Thursday, October 27, 2011

Thursday is the new Friday -- in MY mind

Thursday is the new Friday, in my head anyways. Thursday mornings I just want to stay in bed and have a leisurely breakfast with my partner, Todd. Thursday mornings, I just want to take all of the extra time and get to class on my terms. As we know that is not the case. Class still starts the same time, even if my head is on the weekend.

I have fallen in love with the bad coffee in the school's cafeteria. That is serious. I have truly let all of my values fall to the wayside in the now digital, formerly paper, chase.

Here's to hoping the weekend comes fast, bringing with it a crash course with Emily Post.

Tuesday, October 25, 2011

Coffee, the saving grace of all law students

One quick note before those hypos. Coffee is the lifesaver of all law students. I was told that before I started. My friend Janeen said, "You will be addicted to coffee by the middle of your first semester." I thought not. Wrong. Coffee is my friend. Coffee is the god to which I now worship. Coffee jump starts my legal engine. Howard Schultz should be a patron saint. Remind me to send that letter to the vatican. Somewhere in between my legal writing paper and outlining.

Surviving the Contracts Midterm

Exhaustion, confusion, and, then, of course, panic. Was it an option agreement? Was it a firm offer? Was it Promissory Estoppel? Don't even both trying to comprehend those terms. Unless you need an attorney, and honestly, for most of you, I hope that never happens. Hiring an attorney, for the average American, usually means something went completely wrong in your life and it needs "fixing". Adlai Stevenson said it best: "Law is not a profession at all, but rather a business service station and repair shop."

Back to Contracts. We did survive the midterm, and we all seemed to survive it rather well. In fact, we gained more than knowledge. We learned who those people are that sit across the lecture room from us. With nearly 100 students in one section, one tends to be territorial with one's friends. That means you typically hang with the students that sit near you. Midterms break down these fictional boundaries. Its the midterms that bring you across country lines. Nothing bonds more than fear and panic -- and bond we did.

Now if you will excuse me, I need to prep those Criminal hypos I have been avoiding for three days.


Friday, October 21, 2011

Mid Terms Make You Closer

No one understands what another law student is going through than another law student. That is incredibly evident during exam time. Combine that with a first draft of your major paper due the same week and you have the perfect law school storm. That is exactly the week we have had here at Southwestern Law School. On Monday the first draft of our final papers were due and today we have a Contracts mid term. It was blatantly obvious that our social graces have left us by our behaviors at a Student Bar Association Luncheon. This crowd of first years just ran into the room, grabbed as much food as they could carry, and just started stuffing it into their mouths on the way out. The event was not so much attended but rather pillaged. Our contracts review classroom was filled with 1Ls with food all over their faces. It was rather funny, but it was also a big realization what law school had done with our lives. Let me put that another way -- it was evidence of how very intensely involved we had all become with our studies. We gave ourselves over to this out of the ordinary, demanding everything you have and then some, and when our hitting your bottom, to give even more, experience.

And yet we love it.

More after the Contracts mid term.