divine angst

Bar/Bri continues apace. Today’s lecture was WAY too long and the lecturer spends too much time repeating the stuff in the notes instead of highlighting the nuance. He is, at least, entertaining. I have given up on the Paced Program for the time being and am instead just trying to keep up with the reading.

Work is heating up—I have four cases on my desk including two court appearances scheduled for Monday, and everyone keeps giving me more responsibility. It’s actually very cool—people seem to trust that I can handle the matters they’re giving me and that gives me confidence that I, well, actually CAN handle the matters they’re giving me.

Also, my last set of grades came in today, which means I can no longer procrastinate on my clerkship applications. This weekend, therefore, is set aside not for doing practice questions but instead for writing cover letters, polishing up my writing samples, and building my online applications. Right now, it doesn’t feel quite real—I’ve been telling myself for months that I’ll send my applications once grades come in; well, grades are in, so I guess have to back that up.^[1]

Oh, and yes, grades are in, which means I am officially done. Even though my degree audit doesn’t actually indicate that I’ve completed my last two requirements, I know I have and I know I’m done. I am officially a Juris Doctor. Hallelujah!

1. I realize this makes it sound like I don’t actually want to apply for clerkships. I actually DO want to apply for clerkships; it’s just the reality of actually having to write the cover letters and get my writing samples ready that I balk at. I think cover letters are just another opportunity to screw up, and as far as writing samples goes, I hate that I have lots of really good stuff that’s either cowritten, and so inappropriate to send, or too long, or not doctrinal enough, or is just too short. I have been looking for that perfect 10-12 page writing opportunity forever, and I have never quite achieved it. Everything I have that length is cowritten or or casual memo. Gah. ↩

I was planning to write a sort of lengthy post about the end of law school and all of the myriad emotions I’ve been feeling since taking my last exam, and about wandering around the city feeling unemployed, and how sort of strange I felt today, particularly.

But I’m not going to write about that because, today, after I got home, my graduation gift from Mr. Angst was waiting for me and I’ve spent most of this evening playing with it. Mr. Angst has even joined me.

That’s right.

We’ve formed a band.

So you’ll have to excuse me if I’m a little preoccupied for the next few weeks before Bar/Bri starts (and before my summer job starts)—what free time I’ll have away from revising The Task and from finishing up journal stuff may well be spend honing my guitar skills. (Yes, it’s ironic—I’m the guitarist and Mr. Angst is the singer. I am not really sure why or how that happened except that it’s my graduation present and, at least if I play by myself, it’s more fun to play the guitar than to sing. I actually think I’ll spend some time tomorrow starting a solo career.)

Excuse me—I have to run. Mr. Angst is singing Don’t Fear the Reaper, solo. I want to watch this.

I’m really in the home stretch now, and I’m starting to feel it.

That’s mostly because I just got comments back on my second draft of The Task. I’m really proud of what I’ve written, astonished that I cranked out 21,000 words and that most of them don’t suck, and, most of all, gratified that my advisor thinks it’s a great paper.

Despite the fact that I still have an exam to take, I’m really feeling the oncoming end to this thing called Law School. This paper has been a very consistent theme for me this year—it’s influenced what news I’ve read, what I think about some really interesting current events, and even how I think about an entire area of law and regulation. This, from a paper that started as a very small germ, in the vein of “I think I want to write about this particular entity,” that didn’t even really have a conclusion until two months ago.

So seeing it wrap up has me a little emotional. It represents a whole year that has been one of the hardest of my life, both personally and academically, and its success represents that all of it has been worth it. It’s exciting and sad and overwhelming all at the same time.

Of course, I say all of this knowing full well that I intend to send it out for publication in August, and will be working on it all summer, too—sending it out for comments from some of the authors I cite, revising the language, tightening it, expanding it, contracting it. I guess the distinction, though, is that it won’t be Law School this summer—it’ll just be me, writing about something that I find really, really interesting.

But for now, The Task represents an emotional end. It’s not bittersweet—I am, actually, completely ready to graduate—but it’s emotional.

I seem to like the lists lately. Here’s another one.

• I did a quick search on Westlaw today, looking for additional authority for a section of The Task that I’m reworking. It was very gratifying to note that of the top 10 results, I already have—and have read—seven of them. Two of the other three were PLI documents (so, not really what I was looking for, since those tend to just report developments in an area of law rather than craft/expound upon a new theory or interpretation). Honestly? One of the better research moments in my life. I do wish, however, that I’d been able to construct this awesome search three months ago; the benefit of hindsight, I suppose, and months of reading on the topic.
  
