That Time I Almost Got Arrested Playing Pokemon Go

Can you imagine how embarrassing that would be to try and explain to the bar? Good grief.

Basically, what happened was last night, Fiancé got off work at 11 and wanted to go hang out with some friends for awhile. So we did. While we were there, a bunch of people were talking about heading over to this park where there were about 8 Pokestops in one city block and they always had lures.

We decided to go too. That was our first mistake. The second mistake was that apparently, that specific park closes at ten. We had no idea because the other parks we've gone to don't have that rule. So of course, it never occurred to us to check. We get to the park and there are almost two hundred people running around in the dark, playing Pokemon.

Guys, it was hilarious.

Well, it was hilarious until the cops show up and decide to walk past 50 plus people to focus on our group and tells us he's going to arrest us for trespassing unless we tell him the name of the Pokestop so the city can have it removed. Being relatively polite humans, we try to tell him that there are about eight and here's how you find them. We show him on our phones. Then he tells us, those aren't pokemon things, those are property of the city.

Anyone who has played Pokemon Go understands why this made us laugh. But we tried to explain the way Pokestops works.

Moving on, we tell him that we weren't aware that the park was closed but we would certainly leave immediately. This apparently upset him because he went on a rant about how he'd chased us all out two hours ago and if we came back then, we'd come back now and how it wasn't going to stop until he started arresting people.

Not wanting to get arrested by a man who undoubtedly never thought he'd have to worry about Pokemon hunters in public parks when he joined the police force, I tried to explain that as far as we could tell, all the people in the park right then, including ourselves, had all recently arrived.  Therefore, it might be more effective to find a way to keep people from coming to the park after hours instead of continuously chasing new ones out.

So then he asked us to go on our Pokemon website and tell people to stay away. We tried to explain that we didn't have one but that we would tell all our friends in the hopes that it'd get passed around. He started talking about arresting people again. Sigh

This poor man could not understand how we'd all heard about it if there wasn't one central place telling us the good places to go. Everyone we talked to that night had heard about the park from another player and decided to check it out. It wasn't a massive conspiracy like the police officer thought.

Eventually we did convince him that we lacked the ability to fix his Pokemon problem and he let us go back to our car.

I never thought a silly video game would put me in danger of getting arrested. How embarrassing. You'd think that as a law student, I would know better but it honestly never occurred to me that some parks in our city close while others do not. When I thought about the dangers of Pokemon Go, I thought of stupid people walking into traffic or trying to drive and play a video game at the same time. I also worried about people trespassing on private property to catch the next big pokemon. None of which I do. I didn't think about how hundreds of young people heading outside to play this game would look to people who don't play the game. Though, to be fair, I don't think anyone, including Nintendo, expected the popularity of the game to soar so high.

We live in crazy times my friend, crazy times.







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How To Prepare for a Law School Class

As we creep up on fall and get closer and closer to orientation season, I have decided to write a series of posts on law school to help all the soon to be newbie law students out there. As a rising 3L, I finally feel like I have finally gotten this whole law school thing figured out and I want to pay it forward for all the blogs that helped me get ready to start law school. 

I am not going to lie, during undergrad, my preparation for a class was to make sure I got dressed and brought something to take notes with. I rarely found reading the book necessary but in the classes where it was . . . I read. Maybe highlighted a line or two if I felt like it. I didn't do anything else. Unfortunately, that is not enough for a law school class. Especially during the first year.

Here is what I try to do before every class. I was much more dedicated my 1L year but overall, I still do the majority of theses things before class. Most my effort is geared towards the final exam and not towards the fear of being cold called. Sounding intelligent in class gets you exactly zero points towards your grade and besides, I've only been cold called a handful of times in two years of law classes. However, with that said, I've found that by focusing on the exam, I am usually more than prepared to answer questions in class. And, as more and more of my classmates have started to skip the reading, I sound even better. Yay for 2L and 3L apathy.

