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. 

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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.