The worst part about studying is getting started. Once I get started, I can usually get on a roll and just go.
Of course, each time I stop to get more coffee, go get the latest packages (pressies!), take the dog out, use the bathroom, answer the phone, etc., I have to Get Started again.
The only good thing here is that I have plenty of time to work through my notes at a reasonable pace. Otherwise I’d be flipping out.
And there I went, disappearing on you for another long stretch! This blogging thing is getting harder and harder!
I want to write something on the difference between how I study now versus how I studied two years ago, but I’m also kind of afraid to sit down and think about how I study now versus how I studied two years ago. My grades are, basically, the same as they were then (with the exception of one semester that Shall Never Be Spoken Of), so I’m not really sure how valuable such a post would be—either for anyone reading or for myself. Because the basic gist is that I spend much less time outlining (I do still outline, I just do it more quickly) and much more time zoning out in class (but I do still go to class, only missing when I absolutely can’t help it), but I end up getting the same basic grades.
Or maybe not. My most unexpected (good) grade from last semester was in the class I went to every time but one, paid attention every day, and outlined earliest. My most unexpected (bad) grade was in the class I missed several of, outlined last, and took last. Hm. Maybe I’m wrong about how I study.
In any case, I am super busy right now, finishing up some last-minute stuff for the semester, so I don’t really have the time to give such a post the treatment it deserves. So I’ll make do with this cheery message:
Your grades are what they are. Do your best. Prepare as fully as you can. Take the exam. And then forget about it. If the grade isn’t good, deal with it. Play up your other strengths when you’re interviewing—get involved in a student organization or volunteer with a local legal aid group. Take a clinic. Just remember that you ≠ grades. You’re in law school for a reason. Remember that reason.
I am officially employed for next year (and beyond). Whew! Cross that item off my to-do list.
And, done! Second (well, third, really) round of journal duties have been delegated out. I have some revisions to take care of this week, but, otherwise, for the next two weeks, I’m just in standby mode. I am LOVING it.
I will, however, be spending the weekend doing research for clinic. C’est la vie.
I’m enjoying being a student again this week, instead of being an editor who also happens to be paying excessive amounts of money for that privilege. I’ve been digging into some sections of the U.S. Code and learning quite a bit about how federal statutes are constructed, I’ve been reading up on aggravation and mitigation in capital cases, and I’ve been learning about various models for anti-competitive behavior in “middleman” markets. (Don’t actually ask me what that means; I think I just made it up on the spot. It’s for The Task, so I can do that.)
At any rate, it’s been fun, learning again, instead of being a manager and editor—and turning into a crabby old lady. I think I get to do this for another two or so weeks, and I am looking forward to every minute of those two weeks.
I’ve been sitting here doing my B.A. reading, trying to figure out why my study carrell smells like pesticide (like, roach spray, really).
I just realized it’s the commercial supplement I bought the other day. Damn thing’s ink smells like Raid. Gross.
Suddenly it’s really fall. It’s dark at 6:30, it’s brisk outside, and I’m in the thick of the semester. I have bunches to do, but it’s all really interesting, at least. And now that there’s no more evening sunshine, my mind understands that it’s time to buckle down and work hard. Thankfully, I finished one big project today, so I’m not stretched so thin, or with the more tedious work.
Fall means good things, like Halloween and Thanksgiving and trips home and visits from family. It also means winter is just around the corner. And exams. And grades. The good with the less good. That’s fall.
Look, it’s just who I am OK?
After wondering what my billables might be if I were keeping track, I decided to, well, keep track.
First, I lucked into finding a pretty handy little time-keeper. It’s a free Mac application called Time Clock[1] (pretty clever name, that!) and it is seriously No Frills. You can’t edit your time, it doesn’t show seconds, but it’s still damn useful. You select “Start Clock” from a handy menu bar, and it starts keeping track of your time. You select “Stop Clock” when you want to stop.
I know, I could get a stopwatch for that. The best part is that it has a “breaks” feature. You tell it how many minutes you want to go between breaks. When you have worked that many minutes, your entire screen is overlayed with yellow, and a big message appears in the middle: “Time to take a break!” If you’re not ready to stop, you just select “Postpone Break” from your menu and it goes away. You can even set how long you want that “snooze” interval to be.