Read -
Not to state the obvious but ... you really do need to read before a law school class. Not only is there the possibility that you will get called on but the class makes zero sense if you didn't read. The way the class is structured, there is no lecture. You cannot simply show up and take good notes if you didn't already read the material. Class mostly focuses on each case separately and you are responsible for putting it all together to make a cohesive whole. Guess what, the majority of casebooks do that for you! (If you have a crappy, hide the ball casebook, buy supplements. Work smart guys.) If you only listen to each case separately, you will never pick up on the things that connect them together.


Highlight -
Very early on during my first 1L semester, I learned that briefing each case helped if you got called on, but it also helped understand each part of the case and what it actually meant. The only downside is that briefing a case takes forever and when you have 30 cases (between all classes) to read each night . . . well, something had to give. Where I drew the line was with typing up each brief. I started trying the book briefing method and I haven't looked back yet. The way that works is as you read, you assign a different color for what would have been each section of your brief. For example, green is for facts; blue is for issue/question; pink is for reasoning; yellow is for rule/holding; purple is for concurrence; orange is for dissent. This way, you are still training your brain to separate the different parts of the case but you don't need to spend forever typing it all up. If I find something confusing or hard to explain, I rewrite it in the margins and I'm often drawing graphs, arrows etc in the casebook. When I get called on, I can quickly find the information I need to answer the question.

For this to work well, you can't be a highlight everything kind of person. Only highlight the parts you need, not everything that is a fact, etc.


Notes -
As I've discussed before, (HERE and HERE) I write all my notes in outline form pulled from the syllabus and table of contents from the casebook. Before classes start, I type up the empty outline and fill it in as we get to it throughout the semester. The part I fill in from the book tends to be the information in between the cases, especially the intro to each chapter or section. My ultimate goal is that by the last class of the semester, I do not need to look at my book AT ALL in order to study for finals. My outlines are less than 100 pages (usually much much less) and my casebooks can be up to 1304 pages. It's much easier and much more productive to study from my outline than from the casebook. Easier = awesome.

And even though I don't brief each case in my notes anymore, I do type up a short blurb on each case in my outline. It usually ends up being two to three sentences that include the rule of law and a bit of the reasoning. 1L's might need a bit more but as you train your brain, you can write less and less.

Class Preparation Schedule -
During my first 1L semester, I found that for me doing all my casebook reading and pre-class notes for the next week over the weekend gave me the best results. At that time, I had three law based classes and then legal research and writing. So on Friday after class, I would try to get all of the next weeks reading done for class one. Saturday I would finish up class one and get all of class two out of the way. Then on Sunday, I would do a weeks worth of reading for class three. This left Monday through Thursday for my R&W classwork and for some sort of work/life balance. (Haha, I lie, there was no balance my 1L year. If I had free time, I usually ended up catching up on stuff I got behind on.) I found that when I tried to do it day by day, I was wasting time by trying to remember where we left off, fighting the post class exhaustion, and couldn't keep up when something would pop up to screw up my schedule. Because of all this, I often had to stay awake until 2 to 3 am when I had a class at 8:30. Day by day reading simply did not work for me. On the other hand, I did (and still do) have to sacrifice my entire weekend while many of my classmates considered that their slow down time.

For many of my classmates, my method would not have worked for them at all. They needed the mental strength of having at least one full day off from law school a week. Or they had different professors (my R&W professor is famous for her intense workload) and different study needs. My best advice is to try different methods (an not just regarding when to study but also how) and find the way that works for you. I've tried dozens of study methods I've seen online or through friends and the ones that work, I keep. The ones that don't, don't.




However, once you find a method that works for you, and actually do the work, all that is left is to find pants and grab your computer. You are ready for class. Not as easy as undergrad but not all that bad either. Read, highlight (or brief if that works for you) and jot down some notes. And if it seems to take forever and that you must be the slowest reader in the world, it gets better and you WILL get faster at it.

Why was there even a roofing nail on my driveway anyway?

You see that nasty, rusty, dirty roofing nail? Yeah, that totally ended up nailing my shoe to my foot yesterday and royally messing up my day.

