Slow month, a mile stone, and things to look forward to

I think this is only my third post of the month. Between finals and some unexpected family issues (which only seem to pop up during finals or holidays or both), I have been horribly absent... and not just from this blog. Seriously, I feel like I am going through life in some sort of haze. Since Christmas is over now, hopefully the family drama will die down shortly as well.

Finals sucked, ass. There's no nicer way to put it... there are of course many less nice ways to put it. It was just plain awful. I really honestly think that my GPA is going to take a serious nose dive. So it is. Nothing to do now. And realistically, I'm not so sure that there was anything that I could have done differently during reading days or the semester to make the utter annihilation I experienced any different.

But the silver lining of course is the fact that I AM HALF WAY THROUGH! Hot damn! Seriously. I like law school a lot. And I will probably go back to loving law school this coming semester because I won't have OCI torture. and next year even better because I SO will not make the mistake of running for SBA office. I enjoy law school much more when I am focused on the classes and learning the law or how to think like a lawyer. It's the peripheral crap that I've discovered I hate. Speaking of, I've got to get tons of law review stuff done this week. But I won't complain about that, at least not directly. And I do plan on running for a board position for that group.

I think my classes will be interesting next semester. I've got Evidence and Bus Ass as my two doctrinal courses. Then I've got Law Rev, my seminar, and being a 1L TA for fillers. It'll be a busy schedule but it's almost all academic. So I am embracing that. Ohh and my schedule is kind of bizarre, but I think that I will like it. I've got class for 1.5 hours m-w in the morning and then at night for a few hours m, t, th. We'll see how that works.

A rant on code-based class tests

Here's the schtick: exams for code-based classes, for example, bankruptcy, should NEVER be closed everything. At the very least you should get to have the frigging code. For Pete's sake, there is no possible way to remember all of the exceptions to the exceptions and whether the qualifying debt limit for secured debt is 900K in change for chapter 13 filings. Seriously. The people who win are the numbskulls who are good at memorizing, not the ones who can find wht they want with the actual language of the code.

Snarl! I'm tired, damnit

No more con law rants!

Wahoodillyhoo! I took my blastes 8 hour take home final for that ruddy course a few days ago. It was, well, typical of the sort of inanity that particular prof comes up with. Some straightforward and then wham some stuff out of the twilight zone. I have no freaking clue how I did. I am concerned about the number of super bright kids in that class... we'll see where it all comes out in the end.

But the POINT here is that while I might not have written an A test, I sure as hell didn't fail it outright. And that means *drumroll* no more freaking Con Law classes for me!!!!!!!!!!! Wheeee!!!!!!!!! I do realize for those of you who insist on peeing in my wheaties that con law topics will likley come up in various and sundry other classes. But I don't have to endure a whole painful, horrific torturous semester of it again.

And for anyone else who hates con law and is looking for help. Get Erwin Chemerinsky's hornbook. I love you Erwin! *smooch*

Another con law rant

So while I don't like Con Law, I'd like to know that there is a point to my taking the damn class. This semester's prof and book are almost as bad as con law 1's from last year. I can barely use supplements this semester because it keeps talking about elements, factors, and tests that my prof never mentioned, nor did the sad book that we use. Normally I embrace the notion of reading a paragrph or two of a case and being done with it. But I am finding that the exerpts are so painfully short and so heavily edited that I honestly couldn't tell you why or how the court came to the conclusion that it did. I can however tell you want a bunch of namby pamby con law scholars said about the holding in about 47 articles. Sigh.

I really hate con law--even more so now that I understand I will have to teach the real deal to myself before the bar. Suck.

Rodger, Dodger, only 1.5 weeks left of school

There is a god and he is going end my suffering, through con law 2 that is. And after this semester, I am bloodythehell well done with my con law requirements for law school. *loud cheers and applause heard throughout the land*.

I've finally caught up with all of my class reading. My outlines are still in sucko shape. I love how I write outlines implying that there are many. Really I have one wiht some stuff in it and 2 that have the words "class name--outline" up at the top... and that's all. Poop. So it is. What will be will be. And all of the other cliche let the river flow stuff you can think of.

At some point, and I predict it will be on the plane this week, I will have a horrible epiphany of how real and close exams are in my future. Then I will have a sick stomach and want to die. It's all part of the process. Embrace it.

Hey you, poser, wannabe in the library

Just so you know, proudly displaying your copy of The Economist to the side of your study table while you take a practice LSAT exam does nothing for you. You are not intimidating. You are not smart looking. Or whatever it is that you are trying to achieve. You are, however, a lerp.

I so want it to be over

I have finally succumbed to my undergraduate cyclical boredom. Like clockwork around the 8th week of a semester, I would start struggling to pay attention to my classes and homework. By about week 10, I was struggling to find the will to go to class, and by week 12, I just wanted it to be over. Take the final right then and be done with it. I liked the classes (for the most part) that I was in, but I had about an 8-week positive attention span for class on whatever the topic was.

