here. Not going to lie, the freeways scare me.

I've been told that it is not illegal to talk on the phone while driving which shocks me to my very core but even if that is not true, no one bothers to put down their phone when they drive by a cop. So at the very least, it is not enforced.

Also, there seems to be a very lazy attitude about DUI's. All my neighbors seem to have no problem driving to the store half toasted and at least a few of my classmates have driven completely drunk without feeling like they were lucky not to get arrested. Coming from a state where you can get a reckless driving ticket for driving after drinking EVEN if you are way below the legal limit for a DUI, well it freaks me out.

On second thought, I definitely don't believe it's the old people that cause all the accidents here. It's the young and stupid, talking on their cell phones while being half drunk. Good Grief.

On a different track:

The laundry rooms in a lot of houses are outside! It makes sense when you realize that you don't want it heating up your house but doesn't make sense when you hop out of the shower and realize you need that shirt you left in the dryer.

Coming from a city where most of the year you had to turn on the heat, the fact that all the vents are near the ceiling is a weird change. I understand that it's because most of the year we have the central AC on but it was strange not having to arrange my furniture around the floor vents.

Also, I turned on my furnace for the first time the other day and it set off my fire alarm. Why did it set off my fire alarm? Because my landlord installed it four inches from a vent. Not a problem when the AC is on, very big problem when the heat is on.

It is five degrees in my hometown right now and 70 here in Florida. That 70 degrees, which only a few short months ago would have been beautiful weather has left me freezing and wearing sweaters and wool socks. I'm pretty sure I am broken for life.

There is something that looks like a shower rod in every shower. At first I was like, why would someone put the towel in the shower, it'd get all wet. Floridians are stupid. And then someone told me it's for the bath mat. Okay, I am the stupid one. Sorry Floridians. And also, the humidity here makes everything moldy ridiculously quick. I opened up a bag of beef jerky, zipplocked what I didn't eat and three days later I had a fuzzy green science experiment. So if you are in Florida in the summer, eat ALL the beef jerky in one sitting. And don't leave the k-cup in the keurig until your next cup of coffee. Bleck! And hang up your bathmat after your shower.

If you live in Florida and it gets down to 50 degrees, your professor will joke that his hands are frostbitten and all your classmates will be like "OMG really? Are you okay?" And you'll be sitting there going "It's 50 degrees! There is no frost!" Don't get me wrong, I'm freezing at 50 degrees but it's not going to kill me or give me frostbite!

The lizards here are suicidal. They will be perfectly calm, just chilling on the sidewalk. Until you walk by and then they dart right under your shoe. Those suckers can move fast! I've become the designated lizard watcher for a friend because she has a really bad habit of squishing them underfoot.

I miss basements. Basements are perfect for storing random crap that you don't want to see but can't bear to throw away. It wouldn't be so bad if there were garages but at least in the area I live in, they are rare. So I have boxes of stuff in the corner of my living room and a bike blocking my way to the spare room closet.

Most of these things are not complaints. I love it here! The drivers are crazy but I live five minutes from the beach. This is something I can live with. <3 <3 <3

The Cold Bothers Me Elsa

One of the big draws of going to law school in Florida is that I HATE the cold. I am always freezing and back home, I would often wear my winter coat long after my friends moved on to shorts and flip flops. However, winter back home would drop down to zero and if it was warmer than that, we got snow. I assumed that when Florida had a cold snap I would be in a better place than the people born and raised here. Nope. Nope. Nope. It's been in the fifties all week and I've pulled out all my winter gear. Fluffy coats, hats, gloves and scarves. We are all complaining about how cold it is and how annoying it is to have to turn on the heat. My professor even complained about frostbitten fingers. Which is not possible when we are still twenty degrees above even getting frost but okay professor. I'm still more cold than everyone else, I even turned my heat up to 85 just to fall asleep last night. I am broken and I should just buy a battery operated electric blanket to carry with me at all time.

The only person worse off is my dog. Every time I shoo her out the door to go to the bathroom she looks at me reproachfully. As if she's saying Mom, you promised me that if I survived that awful eight day car ride, I would never be cold again. You lied Mom. You lied. 

I shouldn't complain because if I hadn't have moved here, I would be in Washington where it got down to five degrees last week but I can't help it. I need to move to a place where it never drops below 70 degrees. Good grief.

Too Many Words

I have always been that person. You know the one. The kind of person who has to change the font of the punctuation in order to meet the page requirement. The one who finishes a paper just to realize that they are three pages short of the requirement. Yes. That person.  I always seem to be short on words with nothing left to say. Until I came to law school. Here, they do not have page requirements, they have word limits. Strict word limits. Every professor I have talked to says that they purposely give you fewer words than you really need in order to break people of the habit of adding fluff to their work. Well how nice. However, since I never got the hang of adding fluff to my papers, this word limit is killing me.

