The last post was about the bad side of law school, so this one will be more positive.
My Husband and I survived the 1L year together and intact. (Me as a law student and him as a civilian.) We have entered law school Phase II in a new town . The change of school and scenery seems to have been great for both of us. Husband is now much happier with the town and his job, and he is back in school. I'm happier because my new school allows me to focus more on learning the law and to spend less time freaking out about flunking out or losing my scholarship. Us both being happier has been great for our marriage. So anyway, yep, things are better this year.
This morning Husband surprised me with beautiful fall flowers. I thought they were very pretty, and it was a very sweet and thoughtful gift. Husband is good about these things, much better at them than me. And as he has gotten happier, his sweet side is coming out again more and more.
This evening, we are going to eat at a pizza place with some friends from the new law school. This pizza place is supposed to be THE pizza place in Gainesville, and it looks pretty good from the website. It also appears to be a bit different. For one thing, it is decorated with found art, which I think is pretty cool. On the other hand, it is cash only. Cash only?! Who carries cash anymore? I don't. Note to any thieves who may ever wish to mug me: it would be a big waste of your time. Everything in my wallet is quickly cancel-able, so it would basically be like stealing an empty wallet.
I'll try to find something more interesting to write about for my next post.
Saturday, September 18, 2010
Wednesday, September 15, 2010
Ode to Sleep
Oh, sleep, how I miss you. Gone are the days when I took you for granted. Now you are a luxury I enjoy on the weekends.
Big surprise, law students often get less sleep than they should. The requirements and lifestyle of law school are not conducive to sleeping. Coming into law school, you might think the load isn't so bad. Oh, 15-20 pages a night for each of your 3-4 classes, that's nothing. Well, think again. The reality of it is that those 15-20 pages can take 2 or 3 or more hours to read. No, this is not because I have a reading deficiency and am on hooked on phonics or anything like that. In college you may have been able to skim or just read through the material and be fine. In law school that's just not good enough. Who said what in paragraph 3? What was this random detail on p. 476? After you figure all of that out you get to synthesize & analyze the material and brief the case, figuring out the issue, rule, analysis, etc. from Case A and then Case B and then the rule gleaned from the cases combined. Oh then outside of the reading, you are likely to have a number of rules that you get to break down into their elements and you need to know every word and how to apply the these rules to complex factual situations. Anyway, that's why it takes soooooo long.
Even after all of that you may not feel super prepared if you're called on to participate in the joy that is the Socratic Method. You think you have a handle on the material, but then your professor throws a curve ball at you--What was so and so really talking about? What policy reasons persuaded the judges (not in the case)? Based on this case, how would you answer this hypo that is similar but has nuances to the rule that are complex and confusing? Distinguish this case with a case you read 3 weeks ago. Ahhhhhhh! It's enough to drive some law students nuts if you really think about it. (Oh and you will hear horror stories about people going nuts in law school. Generally about them flipping out around finals time.)
Anyway, the sick thing is that law school is a lot of fun (though not all law students feel this way). It may be a pain a lot of the time but it really is a lot of fun. You spend all day reading interesting cases (ok, they aren't always so interesting, but a lot of the time they are) and rules can actually be fun to learn the more you understand them.
So, as you can see law students have a love-hate relationship with law school. On days I'm really feeling the hate, usually around exam time, I watch a certain video on YouTube--Law School Musical. This video was put together by another jaded, tired, and frazzled law student. It's funny but oh so true, and it lets you know that you aren't alone. This video always makes me feel better.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N8ABhatAfsA
Big surprise, law students often get less sleep than they should. The requirements and lifestyle of law school are not conducive to sleeping. Coming into law school, you might think the load isn't so bad. Oh, 15-20 pages a night for each of your 3-4 classes, that's nothing. Well, think again. The reality of it is that those 15-20 pages can take 2 or 3 or more hours to read. No, this is not because I have a reading deficiency and am on hooked on phonics or anything like that. In college you may have been able to skim or just read through the material and be fine. In law school that's just not good enough. Who said what in paragraph 3? What was this random detail on p. 476? After you figure all of that out you get to synthesize & analyze the material and brief the case, figuring out the issue, rule, analysis, etc. from Case A and then Case B and then the rule gleaned from the cases combined. Oh then outside of the reading, you are likely to have a number of rules that you get to break down into their elements and you need to know every word and how to apply the these rules to complex factual situations. Anyway, that's why it takes soooooo long.
Even after all of that you may not feel super prepared if you're called on to participate in the joy that is the Socratic Method. You think you have a handle on the material, but then your professor throws a curve ball at you--What was so and so really talking about? What policy reasons persuaded the judges (not in the case)? Based on this case, how would you answer this hypo that is similar but has nuances to the rule that are complex and confusing? Distinguish this case with a case you read 3 weeks ago. Ahhhhhhh! It's enough to drive some law students nuts if you really think about it. (Oh and you will hear horror stories about people going nuts in law school. Generally about them flipping out around finals time.)