  
• My brother may be moving overseas. Like, in a month. This is a little weird, but really cool for him. I was just thinking that, if he does have to move overseas on short notice, it’s good that it will be right after my graduation, since that’ll be a nice family gathering where we can all say goodbye; he probably won’t be back in the States till the fall, and even that seems like a bit of a longshot.
  
  
• I get to leave tomorrow for a three-day, four-night vacation with my best friend (and some other people) and I am probably more excited about that than the fact that I had my last real law school class, EVER, today. (I have a clinic meeting tomorrow, but that’s not really class.)

I think that’s enough of a list for today.

• I picked up my disgustingly purple graduation gown this week. The purple color is really not the worst part. The worst part is the two gold-embroidered medallions Right. Over. My. Boobs. ROCK.
• I had to do my financial aid exit interview this week also. I owe a crap assload of money to various people. It’s pretty depressing, actually.
• I found out who our graduation speaker is, and I am pretty embarrassed that I now have to tell my parents and my in-laws who it is. Yeah, it’s that bad. I might just not say anything and act surprised at graduation.
• But in brighter news, all of my remaining obligations for the semester seem to be wrapping up smoothly. I’m a little surprised, actually, and I’m kind of waiting for the other shoe to drop.

I’m pretty sure it’s not good.

Oh, I mean, it’s got good parts, and it’s probably a good start, but I’m pretty sure it’s not actually good. I can’t even add “yet” to the end of that sentence; I’m not really sure it’s going to be good. I have hope, but my hope is definitely tempered with a little bit of realistic dismay.

It’s not as long as I thought it would be; I’m sure it will grow, though. It’s not as fluid as I wanted it to be, but I think that’s expected of a first draft. The biggest problem, though, is that I’m not sure I’ve said anything new at all. Maybe that’s OK—maybe this really is just one of those papers that brings a lot of different thoughts together to bear on a particular problem. Maybe it’s OK to not break new ground in recommending a complete change in thinking if I’m breaking new ground in suggesting that a problem exists that people haven’t recognized, and that other (smarter, maybe) people than I have already outlined the solution—it’s just a matter of applying the solution.

Whatever. All I know is that I have to put the damn thing away for a few hours or days before I come back and reread it, and then send it in. And wait for the (first draft) verdict.

As much as I am enjoying the writing (and I really am, when I am actually making progress and know what I’m doing), it hit me this morning just how tired I am.

I’m tired of dealing with . . . everything. I’m tired of dealing with authors, I’m tired of being the go-to person for a variety of tasks which I thought I delegated away, I’m tired of not having time to sit and watch TV or clean my house or take Himself on a decently long walk. I’m tired of the neverending work; I can’t go home and get away from it because it is always there, needing to be worked on. I’m tired of feeling like I don’t have time to go to the gym because it takes two and a half hours to get there and back and get a decent workout done, and I don’t have two and a half hours in the day to spare. I’m just tired.

Graduation is looming, looming, looming and, while I often wish I had another year of law school so I could take all those classes I didn’t get to take and learn all that stuff I never got to learn, I know what a bad thing that would be for me. I’d just end up back in this same spot, fending off ever more work and getting more and more tired. I cannot even begin to describe how eager I am to just have a job and not feel like my minutes on the train or bus need to spent reading and thinking about The Task or exams or journal work, to be able to leave work at work (even if I leave it at work late in the day). Long hours I can deal with; neverending hours I cannot. At least not these kind of neverending hours.

Now that the MPRE is over (damn the MPRE!) I am heading into my last week of school before Spring Break with only two things on my plate—one more edit^[1] and The Task.

I’m starting to get a little nervous about The Task. I have several pages, some of which are actually good but most of which are mediocre at best—and quite a few of which are really, really bad. I finally have a solid, concrete vision in my head of what the whole thing is going to end up looking like, but that vision has not hit the paper yet. I’ve got to get it on paper, and soon—all 60-something pages of it. With citations to authority.

So I’ve got about two weeks, maybe a little less, to get the First Draft of The Task done. I keep telling myself I work better under pressure and that once all these edits are off my plate I can just write and write and write. I hope that’s true.

