divine angst

Moot Court is over, and it went just fine. Although my tummy was a ball of nerves a few hours before, by the time I got up to speak, I felt confident and ready. It helps that I didn’t have to go first.

People told me (and by people I mean 2- and 3Ls) not to prepare. They told me to have an introduction and then not worry about it, because I’d just be asked questions and I’d just have to answer those questions. That the judges wouldn’t care about what I wanted to say, because they just want their questions answered. And that was mostly true. I say mostly because I did take some time to read through my opponent’s brief and think about how I would rebut his arguments. And that helped.

I should also note that I am one of those people who talks to herself. Usually I talk to myself in my head, although when I still had a car, I was known to have conversations aloud while driving. Anyway, this little quirk was really helpful for moot court, because I could read an argument or a question and then have a conversation about it in my head. And then when I got up to present my oral arguments, I wasn’t terrified, because I had already talked to myself about all those points. Or most of them. It wasn’t so bad. And I swear, I am not insane. Just quirky. Come on–you talk to yourself, too, admit it.

So moot court is over, and it wasn’t bad at all. My approach–treating it like an experience to learn from rather than something really terrifying and competitive–was a good one. Of course, it wasn’t graded. But I’ve been known to take things really seriously when absolutely nothing at all is at stake, just for the sake of “winning,” so for me to be relaxed about it was a big deal.

Moot court is over. Time to get cracking on outlines and studying.

Last week, before opening night of the law school musical, I met Mr. Angst for dinner. But I wasn’t hungry–I felt nauseous (or nauseated, if you will). I figured I was a little hungrier than I thought, ate my veggie burger and fries, and went off to get into hair and makeup. I was a little low-energy that night, but things went off without a hitch, so all was well.

Well, this evening, I feel the same way as I did last week. (Oh, wait, it’s not evening yet. This afternoon, then.) My tummy is upset, I feel lightheaded. It’s not pleasant.

But at least I’ve figured out what’s causing it. It’s nerves.

I haven’t feel this sort of performance nerves in a really long time. Maybe I’ve managed to do that by keeping out of situations where I have to do something All By Myself. After all, all the choirs I’ve sung in for the last six or so years have been, well, choirs, and I haven’t really been singing all alone. And I haven’t done any plays or public speaking in the last six or so years. Frankly, I’ve avoided all of that like the plague, telling myself I’m better as a team player (in a choir) or better at behind-the-scenes stuff (with any sort of performance). Even the few times I’ve sung by myself, I’ve done so at family weddings, where I wasn’t really worried about criticism or negative reactions.

But last week, I was in the spotlight, and facing a possibly hostile audience. (OK, I knew they wouldn’t be hostile, but the jokes could have fallen flat.) I mean, I didn’t have a big part in the law school musical or anything, but it was the first time I’d acted since my senior year of college, yea so many years ago. And tonight, I’ll be on my own again, arguing in moot court–and this time, I know the audience could be hostile, or at least confrontational. Argh!

I don’t really have any reason to be nervous. I know my argument. I (almost) have my intro memorized. I’ve read over some questions our class brainstormed for each side and I’ve read my opponent’s brief. I feel pretty good about being able to address any question that comes my way, as long as it stays within the scope of the legal argument. (I don’t know if my answers will be the “right” ones or if they’ll be convincing, but I think I have a handle on what I need to say.)

But still, the tummy, it flutters.

So I don’t really know what to do about that, short of making my dinner, eating it, and getting my little tushy up to campus to face the judges. It’s just strange, that I didn’t recognize the flutters anymore.

Once upon a time, I used to like E True Hollywood Story. But now, it just sucks.

What do I mean? I mean that Wednesday night TV bites. Or, it did till I discovered one of the movie channels (that come gratis with our cable DVR box) is showing Real Genius. Which is, quite possibly, the only good movie Val Kilmer was ever in.

“Can you hammer a six-inch spike through a board with your penis? . . . A girl’s gotta have her standards.”

Now I can wait for the flood of hits that quote generates.

In more news from today, I picked up my Property book and syllabus to do tomorrow’s reading, finished it feeling confident, and then discovered I had read for Friday. So I had to pick the book back up and do another 40 pages of reading before I could leave campus. Other than that, today was uneventful. I’ll spend the rest of it memorizing my introduction for oral arguments . . . which are tomorrow. Hopefully, I won’t get through it before I can fall back on questions.