I don't think I would be this surprised if I hadn't finished the first memo at only half of the limit. The second one took me by surprise when I had to go through and cut stuff but it wasn't horrible. This memo though? I think my professor greatly underestimated how many words we would need. I still have two sections to write and I already have too many words. AAAAARRRRRGGGGGG

And of course, since this is law school, this is the ONLY memo that actually counts towards our final grade in research and writing. So the fifty plus hours I put into the other memos mean absolutely nothing. Eeep.

Plus, I am so ready for Christmas break to get here. Which means I spend more time thinking about writing this memo than actually writing it. That's not a recipe for disaster or anything. Right?

So that's what I have been up to. Fascinating right? I did get one heck of a highlight to my day when the Denny's waitress brought me a slice of pumpkin pie with a smiley face made of whipped cream. And then she dampened it by telling me that I really looked like I needed a smile. Wait, you mean not everyone comes to Denny's with a backpack and stays for six hours while they occasionally cry? Why on earth not? Try it and you might enjoy it. Especially when it comes with pie!

Time Flies Even When You Are Not Having Fun

You know, everyone told me that law school flies past and every time I would just laugh. But it's TRUE. I have never had three months pass so fast in my entire life. Time has been moving faster than my time studying abroad, faster than the last five minutes with my love before I get on an airplane, faster than my day at disneyland when I was five. Okay, I never went to disneyland when I was five but you get me. Time is going SOOOO fast. So if someone ever tells you that law school flies by, believe them because somehow, time gets hinky here.

On the same theme, I used to laugh at the memes that would say something along the lines of "you know it's finals time because you just cleaned your house top to bottom." And I always snorted and said too bad that's not my procrastination tool because my house is a pigsty around finals time. Seriously, I might spend 16 hours straight watching Netflix but I'd never get so desperate to procrastinate that I'd actually clean. Until today. I woke up and whined 'I'm tired of working on my memo.' Two hours later I still hadn't made it out of bed and I felt pathetic. I dragged myself away from pinterest, opened my computer and then somehow ended up sweeping and mopping and all sorts of stuff. My house looks fantastic but I still don't have a rough draft of my memo. How did this happen?

Test 2

So this is the part of the semester where things are heating up. I've been falling behind and catching up and falling behind again for a few weeks now but from what I hear, everyone is. 

We got our final memo assignment last week and had a seven page prewritting assignment due a few days ago. Oh I miss undergrad where the paper was only seven pages!! >_<

We had our second civ pro test today. On Halloween! Needless to say, I think my entire class is drunk right now! 

I did get dressed up and go out but as I am currently blogging instead of getting crazy, I at least have hope that I won't hate life tomorrow. We will see. 

Happy Halloween everyone!

Rough Week

Our second memo was due last weekend and it seriously messed up my schedule. I couldn't get all my reading for the week done over the weekend and holy crap did I fall behind. I wish I could say that it is all due to the memo but I also had some medical issues crop up through the week. Not only did I have to spend all day Wednesday at the doctor's but I spent all day Thursday on the phone with my insurance company. That meant even more time spent on all sorts of stuff except law school. Plus I had to miss class. What a PAIN!!

But I have a plan. Today I'm going to catch up on civ pro. It's probably going to take until midnight but it's gonna happen. Boom!

Tomorrow I am going to catch up on Crim Law and try to beg someone to give me the notes from the class I missed. I will also do the reading for next week like I usually do. Double Boom!

Sunday I will do the same as Saturday but with Contracts.

And then on Monday evening, I will study for the R&W test that I have on Tuesday which is worth 30% of my grade. Gulp.

Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday of next week I will work on the R&W assignment due next weekend so that by next weekend, I will be back on track. Just in time to do all the reading for the next week.

If anyone is reading this thinking of going to Law School, DO NOT FALL BEHIND! Bad things happen when you do!

On a side note, I found out that my grade on the civ pro exam was one of the best in the class. So YAY!!! I have the next exam in two weeks so I better fit in some time to study for that as well. Oh what fun.

Test anxiety

Man, I thought test anxiety was supposed to occur during the test. Not in law school. We walked out of the test and then were told it would take two to four weeks to grade. So we waited. And waited. And waited. Finally we got them back today but the numbers are meaningless without the info about the curve and averages. So we wait some more. Good grief. 