1. And this means EVER—I’m almost done with the big part of my journal duties, though I’ll be doing follow-up edits for the rest of the semester. I am pretty much totally and complete excited. ↩

The MPRE is over. I honestly have no idea how it went. What I do know is that I’m back to editing. Editing editing editing.

Yep, it’s official. I’m going to fail the MPRE.

I am slightly annoyed that the Bar/Bri MPRE practice test answer explanations make reference to rules and exceptions that aren’t stated in the comprehensive outline.

Between angry authors, summer planning, and class reading, the universe has conspired to ensure that I will fail the MPRE.

Can someone give me about six extra hours between now and Saturday morning?

Of all the things on my plate, the one I want to deal with least is the MPRE. That’s just sad. I’d rather be doing some tedious and frustrating editing, or some frustrating and exhausting writing over reading through this big, green MPRE book.

My favorite way to spend a Friday night is reviewing journal staffers’ work and discovering someone didn’t actually do their work^[1], all while not being at Law Prom. ^[2]

1. And I know this because, hi, you didn’t note any problems at all with all those id.s that appeared to be to a document that had completely different page numbers than the page numbers being cited, on which there were supposed to be QUOTATIONS you were supposed to be checking, which do not just happen to appear in both, differently-paginated articles. ↩
2. Note: Mr. Angst and I voluntarily skipped out on Law Prom for a number of reasons, and I don’t regret that decision. I’m just sayin’, it’s a little annoying that I’m fixing other people’s work while those people are almost certainly at Law Prom. ↩

I have never been good at organizing my time in any realistic fashion. I generally just sit down and do the work I have to do, in no particular order and without deliberately chunking tasks.

For the remainder of this semester—the remainder of my law school career—that is not going to fly. I have The Task to finish^[1] as well as some lingering journal duties, and the MPRE to prepare for, and clinic work, and class work for that last law school class.

The other day, Coleslaw posted a link to Study Hacks, about scheduling one’s writing. I needed that post So Much, it’s not even funny. The whole concept of not sitting down and trying to write for interminable amounts of time—of writing without an end in sight—was revelatory for me. I don’t know that that’s what Study Hacks was necessarily going for, but that’s what I took from it.

So I’ve started scheduling my day around my tasks in manageable chunks. Instead of looking at my day and saying, “I’m going to work on X till I’m done with it and then Y if I have time,” I’m saying, “I’m going to sit and write for three hours, from 9 to noon, and then I’m going to work on this other thing until 4, and then I’m going to the gym, no matter where I am in the progress of working on these things.”

Granted, sometimes that won’t work. Sometimes I’ll have to take the tail end of a project and just go finish it, no matter how long it takes. But there are very few projects on my plate right now for which I can’t accurately predict how long that finishing process will take. (Ew, that grammar is icky.) I’m feeling less stressed about working because I am less uncertain about how things will get done. They’ll get done in three- and four-hour chunks. That’s how.

With that, I’m off to walk the dog and have lunch before I jump into the afternoon.

1. I know, I haven’t been writing much about The Task. Maybe I’ll start doing that as a way of organizing my thoughts. Maybe I won’t, since I’m still pretty sure I have no idea what I’m talking about. ↩

The semester has officially caught up with me. But I am seeing the light at the end of the tunnel—in the last few days I’ve finished or offloaded three major projects and made huge headway towards totally completing a fourth. I have two major things left to do, one which (sigh) I am already hugely behind on which has repercussions for other people (i.e., they’ve got work to do after I’m done), and one which I am also delayed on but that only affects me (i.e., if I don’t get it done, at least it means I’m the only one who will have to work on it after graduation).

But I am well underway on both of these projects, and I feel good about them. I also am going to be getting some help on one of them soon, so the light at the end of the tunnel is really shining brightly. Still, between now and mid-May I have to finish these two projects, one of them much sooner than the other, study for and take the MPRE, and . . . wait, that can’t be it, can it? I also have an exam to take as well as a clinic to keep participating in, but I am less concerned about those—that’s just the daily work, I guess. And there’s the law school musical, of course, but that’s just plain fun—diversion—so I don’t really count that. What it all means is that my plate is looking a little cleaner lately, which I appreciate.

It also means that I have to be a little more focused since I have fewer things to be distracted by and I admit that I am not the best at being focused on one or two things; I like to have a lot going on at once so that I can jump back and forth. But it will be good for me—finding the diversions in the monotony? (Not that there’s a lot of monotony in the work I’ve got ahead of me; it’s just that it is almost certain to seem neverending at some point.)