Everyone is talking about the US News rankings. (I won’t link to them; you know where to find them.) From what I hear, the law school boards are hopping–people are questioning their previous admiration for various schools that have dropped in the rankings, and are cooing about schools they’d never have considered before because they went up a few notches. I’ve even heard mutterings around school. We poked major fun at the rankings during the law school musical–or, at least, made big jokes about our ranking. But today I heard a few people talking, in not-happy tones, about our ranking. (For the record, we dropped ever-so-slightly.) And it annoyed me. I wanted to stop them and say something; I wanted to snipe at them.

I am pretty sure I have said this before, but it totally bears repeating. Law school rankings do not matter. OK, maybe that’s an overstatement. Clearly, they do matter. Higher rank correllates with better bar passage rates, better employment prospects, higher starting salaries, and, of course, a higher, though only-marginally-important, brag factor. What I mean, then, is that if you have chosen your law school for the right reasons, ranking should not matter.

A lot of people go to the highest ranked school they get into. This, however, is not, independently, a good enough reason for choosing a law school. That choice should be about more than prestige. Instead, choose your law school because you think you will be happy spending three years there. You may be admitted to more than one school that fits that description, and that would be the time to go to the other considerations. Sure, take financial and regional considerations into account, but when push comes to shove, if you choose your law school based on nothing more than prestige, chances are you will be sorely disappointed at some point. Like, when US News publishes its rankings and your school drops.

So, sure, the rankings drop is no fun, if only because of the way people react to it. But does it actually change anything? Is my school any worse today than it was last week? Absolutely not. Do I love my school less? Do I think less of my classmates? Do I have any regrets? Absolutely, positively not. Why? Because I chose my school for what I consider the right reasons–its size, its location, its academics, and its reputation. That’s right, I considered reputation. Note that, when it comes down to it, my school’s reputation is not dramatically different from the other schools I considered, nor are the academics. But the size and location were really important to me, and they make the difference.

It must be near the end of the semester. I just saw a classmate highlighting a case book with a yellow dry-erase marker.

Spring Break ends tomorrow. I have to go back to class. I have to do reading. I have to start preparing for moot court. I have to keep working on my outlines and start taking practice exams. Ack!!!

So I spent this weekend relaxing, even more so than the rest of Spring Break. I didn’t work on my outlines, I didn’t read. (OK, well, I did read today, but it was a short novel, the one the bookstore didn’t have that I was lucky enough to find at another bookstore in the city. The one I ordered has not arrived, so it will be going back to the store.) Instead, I did some cooking and some shopping, and I went and got a manicure with two of my friends yesterday. We also got chocolate fondue. Totally sinful and totally delightful.

Frankly, I’m feeling pretty relaxed right now. I’ve been keeping up with my reading all semester, even while working on my brief; now that the brief is turned in, I have more space for doing my reading and working outlining into my schedule. Moot court is coming up, but it’s ungraded and I’m approaching it more as a learning experience than as a stressful competition. OK, yes, this week is production week for the law school musical. And I’m going to be on campus a lot for that. But it’s over after this week! And I’ll have two more weeks of school plus a week of reading period before exams start.

I am sure that in about two weeks, I will completely freak out about how little I’ve learned this semester. But right now, the guilt fairy is trying to give me an ulcer, and she’s failing. I just don’t feel like I’ve slacked off excessively over Spring Break. I took the time off, enjoyed it, and now I’m rested and refreshed for the sprint to the end.

Can you tell that, when the sun comes back, my mood automatically improves? We gained about three hours of daylight over Spring Break and I feel terrific.

While I understand how frustrating it might to discover mid-semester that your professor is banning laptops from the classroom, I don’t disagree with the professor’s rationale or even think it’s necessarily a bad idea.

“My main concern was they were focusing on trying to transcribe every word that was I saying, rather than thinking and analyzing,” Entman said Monday. “The computers interfere with making eye contact. You’ve got this picket fence between you and the students.”

