Finals

I took my first final exam yesterday. All I can say is that at least I'll never have to take my first final exam again. There are so many things that I wish I had done differently, but I just didn't have time. I now have this nervous pit in my stomach which will probably remain there until after this two week period is up. 10 days left, 3 more finals to go...

Rejuvenation

Colors are brighter, the air is crisper, everything is shining and new again.

The Open Memo is done.

I have never in my life worked so hard on a paper. I've spent at least 30 hours writing and researching it, if not more. I think this is the first time that I can truly say that I feel there is nothing more that I could have done - whatever grade I get is a result of my very best effort rather than something I might have worked more on. It is a new feeling. I still might end up getting a C, but I am at peace with that.

Tomorrow I go home to Seattle. I haven't seen the Needle or the Sound in 4 months - the longest I've ever been away. As much as I like it here, this isn't home. It will be a much needed break. I have a study group tonight and a couple of more classes tomorrow and then I'll hit the road.

Vindication

I spent the last hour battling the fourth floor printer. About every 6 pages it decided to jam. It would then instruct the cursing and redfaced poor soul who happened to be waiting for a print job (or nine) to open the back door to inspect the supposed jam, when the only way to access the jam was from the front. I could have easily ignored the jam and tried printing to a printer on another floor, but I had worked with a much heftier and more complicated printer/copier/scanner for a year and fixed jams that made these look like mere trifles. I'd be damned if I didn't just fix the effin' thing. So I did. I now have 9 crisp printed cases beside me about binding or advisory verdicts for my LRW Open Memo. And I feel vindicated. Sometimes only the small personal victories count...

I hate that it is 6:00 p.m. and the sky is already jet black. It makes the internal argument to go home where it is warm and the TV is gently blaring all the more convincing, rather than sitting in this library under fluorescent lights reading about trials in equity versus trials in law. But if I went home now nothing would get done.

I sometimes wonder what life would have been like had I chosen to follow a path more like Morgen's or Rebecca's. Morgen is in Antarctica for a few months; she's spent several quarters abroad, both in Mexico and Ecuador. Rebecca moved to Alaska and never looked back. I stayed relatively close to home; I went on my trip to France but that was fairly brief. I'm happy with the decisions I've made and the relationships I've chosen to nurture as a result of those decisions. I think I'm in law school at the right time in my life; I don't feel like I'm missing out on anything. I just hope that feeling doesn't change. I want to be able to have the opportunities to make time for meaningful travel throughout my life - I hope my career allows me to so I minimize any regrets.

Goregous

It is a really beautiful day. It's warm, not even the slightest bit crisp; the trees are red and gold. And I am in the library, next to a fellow who is chewing on his pen. (Chewing is being kind. The act is really more like gnawing, as though he were trying to get at the ink. Really, fellah? I think they make tastier things to chew on. It's called gum. Try it some time.) But, it's okay that I'm in the library because I was out all day yesterday cavorting with Mom and Dad, who very sweetly made a trip down here just to see me. We went wine tasting (who knew there was wine tasting so close to where I lived?) and Mom insisted and buying me a bottle of each wine that I liked. Really, she twisted my arm. :)

Now back to my Crim Law outline. At least I can see the goregousness through the window...

Medical Malpro

I seem to have developed a reputation as "the Torts Lady", both because of my work at the firm and because of my vehement defense of the tactics of personal injury plaintiffs attorneys, particularly in medical malpractice cases. I constantly find myself in the minority in that respect.

Ooh, free pizza in the student lounge! Must run! DIVE DIVE DIVE!!!

Library

I'm in the library right now. There is no earthly reason I should not be studying, but I'm justifying this to myself as down time after a weekend of studying. I started another study group with my guy friend Josh where we go to a different restaurant every week and study Civil Procedure. I actually have a guy friend - this is a change for me. He has a long distance girlfriend -- it takes the pressure off, neither of us has to worry about any girl-guy tension as we're both in relationships.

Okay, it really is time now.

Diversions

Recent developments in how to take a study break and still feel productive:

-Read the New York Times
-Bake cookies or other baked goods to share with friends and neighbors who enjoy cookes and baked goods
-Create casseroles to live on for the week
-Look like a deranged maniac while attempting to quash the fruit fly infestation in my kitchen.


Kari and Eric and Elizabeth all rolled in this weekend for a vist. We went to dinner, a (bad) drag show, watched silly movies and said silly things. Life seems a bit drab now in comparison.

