TV watching just became so much more wonderful

Today, our cable company sent a nice gentleman over to give us a gift. A lovely and wonderful gift. A gift of TIME.

In other words, a DVR box.

During my scheduled breaks this evening, I have played with this new toy and it is Fabulous.

This is going to make studying for finals so much easier, knowing that I’m not missing my favorite TV.

maybe my luck is changing

The class lottery ran and I think I won.

I got my first first first choice class, Civ Pro II. With the prof who gets top evaluations for every class he teaches. It’s the class 2- and 3Ls told me they didn’t think they’d be able to get into. I totally won.

My other class was a little lower on my list, but I’m still pleased with it. I’m on the wait list for the Law and Lit class, though. We’ll see how things turn out.

My schedule is neither the worst case nor the best case scenario. It is right in the middle. I have a big hole on Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday — but I have two classes each day, so I’ll be sure to show up every day. I do have the marathon Thursday-Friday schedule, but it’s with the three fabulous professors, so I can’t complain.

Next semester is looking pretty bright.

instead of studying, i'll tell you about some other stuff

Is it possible that I spent, essentially, five hours straight studying today? That completely blows my “take reasonable breaks at reasonable intervals” schedule. It also explains why I feel completely lost right now. Fuzzy in the brain. Sort of giddy, in a punchy way. Not really a fun feeling, but also not entirely awful.

In more news, my bids for the enrollment lottery were submitted today. In other words, class selection is out of my hands. What did I bid on? Civ Pro II, State and Local Government, Comparative Law, Law and Literature (basically), Law and History (again, basically–the actual course title is marginally sexier) and a social policy class. Not necessarily in that order, though. There are a number of best case scenarios, as far as times go, and there are also a few worst case scenarios.

There’s one scenario that, on its face, seems awful, but on reflection seems maybe not so bad. I’d have class early Monday through Wednesday, and class in late afternoon Monday and Wednesday. In other words, Tuesdays, I’d be done by, um, 9:45 or so? The flip side is that Thursdays and Fridays, I’d be in class pretty much all day. Pretty much straight. On Thursday and Friday. And what do you think are the chances I’ll make it to Con Law on Tuesday mornings more than a few times a semester? (OK, who am I kidding? I have much too much guilt to skip classes very often.)

The ambition fairy says, “Oh, wow, you’d have several hours a day Monday through Wednesday! You could volunteer at that legal aid organization you were interested in, since you’d have so much time! You could do all your reading during the day and not have to do any work at night!”

Then the realism fairy says, “Dear God, how often would I just go home and sleep during the day? Or just take a nap in the library? Or just kill time?”

So we’ll see what the lottery brings me. I’ll put it out there right now, though–I’ve never been all that lucky. I don’t win things. So I’m not all that optimistic that my schedule is going to come out all peachy. The only bright spot in all of this is that if I do end up with the long schedule on Thursdays and Fridays, I’ll have it with three really, really marvelous professors. (Or, at least two marvelous ones and one who really knows his shit.)

So there’s the lineup for next semester. Now, back to Civ Pro outlining.

Um

So now I’m in hardcore study mode. I have reading to do for this week’s Torts classes, outlines to finish, practice exams to take, and ARGH! so little time in which to do it!

I’m sure there will be some posting going on–I’ve given myself breaks throughout my very well crafted study schedule–so you’ll hear from me throughout. I’m just worrying right now because I just spent five days without cracking a book. Was that foolish? Was that a bad idea? My body and brain don’t think so–they know I needed the break–but the little law school fairy who sits on my shoulder is piling on the guilt anyway.

So, back to reading about products liability. Anyone want to explain its evolution to me?

Oops!

Also? Y’all? It appears there are some funky things going on with the old blawgcoop. So if you can, just read my feed. Full-text feed is available here.

Or just go to the full main page address: HERE.

just checking in

So, y’all? I know I haven’t posted in a few days, and normally I would apologize for that, but not this time. I have spent the last three days in mindless bliss. I made myself a study schedule that would allow me to not to any substantive work over the Thanksgiving break, so I haven’t done any substantive work yet. I don’t plan to do any for what remains of this little vacation. And because I scheduled it that way, I do not feel the slightest bit guilty.

And y’all? I feel terrific. I’ve gotten lots of sleep, I’ve had time to chat with family, I’ve watched some TV, and I finished a book. It’s a book I’ve been reading slowly for a couple of months now, so I feel good about actually getting to finish it! Basically, my brain feels completely refreshed. I feel rested. I feel happy. I feel . . . energetic! Who knew I could feel this good this close to finals?

Now, tomorrow, I may do some work. I may finish consolidating my notes from a couple of classes. That’s the kind of work I like — it requires thought, but not too much, since it’s just revisiting things I’ve already learned. It’s like creating a puzzle. Interspersed with that, I think I’ll play with my nephew some. And watch some football.

But tonight, I’m going to continue the brain-rest. Mr. Angst and I, and the Angst-in-laws are babysitting tonight while my brother- and sister-in-law go out to dinner for her birthday. We’ll watch a movie or some TV, keep an ear on the baby, and just . . . relax. Y’all, this is A Good Thing.

I hope everyone else’s Thanksgiving has been so wonderful. Definitely, this year, I am thankful for this opportunity to refresh myself.

Thanksgiving Eve gift!

Tomorrow, we eat turkey. Yay!

Today, I have my last day of Crim and Civ Pro. Um, whee?

I’m not sure how I feel about these classes ending. Yesterday with Contracts was a little different because, well, I still have class today. (And, actually, I still have two Torts classes next week, but since Torts always felt sort of tacked on to the end of the week, that doesn’t feel as weird.) I really enjoyed my Civ Pro class and I really wish I felt like I had learned more. Wait, no, that’s not it. I certainly learned a lot–Prof. Civ Pro really does push his students–but I wish I had more time to let everything percolate.