I think this is pretty true–many students use their laptops to hide from the professor (yes, myself included) and many students tend to transcribe when taking notes on a computer–particularly when they don’t understand the material very well. Yes, again, myself included. It’s instinct. When I am confused, I take solace that my notes are, essentially, dictation. If only I could type faster!

But I would be interested in taking a class with a “no laptop” policy, if the class was one I really wanted to take, and the professor was someone I really wanted to have–and if I knew about the policy ahead of time. Consider–if everyone in the class is proscribed from using the computer, there’s no lost competitive edge. Everyone is relegated to taking notes by hand. A spirit of camaraderie would probably flourish, too–those with good handwriting would be courted by those with chicken-scratch, and study groups would help one another transcribe the handwritten notes into typewritten outlines. And, again, everyone would be in the same boat, and none of us write so much anymore that anyone would be likely to be a better handwriter.

Now, to be honest, I’d probably not want a no-laptop policy for a 1L class, particularly because I think it’s important that everyone in such a class be aware of the policy so no one complains about it (á la the students in the article). But I think for an upper level class, it could work quite well. So, professors, if you’re interested in banning laptops, consider it! But not for 1L classes. And decide before the semester begins–and, indeed, before registration. Make sure the laptop policy is clearly listed on the course description so that every student knows what he or she is getting into. And see what happens!

Hat tip: JD2B

Kids, I think it’s done. I have spent A LOT of time over the last three days working on this thing, and at this point, I’m pretty sure it’s as good as it’s gonna get–at least, while I’m still worried about a page limit. I’m right at my max, and I’m worried to fiddle with it, lest I bump the whole thing over by a word.

All in all, this is the most exhaustive piece of writing I’ve ever done, and (warning! nerd alert!) it’s been the most fun. I liked the issue, I liked the side I got to write for, I even liked the policy arguments I got to make. Huzzah!

I’ll turn it in tomorrow morning, and then I guess I have to send my computer in. So, good things and bad things. Ah well.

I finished writing my appellate brief last night. By 11pm, everything was written. Arguments constructed and put into words.

My friends, this is the way to write. Today, I am going through and editing, refining, tweaking, and employing a variety of nice rhetorical strategies–because I don’t have to worry about actually getting my stuff down on paper. This is a delightful thing.

Of course, I think I’m on the verge of going over my page limit.

Y’all, it is a BEAUTIFUL day. If my entire Spring Break were this nice, I would be SO HAPPY.

Sadly, it’s supposed to get cold and wet again sometime in the middle of next week. And today? Today I am in the library. Working on my brief. Working working working. (Yes, I am actually working and not blogging.) Phooey.

Also, I should note that, ever since I got home from the Apple Store last night, I have had ZERO problems with my power cord charging my computer. No freaky sparking noises. No strange cord-stops-charging occurrences (when I’d have to “reset” the damn thing by unplugging it, waiting a minute or so, and plugging it back in–a procedure recommended by Apple as necessary to overcome the some voltage safety feature in the damn thing). I even tested it by unplugging it from the computer, plugging it back in, turning it and wiggling it a bit, to see if I could replicate what happened to me last night, with the freaky sparking noises. Nothing.

Now, I still think something is wrong with my computer, and I’m still going to send the damn thing in for repairs. But I feel a little better about the whole thing. If they try to make me pay out of pocket, I’ll feel a little less uncomfortable about having them send it back and getting it repaired somewhere else.

OK. Back to the brief. No more staring longingly out the window at the blue, blue water, and the sunny, sunny sky. Snif. I want to be outside today.

I don’t do well with actual writing at night. I’m much better at editing at night, and writing in the morning. Odd, huh?

Tonight, after a yummy meal (fixin’s picked up at the grocery on a long, wet, rainy, windy, COLD walk home) and a good movie, I figured I should get some work done. But writing didn’t appeal. I need a quiet library and either a big table or an isolated carrel in which to actually write. (That’s so I can create two dozen stacks of Westlaw printouts and then freak out when I can’t find the ground-breaking Supreme Court case I reeeeealllllly need for a given argument.)

So I revised. Two sections of my brief have already been written, turned in, and returned with comments. So I went through and fixed them! Yay! Then I put them into my master document, fixed the headings, and checked my page length. It’s really long right now. Sigh. That’s probably not a good thing.