I love 2 of my three classes this semester. But I just want them to all be over. I don't want to read anything new about the class topic. I just want to pull some concentration out of my butt and do my outlines and take the finals and be done.

Blech. At least I have next semester's classes hammered out, and it's not looking so bad. I'm sure that I will thoroughly enjoy those classes for 8 weeks too.

Dear Losing Minority Party Senate Candidate

I just wanted to thank you for running this past election even though you didn't have a snowball's chance in hell of actually winning. I am saddened that you live in a state where you and your party will never get a federal seat representing this state. Mostly, I am saddened because I thought that you were truly an amazing candidate that would have been great for both sides of the political aisle, who understood the real issues and had the nerve to say so.

Thank you for being wonderful enough to push me out of my comfort zone and not vote for my usual federal-election party. It was a freeing experience to me, and I hope to do so in the future should another steller candidate come along.

Finally, thank you for sacrificing a year of your life and career and income to run a losing race--one that even your own national party refused to help finance because of the political demographic of our state. You are truly a great man.

Somewhat back on track and wanting to smooch professors who

Embrace and accept the fact that they will never cover all of the material on their syllabus and just remove certain lectures rather than attempting to smush 3 days of lecture into every class from here until the end of the semester. Bless you Con Law 2 prof!

I'm trying to get excited about switching gears to consumer bankruptcy later today, but I'm just not feeling the love.

Last night hubby and I watched a documentary together and sniggered far more often than we felt thoughtful. Could it be that we a re a touch too cynical? too likely to strongly question where you got your statistics from? just what the entire context was around the soundbite that sounded so outrageous? Snigger. Snort.

Confessions

I've screwed around a lot this week--reading fun books, watching movies, and generally zoning out. Bad me! Shame on me! I am supposed to be working on my lovely con law 2 outline. Sigh.

You know it's bad (your lack of concentration and general grip on reality) when you are reviewing the outline on your computer and think, wow, that's pretty good--ooh and complete. This is great. And then you realize, um, yeah, that's some kid's outline from last year that you were looking at to make sure you didn't miss anything... then you switch to your outline and the only thing that makes it look NOT like someone on kindergarten wrote it is that it is typed and not in crayon.

Eek.

Yeah! I'm jobbed.

It's official folks. The offer has been given and it has been accepted. And thank the heavens for that. So now, with somewhat less mememe drama, back to our regularly scheduled program. Con law 2.

The absent blogger

Hello, friends, family, fellow tortured 2Ls. Anyone else feel like they are being slammed? I suppose feeling like I've only attended a small handful of classes and then discovering that we have FIVE weeks of school left is part of my trauma. No fears though. I have a plan. It's painful, ugly, and downright absobloodylutely no ruddy fun. But it will hopefully see me through the next 7 to 8 weeks of my life without significant damage.

Today I learned that I in fact learned little to nothing at all my 1L year either in torts or contracts about damages. But thank heavens my real estate transfer book took pity on me and assumed that I had forgotten. Cwap! Have I mentioned how much fun that class is lately. Even if I never practive anything remotely related to real estate, I will never walk into buying a house without an atty representing ONLY me. I will understand that I need to specify that the seller MUST maintain insurance on the house until closing and that if it is destroyed before then, I'm out with all my money. Seriously, could the law surrounding buying and selling a house 1) be more friendly to sellers (I think not) and 2) be more counterintuitive?

The rest of this week will be all Con Law 2 all week. Look forward to more reasons why I still hate con law.

The best part of this week will be taking my daughter trick or treating... it's my one play fun thing planned. oof.

OCI and it's long painfully drawn out process is over

five million interviews--check
one million callbacks--check
telling about 150 attorneys the same answer to the same question about 150 times--check
flyouts done--check
eating way too much food--check
diet started to fight the call back expansion in my ass--check
really fabulous decisions to make--check
total inability to concentrate on anything--check check

Which brings me to utter and sheer panic on the thought that not only am I GROSSLY behind in the reading for all of my classes, but here it is the freaking END of October and I have started diddly doo dah on my outlines. Cwap! At least constantly missing class for other appointments is done, so I have a shot in hell of learning something.

Time flies when you are crazy

I can't believe it's been a week since my last post. I think mostly I was "present" last week, but I'm not sure that I got anything out of it. I'm still in callback heaven/trauma/hell--pick your poison. For what it's worth, in some very superficial way, I really am able to tell a difference between the firms just by talking with folks for 30-40 minutes for a whole morning at their firm. And happily, the firm I thought that I would love best is still far and away my first choice (please, let them give me an offer!). I say happily, because I kind of thought that I had this whole "impressions" thing with firms going on. You know, some sort of conglomeration of impressions of meeting them at a firm crawl, or on campus brown bag, or even first interviews. So far, my thougths really haven't changed. the only really positive thing that I've gotten out of some of the interviews is that there seem to be a lot of really incredible women attorneys in this town. And that's kind of fun.