In reality, I feel like I did okay and the professor wrote "excellent work" which is always a great sign but i wont sleep easy until I find out where that puts me on the curve. Sigh

Well obviously I am not alone with my mid-semester slump

We haven't had Contracts for a week and a half as my professor was out of town. It was awesome but we all knew it'd have to end someday. Unfortunately that day was today. I actually was comfortably prepared because I am still on the do the reading for two classes each weekend. But my classmates? Ha! About a third of the class skipped and out of the rest of us, nine or ten left pass sheets on the podium. Our professor allows two free pass days a semester and I'm personally trying to save mine for the last week before finals but that's just me. Our professor walked in and what like "what the hell is going on? Is it Memo Week?" Yes Professor, it is memo week. And Opening Statement Competition Week. Oh and we are all exhausted and need a vacation as well.

At some point during the class, the professor got fed up and asked, "Okay, who actually read this case?" I was one of three people who raised their hands. Fortunately or unfortunately, depending on how you look at it, he didn't see my hand. So now he thinks I'm a slacker but he also didn't spend the rest of class calling on me as he does for the other two. Yay?

Oh, I have a story that happened during class but didn't actually have anything to do with Contracts. I grabbed a pretzel and cheese from the deli on my way to class and grabbed bites of it as we discussed the cases. At some point I thought, man, this nacho cheese is lousy and looked down and found mold all along the edges. I almost threw up in class. If it wasn't for the fact that our Contracts Professor doesn't let us leave to use the restroom, I would have gotten up and lost my lunch in the bathroom. But as I didn't want to be singled out for a lecture I just sat through the stomach rolling and held it in. I'm not the type of girl to go "EEEWWWW Gross!" but EEEWWWWW GROSS!!!!!!

But when I bought it back to the Deli and showed them, I got a free monster and a gift card. So eh. Mold usually isn't deadly. :P

Is it under the bed? In a cupboard? Where?

Motivation? Where'd you go honey? I need you to come back to me. 

So I'm not sure what happened but I'm losing steam on this whole law school thing. And I need to get my crap together and push on. 

I've spent the last three days trying to work on my second memo and I think I've got a paragraph out of it. And it probably needs to be rewritten. ARRRRGGG! It's due this weekend and I've got nothing. I spend more time worrying about the fact that I need to start writing it than I do actually working on it. I sit down, organize my materials and then ... Realize I'm hungry ... Need to walk the dog ... Grab my phone. Well you get the point. 

For the first time since class started, I'm about to walk into class without having the reading done. Now I can try to tell myself that we have a guest speaker the first half of class and we still have to catch up on the rest of last weeks reading (which I have done) but the fact still remains that we probably will start on the assignments for this week and I don't have it done. I'm angry with myself and I hate that!

Somebody tell me to get my butt in gear. 

Larceny of a Kitten

This week we are talking about what is and what is not larceny in Crim Law. At one point one of my classmates raised his hand and said, "So let me get this straight, if I find a penny on the ground and don't try to find the owner, I'm committing larceny?" My professor responded with "yes, well petty penny larceny, but technically yes." Then she went on a spiel about how law school is going to mess with our heads and we'll never be able to look at a wet spot on a floor or finding money in the same way. And then she told us about the time she committed larceny of a kitten.

It was way funnier than it should have been so I'm guessing she was right about law school messing with my head.

Love it!

Got Memo 1 back

Ouch. There is nothing worse than spending fifteen hours on something just to be told it's not good enough. I didn't do terrible in that I'm around the class average, possibly a little higher but since the class average was the lowest grade she could give, I can't consider that a good thing. I think there was one sentence that she thought was good enough to keep.

And the next memo is due in a week. Yikes!

Yes, I do have the sense of humor of a twelve year old

I am unashamed that i find it amusing that my crim law casebook used the F word in a problem. 

Even more amused that it isn't even a quote, aka it is not necessary at all. 

Not amused that my professor chose not to use that problem in class. It was the only one she didn't go over. Siiiigh

Feels great to be ahead for once!

I haven't really had time or energy to write anything the last week or so but here is a short recap of the week.

My first memo was due last Sunday. They went easy on us as it was only a partial memo. We had to write the discussion and conclusion portion of only one issue. It was also a closed memo meaning they gave us the research (cases and statutes) and we weren't allowed to go beyond those. It definitely made it easier!

I had my first Civ Pro exam on Friday and as it's the only class that doesn't make us wait until the final, we were all freaking out about it! Now that it's over, I'm still freaking out about it. Did I do okay? Did I answer everything? I have no idea and won't know for 3 to 4 weeks. Right before my next exam. Great. 