Today really feels like the end of my first semester of law school classes. I don’t know how I feel about it yet, but I’m not really ready to write substatively about it.

Instead, I’ll mention that it snowed last night and I can see the roofs are layered in white now. No, it wasn’t a lot of snow, but it’s definitely sticking, unliket the last batch. I’ll also tell you about how my Thanksgiving packing is probably going to end up being a disaster (I just pulled all my favorite T-shirts and jeans out of the drawer and put them in my bag. I have a feeling I’m going to need to look back over that). And I’ll tell you about how Mr. Angst and I still can’t check-in online for our flight, even though I thought I was being clever by adding his middle name to his ticket this time.

Happy Thanksgiving, all!

and just like that, it's over

I had my last Contracts class this morning and now it’s hitting me. It’s hard to believe that the semester is almost over. I have one more class today, two classes tomorrow, and two more next week. And that’s it. That’s all she wrote.

I was talking about this end-of-semester funk with a friend of mine the other day. I mentioned that I wasn’t close to being done with my outlines or even to really having a sort of global grasp on all of our classes, yet despite that I had almost no drive left. She nodded and said, “Yep. I’m done, too.”

And that sums it up. There’s a lot of work left to be done, but I am so done. I’m fighting right now with the powerful urge to say, “Screw it! I know enough to fall in the middle of our very flat and generous curve.” A small voice deep inside–a more responsible and far-sighted voice, I might add–responds with the reminder that there are only a few weeks left in the semester, and if I drive myself to exhaustion I could cross the finish line ahead of the pack.

Neither voice is right, of course. If I flog myself mercilessly to finish with the same drive I started with, fine–but it won’t guarantee I’ll end up on top. Nor is it true that blowing off these last few classes in favor of getting my outlines done–and a few more hours of sleep a night–means I’ll end up at the bottom.

To a certain extent, though, even law school grades are governed by that old equation, “Garbage In = Garbage Out.” So I have to know SOMETHING. The question at this point is “How much?” Where is the line between extra work that won’t help and you should have studied that a little more closely, you idiot? I don’t know where the line is. My intuition suggests that, if my brain is turning to mush from lack of sleep, I’ve probably done too much; but if I have the time to watch the rest of Buffy, Season 1, I’m doing too little.

All of this seems particularly pertinent right now, since I am exhausted. I could not go to sleep last night; I tossed and turned and didn’t drop off until a good two hours after my normal bedtime. The way I feel right now only underscores how badly my body reacts to less-than-adequate rest. Thank goodness I don’t have my early class tomorrow.

will wonders never cease

Huh.

Somehow, over the weekend, with working on outlines and flowcharts and all, Contracts synthesized in my brain.

So this is what that feels like.

I hope it's of some help

This blog is working on a fantastic concept.

I’m sure that the author of the blog, Toby Stock, has started the blog because he believes there should be more transparency in the law school admissions process. And I bet there are students who are convinced that’s why he’s doing it, too. And I am sure some transparency will result. But this blog is also a marketing technique, and one geared at a particular brand problem: yield.

Harvard Law School is a great school. Some wonderful people I know went to HLS and I know some wonderful people are at HLS now. I sincerely hope that everyone at HLS is there because they want to be. But I know that Harvard is also concerned about its reputation among the subset of law school applicants who can be reasonably certain they’ll get into HLS as well as into one or more of the other “super-elite” schools. And it’s concerned about losing students to those schools. I know because Toby posted this the other day.

I was bothered by this entry. Granted, I’m not really part of the blog’s intended audience, but it still left a sour taste in my mouth.

Look, a lot of prospective law students–particularly the ones who can get into HLS–are not interested in law school because of the number of prestigious faculty. (I think they’re more likely to say, “HLS has So-and-so, but Yale has Such-and-such”; not “HLS has twenty and Yale only has five.”) And a lot of the prospective students who can get into HLS know that they’ll be surrounded by really bright and interesting people no matter what school they go to. So maybe the fact that some students chose a different school over HLS isn’t because that school is “better” but because it’s smaller.

I chose my law school for a number of reasons, but one of the big reasons I even applied to my school was because of its student-faculty ratio. One of the other schools I applied to, which didn’t accept me, was even smaller, and was even higher on my list. The biggest school I applied to was lowest on my list. Basically, I wanted a small student body.

I know I’m not the only law student who values a small student body. I also know that a lot of law students are NOT like me. They do not WANT to go to small law schools. They’ve been at institutions of every size, from large state university to small liberal arts college. And for whatever reason, they don’t want a small law school environment. They want a LOT of people around them–for the intellectual stimulation, for padding, for whatever. And I think that’s great. If they know they want a larger student body in which to blend, great. But I just hope they KNOW it. Harvard seems to be implying, though, that the larger student body is the best student body. The PREFERRED student body. And more so, that people who choose “other” schools over Harvard are doing so for the “wrong” reasons–or at least are completely unaware that “bigger” equals “better.”

I hope Harvard’s blog gives prospective law students some insight. My suspicion, though, is that it won’t. Because it’s nothing more revealing than information they’ve heard over and over and over again from other sources–both official and non-official. Harvard is big? Yep, Toby will tell you that–and tell you why it’s a good thing. Applications get read carefully? Sure, Toby will tell you that, too. And then you can get on the boards and read about the student perspective. And share information with other applicants. Are you any more informed than you would have been without the blog? Probably not.

I think everyone should blog. So I am glad HLS has a admissions blog. But I’m not convinced that, in this case, there’s a lot of value added by the blog. I hope I’m wrong.