I had just got home from my clerking job and was pulling a big and heavy box out of my car. I lost my balance a bit and fell back. BAM. All my weight (plus the boxes weight) on my right foot and that nail went as deep as it could go.

I was screaming, the box was falling and I was wearing heels. I don't know how I managed not to break my ankle. I tried to pull it out but it was flat against my shoe and I couldn't manage to get a grip. I eventually had to call fiancé outside to help me and even he had a hard time pulling it out. It's bad enough stepping on a nail but apparently falling on one is even worse.

And do you know what that man said to me????? His first words were That was on the driveway? I'm glad you didn't run over it with the tire. I'm literally nailed into my shoes and he's worried about a car tire. Men. Pfffft.

Eventually we did manage to pull it out and tried to clean my foot up but it looked like a piece of it had broken off. To make my day even worse, I knew I wasn't covered by a tetanus shot because when I had tried to get one a few months ago, the nurse denied me because there is a latex warning on the DTAP and for liability reasons, they wouldn't give it to me. Boo.

So . . . we went to the ER. And yes, I know how dumb it sounds to say I went to the ER because I stepped on a nail but well, I went to the ER because I stepped on a nail. It was after business hours so I couldn't go to a doctor's office and I didn't want to have to worry about debris in my foot or tetanus or any of that.

The ER staff was really nice and even looked up the latex warning. Apparently the risk is really, really low for people who've never had a respiratory reaction to latex so boom, I got the shot. Got some antibiotics and was on my way.

Like always, the next day is worse. It hurts to put weight on my foot and my arm is extremely sore from the shot. It is making me cranky. I think I'm having a netflix and cuddle night.

Do you blame me?

Common Sense Couponing

We've all seen the videos where someone walks out of the store with a thousand dollars of groceries for $2.22. I'm not that kind of couponer. I don't have the time, the motivation, or the storage room. However, I do try to use a common sense approach to coupons that saves me a ton of money over the long run.

My basic approach is like many others in that I try to focus only on the things I would need to buy anyway and try to combine a store coupon and a manufacturer coupon or a coupon and a store deal.

Extreme Couponer Approach - Only buy items you can get for free or almost free.

My Common Sense Approach - I do try to combine a store coupon and a manufacturer coupon at the same time. If there is a store deal at the same time, even better. However, since I only buy things I would have bought without a coupon, I do not focus on getting it for pennies on the dollar but rather, on how much I can save and still get the things I need and/or want.

Extreme Couponer Approach - When you find a good deal, buy as many as you can at that price and keep a stockpile to store the extra.

My Common Sense Approach - I only buy as much as I think we can use in a reasonable amount of time. I live in a tiny house and I know we'll be moving in the near future. Stockpiling doesn't make sense for us. When shopping, I consider what the item is, how necessary it is and how fast we go through it. For necessities, I have a one year rule. If we won't use it in the next twelve months, I don't buy it. As an example, say I needed soap. Soap is a definite necessity that we will not go without. (We could but no.) We go through a bar in a little under a month.  Most packs of soap include 6 to 8 bars so one package lasts us about six months.  If I can find a good deal on one pack, I'll buy one but if I find a better deal on two packages, say a buy one - get one, I'll buy two and sacrifice some storage room in my house. If the item is something a little less necessary, like lotion, I probably would not buy any to stockpile. Another deal on lotion is probably going to arrive by the time I need it again anyway.

[Note: For some people, keeping a reasonable stockpile might make sense. If it does, go for it. We are currently living in a house half the size of our last one and that doesn't even count our old garage and two storage sheds. We're crammed in here. Common sense says no stockpile.]

Extreme Couponer Approach - Has numerous sources of coupons, such as buying four Sunday newspapers a week or paying a company to send you coupons.

