Circus Act

It's becoming clearer and clearer to me why drinking is a favorite pastime of so many in the legal profession. I've watched other people go through this sort of stress, but I don't think I've ever really felt it myself. It's not that things are going poorly or that you doubt yourself or that your problems are insurmountable, it's that there are unexpected moments where it feels as though the sky is falling. It would not feel this way if you were not such a perfectionist, however, if you were less type A, you wouldn't here at all. Everything you take on is an obligation, and every obligation must be met in a timely manner.

Law school (at least at week 3 of year 1) is a tightrope act, and every time you master balancing one thing someone throws another variable in the mix. Friday afternoon you go home feeling relatively good about yourself. You've learned how to walk back and forth on a half inch wire 300 ft in the air. Monday morning someone says, "great, now cross that same tightrope on this bicycle,". Reasonably you know that you have time and no one expects you to have it all figured out right that second, but when you're up that high, everyone is watching, and it never slips your mind how far you have to fall.

For me, Monday is the worst. I have more classes Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday, and less free time, but for me, Monday is the day I put on my biggest show smile while thinking, "don't look down, don't look down, you really can do this."

Playing the 24 Game After Week 2 of Law School

I laughed so hard I cried in Criminal Law today. When I come back to my apartment after a full day, even if had three other classes after, Criminal Law is the class that has me thinking at night.

In two weeks of law school I've learned interesting things. I now understand why the HR lawyer at work wanted us to send in written documentation to her for so much more than ever seemed worth the effort. I understand this because I'm beginning to have a rough idea over what a legitimate lawsuit can be brought over. I play a little game with myself when I watch 24 now called, "How many torts did Jack Bauer commit?" For everyone that thought law school sounded boring, this game is actually fun.

The Scary Things About Law School
1. You actually have to do your homework.
2. If you don't do your homework you will get the look of shame. The look of shame may not sound bad, but it is.
3. You have to learn something new every day. I'm not saying you DO learn something every day, I'm saying that if you check out for a day tomorrow will be twice as hard.
4. You are surrounded by really smart people.
5. Looming in the distance is one, maybe two exams which will make up your entire grade. No amount of sucking up will help you; they grade the papers without names.
6. There's a ridiculous amount of debt you're accumulating, and one day you'll have to pay the piper.

The Fun/Exciting Things About Law School
1. You learn something new every day.
2. You work hard at something and see a little bit of pay off every day.
3. You can play "How many torts did Jack Bauer commit this episode" while watching 24.
4. Everyone assumes that you're smart.
5. You're surrounded by smart people.
6. You do more than you thought you could do.
7. There's always a good lawyer around if you need to ask one a question.

There are other great things too, and other bad things. I just thought i'd let everyone know that it's week two and I'm still alive (and happy!)

I Rest

This week was exhausting! I'm caving and picking up overpriced tacos from the wannabe Mexican restaurant across the street. This week I've started to learn the strange balancing act that makes up being a law student. I'm so tired and hungry. I'm trying to decide whether to study or sleep. I think I'll eat, study while I eat, then I'll sleep. I'm REALLY looking forward to the sleeping portion of my day. It turns out that even if you don't mean to deprive yourself of sleep, as a type A personality to decide what you're going to finish, and then when you finish it all it's much alter than you intended. Then during what should be nap time you remember that you need to brief a case and you do that instead of napping. Lunchtime you just eat lunch (and brief another two cases), and by the time you get back it seems too late for a nap and too early for bedtime.

I don't even care though. I'm eating my tacos and I'm going to sleep. Someone could probably entice me to stay awake for marzipan (I'm dying for marzipan), but short of that I just want SLEEP.

Join a Student Organization or Make Cupcakes for Everyone?

Going forward it may be useful to know that I am socially inept. I wouldn't exactly describe myself as shy, because I have little to no fear of talking to people and certainly no problem saying what's on my mind. The problem is more that I find social interaction exhausting. I wish this wasn't the case because I like to make friends, however I can handle one person I'm not well acquainted with and two or three that I am well acquainted with at any given time. If you add alcohol to this equation you may be able to add one or two to those calculations. I enjoy making friends, but feel as though I can't make friends in large groups. I'm told that other people don't find the need to personally connect with people they meet. I do not understand this at all, and no matter how I've tried, I have not been able to make myself overcome my dislike for larger groups.

This is all a problem because I feel as though I should make some effort to be socially involved at law school. I'm in rooms full of people throughout the week who have great ideas and offer interesting discussion points. I love going to class. I would like to make friends with these people. I feel obligated to join a student organization (at least one). Unfortunately, the prospect of going through room after room of people who I don't know is intimidating and generally unappealing. I am torn between my desire to try to make friends, and the method by which I'm supposed to go about making them.