Overall, the professors have been really cool about it. Every professor knew we had the exam coming up and cut us a little slack. Or a lot in some cases. I walked into contracts on Thursday and had a heart attack when I saw that every seat had a "pop quiz." I wanted to yell "no one told me there were pop quizzes in law school! how did i miss this info??" Professor gave us 30 minutes to finish it and then came in and told us that it was just a practice exam and weren't we glad to get that out of the way. :P We were glad but the stress of it almost did me in. We then spent the rest of the two hour class period talking about exam strategies. 

Not only did we have a class period that didn't involve the Socratic method but it also means the reading I did for that class gets pushed to next week! Bless that man. Added to the fact that we don't have contracts on Thursday of this week and Tuesday of next, well I have the reading covered for the next two weeks! Yay! Free time!!

Oh! And my Crim Law professor came down with the flu and classes were canceled all week. Which means I did the reading last weekend that we'll now have to go over this week! 

So since I had my reading covered that I usually do over the weekend, what did I do? Did I clean my house or go grocery shopping? Ha! No way. I went out Friday night and then spent the entire day yesterday in bed reading trashy murder mysteries. All day guys. I did not even get up the motivation to sit on the couch for awhile. It was amazing. 

Of course, that did mess up my schedule for today as I slept until noon and then my landlord called to ask to come over to check some stuff out. So I have a day and a half of R&W to do and four hours to do it in. Eh. Totally worth it. 

I had the dumb

So in week four of law school I finally got cold called for the first time. And not only did I have no idea what the professor was asking, I also answered the question I thought I was supposed to answer ... wrong. Oh law school.

Luckily the professor just looked at me funny and moved on. Still, not so fun.

Truthfully, I'm a little annoyed with myself. Not that I looked stupid because I knew it was coming when I started applying to law schools. No, I'm just annoyed because it was the first time I've been called on and it happened on a Wednesday. Aka my hell day. I have class from 8 to 10, 10 to 12, and 1 to 3. All in the same classroom and in the same seat.

Oh, and I was called at 2:50pm. Sigh. I really was trying to pay attention but she started jumping around in the book and I missed it when she flipped back. Booo. 

Oh well, it's over with and I'm pretty sure no one really noticed because she asked the class as a whole why we were so checked out. 

Because it is Wednesday Professor. 

If In Doubt (and even if not) Repeat

Okay Judges, I get it. You want to be very clear (If you're post 1960) but you really don't need to repeat yourself eight times in your opinion.

First sentence: "The presence of the deputy ... Was not voluntary."

Very next sentence: "...His presence was mandatory."

Third sentence: "... His presence ... Was neither optional nor subject to being declined." 

This was all in one paragraph. And it goes on to explain that the presence of another was a condition of this guy getting medical treatment. I got it. Thanks!

Crim Law Casebook

"Only a defendant who is not mistaken about the law when he acts has a mistake of law defense."

Wait, what???

Also, I'm behind on my crim law reading! How? I haven't taken a break from law school since August. Siiiigh

Free food

I lost count of the number of people who told me something like If you have to buy lunch at the law school, you're doing it wrong. 

Guys, they weren't lying. I have gotten a free lunch every day this week! Last week was at least three times. Seminars, SBA meetings, info sessions and I can't even remember what else. Now don't get me wrong, three times this week it was pizza and I bet eventually I'll get sick of it. For this week at least, it was awesome! 

I wonder what I'll get for lunch today?

Oh Siri, I do love you.

Entire crim law class is frantically trying to type what the teacher is saying when out of nowhere someone's iPhone goes off clear as day I'm sorry, I don't understand what you're trying to say. 

Without missing a beat my professor answers Don't worry Siri, I don't understand what I'm saying either. 

I don't know what it says about my life when that was the highlight of my day. 

How To Get It All Done When There Isn't Enough Time

Last week I tried the get a few days ahead over the weekend, where I did the work and reading up til Wednesday over the weekend. This meant I still got a day off but still spent all of Friday and Saturday studying. It should have worked. It really should have. However, due to some errands and a website that wouldn't work the way it should, I ended up floundering last week. I had way too much to do and way too little time to do it in. So I gave up sleep. Because obviously that's the reasonable thing to do.

This past weekend I tried a different method where I studied basically the entire weekend on turbo mode. My goal was to get everything done over the weekend, no matter the cost so that during the week I could deal with any surprise assignments, networking events and meetings that pop up. I took an hour off on Friday to watch Doctor Who and I went grocery shopping on Saturday. Other than that, I was either sleeping or studying.

