Need a recommendation for a good Con Law I hornbook

OK, so let's face it... my con law teacher that I was worried about is the nicest man on the planet, BUT I am not learning con law. Can anyone recommend a good hornbook. I've got several supplements, but I think some hard hornbook reading would really help... anyone? anyone?

It's getting hotter; I'm now in the seventh circle of hell

Gah! Memo is almost done... which is great because then I can just jump right into a paper for another class that I have no idea what I am doing in. On top of general school psychoness, DD is sick, sick, sick. Again. All the while we have moved... mostly. Actually I'd say about half of our crap is in each house. Lovely.

Calgon take me away.

I'm in persuasive memo hell

Hell, I tell you. I can't even put my finger on exactly what makes it so torturous, but man, it so totally is. Is this a bad sign of things to come? Am I going to hate being an actual attorney. I'm sticking to my guns and saying, no, I'm going to love it. For some reason, I think that getting to write more than one major memo a semester is going to help. I mean, i know you can work on the same darn case forever in practice, but I have to believe that you will work on other things too. And maybe if it's real people or real money involved (other than my tuition money) I'll be more enthralled. Here's to hoping right?

I spent the better part of one afternoon and evening this week putting together the outline for the takings section that we just completed for prof Property. Yowza. You can always tell when a particular subject is the prof's specialty by how many million tests and factors they throw at you. I swear I spent about 2 hours trying to figure out the logical order and reasonable usage for each test. Go me though; it's done.

I went, I saw, I interviewed... and now back to our regularly scheduled programming

So, it went OK. reasonably well. Let's face it, the only good thing to come out of it is that I got some practice in before the interview at the firm I really really want, which is next Tuesday. I did NOT get a call back for the firm from this week. And the only people I know who did each got a 4.0. Sick isn't it, that they are actually capable of getting 4.0s. even more annoying, they're 2 of the nicest people I know at school, really. You can't even hate them.

So here's my question of the hour: if you only want to offer to the people with the highest GPAs, why do you interview 12 candidates? really, doesn't this seem like a waste of time to everyone else? But who am I to complain, I did get practice interviewing, right? right.

As far the regularly scheduled program goes, I'm working on the appellate brief this weekend, all weekend, and if I am feeling particularly organized and ambicious, I am going to start my Con Law outline. Heaven Help me. Yeah, that sounds about right for a three day weekend, non?

I need to pick a segment of time to be a fun mom though... I am starting to feel like my kid thinks I'm only the hired chauffeur. Not good this early in the semester.

Happy long weekend everyone.

Putting on my game face

Update: It went OK. Actually I think it went well, but I am hesitant to jinx it. Two interviewers. One guy, one woman. From what I had heard, i thought that I would connect with the woman without too much effort, and the guy would be hard to crack. But it was the opposite. I think I've got the guy's vote. He liked my background a lot... and what I had to say about writing and research. The woman. I just don't know. But after talking to them, can I say I really really want this job. It just sounds too cool. Lots of diverse work, low pressure, nice atmosphere. Sigh. Cross everything for me. Oh, and it works into 10 hours a week during the school year too.

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Original:
OK. I admit it. I'm panicking a little bit. My first interview is in about 30 minutes and it is my top choice and I am not feeling it. My kid was up a lot last night (sick), so I'm tired, but mostly I'm not feeling on top of the world, which is critical for me so I can relax in the interview. Sigh.

OK. Talking myself up. I'm relaxed. I don't need this job. I can go to summer school and be happy about it. So this isn't everything, which means I can go in there and just be my usual charming (?) self and knock this out of the ball park. We are going to talk about everything... I'm going to pay attention to their interests and draw that out. I am someone they want to work with. I am relaxed, but alert. I am charming. Sigh

A little creepy isn't it.

An update on Spring OCI

I applied for 10 firms through OCI and 2 on my own. I thought that I would get about 4-5 interviews. And let us say that this has been a humbling learning experience. I have 8 of 12 reporting back and so far only 2 interviews. Which is OK because, thank goodness, they were my number 1 and number 2 picks. So at least there is that. But man, this is some pretty serious competition. I feel even more pressure to keep my grades to at least the level they are currently. It shouldn't be the psychotic... the whole process.