My Common Sense Approach - I do receive one copy of the Sunday paper because I bought it on Groupon for ten dollars for the year and then used a 20% off code to get it down to eight dollars. When my membership expires, I will probably see if I can switch to a different paper for the same kind of deal because I like that the coupons come to me every week. It helps me remember to look for deals. I also occasionally look for a coupon online and print them at home. Usually using coupons.com but not always. Other than a few coupons that randomly show up in my mailbox, that's pretty much all I do to find coupons.

Extreme Couponer Approach - Spends hours each week cutting coupons, searching online, organizing, and going through store ads.

My Common Sense Approach - My newspaper comes every Sunday morning with the coupons and I spend about an hour cutting them apart and doing my organizing. Some weeks I look online for other coupons but usually I do not. Even if I write my grocery list at the same time, it almost never actually takes me the full hour.

Extreme Couponer Approach - Maintains a coupon binder with all the coupons organized by type and expiration date.

My Common Sense Approach - Ha. No. One way I keep myself motivated is by minimizing the time it takes me to get and keep my coupons. I aim for less than one hour a week. In order to do this, I go with the very classy keep-everything-in-a-sandwich-bag method. Well, actually, I use two sandwich bags. One for food items and one for non-food items. Each week, when I cut out the coupons from the newspaper, I separate them into the two piles and then stuff them in the ziplock bag. Bags work better for me because they seal and they can be bent and folded without ripping. Those two baggies live in my purse 24/7 because I am really bad about remembering to grab them before I go to the store. Coupons don't save you any money if you leave them at home!  When I go to add the new week coupons, I spend a minute or two going through the old coupons to pull out the expired ones and to remind myself what coupons I have. That's all I do. When I'm at the store, I flip through to grab the coupons I want and leave the rest. Easy.

Extreme Couponer Approach - Drives all around town each week to hit numerous stores in order to get the best deals at each store.

My Common Sense Approach - I usually shop at one grocery store and one drugstore, both of which are the nearest to my house. However, after going through the store sales on Sunday, I occasionally will add another store to my list if it's relatively close (to home or a place I will be anyway) and the deal makes it seriously worth the extra time. For example, I rarely shop at this local store about 20 minutes away from me because it takes too much time to get there and back. But one week, I saw that they had hamburger for 1/3 the usual price. I thought ahead to my week and realized I would be nearby on Wednesday so I set an alert on my phone to remind me to stop by. That week I bought enough hamburger for three meat-loafs, 3 batches of spaghetti, and a couple pounds for miscellaneous meals. (I batch cook for my freezer.) It was totally worth it because it was a really good deal and I would be nearby anyway. If I drove to that store every week because say, eggs were 10 cents cheaper, I would be wasting 40 minutes of my time and gas. Nope. Not gonna happen.

Final Thoughts -
While proofreading this, I realized that more than anything, I try to minimize the time coupons can take while still reaping the benefits coupons can give. I'm a law student, I don't always have time to shave my legs much less spend hours and hours on grocery shopping. All the same, I have saved hundreds of dollars this year alone on things I needed or would have bought anyway. Sometimes I get awesome deals and get stuff for free but other times, I let the awesome deal slip out of my fingers because the time needed to get that deal is not worth it to me.

It's all about balance.

My Favorite Cheap Eats Story

Every once in a while, the stars align and I can feed fiancé and I for pennies. Last month was one of those times. I stopped by Winn Dixie to buy eggs but decided to check out the rest of the store for deals. I walked by the whole chicken section and saw that there were a couple marked down for quick sale. The best by date was still a few days out so I decided to get one. A six pound chicken cost me 3 dollars. That's 50 cents a pound!

Now cooking whole poultry is not my favorite because it's kind of a pain getting the bird prepared and then you have to deal with carving it. However, it is delicious so sometimes it is worth it. I threw it in my largest cast iron skillet with a cut up onion inside the cavity and some butter and garlic under the skin. I baked it for an hour and served it with mashed potatoes and gravy ( made in the skillet with the chicken drippings.) Pretty easy meal right?

[Sorry for the terrible pictures and my messy kitchen. I took these pictures to text to my sister and didn't plan on blogging about it! Forgive me please.]