Guys, I think it worked. It's only Monday so I'll have to see but I got all my R&W assignments done for the week, and all the reading for Contracts and Crim law done for the entire week! Wow!! 

This leaves me with only Civ Pro to worry about. I'm so relieved I could cry. I'm currently in bed and it's only seven hours until I have to get up! It's a miracle!

It is such a huge load off my mind to know that most of my class work is done and that if something comes up, I won't need to pull an all-nighter just to be prepared for class the next day. Of course, if I keep doing it this way, I will be sacrificing my weekends until the end of time. But hey, law school is a sacrifice.

I can do this!

Legal Writing & Legal Method

Is it a bad sign when my R&W book, which is supposed to teach me to think like a lawyer, has these gems ...

"The peculiar way lawyers think has been ridiculed for centuries, and often for good cause."

And

"Although some legal reasoning seems unreasonable ..." 

At least it's keeping me entertained on a Saturday night spent doing homework. 

Ain't nobody got time for that!

So in week two of law school, I've realized that I can not attempt to be anything but a law student. At every point in the day, I need to be in class or studying for a class. How did I come to this conclusion? I had to run one errand and it's been two days and I'm still behind. Good lord. 

This week I've been up at 6 and going to bed at 1am and I still can't pack everything in. It's not contracts, it's not criminal law, heck it's not even civil procedure. (okay, I blame civ pro a little) It's my research and writing class that's sucking all my time. I suddenly understand why the 2L's and 3L's told me they were sorry when they heard who I have! She is probably the best professor but she by far assigns the most work. This week alone I've read seven chapters, had five or six online assignments due, a research assignment, and an analysis short essay. My friend with a different professor had to read one chapter. That is all. No assignments. Nada. 

I like law school (I think) but I really miss sleep. TGIF!!!!!!!

Contracts class today

Lets see, we had mind reading, our professor threatened us with clowns and later promised us all A's. Then rescinded his offer. 

All in all, a surprisingly fun class. 

And talking about Law School

My Research & Writing professor talking about our three day weekend - You have Monday to catch up. It's the end of your first week and you're already a week behind. 

The worst part? It's at least partially true. 

I survived the first week of law school!

And I didn't even cry. Success!

Myth v Reality 

•Socratic Method -

I say this from the standpoint of a person not getting cold called yet. So actually, that says something right there. I had the idea I would be called on all the time and that's just not likely to happen. There are about sixty people in my section and the professors just do not move through material that fast to call on everyone every week. Much less daily. Also, my professors are not mean about it. When students didn't know the answer or answered a fact question wrong the professor tried to help them. If it was hopeless, they moved on to someone else. When someone got flustered and nervous, the other students jumped in and tried to help. Ask me again after I say something stupid but it hasn't been horrible. 

• Reading Load -

Oh yeah. That one is accurate. I'm a fast reader and I still spend morning to night reading. Even though I tried to get ahead so I could have a few hours on my birthday free, well it didn't work. I had an entire 30 minutes before bed to grab a beer. And I don't think I even finished it before I crashed out. The hardest part of the reading was that we were expected to have all this reading done before the first day. Which meant we had no guidance on what was and wasn't important. I'm pretty sure we all had 15 pages of notes for the first day and it was just a huge waste of time. I am getting better at pulling out the important stuff so hopefully it'll take less and less time. Please?

• Law School is just as bad as High School -

From what I've seen, True. There are already cliques and there is already gossip. Man oh man. Basically everyone is polite to everyone but they all sit in their same groups for lunch and make plans within their group. Awkward. I walked in our first class from a girl I met during orientation and now when I'm not near her, people make comments like "Oh, are you waiting for ***? I saw her five minutes ago." Luckily I like this girl but why is it assumed we must do everything together? Weird. 

Well, it's finally Friday and its a three day weekend to boot. YAY. I want to go to the SBA social tonight so I should probably get some reading done first. Oy Vey. 

SaveSave
SaveSave

What I learned from law school orientation

• Having something break in your house that requires immediate attention and keeps you up until 4 am the night before orientation is bad. Don't let that happen.

• Two hours of sleep is terrible on your memory. You will walk right past your case briefs and necessary paperwork on your way out the door. Then you will spend the next ten hours convinced that 1.) They will call on you to answer a question that can only be found in your briefs and 2.) They will kick you out of law school for forgetting to bring the signed honor code paperwork. 

Neither of these things actually happened  so if this happened to you too, keep breathing. I wasn't the only one and neither are you. 

• The designers of skirt suits apparently tack the slit together and you are supposed to remove it before wearing it. So when you hop in the car and feel something pop don't think that you somehow got immensely fat overnight. Just go back into the house and cut that string. Problem solved. 