But I digress. My point is that, at night, and particularly at home, I just can’t do any writing. I can only edit. So tomorrow, during my break, I’ll have to hunker down in the library and make my little piles of printouts, and write. Probably Saturday and Sunday, too.

Group assignment from hell: turned in

Tomorrow’s reading: finished (though I can’t promise I understood all of it)

This week’s rehearsals: over

Evening with Mr. Angst: underway

I do have an outline to work on before I meet with my professor tomorrow. And I need to review the two law review articles I had to read for tomorrow’s class. But for the first time in days, I do not feel buried under my obligations. It’s nice to remember what that feels like.

I’m not sure, really, what to add to that, except that I am also generally pissed off at the universe–or, at least, at some not-insignificant percentage of people I come into contact with on a daily or weekly basis. Most of them don’t deserve to be the subject of my pissiness, unfortunately.

Two weeks to spring break. Two weeks.

Today has been a frustrating day.

Frustration Part I: group projects in general, particularly the waiting part of group projects. I think I’ve decided that’s the major reason I dislike collaborative stuff–I would rather work on my timeframe and not have to coordinate schedules and stuff.

Frustration Part II: stupid CSS. I am working on a website and it looks exactly like I want it to, except that the container [div] tag that wraps around the content and sidebar [div] tags won’t work right. It’s supposed to wrap around in code and in fact, and give the whole thing a nice border. Instead, I get a 1px high box with a border, underneath my two side-by-side sections. If I set a height for the box, though, it works. But because the content will grow, I can’t make the damn page a static size. So I am seriously annoyed.

On a high note, though, dinner turned out well. It might have been better if we’d had better wine to go with it. Unfortunately, all we have is a Dee-Lite-Ful Ernest & Julio Gallo Shiraz. Mmmmmm. (No, really, it’s drinkable, but doesn’t pair well with my delicately flavored lemon risotto. Recipe to come.)

Finally, it’s Friday. All of my obligations for the week are over. Mostly. I did all but a small slice of my reading for the week, I wrote up my part of a group assignment due next week, and I collected several more articles and cases for my next legal writing assignment. I even went to to the gym and ran this week.

And I’m not exhausted. Instead, I feel antsy, edgy, twitchy. Even if I shouldn’t be tired (which is questionable), I should at least feel more relaxed–I made it through the week and managed not to either completely collapse or totally throw in the towel. But no. My brain is running a mile a minute. There are a dozen things I think I need to be doing, but I can’t really do any of them.

Looking over the last five days, I suddenly realize this has been one of the longest weeks of the year for me! I didn’t mention it earlier (I don’t think), but I had an interview late last week for a fall externship with a judge–and I got the position. That’s really exciting! But right now I feel like I’ve been living with that knowledge for a month, not a week. Law school really is a marathon, and I’m coming really close to hitting a wall in this stretch of it.

I have stopped bothering to attend law firm receptions. I have a hard time understanding the purpose of them. Sure, I can schmooze with people and enjoy the free food and drink but, barring the unexpected, such events aren’t really fruitful for either me or the firm. If I meet nice people and chat with them for a while, I can collect a business card, sure, but in six months, when I’m doing OCI, is that person going to remember me? Am I going to remember, short of the business card, what firm that person worked at?

Firms put on these events to play themselves up for us. That’s great. But in the end, of course, most of the firms end up looking the same: they have similar offices in the same four-block radius, they have the same kinds of clients and the same kinds of cases. The associates all went to the same law schools. They’re all eager to talk up their firm. They never tell you that the hours are awful or that they never see their spouse.

So I’ve stopped bothering to go to them. I suppose this could be at least partially because I am totally anti-schmoozing. But I think more of it is because I have so little time that spending it at fluffy social events doesn’t really appeal.

You know what I’m starting to notice?

The collegial atmosphere in my Law School has started to dissipate. People who I would normally consider very noncompetitive are starting to develop little tics–like shaking their heads in disbelief when someone says something wrong in class, or sighing audibly when someone says something they disagree with. While some people have been doing this sort of thing all year, I’m noticing that it’s spreading. Now it’s not just the gunners, it’s a smattering of nice people, too.

Spring Break, as my counter shows, is not far away. It can’t come too soon, for my mental sanity and that of my classmates. At least the ones I like.