Meanwhile, I’ve got a burn on my left thumb, which makes it tough to type (I’m going between my keyboard and an ice cube wrapped in a paper towel) so I’m taking a bit of a Valentine’s Day break to watch a movie with Mr. Angst. I am sure I will regret this in the morning, but ah well.

Last night’s Super Bowl gathering ended with people scattering into the unexpected snow and, this morning, that snow has turned into icky, drippy fog.

What better weather, then, for sitting at home in my sweats and getting work done? None, I tell you, none. I am back at my desk, after two weeks of working in front of the TV and at the dining room table. I’m not sure why I’ve been avoiding my desk, other than that it’s piled to the ceiling with books and Westlaw printouts, and that’s a bit depressing.

Of course, the two weeks on the couch and at the table have taken a toll on my wrist, so I’m back to wearing my splint and spending my breaks looking for a good ergonomic mouse that works with a Mac. (3M has a cool joystick-shaped one, but the scroll function is via a button that works with Windows but not with OS X. I can’t live without a scroll function, so I’m not getting that one.)

In any case, a day spent inside swaddled in fleece is just what my latest clinic assignment needs, so the fog could not have been better timed. I’m getting solid research done, I have a good outline, and I’m about to decamp to the living room with some printouts of seminal cases. I suppose I’ll have to take the dog out here in a bit but I doubt he’ll want to be outside any more than I do, so I’m sure to be back at work in a jiffy.

Productive Mondays always make me feel better.

TGIF my foot.

Between the piles of snow that fell on us last night, the frustration of dealing with some administrative hassles, and the never-ending sinus congestion, today has been a pretty pissy day. Fridays always seem to end up like this. I think it’s because, as I finish out the week, I have to deal with all the little things that have piled up over the last five days, and that inevitably leads to me being disappointed in the way someone did something, which leads to me having to put on my “scolding” hat, and GOSH do I hate that hat. I really dislike having to call people out for doing a bad job, especially when those people are capable, intelligent adults. Sigh.

Despite all of the above, I’m not in a wretched mood. But neither am dancing in the streets. I actually suspect the only things keeping me from being in the aforementioned wretched mood are the good feedback I got on a clinic assignment and the 20 minutes I spent watching the dog play in the piles of snow. Since those things bracketed my day (got the feedback early this morning, and just came in from playing with the dog), all the other stuff in the middle is not hitting me as harshly as it otherwise might. I’m going to try and keep it that way.

Dear 1Ls,

Your inane, annoying, and mostly inaccurate conversation about getting jobs, being wined and dined, partying, and how you have no idea how to get to parts of the law school that are parts of the law school make me think even less of you than I already did.

Congrats.

It’s 1 o’clock. What have I done today?

1. Read background materials for a clinic assignment. Wrote up some questions for my conference call with the supervising attorney this afternoon.
2. Finished my bar exam application. Submitted it online (and paid for it). Still have to notarize and mail in one form.
3. Did the Law School Roundup.
4. Did my taxes. Working part of a year for a law firm means my refund is very nice.
5. Walked the dog. I just bathed him yesterday, and now he’s dirty again. I like the slightly warmer weather, and the resulting thaw, but it definitely makes the streets really gross.
6. Discussed the possible purchase of a new TV with Mr. Angst. (Thanks, tax refund!) Not sure about the timing on that.
7. Threw a load of laundry in. Still needs to go in the dryer.
8. Blew my nose approximately four hundred times.

I think that’s a lot for four hours (I didn’t get started on anything till 9 o’clock, and somewhere in there I also took a shower). Let’s see if I can match it this afternoon!

The last week has been good. I’m getting settled back into school, adjusting to my new schedule (which I love), eating healthier, taking more breaks from the computer . . . in general, I think I’ve started the year well.

Best of all, I’ve lost 3 pounds by having a homemade fruit-and-yogurt smoothie for breakfast every day, and going to the gym with Mr. Angst three days a week. As for the latter, I always thought I preferred to go to the gym alone—get my stuff done by myself, not see anyone I know in case I did something stupid (like slip off the exercise ball like I did last night)—but going with Mr. Angst has been delightful, and I’m glad it’s working out for us. The former was just an attempt to get more dairy and fruit in my diet, but it appears to be working and I’m not going to knock it.