• Ten hours of orientation is a really long day and they will move you around campus at least sixty times. Even your most comfy dress shoes that have never caused a problem before will give you blisters. Bring bandaids. 

• Mock class, although unnerving, is actually fun. Feel free to enjoy it. 

•No matter how bad your answer was, at least you weren't that guy who had to confess to the professor that they never read the case. Ouch!

• When they say that laptop configuration will take three hours, know that only applies if you have a gazzion viruses and haven't updated your software updates in 8.3 years. It took me 15 minutes. It took my neighbor 2 hours. 

• When the Financial Aid department messes up and gives you your check early before you go to the financial aid seminar, don't follow through and actually show up. There is a reason they hold your check hostage. You should already know that the more money you borrow the more money you will have to pay back after school. If you don't know this, okay, you should go. And take notes. 

• You will go home with a huge amount of loot. Free laptop bag, tshirt, planner, thumb drive, folders, pop rocks that say law libraries rock, a copy of to kill a mockingbird, and a squeezable stress gravel. 

Tomorrow is the day it all begins

So tomorrow is finally orientation day. And then it's a race to the end from there. We'll have a mock class and a mock client interview plus all the other orientation stuff. Not to mention it's picture day. Which means for the first time I'll have to walk out of my house in a suit and not just stare at myself in the mirror. Who is that sharp looking lady? Oh it's me!

Here's to hoping everything goes well! No tripping over my heels, no stuttering when I get called on and no spilling food all over my lap. 

God, please give me the strength to get though tomorrow!

Wish me luck! 

If I'm this busy now ....

Whew. The last few days have been a whirlwind. Most of my classmates are finally in town so we are all trying to meet and greet as much as possible before classes start. So far we have made a beach trip (only five minutes from my house!! Bliss!), met for lunch twice, met for dinner, went bowling and did a winery tour and tasting. And with all of that, I think I know five people's names. I'm such an introvert. 

Plus we have a bunch of reading for our mock class next week. I am really hoping that my lack of motivation and attention span is because it's for a mock aka fake class. Otherwise I am in serious trouble. I sit down to read and a minute later oh, I forgot to feed the dog. So I feed the dog. Sit back down and man, I'm starving. Feed myself and go back to my computer. Rinse and repeat. I've read plenty of cases in undergrad but when it's for Law School, I can't focus? Uh oh. 

Add to my hectic schedule, I had decided that this week was going to be my batch cooking days. In three days I cooked or prepared my way through ten pounds of hamburger, six pounds of chicken, three pounds of ham, over fifty hotdogs and I'm not even sure what else.  

However, my freezer is now stocked for the next couple months and I won't be forced to eat McDonald's when I'm too tired to cook. All I'll have to do is turn on the oven or microwave. Whew!! 

Oh! And today I drove to Orlando to see my dad! It was amazing. Days after I decided on this school, my dad's union voted to send him to their convention that is randomly being held ... In Florida. I can not explain how nice it was to see a face from back home. He's heading back to Seattle tomorrow so it was definitely worth the long drive on crazy freeways to see him. 

That's been my week. I can't wait to see what next week will bring. As of right now, Monday through Friday is booked except for Tuesday. I'm sure I'll find something to do with that entire day of free time. Who knows, I might even finish the reading. 

Law School Class Schedule

So I wrote that I got my class schedule but I thought someone might be interested to actually see what classes I will be taking and when. Okay, at least I find it interesting.

	Monday	Tuesday	Wednesday	Thursday	Friday
8am		Research & Writing 8:00 am- 9:55 am	Research & Writing8:00 am- 9:55 am	Research & Writing8:00 am- 9:55 am
9am
10am			Civil Procedure10:05 am- 12:00 pm		Civil Procedure10:05 am- 12:00 pm
11am
12pm
1pm	Criminal Law 1:05 pm-3:00 pm	Contracts 1:05 pm-3:00 pm	Criminal Law1:05 pm-3:00 pm	Contracts 1:05 pm-3:00 pm

I'm taking four classes this semester: Criminal Law, Contracts, Civil Procedure and Research and Writing. Each class is two hours long and twice a week except for Research and Writing which is three times a week. And speaking of R&W, THREE 8AM CLASSES! Now I'm not sure why I find that so horrifying as I spent the last couple years waking up at 5am to be at work by 6. I think at least part of it is that the other sections don't have three classes that early. One section has only one day of 8am classes while the other has two. Apparently we have the smallest section by 20 people as well. My section mates are saying on facebook that this means our curve will be tougher but I haven't gotten that all straight in my head yet. Anyone else know if this is true?