One of the things I am forgetting to do this semester is take care of myself. I’ve gotten sort of complacent, as far as sticking to a schedule for getting my work done, and the result is that I am exhausted.

It’s funny, because I’ve actually been really good about getting my reading done during the week, at school, so that I don’t have to read at home. I absorb more of the material that way, so it’s been beneficial to my understanding in class. What I haven’t done is also make myself do my other work during the day at school. Other work like papers, research, and outlining. And because I don’t have to do my reading when I get home, I tend to forget that I have that other work to do at home, and just don’t get it done on time. Example: last night, I watched House and some ice dancing before I picked my computer up to finish the paper that was due this morning. Once I got going on it, things were great, but by 11 pm I was so sick of it, I couldn’t look at it anymore. I got up this morning to give it a once over, fixed the few things I could (while noting that my transitions were awful in places and, in other places, totally nonexistant) and lamented the lack of time to fix the other things. I turned it in, and then I turned myself in. I slept for another hour and a half.

I’ve just been less motivated to get things done first. Delayed gratification isn’t working for me–I want to vegetate before I do work, and that just doesn’t work. I have a week to work on my next graded assignment (as well as an ungraded assignment that I haven’t finished the research for), and after that, two more weeks to finish my big legal writing assignment for the semester. All the while, I have musical rehearsals, all the regular meetings I usually have, and bodily functions like sleeping and eating to take care of.

I keep trying to remind myself that I need to rest more, that I need to exercise more, that I need to eat better and drink lots of water. And if I do those things, I will have more energy and a clearer mind, and will be better able to stick to a schedule. I think it’s just that getting started requires so much momentum, and I just don’t have it right now.

First, I have an early class, and it sucks. It’s in a cold, dim classroom, half my section doesn’t bother to show up, and the material is not very interesting, for the most part. (It’s starting to get a little more interesting, to be fair.)

Today was made worse because I spent the two hours after my class pounding away on a legal writing assignment; then I ran to a lunch meeting, then I ran to a group meeting for a different legal writing assignment (ungraded, but still required), and rounded out the day by going to another class, in the same dim, cold classroom as my morning class.

In other words, I am exhausted. And it’s just MONDAY. And I still have to finish my legal writing assignment, because it’s due tomorrow morning. And I couldn’t go to office hours today to ask questions because they were during my five hour stretch of meetings and classes. Back to work, then, duckies.

1. I think I may be off the hook in Con Law for the rest of the semester. Not only did I volunteer an answer, I was also cold-called. I did well, I think, on both, so I think I can sit silently in the future without feeling guilty. At least until we get into more interesting material. Or are we covering more interesting material now? I haven’t decided.
2. Also, I need a second opinion. I received a baby shower invitation today. The shower is for a relative. It is in about three weeks. It is about 1100 miles away. Clearly, there is no expectation that I will actually attend. So is the invitation a thoughtful gesture, or is it a tacky plea for a gift?
3. I found the cutest pair of boots today. If they were black, I’d've bought them immediately, budget be damned! But they are brown, and I am not sure I need sassy brown boots, even at 50% off. Plus, Mr. Angst and I have a night out planned on Wednesday–we’re going dancing, which we haven’t done in probably close to a year. Part of me feels like, if we weren’t planning for that (which won’t be that pricey, but will involve buying drinks, maybe a little food, and maybe a cab ride), I could feel a little freer about spending the money.
4. Have any of you students ever emailed a professor, one who is not exactly known for being horrible about Socratic method, to tell him/her you weren’t going to be prepared?

The week is over.

La!

It turns out that the cases and notes I tried to cram into my head last night were not touched on in class today–or at least, not the ones I didn’t retain. Lucky, that. It also turns out that I was only an alternate bailiff for Moot Court, and they didn’t need me, so I got to leave school, come home, see my husband, and write a response paper for a different class. Not so much a night off, but somehow soothing.

In other words, I’m ending the week with a little less whimper than I thought I would. I read all the things I needed to read for the week (or I read the equivalents in a commercial supplement), I turned in all the assignments I needed turn in, and I went to all the events I needed to go to. For an overcommitted law student, I’m doing pretty well, I think. I feel, in fact, sort of light; less burdened. Mr. Angst is done with his midterms, too, so that makes things better.

