Die Memo Die!

I have no idea what I am doing or what this is supposed to look like.

I have a little over an hour to try to make this mess make sense. Then I am pouring myself the BIGGEST glass of wine ever.

Wish me luck.

This is why law students get fat

My school's cafeteria has figured out that they make waaay more money if they close the cafeteria and have a BBQ out in the courtyard instead. They tried it last semester for one day a week and that was annoying enough. This semester they decided to only open the cafeteria two days a week and have BBQ the rest of the week. Why do I have a problem with it? Well one, I don't really like the BBQ options and two, I don't like the price. It is much more expensive than the BLT or grilled cheese I lived on last semester. We might be fancy pants law students but we are still students on a student budget. 

So this is my lunch for today. 

I was just going to eat the cheese crackers and Bugles but Lexis Nexis had a table out today with free chips and guac. Thank you Lexis!! 

When you hit the books ...

And they hit back. 

Yes, this all for this semester. Casebooks on the left (minus my torts book which is an online textbook) and supplement on the right. Yes, I will have read almost all of these by the time May comes along. Yes, I am very glad I am a reader by nature. How do non book lovers do it? 

Geeking out here

You know how some people add random actors on their facebook for the odd chance they'll actually accept and they can pretend they're friends with Jessica Alba or whoever? Yeah I totally do that with my favorite authors. And once I got one to accept, I suddenly got a whole bunch of other acceptances. Oh the power of mutual friends. 

Yes there is a point to this post other than that I am a total geek. 

My favorite author from when I was in elementary school responded on a post I made. I feel as close to famous as I ever want to be!

Okay, on second thought, this post is solely about how big of a geek I am. 

I'm okay with it. I own my geekiness. 

Research and Writing II

So I made it through my second week of my second semester of law school and I have my first legal brief due in a week. Only I don't have the faintest idea on how to write it. Fun eh? I think I am so lost because I chose to change professors for spring semester and I haven't figured out his teaching style yet or what he is looking for. Not to mention, we are switching from objective writing to persuasive. So much fun.

Actually, I do think it will be a lot more fun once I learn what I am supposed to be doing. Right now? Not so much. And my previous professor relied on lots and lots of examples while this professor is a lot more hands on, learn as you do it kind of guy. Both are really good professors though so that is a relief.

Well, I know what I will be doing this weekend. Let the googling commence now!

Whoops!

Quite possibly the biggest mistake I've made all week, including showing up at the notary without my ID, might be giving my neighbor girls a dollar.

So a few days ago, the neighbor girls were in their backyard and I was in mine letting my dog do her stuff. They asked if they could play with my dog and I told them that I only allow that if I'm around and I had stuff I had to do inside. (As a side note, although my dog is a sweetie pie, four year olds are notoriously prone to poking a dog in the eye and wondering why they don't like it.) They asked if they could help and so I let them take out the garbage from my wastebaskets and dust my coffee table. Then I gave them a dollar. Holy Cow was that a biiiiiiiiig mistake. Every single day since then I hear them calling for me over and over again until I come outside. And then they literally beg and beg and beg me to allow them to clean my house. And every time it is something different. Do you have dishes we can wash? We can wash your windows! Do you know how to make your bed? We can do that for you!! Now in general, I am more than happy to accommodate anyone begging to clean my house. Especially for nothing more than a dollar! However, these girls are just a little too young to actually do anything beyond taking stuff to the garbage. I've started saving small chores just for them like feeding the dog or watering the plant. But since it takes me just as long to direct them to these chores as to do them myself, I have to wonder why I can't turn those cute little faces down.

Kids are dangerous. Especially when they aren't even your kids.

Disclaimer: I always make them get permission from their parents before coming to my house or interacting with my dog. I'm an easy mark but I'm not stupid. :P

Edited to add: Apparently the dad was fed up with them begging to come clean my house and offered them a hundred dollars (literally put the cash on the table) to clean their room and they refused and said they like cleaning my house better. I do not understand kids.

Law School Supplements

So I had read about a billion books about law school before starting and I knew there were these things called supplements that every law student in the history of law students raved about. I am about to be the next one. THESE BOOKS ARE AMAZING AND YOU NEED THEM AND YOU WANT THEM AND YOU'RE GOING TO GO GET THEM!!!!! 

Seriously, I am sure there are very good reasons as to why law school is set up the way it is, but the end result is that you get to the end of the semester and Holy Mother Of God, you know NOTHING. It must be dark magic because I read every page assigned, took notes, went to class, took notes again, reviewed my notes at the end of every week and outlined. So I should have known quite a bit. Only what they teach you in class is only slightly related to what will be on the exam. And the casebook is a gazillion pages of cases with only a few paragraphs here and there that actually explains the connections between the cases. Nobody wants to wade through all of that AGAIN. So we turn to supplements. Beautiful Beautiful Supplements.

Since my exams were mostly multiple choice and short answer, the series that were the most helpful were Examples and Explanations and Questions and Answers.

Examples and Explanations - Oh these are beautiful. They explain in depth, everything important and then give you questions to practice on. When I was going over my outline and felt I was missing something on a topic, I'd head to the E&E first. Multiple choice, short answer or typical essay exams, this is the first book I go to. Depending on the class, you can even buy an old edition for around four dollars on Ebay. For Contracts and Civil Procedure, it's not a good idea. They have both changed too much in the last decade. However, for Criminal Law and Property, go ahead and buy the four dollar version instead of the forty dollar one. And ask your librarians because more than likely they'll have a bunch as well. I preferred my own copy because my school doesn't allow you to take them home but it may work for others.

Question and Answers - An entire book of multiple choice, true/false and short answer questions. This book is fabulous for that moment where you pretty much have your outline down and you just really, really, really, don't want to study anymore but you have to because the exam is in two days. Put your outline down and start working your way through this book. It takes you from the whole memorizing concepts part of studying to the whole actually using them and putting them in practice part. Just don't freak out if you're getting 7 out of 15 right on a section and go read the answers to find out why! I went through the Q&A for each of my classes the two days leading up to the exam and it really helped. If you only have essay exams, I would still say to go through this book but maybe push it forward to about a week before the exam so you can do practice essay questions.

I used other supplements as well, but those two were the most helpful for the majority of my classes. My professors really push the Understanding series but most of the time, they were written by the casebook author and at least for me, were nothing more than a condensed version of my casebook. And there weren't really any practice questions to see if you really understood what was going on. So far, I really like the Acing Property supplement when I don't understand something in my casebook and my 3L mentor gave me the Gilbert Law Summaries but I haven't done more than flip through it yet. We will have to see how it goes this semester.

Final Thoughts - I personally do not think I would have done very well my first semester if I had not bought or used supplements. They teach a subject in basically the same way as an undergrad course. They introduce a new topic and then go deeper in depth until you understand it all. No hiding the ball here!

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