Law School Orientation and Other Law School Stuff

When my best friend started law school she had a week long orientation that basically lasted from 8am to 6pm the week before classes started. I had assumed that I would go through more or less the same thing. However, my school does a large part of their orientation online.

In June we got our first chunk of orientation assignments. It basically consisted of an hour and a half video on achieving your personal best in law school, a forty minute video on how to read a case critically, a thirty minute video on the court system and the three branches of government. It also had a short video on career development and what we should be doing this summer to start on that. Oh Boy! Other than videos, the first step of orientation also had a page of links about campus life and a few cases they wanted us to read to practice on.

Step two came out in July and had a bunch of power points and videos on the honor code and conduct code. It also introduced us to the various offices on campus and how to set up appointments and such.

We just got step three yesterday and it was actually the most interesting. At least by a little. The videos taught us about our pro bono requirement and we got to hear from students on how they fulfilled it. We also learned about the Florida Bar and how much cheaper it will be if we register for it now. Guys, the character and fitness part is going to be a pain. Every apartment I've ever lived in, every job I have ever had, every ticket I've had. Okay, that last one will be easy, I've only had one. Even so, I have no idea on some of these. Fun times ahead.

I wish I could say that I found the online orientation fascinating but truthfully, I was just a little annoyed that I had to do homework in June when school didn't start until August. 

On the other hand, I appreciate the convience of doing it in my own time and at home. So it's 50/50.

We still have one day of on campus Orientation in a couple weeks plus a mandatory laptop configuration and financial aid seminar on a separate day.

In more exciting news .... I finally received my schedule!!!!! It feels real now. I am starting law school in just a few short weeks! I'm really starting to get excited to make it through orientation and start classes. I already bought most of my books though they haven't all arrived yet. I decided that for my first semester I would splurge and buy new books. There is nothing like fresh never been highlighted books! Though I'm not completely stupid and did not buy them from the bookstore. It saved me a few hundred dollars but I'm sure that it won't be long before I start renting them. They only budget us for 600 dollars per semester but even on Amazon with free student prime shipping, it came to over 700 dollars. OUCH!! So yes, used textbooks are in my future. I'm still glad I chose this route for this semester though. Pretty, Pretty textbooks.  

Traveling with four pets - Hotels

So although I wrote this post on the road, it somehow did not actually get published. Oh the fun of writing a blog on my phone.

Anyway, I did make it to Florida and an still trying to get unpacked and situated. I'm sure I will be writing more about it later.



Can you imagine walking into a hotel and saying "Hi, I'd like a room for two adults, a pittbull, two cats and a snake?" No. Neither can I. Unfortunately that left us with very few options. Most pet friendly hotels have restrictions on the number of animals. Ultimately we decided to do the unhonorable thing because I was NOT going to leave my cats in a dog crate in the car all the way from Washington State to Florida. Sue me.

What we did was decide on a city to crash in and google 'pet friendly hotels in ________ city.' Then I would call around until we found a place to accept our dog.   Once we were checked in, we would causally mention that we had to grab our dog crate and ask if they had a back door close to our room. So far, they always have and we've gotten in and out fine. Though it does help that our dog crate is the hard colored plastic kind so you can't see in. Also, amazing Fiancé boy can carry that darn thing in by himself flat because I can not. And I'm sure the cats would give the game away if I had to tip it sideways. Heehee. 

Once all the pets were in the hotel room we would give the kitties a lot of lovings and then lock them in the bathroom with food, water and a litter pan. We only did this in case they felt like a little revenge after being locked in a car all day. There's not a lot of ways to damage the average bathroom. So far they haven't done anything other than poop on the floor outside their box but it's still a good idea.

When it came to the snake, we did it on a case by case basis. He is fine staying in the car all night unless the temperature dropped down too low. As we got farther and farther south, that became less and less of a problem and so he just stayed in the car. 

Driving through Iowa

Me:

"Honey, do those telephone poles have weird arms?"

Fiancé:

"Whoa, they do!"

Five minutes later ...

Me:

"What do our telephone poles back home look like?"

Fiancé:

"Oh thank God, You can't remember either!"

Well, who pays attention to telephone poles until they all of a sudden look different? Hmmmmm

Traveling with a zoo

Traveling across the country with pets comes with unique challenges. At least when you have as diverse of a group as we do. With one dog, two cats and one snake ... Well, it's been interesting. 

Here's how we did it. 