Frankly, I feel so good that I’m tempted to go work out!

Argh. Today has not been the best day. It started with, well, La Neighbor and her rockin’-out-in-the-shower ways (and, also, the flaunt-her-towel-draped-body-while-screaming-about-her-lack-of-furniture thing). It continued when Mr. Angst and I had a minor spat (over bread, of all stupid things), and it has just continued All Damn Day Long.

I am so behind on all my reading because I have had ZERO time to do it this week, what with Appellate Brief Nonsense and Law School Musical rehearsal and, you know, Sleep. And tonight I’m bailiff-ing for Moot Court. No time! NO TIME! I won’t even be home until late this evening, and that’s no good, since I won’t have seen Mr. Angst all day and he has midterms this week and is also stressed out and fretful. Is it any wonder I am in such a crappy mood?

To be fair, my brother helped me relax a little today by telling me about the puppies he’s going to look at this weekend (so cute! extra skin!); and then we laughed about one of the other dogs, who has a yeast infection on his skin, and how Brother should really just slather yogurt on him instead of paying for prescription medication. But snorty laughter in the library does not make your fellow students like you very much, so I had to stop IMing and try reading Civ Pro. I haven’t been able to concentrate on anything, though, because I am so tapped out, so I don’t think I retained any of it.

Basically, what I really need right now is for someone to find my brain and give it back to me.

Well, look at that.

Somehow I made it out of the hole, yet I still find myself completely overwhelmed and without any time to post substantively. Maybe that’s because I’ve been neglecting my reading for my other classes; maybe it’s because I had a make-up class today, and so had to do extra reading. Maybe it’s because I had an interview this morning to prepare for–and to, apparently, dream about.

Yeah, let me tell you about that dream.

Sometime in the early morning hours, I started to have a waking dream. You know, one of those that seems so real, when you wake up, you don’t quite know what’s happened, because you thought you were already awake? Yeah, one of those. And what I dreamed was that I had overslept. Really, not the end of the world, since I had class before my interview, and skipping that class would not have been the end of the world.

Except that in my dream, I WAY overslept. And I had something like 40 minutes to shower, do my hair, dress, and get to school for my interview. And things kept going wrong. Like, my shower took twice as long as it normally does. And my suit jacket somehow didn’t fit. Also, the tags were still on my suit jacket, and for some reason, I couldn’t get them off. Maybe I don’t own any scissors in my dream world. Nothing was going right, and I was beginning to panic, and that made everything worse. Maybe this isn’t such a weird dream after all.

At any rate, the alarm went off right as I (in my dream) was running, full speed, for the train. I woke to find that I was still in bed, it was before 7 am, and I had all the time in the world. So I snoozed.

In other words, I’m out of the hole, but apparently no one told my subconscious.

Oh — one final thing. If I’m sending a writing sample to a potential employer, should I do anything special to it? Like, put a cover sheet on it? It’s a full memo, so I figured I didn’t need to preface it with a lot of information about the legal issues. Right now, I just have my name and phone number at the top of each page and no cover sheet. Is that sufficient?

You know how sometimes, when things are completely muddy, you have a moment of clarity? And things suddenly make sense?

I’m having one of those moments. It’s pretty cool. I kind of wish it had happened a couple of days ago, though.

Almost out of the hole.

This week, frankly, is hell. What’s more unfair about it, besides it being hell, is that Mr. Angst has three midterms this week. So I am freaked and stressed out, and so is he. Two stressed out graduate students sharing a home does not a fun home make. I can’t take care of him, he can’t take care of me, and meanwhile, the apartment is going to shit.

Or, it was. I got sick of it today and scrubbed down the kitchen–countertops, sink, stovetop (including the burner covers, which are GROSS, but thankfully you can buy new ones for a couple of bucks). I’m going to take a load off for an hour or so, and then I’m going to pull out ALWD and start fixing my citations and footnotes for my appellate brief. Tomorrow is for editing the writing and sentence structure–as well as reading mountains of Con Law and Civ Pro II. Argh.

What I’m basically saying here, in this boringest of posts, is that posting will continue to be light until I can come up for air in a couple of days. Honestly, it might even be the end of the week before things feel back to normal.