I thought at first that I’d hate the yellow thing–it’s really a vile shade. But it is the BEST thing. Because it gets my attention. You can work under it with no problems; it’s a purely visual thing. But it’s there, staring you in the face the whole time: get up! get some water, go to the bathroom, stretch!
So I used my handy little Time Clock all day today. I “billed” just under 8 hours. I also made homemade chili (not from a mix—we’re talking onions, garlic, spices, stew meat, some beans (though I could have left them out), some tomato puree, some stock, and the crock pot), watched a bit of football, and took the dog on a walk. All in all, not too bad for a Sunday. I didn’t get everything done that I needed to, but I am VERY close. Frankly, I’m not even bothered that I’m not done, because I know how much I worked today. Usually I feel like I dither around too much; today I know that wasn’t the case because, even if I did dither a bit, I did so with discipline.
On deck for tomorrow: a conference call, a bit more of this journal work, some statutory research for two different projects, and hopefully another day of feeling really productive.
Because something is wrong with an electrical transformer at our building, they shut down the building’s power. Each unit still has power but stuff that relies on common power is down. No AC, then, nor water (the pumps are off), nor, for some odd reason, cable. I.e., no internet.
One would think I’d be really productive without the internet. One would be wrong. It turns out, I use westlaw A Lot. And I feel lost without it. I guess I’ll just have to make up for It while I’m at school. At least everything should be back to normal by this evening.
Oh dear God, I think I know what life as an associate at a law firm will be like. I do nothing but work. I work in front of the TV, watching the TWO shows I still insist on watching, I work on the bus to and from school, I even work (mentally) while I walk to and from the bus stop. I send email from my Blackberry while I wait for the bus. The only time I really stop working is when I sleep, shower, and eat. No, wait, I work while I eat, too.
I’ve been wondering lately what sort of time I’d clock if I were keeping track of my billables. I probably don’t want to know.
By the way, I know I’m supposed to get the Law School Roundup posted at some point, but I’m having trouble pulling it together. Frankly, the only thing I’ve been paying much attention to in the law-student-blogosphere this week has been the nightmare Lag Liv, her husband, and son have been going through.
It’s times like these the anonymity of blogging really gets to me. Luckily, not everyone is anonymous, but, face it, most of us are. Anonymity is just fine when we’re all griping about the work, the work, and, oh yeah, the work—or the gunners, the administration, the feeling of being completely lost—but every once in a while, real life comes crashing down and I realize we are NOT just floating along in a bubble called law school.
Perhaps I’m just a little introspective right now because my grand plans for next year didn’t turn out the way I thought they would. Don’t get me wrong—my “Plan B” is just fine, and might, in fact, end up better than the plan I originally pursued. But I’m actually staring Real Life in the face here, when I’m actually not really ready not to be a student any more.
The lesson to be learned is that you can’t manage your life. Oh, you can keep your ducks lined up, and make sure you cross your t’s and dot your i’s, but every now and then someone will come along with some birdseed, and the ducks will scatter, or you’ll knock over the pot of ink, and your t’s and i’s will merge with a sea of messy. I’m having to just let go lately—get through the day, and then get through the next day, and get through the following day—and the only crappy thing about that is knowing that there will always be another day, even when I’ve caught up or finished my work.
I know this hardly counts as a Roundup, but it’s the best I can manage right now.
Work, work, work. That’s all I do—in between cooking dinner, eating, sleeping, and sitting on the bus going to and from school. I thought this semester would be a little easier than next—or that’s what I heard from my predecessor on the journal board—but I think that was wrong. How could it not be wrong? I have more to work on this semester for the journal than I will next semester. Oh, sure, next semester I’ll be slaving away with writing, for The Task, but this semester I’m slaving away, writing for clinic. And reading for that four-hour class that I think I’d really, really enjoy if I could just spend a little more time invested in it.
Sigh. Maybe I’m just bitter because I spent so much time in the library today. And I’m about to spend the rest of the day staring at my computer screen, finishing things up.
ImNobody speaks the truth. And I’ll tell you a little secret: even missing 2 points on your LSAT doesn’t have to mean the end of the world. I had been rocking the practice tests in the weeks leading up to my LSAT and I was counting on my average test score as I entered application season. I got a score 2 points lower than my average test score. Still a good score, yes! But those 2 points had the potential to really screw up my admissions chances at a lot of schools I really wanted to get into.