Then as I carved the chicken, I threw the icky parts, the cooked onion and the carcess straight into my crockpot and made stock. I had never made chicken broth before but it was embarrassingly easy. Throw bones into a crockpot set on low, fill with water and add spices and a bay leaf. Then you leave it for 12 to 24 hours. When you come back, you fish out the bones and bits with a slotted spoon and throw it away. The broth was so much better than the store bought crap I usually get that when I got my Instant Pot, the first thing I made was broth for my freezer. It was that good. My crockpot ended up making about ten cups of broth And it was made with ingredients that I would have thrown away!

However, I planned for this batch to be made into homemade chicken noodle soup. After I scooped out the bones and other solids, I added some frozen carrots, celery, and pearl onions and threw in a couple cups of the leftover chicken.  Then I let that cook on low for awhile and then added a package of uncooked egg noodles and some kale I had in the fridge. Once those were done and I added salt and pepper, I filled up ten pint freezer containers with the soup and put them in my freezer for later.

[No, I don't know why this was the only picture I took of my awesome soup. This was like my third bowl and half eaten at that. Dishonor on me, dishonor on my cow.]

At this point, I STILL had lots of chicken left over so I made a chicken pot pie in my cast iron skillet with a pre-made piecrust, leftover chicken, kale and a frozen mix of carrots and peas and pearl onions. Made a white sauce and baked. Fiancé ate almost the entire thing!!! And he has been begging me to make it again! It was delicious.

Then, if you can even believe it, we still had a cup or so of leftover chicken so Fiancé brought it with him for lunch on the fourth day.

To recap -  I paid:

$3.00 for the chicken
$1.50 for the ready to microwave, mashed potatoes
$3.00 (approximately) for the carrots, celery, bag of peas and carrots and pearl onions
$2.49 for the pie crust
$1.29 for the egg noodles
$1.79 for the kale
and a small amount for flour, spices, and milk.

For under 14 dollars, we had a roast chicken meal with mashed potatoes and gravy, a chicken pot pie and ten servings of chicken noodle soup. Oh and some leftover chicken. Obviously this wouldn't stretch quite as well for a larger family but it works pretty well for two!

I know I write a lot about food and saving money on this blog that is supposed to be about law school but I swear it is connected. Right now, I am trying to save for the Bar exam next summer. Not only do I have to commit to not working or only working minimal hours during the bar study course, the course itself costs $3,000. Taking the bar exam itself costs about $700. Oh, but don't forget you need to pay your state to even apply to take the bar and to convert your student application to a full application. Plus, the school advises to have 5-6 months of expenses saved up because it takes months for the results to come out and who knows how long it will take to find a job after that. The more I can prepare now, the less horrible next year will be. 

Update On the Whole FAFSA Saga

So I talked to my school and they say I am fine. WHEW. Can you just imagine the pain if I couldn't start my last year of law school on time because I was stupid and forgot to hit submit on the dang form.

I would never live that down.

Anyway, according to my school, their deadline isn't until August 1st and the FAFSA's deadline  in February really has more to do with undergraduate financial aid. Since undergraduate students may qualify for federal funds like grants and subsidized loans, the deadline matters much more because the funds may run out. Lucky (Unlucky) for me, graduate students only qualify for unsubsidized student loans.

So my heart attack was unnecessary and I feel much better now. Plus, even though I only just submitted my FAFSA, it has already been processed and is on the way to my school. Apparently, it's a much faster process in the summer. Go figure.  

Now I can go back to dreading the start of fall semester in peace. ;)

Just When I Thought I Had This Whole Law School Thing Down

Well, I officially messed up. After all my time in college, what with community college, university and now law school, I really thought I had this whole school thing under control. And then I made a newbie mistake.

Fall semester starts in less than a month ... and I just found out I forgot to submit my FAFSA. I started it, I just never finished it.

Stupid Stupid Stupid.

I have no excuses. I don't know how I managed to forget something so big but I am officially FREAKING OUT.