My note is due tomorrow. dum da dum DA dum! I have officially met the minimum page count :) which is really what it is all about. OK not really. But seriously, I am so sick of the darn thing. I did want to be published, but honestly, turning it in tomorrow is nothing more than a ticky mark on my gigantic list of things to do. I've got about 5-8 more pages of stuff that I need to put into it this afternoon to solidify the whole thing. But it ain't pretty. And I'm honestly not all that particularly sure that it is useful to anyone. Gotta love going through this process only to discover that it was really a big fat waste of time.

Sigh, and at the end of classes last week, I tried to talk to a guest lecturer we've had for almost three weeks while our real prof is off galivanting somewhere and discoverd that guest lecturer dude really doesn't like me and rightfully so. I didn't know who he was the first day of class and he attended our lecture. i went to ask the real prof something and basically ignored this guy (I thought he was another student waiting a turn to talk to the prof). At some point during my conversation with the prof I realized this dude was in fact not a student and I did the chicken out thing and just finished my conversation and left. No apology, no backpeddling no nothing. And I've never apologized. And I feel kind of bad about that. Especially now that I know he really can't stand me. I don't like that. And I really don't like that realizing that is the only thing that has lit a fire under me to apologize. guh. ew. I'm a tiny little person. being a big person sucks.

To top my week off, my kid is sick yet again and now *drum roll please* she's got pneumonia. Lovely. That about makes my week. Thank heavens that our fall break is around the corner. Or I might have to step in front of a bus just to get some rest.

*raspberry*

Big Firm Attraction

I admit it: there is something sexy about working in a gorgeous downtown skyscraper. There is.

And there is also something really sexy about making some serious cash in the summer, and for the rest of my life.

I admit it, and I won't apologize for feeling that way.

Doggy paddling

Yup, that's about all I can do at the moment. Being sick really set me back this last week. And while I am digging the oci love I have received, it sure makes getting my law review note and regular course work done in time. I'm living for fall break. Or for next Monday when the note is due. Just to have something off of my plate even for just a few days, would be astronomically helpful.

Woof.

Oh and a quick follow up to my sickie interview... about 15 minutes into it, the interviewer busts into French. Cwap. Yes, I speak French. Yes, I lived in France for a few years. And yes, I am reasonably comfortable with it. However, I was having a difficult enough time with English that day. Le sigh. I held my own, but seriously. It's not like his firm had an office in Paris.

I'b sick. Dabbit

Well it had to happen sooner or later the juicy, gooey, ooey crud that my daughter and husband have been passing back and forth finally attacked me. And won. I don't have time to be sick right now. Damn.

3 pages of law review note finished... just 42 pages shy of the minimum. woot.

On another note. I have an interview in 10 minutes. It's 30 minutes long. I have no idea what I am going to talk to this guy about. The usual only takes 15-20 minutes. Maybe I'll just take a nap under the interviewing table, think he'd mind?

Goal for interview: try not to sound as snotalucious as I actually am.

I am entertained

I just took the city that matches you quiz linked from Think like a Man. Act like a woman and had to snigger a wee bit when the #1 city it had for me was the one that I moved from before law school. Nice to know that I have no where to go but down. Generally, I hate quizes like that. They're usually so wrong, so I was surprised. Of course, it had Miami down as a close second. Um. No. Just no.

I have succumbed

to the temptation of watching my shiny new Grey's Anatomy Season 2 set. 3 pages of my note down... and 24 more episodes.

I'm so weak.

Must concentrate, but I so can't.

I'm tired. I'm borderlined cranky. I'm stressed and in some cloud of "did I nail it? was i an idiot, I don't know." I'm painfully aware of the fact that my note is due in 2 weeks folks... and I've read a tiny little bit that I might be able to squeeze 5 pages out of... that leaves me, uh, rather short of the minimum page count. I can't concentrate. I haven't done my law review copywork yet; I haven't started on my assignments yet. In short, I'm not doing. I'm floating, smiling, researching, obsessing, but I am most assuredly not doing.

To put the icing on the cake: yesterday was the 4-year anniversary of my stepfather's tragic death. I feel very Scarlett O'Hara about it... I won't think about it today; I'll think about it tomorrow, after all tomorrow is another day. Unfortunately my mom needs me to think about it yesterday and today, and as long as she needs to get refills on her lovely medications. God I miss him. You'd think after 4 years that it wouldn't feel like a punch to the gut anymore. But I am transported to that week and then that day and then that horrible phone call that I hope Inever get again. I miss you Wayne. God bless.