First interview is this week... wish me luck!

on volunteering and writing as a 1L

So, yeah, I am still a 1L, so who knows if I am the best person to be dispensing such advice, but I feel pretty strongly about this: don't volunteer unless it's something you are passionate about, especially if it involves writing. I missed the memo at the beginning of the semester warning that this semester is infinitely harder than the last. Yowza, you're not kidding. I've got an extra class as compared to last semester and my major paper for my writing class is due about a month earlier in the semester.

So, in short, I think my helper monkey goodness was a poor choice. If you volunteer during 1L, you've got to choose something that has an exact time commitment. Every other week from 6-8, that kind of thing. I thought writing the paper would be exciting, interesting and useful. But it hasn't been. It's been an exercise in frustration. honestly, it's hard to write a good persuasive paper when you don't buy your position. Not impossible to do, just hard. The other thing is, in general (based on my experience and those of some of my peers), it turns out that many non-profits are, well, organizationally challenged. I spun my wheels trying to contact some people across the nation that this org had given me as "good starting points". Only to discover... that everything those contacts could give me, those same contacts had already shared with the same org I am working with. Would it have killed them to go through their email and give me what they already had? And there are no length requirements or restrictions, no particular focus. It's just frustrating. And someone as anal and type A as I am has a hard time saying, OK, here's my line, I will not go farther than x for this paper.

I did send the org a rough draft this morning. One of two things will happen, ok, three... 1) they'll say it's fine as it is, and we'll be done (god willing), 2) they'll say, nononooo, we wanted it to be like xyz, at which point I will bite through my tongue and sit on my hands to avoid exclaiming rather rudely that I have been asking for that VERY SAME INFO for the last month! or 3) (and this is the most likely) they will sit on it for a few weeks and send me a nasty gram about the end of Feb when my appellate brief is due asking if I was planning on every writing their paper, to which I will reply by forwarding the email and attachment that I sent them this morning.

Sigh. Very frustrated right now, but then, I'm no dummy, and that's why I said in my email with the draft that I would not be doing any further work on the paper until I got comments back from them.

Lesson learned.

and a brief pause

I took yesterday afternoon, evening and this morning off. I thought I shouldn't since I was sick this week and my daughter was too, so I really did not get as much done as I had hoped. But it was the right choice.

While my head hasn't been in the game, that doens't mean that I was not spinning my wheels anyway. We visited with the in-laws last night. i played with my daughter. We slept in a bit this morning, had a mid-morning nap and played some more. Giggle and cuddle time with daughter and husband. Very good stuff. I didn't wander into my school until about 11. And it felt great. And no guilt.

My head is soooo not in the game

And it's got to stop right now. Seroiusly, last semeester I think that I played games once or twice in one class the entire semester. This semester, it's more of a have I had ANY classes where I haven't played games? Yowza. That's so not me. I'm just not engaged. The only class that I seem to pay any remote attention to is Property. I heart property. I really do. But even then, my attention span is rather like my little girl's. Which is double plus extra ungood.

So here's the schtick. I am going to pay attention darnit... even if that means that I have to take handwritten notes. I think in Con Law, I've got to do to handwritten only, no computer. It's too tempting and as sweet as Prof Con Law is, it's boring boring boring. So, no computer in there next week... we'll see if that helps or if I start having elaborate day dreams. I can keep my computer in crim and property and just disconnect internet... I think that will be OK. I have to participate in both con law and crim law at least once next week. What else... oh the "extra" torturous class I have this semester (which is pointless and boring, and just a total waste of time), no computer in there either. I've got to participate in there too... that's actually part of my grade.

Sigh. I will do this. I will get engaged. I will overcome the immense boredom. I will. And as g-d as my witness I will never go hungry again...

(OK, maybe a little over the top, anyone know what movie that is from?)

My OCI bids are in

whoopie. I submitted a number and also mailed a few in to a few local firms that are hiring 1Ls but not through OCI. I'm on the fence about the whole thing. I don't need one of the jobs this summer. If I don't get one I will go to summer school and get residency so I can pay for the chipper chicken next fall AND take a reduced class load for the rest of my law school career. Nice, no? I think that I have as good a shot of getting a job as anyone else does. Which, let's face it, isn't saying much.

Mostly, I conflicted. what if I get a job here and I like it, a lot? Will I feel like I need to stay with them 2L summer too? and marry them after grad? Will it make me want to stay in this state? I dunno. But it has occurred to me in the past few weeks that i am not entirely sure what I want when I graduate, and that it might behoove me to figure that one out before I go too far down any one path.