Meanwhile, I’ve managed to write a couple of interesting pages for The Task (ack, I am just starting to write) as well as started finishing my part of last semester’s journal issue. (This semester’s issue hits my plate in a week, though.) And I’m taking scheduled breaks from my computer (important since I’m at home most days) to sit on my couch and do my reading or just watch a little TV and play with the dog.

If I can keep this up all semester, I’ll be in good shape!

Look, it’s bad enough that I have to report all my addresses since I was 18. But it’s even worse that, in the four years I was in college, I lived in the dorms (i.e., didn’t have a year-round address of my own at college) AND my parents moved pretty much every year.

I currently have something like fourteen addresses listed on my bar application. TEN of those are from college—my address at school for the 9-month academic year, plus a three-month summer address at my parents’ house (and in one summer, TWO addresses from the summer; and in one academic year, TWO addresses because I was studying off campus).

As bad as all that is, at least I have all of those addresses—or can get them pretty easily. I am desperately avoiding dealing with all the employers I worked for between my 18th birthday and starting law school. There was the year I had three jobs . . . the supervisor whose name I never learned to spell . . . the supervisor whose name I don’t remember . . . the college work-study jobs . . . .

Frankly, this is going to be a disaster.

I won’t say I don’t like having a little more time to study and prepare my outline. I do—I think I’ve been able to absorb more of the material this way, internalize it more.

But because of this “leisurely” study pace, I feel like I’ve been working on B.A. for-ev-er. (I kind of have—at least a week now, by my count.) I need to just get done with all this outlining stuff and print the damn thing out, tab it all to hell, and start doing practice exams.

I only have a few more pages of notes to process, so I should be able to start the tabbing tonight. Practice tests tonight and tomorrow. Exam tomorrow afternoon or Thursday morning. And then?

Back to journal editing. Yeah, no wonder I’m taking my time.

I am not making as much progress in studying as I was earlier this week. The problem is a familiar one. It seems like it happens every year, and this year is no different: I am missing that sense of urgency. I’m just not scared. This year is different, though. Usually I’m not scared because I know I have time and my brain thinks it works better under pressure. This year, though, I have an additional factor—I am too comfortable with the material. I’ve enjoyed this class a lot, more than I expected to, and I have an affinity for the kind of analysis required. So not only do I have plenty of time, but also I’m just not worried about the material. (Note: I should be worried—no exam is easy enough to take without some serious preparation. This is just my brain tricking me into being lazy.)

At any rate, I’m struggling to motivate myself when all I really want to do is curl up in front of the fire with my dog and wait out the snow. After a semester of doing nothing but working, working, working, under high levels of stress and while dealing with many, many frustrations, I kind of feel like I deserve a more relaxing exam period, especially when I only have one exam. But I also have a hard time escaping from the guilt of not working when I have work to do.

That just makes me sound lazy, doesn’t it? That I’m only on my second day of outlining? I’m not lazy, I just had a bunch of (non-exam-related) stuff to catch up on after finishing a big round of journal stuff last weekend, and my exam isn’t until next Thursday.

Day 2 is much like Day 1: I am ensconced on the couch with my casebook, a Legalines keyed to my casebook (this is the book that smells like Raid), and an E&E for the first few weeks of the course. That’s right—I have TWO E&Es for this course. I love the E&E books, but there isn’t a “Business Organizations” or “Business Associations” E&E. So I had to get the Agency, Partnerships & LLCs E&E as well as the Corporations E&E. This is way more E&E than I need—I kind of flipped out as I was reading through part of the agency stuff yesterday and wondered if I really missed all this stuff on ratification and multilevel agency relationships. And then I calmed down and realized that I didn’t take Agency, I took Business Associations, and we didn’t go over that stuff. See? This is why, even if I zone out in class, the fact that I go to class is important. I know we didn’t go over ratification in any detail and I KNOW we didn’t talk about multilevel agency relationships in any detail. I hope. No, I’m pretty sure we didn’t. I’m good.

Anyway, today is Partnerships. Maybe a little on the formation of Corporations, if I get that far.

Oh, I also have a big cup of coffee next to me, and a batch of no-knead bread doing its second rise (having done its first, 22-hour rise yesterday and overnight). I can study like this—it’s almost leisurely, and leaves time for relishing the Christmas season (my tree is up).