Dog: 

She's a nervous wreck when it comes to car rides. She hates the car and generally circles to all the windows (including the windshield) trying to get out. She stays anxious until she starts to get carsick. At which point she tries to crawl into our lap and starts puking. There was no question that she absolutely needed to be in the Uhaul with us because she would undoubtedly try to dig her way out of the big scary car. Our answer to this? Drugs. We contacted our vet and she advised Benadryl before we put her in the car each day. It's working pretty well. We made her a nest out of her favorite blanket between our two seats and she had basically slept the whole trip so far. No puking and since she can't see out of the windows, no circling. Whew. 

Cats:

I was the most worried about our two cats because I knew there wasn't room in the Uhaul cab for them. This meant they were going to be in the car towed behind us. In July. Hmmmm. I finally decided on one big dog crate for the two of them to share. Now this only works because they are a mom and daughter pair and get along 99.9% of the time. And they share a litter box. But just in case, we packed both their cat carriers within easy reach. 

I placed a big dog bed in the crate, covered it in puppy pads and placed a little litter pan filled with newspaper (not litter) in the back. I then attached a rabbit water bottle to the door. Think of a mouse water bottle but bigger. 

This gave them a place to sleep, pee and access to water but I was still not happy with them being trapped in a hot car in July. So we stocked up on those cheap sun reflectors and covered all windows. Front, back and sides. We then cracked the side windows. We packed the thermometer in the car and have been checking on them every couple hours. The temperature has been the same as outside or cooler this whole time so I consider it a success. What I don't consider a success is the little litter pan. I don't know if it's the size or the lack of litter but my cats don't seem to want to use it. Luckily the puppy pads keep the dog bed from getting wet but it's still frustrating. 

Snake: 

Now my snake was almost easy. He can go without food and regular water for the whole trip. (I've been watering him at night when we're stationary.) If it gets too hot, he likes it. If it gets too cold, he just huddles under his bedding until it warms up. Now this has limits but our traveling conditions aren't outside those limits. The only complicated part with him what to transport him in. His cage was too big and made of glass. If we hit the brakes hard or got in an accident, he'd go flying into the glass. So not acceptable. 

What we did was buy a Tupperware tub at Walmart that was big enough for him to be mostly comfortable but small enough for him to brace himself against the sides if something happened. We then grabbed the electric drill and drilled a TON of air holes. Top and sides. (In the past, I've also used an ice pick I heated on the stove to poke air holes) Then I filled the Tupperware with his bedding but none of his rocks, housing or water dish. Nothing that would turn into a projectile in an accident as snakes can't exactly put up their hands to protect themselves! Once he was in his new home, I put three to four layers of duck tape on the lid. This step is hugely important as he could pop the lid off in his sleep if he wanted to. Once he was on the floor in the car, I placed two ten pound dumbbells on the lid just to make sure he wouldn't get out. He seems mostly comfortable and wasn't harmed after we had to slam on the brakes after a deer jumped in front of us. Sucess!!

I'll explain our lodging strategy for hotels later.  

On the road!

We are on our way to Florida!! 

On Saturday we packed up a Uhaul, stuffed our two cats and snake into the car, lifted the dog into the truck and we hit the road. Wheeee. 

We left Washington on Sunday and drove through Idaho and Montana. Found a hotel in Wyoming that advertised as pet friendly and today we are on our way to Mount Rushmore. 

I have to say that I am loving the fact that this move is giving us the chance to travel across the entire nation. It's something I've always wanted to do but probably wouldn't have ever gotten around to. 

So far, it's been amazing. Ask me again after day five. Haha

Last day of work!!

Whoooooo! It's my last day of work! I can hardly believe it!!

Yarn Therapy

The crazier my life gets, the more I want to sit on the couch all day and knit. Which of course means I ultimately end up more stressed because I didn't do the things I was supposed to do because all I wanted to do was sit on the couch all day and knit. Gah. 

But I got a new pair of crazy striped socks out of the neurosis so I think it was worth it. 

Aren't those the craziest socks? I absolutely adore them! And yes, I made them mismatched on purpose. 

In the last month, I've made a basic shawl, two pairs of baby socks, 

a pair of socks for me and I'm about 90 percent done with a second shawl. And I don't even wear shawls!! I have no explanation.  

Oh, and I decided that this was the perfect time to teach myself how to crochet. So I did. (Thanks YouTube) So I also have three new dishcloths from trying out new stitches. 

Oh, and a snake. Because reasons. 

In my defense, at least a lot of it was done while on my breaks at work or in the car when Fiancé was driving but still. That is a LOT of yarn. 

However, I am feeling much more relaxed now. Whew!