I’m my situation, I managed to get into a better school than my numbers indicated was possible. But even if I hadn’t, I know that my LSAT score would not have determined my experience in law school anyway. It certainly hasn’t where I am—I am very happy with my grades, I have a position on my journal’s executive board that allows me to play to my strengths while getting some excellent experience, and I’ve taken the opportunity to work with some really amazing professors. In other words, I am the student I always knew I was capable of being, LSAT be damned.
Don’t cancel your score. See what happens. If what happens isn’t what you hoped, remember to look at the big picture. Remember that you’ll be spending three years in law school and that “fit” can be more important than the marginal gain in prestige represented by those few missed points. Once you’ve honestly looked at everything, every factor (including but not limited to prestige), if you are still not happy with your options, then you can decide to take it again.[1]
As of right now, the result looks like it will be the same, but I would rather have waited and done it on my own terms.
I guess I just don’t write here anymore—or anywhere, for that matter. Which is a shame, because I’ve had this post in my head for a few days that I really want to get down, but haven’t had time. There’s just so much going on—my 30th birthday, clerkship nonsense, the rest of my life looming before me—that I should be writing about it all, but I just haven’t been able to. I say it’s the time thing, but frankly I do have time to sit down and knock out a post. I just haven’t been able to mentally.
That’s sort of the theme for this semester so far. I haven’t been able to do much. I’m not exactly behind in my work, I’m just not working at a pace that will allow me to stay on top of things for much longer. I’m just in the grip of stasis—I don’t want to work, I don’t want to not work, and I end up just sitting in front of my computer flipping between Google Reader and Facebook, neither of which has anything new to look at. Is this senioritis? Or is it something more sinister? Am I losing myself? I’m starting to get worried that all the vaunted perspective I came into law school with has been destroyed, or at least buried, under the expectations and advice of others who are not me, are not in my circumstances, and don’t really have much to offer me in the way of expectations and advice.
It’s hard, in other words, not to get wrapped up in what everyone else says Should Be, when only I can decide for myself what Should Be—and what, if the Should Bes don’t pan out, Will Be. I dislike having little direction, so I worry that I’ve been taking direction from people who don’t really know how to steer my particular ship.
OK, that’s enough of the painful metaphors.
Basically, I’m feeling a little lost right now. It’s made it hard for me to work, it’s made it hard for me to write, and I’m ready to get past it. Here’s hoping I get past it.
Whew! It’s been a week!
The first week of classes is always a little exhausting, between figuring out when you have to leave home to get to school on time, to deciding how you’ll spend your time between classes, to arranging enough time to get your reading done. I think I’ve figured all that stuff out, though.
The problem is that I’m also in a couple of classes that require a good bit of writing, and I’m not really sure yet when I’ll find the time to do that. Not to mention the journal stuff that requires more concentrated chunks of time. My schedule as it is now is very broken up. I’m even contemplating dropping a seminar to make some room for all of my duties—it’s only 2 hours and I don’t need them.
But I’m setting all these little worries aside for the time being because I’ve just finished a sort of important task—that had to be done by this evening—and now I can relax and enjoy myself until my birthday party tomorrow night.
Off to watch Firefly episodes with Mr. Angst!
With the start of classes comes a slew of other responsibilities that are keeping me from writing much here. I’ve been answering questions for new journal members, chasing down sources for last-minute edits, trying to work out my schedule so I can tell fellow group members when I’m available to meet, setting up my study space, and generally just spinning around like a dervish.
I’ve had one class so far, and it was fine—but we didn’t actually do any work. Today things really start up, I guess. The reading was 13 pages. I also have class tomorrow and Friday, but haven’t heard word one about any work to be done before then. So I guess this is an “easy” week class-wise; if only all the other things I have to do were eased up this week also, I’d be in heaven.
This morning’s to-do list, then:
1) Revise instructions for journal members.
2) Pull and collate materials for the class for which I’m a TA. (Is there a better grammatical construction to describe that?)
3) Do some reading for The Task; maybe write something down, too!
4) Reread for class today—I have scanned pages that I can mark on while I wait for my book to arrive. (I have been using a brand new book that needs to go back to the bookstore and haven’t been able to make any margin notes, which KILLS me.)
5) Walk the dog.
6) Eat lunch before I go to school—I have healthier (and cheaper) options here.