Anyway, the sick thing is that law school is a lot of fun (though not all law students feel this way). It may be a pain a lot of the time but it really is a lot of fun. You spend all day reading interesting cases (ok, they aren't always so interesting, but a lot of the time they are) and rules can actually be fun to learn the more you understand them.
So, as you can see law students have a love-hate relationship with law school. On days I'm really feeling the hate, usually around exam time, I watch a certain video on YouTube--Law School Musical. This video was put together by another jaded, tired, and frazzled law student. It's funny but oh so true, and it lets you know that you aren't alone. This video always makes me feel better.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N8ABhatAfsA
Sunday, September 12, 2010
The Crazy Gainesville Preacher & 3D Zombies?
I have lived in Gainesville for approximately a month now, and it has already had "events" drawing international attention. I think pretty much everyone has heard about this crazy preacher Jones who wanted to burn the Quran. Well, he finally backed down, so the town was pretty peaceful Saturday evening. However, picking up a pizza a couple miles away did take over 45 minutes due to the massive ingress of 1000s of football fans for the UF v. USF game.
I attended my first sporting event at UF this weekend--women's volleyball. I knew UF fans went nuts for football, but that enthusiasm apparently extends to other sports as well. I think that they would go nuts for the badminton or chess teams. There were people wearing gator hats, tons of orange and blue, and even a guy in a head to toe orange and blue bodysuit complete with wig. It was so much fun, and as I am now a member of the "Gator Nation", I can share in the spirit of cheering for Gator awesomness. I look forward to attending more Gator sports events.
I also saw Resident Evil Afterlife in 3D this weekend. I've seen the other 3 Resident Evil movies in the theater, so I wasn't going to wait for this one to come out on DVD. There was not a ton of 3D action in it compared to movies like Avatar, but it was very good and worth the money to see it in the theater. In this movie some of the "zombies" and inside out dogs appear to have further mutated into semi plant/snake beings. And of course, in true Resident Evil fashion, the movie ended with a clear plot direction for a 5th movie.
I attended my first sporting event at UF this weekend--women's volleyball. I knew UF fans went nuts for football, but that enthusiasm apparently extends to other sports as well. I think that they would go nuts for the badminton or chess teams. There were people wearing gator hats, tons of orange and blue, and even a guy in a head to toe orange and blue bodysuit complete with wig. It was so much fun, and as I am now a member of the "Gator Nation", I can share in the spirit of cheering for Gator awesomness. I look forward to attending more Gator sports events.
I also saw Resident Evil Afterlife in 3D this weekend. I've seen the other 3 Resident Evil movies in the theater, so I wasn't going to wait for this one to come out on DVD. There was not a ton of 3D action in it compared to movies like Avatar, but it was very good and worth the money to see it in the theater. In this movie some of the "zombies" and inside out dogs appear to have further mutated into semi plant/snake beings. And of course, in true Resident Evil fashion, the movie ended with a clear plot direction for a 5th movie.
Monday, September 6, 2010
Why Law Student #99999999?
This is my first blog on blogspot, so I thought I should start by giving a reason for my blog title. As a law student you are a number. You're a number when you apply to law school (LSAT + GPA), at finals time, when you get your rank (and then your number really, really matters), OCI... Your number affects which law school you can get into and which employers will look at your resume. You are 1 number in a sea of other numbers, and a very big sea it is.
Ok, so you know the reason behind the title. Perhaps I should give some very generic background. My law school application numbers were not so great (yes, learn from my mistake and retake the LSAT if you take it while sick and then see a huge drop in your score), so I went to a T4 for 1L year. I did well my 1st year and became one of the numbers toward the top of the list, so I transferred to a T1. I'm now in my second year of law school and am really enjoying it.
The law school life is extremely busy, so my posts will likely be very sporadic. I will try to come up with interesting topics to write about or just periodic updates about my progress. (However, most of these posts will probably be about law or law school, so if you hate the law or law students, you should probably go look at another blog.)
Ok, so you know the reason behind the title. Perhaps I should give some very generic background. My law school application numbers were not so great (yes, learn from my mistake and retake the LSAT if you take it while sick and then see a huge drop in your score), so I went to a T4 for 1L year. I did well my 1st year and became one of the numbers toward the top of the list, so I transferred to a T1. I'm now in my second year of law school and am really enjoying it.
The law school life is extremely busy, so my posts will likely be very sporadic. I will try to come up with interesting topics to write about or just periodic updates about my progress. (However, most of these posts will probably be about law or law school, so if you hate the law or law students, you should probably go look at another blog.)
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