I don't think this is a normal problem and I don't think other people in my class are worried about this. They're worried about whether they understand our Torts assignment. I'm worried about making friends. I have always understood school, or at least figured it out in my own dear, sweet, time. Individuals I get. I find people incredibly interesting. Groups confuse me. I feel disconnected from others in groups and would generally rather be at home blow drying my hair then stuck in a room with people I don't know.

I hope I find a group interesting enough to really give social interaction a try. If the topic is interesting enough I'm sure I can at least invest myself in that.

The reading assignments with so many new words that I have to look a new word up three times a page then re-read it twice, are not half as intimidating as the prospect of trying to make new friends. Maybe if I make everyone cupcakes? Hey, it works in elementary school.

Showdown: Life vs. Law

This weekend I'm attempting to learn to balance homework and having a life. I like law school but I haven't seen a movie in two weeks (which is a very long time for someone who worked in a movie theatre for eight years), I miss my dog, I would really like to go shopping, I would like to spend more time with my friends, and it might be nice to even go on the occasional date. This week I plan to go to the American Idol Concert on Tuesday evening, and next weekend I have tickets to the football game, so I'm trying to plan ahead. It's all seems like a lot.

Beyond that, I also want to review and type out my notes so I have some sense of organization. I need to go grocery shopping, and to top off everything I'm exhausted from being woken in the middle of the night by the fire alarm. It may be the loudest, scariest, fire alarm ever. We all went and stood out in the night for twenty minutes. It was not fun.

I won't finish anything unless I get moving. So much to do, so little time.

The Top of Babel

All this time I thought Congress spent their time sneaking from session to session, meeting to meeting. I figured Capitol Hill was the evil semi-secret laboratory of politicians. It may still be ground zero for bureaucratic policy making, and everything they do may not be especially well advertised, but there is a GIGANTIC catalog of what they do on a day to day basis. During my library tour today I took a good look at the printed Congressional Records. If they're hiding anything it's in plain sight. Does the phrase, "needle in a haystack," mean anything to you?

It also occurred to me today how utterly destroyed the US would be should anything ever happen to the Internet. The fastest reference for law is the Internet. I wonder what would happen to even the best lawyers if the Internet was suddenly no more. When lawyer A has a question about topic X, lawyer A can get online and look up just about anything on topic X in a matter of minutes. To find out the history of a topic, other decisions made on the topic, the existing statutes and regulations on a topic, and general commentary on the topic without the Internet would take a painstaking amount of time even if you knew exactly where to look for every topic (which I'm relatively certain that you wouldn't unless you were Kyle XY). The availability of information provided by the Internet has an astronomical effect on the study and practice of law. I would have guessed this before, but today when I was standing in the stacks surrounded by thousands of books containing nothing but law, it hit me just how big of a deal the Internet really is.

I will probably avoid the library. It scares me to think of needing to use those books. I hypothesize that Lady Justice went blind by reading all of those books (probably by candelight). I will use a search filter instead.

Maybe You Just Have to Be There

Last night I went to bed wondering why I gave up my life to study, study, and then spend my remaining time worrying that I'm not studying enough. As it turns out, I'm relatively certain that I sleep more than my classmates (about eight hours a night) and spend more time relaxing (I do something unrelated to school every night). I'm not going to destroy my happiness and sanity. I'd rather be a happy low wage, hourly worker than an unhappy lawyer (or law student).

I woke up today, put in a little pre-class study time, and went on to enjoy nearly everything we talked about in class for the entire day.

On Monday we're going to talk a little about divorce jurisdiction in Civil Procedure. I can't tell you exactly why, but this, for some reason made me feel like someonehad just told me that there would be warm cookies with milk to look forward to at the end of the day on Monday. Maybe I like divorce. Maybe I like Civil Procedure. I'm not exactly sure why it made me so happy, but I can't wait to do my reading for class.

Even more happy than the milk and cookies news from Civil Procedure was that something that I might have said was generally a boring topic even two weeks ago, really excites me. I may not have always understood what was going on in class, but when professors put up sections of our reading, I've had the same passages highlighted. I even volunteered once today (and I was right!) I take all of this as a good sign that I can be very happy in law school and possibly, in time, understand what's going on.

If you're reading this thinking, "Wow, you're odd," first, I'd like to say thank you (not for thinking I'm odd, but for reading my blog). The second thing I'd like to tell you is a story from my day today. On the way to Contracts this morning I walked by a group of five med students headed into a restaurant for lunch. The only thing I caught of their conversation was,

Student A: "......white blood cells."
Students B-E: *burst into laughter*

And you thought my interests were weird.