I’m sure there are other things I’ll add to that list as the morning goes on. I post it, really, just to show you that third year they do NOT bore you to death. At least not if you’re me. If you’re me, they really squeeze every last bit of work out of you. (Though, to be fair, the “they” is really “me.”)
Just when I thought everything was settled…
I had decided that there was no way I was getting into my waitlisted class. So I went trolling for something else to take, and discovered an open section of Legislation. Hmmmm, I thought, I wonder how that would be? I asked a friend who said it was interesting enough—and full of cases I’ve already read—and decided I’d go ahead and add it to my schedule.
Then I needed at least one more hour to not fall behind, so I added a two-hour colloquium to round things out. Then I got really excited about the two-hour colloquium, and decided I’d definitely keep it on my schedule no matter what happened with my waitlisted class.
But I was still convinced I wasn’t going to get into my waitlisted class. So I started getting excited about Legislation. Everything about it seemed good—the topic is one I’ve got some experience in, the time was the same as my waitlisted class, so my schedule wouldn’t be messed up, and several of my friends are taking it.
And then I got into my waitlisted class.
Now I have two hours more on my schedule than I wanted, since I added that colloquium, which I am very excited about and will not be dropping. I am enrolled in a four-hour exam class instead of a three-hour exam class, and the professor has never taught this subject before. (He has good evaluations for his other classes, but still…)
Is it better for me to take a class on a topic I don’t know much about and that will be on the bar—and might provide some useful context for The Task—or a class that will be complementary to an area of law I enjoy and probably not all that strenuous? I’m waffling back and forth.
The worst part is, I can’t attend both to figure out which one I want to keep—not because they meet at the same time, but because one of them won’t be meeting for the first time until after the drop deadline.
I have NEVER had this much trouble in scheduling!
I’ve been working a little on The Task this morning, just running a few Westlaw searches, paging through some articles with some appropriate keywords, and I am a little surprised.
There’s not really much of anything written on what I want to write on.
I didn’t really go into Westlaw this morning intending to do a preemption check—The Task is flexible enough to change if I’m preempted. But now I’m dragging myself through the process of a preemption check because I’m frankly a little astonished. No one has thought to write something similar? No one has tried to draw the connection I’m hoping to draw?
Don’t get me wrong—this is great! It means that, if I can get this thing pounded out, it’ll be fresh, current, and unchallenged. But it also means there’s not a lot out there for me to model my work on, no one whose footsteps I can follow. That’s daunting, folks. The Task just got a little more interesting, though.
I just had the biggest burger ever, as a reward to myself for finishing my clerkship applications. Whew! That’s done! Now I can focus on…
Whimper.
Just as I finish up (mostly) one task, I take on another. The new task is perhaps nerdier than the one I just completed, and calling it a task is really misleading, since it’s not the sort of thing that just gets done. I’ll be working on it for the next year or so. For now, though, the task (or, The Task, as I think I’ll start referring to it) basically consists of reading a bunch of stuff I don’t know much about in preparation for writing something that will hopefully end up being really cool. I have some leisure time now, so I think tomorrow I’ll be a REAL nerd and take some of this reading material with me when I go get a pedicure. See, you can be a nerd and girly at the same time!
Class selection happened today. I both won and sort of lost. I won in that I got the clinic I wanted—and I am thrilled. So don’t think I’m complaining.
I lost in that I did not get the core curriculum course I need to take. And I missed out on it by 1 point. I bid ONE POINT too low to get the class. And it’s a class I NEED. Or, rather, it’s a class that I should take, given that I don’t know a lot about the subject and it covers material that will be on the bar, and there are a lot of other bar courses I will not be taking.[1]
There’s still another round of course bidding and I’m the second person on the waitlist, so I’m hopeful I’ll still get in to the class. There’s also another section, at an undesireable time, that didn’t fill, so I might try and get into that one during add-drop if I don’t get into the good time off the waitlist.
Meanwhile, I need to draft something for the research project I’m hoping to do this fall—I think the registrar wants something written before they’ll approve it. Also I need to draft some cover letters. And polish up my writing sample. And do something about my resumes, since some of the judges I’m applying to note certain preferences that I can play up if I modify my resume a bit. And I need to finish up my last duties for the summer issue of the journal.
Basically, I have a bunch of stuff to do. Thank goodness I only have three days left of work, since I don’t know when I’d find the time to get all of it knocked out otherwise.