But the studies will pay off...

The Fountain of Knowledge is running a little dry...

I've been so good about being motivated, but yesterday I just hit a wall. I had two study sessions with our tutors, and I left each one thinking I was an idiot. Sometimes it feels as though I read for hours and I have no idea what nuggets of knowledge I should be taking away from the reading.

I still got it done though. Today and tomorrow are going to be a bit hellish.

Money

I got very spoiled in the big city, working downtown with a delightful little cafe around the corner where I'd spend an ungodly amount of money each week on a daily grande soy chai. I haven't bought a soy chai since school started - a whole month. Instead, I've been funneling the money I usually would have spent on such frivolous expenses to a movie or two every weekend. I'm making my own chai mix now.

Gunners

I am taking what is perhaps an unwarranted break. Three classes tomorrow for which to prepare.

I am trying to be nicer in my thoughts to people than I was as an undergrad. For example, when the same people raise their hands in class day after day to pose hypotheticals so far out of the realm of reality that I cannot help but inwardly groan, I try to realize that they must learn by questioning, and during this realization, I try to suppress an inward string of profanities so hostile in their nature that they would shock the conscience of many an elderly citizen.

Ye Gods, how time flies.

It has been almost a month since I posted. I've been meaning to post for weeks now, but I just recently got internet at my apartment, and the time that I did spend on the internet was spent filtering through hundreds (and I'm not exaggerating here) of emails from the law school list serves telling me about every law school event known to man. There are many, many, many, many, many student organizations at the school. I'm trying to keep track of which ones I want to be a part of.

Back to the beginning: the administration absolutely inundated us with advice at orientation. Don't use study aides, do use study aides, spend three hours on homework outside of class for every hour you spend inside of class, start outlining early, don't outline right away, make sure to get involved in student organizations but also get your work done - by the end I was ready to just start.

The first week was completely overwhelming. I had never been so happy for a weekend. But at the same time I began to feel as though I could handle this.

My classes are as follows: (All first year students take the same classes with the same 60 people for the whole year)

Civil Procedure
Criminal Law
Legal Research and Writing
Contracts
Torts

With the exception of Legal Research and Writing, the grades for those classes are determined by one exam at the end of the semester. I'm looking forward to Christmas but first I have to survive the exams. But those are months away.

I am doing one volunteer thing for sure - I am working at our county's legal aid as a volunteer intake interviewer. I hear people's legal issues, present them to the attorney in a concise way, and then convey the information back to the people. I really enjoy it. It feels as though I'm actually giving back to the community. I am also going to be involved in the Public Interest Public Service, Women's Legal Forum and Streetlaw clubs. We'll see how all of those go.

I study every spare moment. Constantly. Which is why the weekends are such a blessing - I can at least take a couple of hours to relax before delving back into it.

The Remains of the Pad

I seem to be suffering from some sort of paralysis whenever I take the time to face the idea of packing the rest of my dwindling remainings, because doing so acknowledges that it is real, that I'm moving, that I'm about to start what promises to be the most grueling year of my life in another state surrounded by people I don't know and perhaps won't be able to identify with. Packing makes it real - it means I'm giving up the Pad and moving to the Cottage. I can't seem to get the stone of dread and doubt and apprehension out of the pit of my stomach long enough to accomplish the things that need getting done...and my time grows ever shorter...

The University of Oregon

I must admit I'm a bit apprehensive about the switch from the University of Washington to the University of Oregon style of bureaucracy. There's something in the air here - the service is slower at restaurants, the drivers all meander down the one way streets of Eugene five miles under the speed limit. "Animal House" was filmed here, after all. And I'm living in a coven of hippies.

It began when the flood of packets from the law school began arriving at my Seattle apartment, each with duplicative and often times conflicting information. Then came the correction emails - two or three a day - to let me know what information from the packets I could actually rely on. My suspicions of the complete lack of campus organization culminated today after a visit to the University of Oregon Office of Public Safety - I wanted to buy my parking pass. They were unable to sell a pass to me now - not because I was too early, but because they don't have the passes in yet. They hope to have them in by the time school starts. Hope to.

But, I will give U of O this - I got more smiles walking from one end of this campus to the other than I must have in all three years at UW. There's something to be said for friendliness even in the midst of rampant lack of attention to detail.