It’s going to be a long day

I’ve got four classes today, the last ending at 2:50.  As soon as that class is over, I’m hopping in my car and going north to Beloit for my doctor appointment for meds.  I’m not sure what’s going to happen, honestly.  It’s been 2 1/2 years since I was on meds.  The real questions are how many meds I’ll be on and just what ones they will be.

And now I’m getting ready to start my last class of the day – hooray for that!  And then I’m off to Beloit.  Gotta make sure I stop and get a drink and maybe a snack before I leave Dekalb, otherwise it’s likely to be 7 before I get anything to eat.

There are times during the day where it’s still a little surreal that I’m a law student.  It doesn’t happen everyday, but every once in awhile it’s a little strange to realize I’m a law student.

Wednesday

Now that I have this blog set up on my netbook, I don’t remember what I wanted to say.  I’m sure it will come back to me as the day goes on, it usually does. Actually, things like this usually come back to me about 10:15pm, right when I’m getting ready for bed.  Figures, doesn’t it?
Right now it’s 1pm on the dot and we’re still waiting for our professor to show up.  It’s a 1pm class, but last week he was here early. It’s my Civil Procedure class, my least favorite of the bunch. And there’s the professor so it’s time for class.  This class is 50 minutes long, and then I have 70 minute break until my next class (Basic Legal Research Workshop).
I’ve now  taken a look at all of my reading to be done over the next week and it’s not too terrible.  It’s certainly doable by any means and the amount of it next Tuesday night isn’t bad by any means.  All I’ll have to do is a double dip of contracts on Monday night and then read my Civ Pro during my three hour break before class.  All in all, not bad.  It certainly could be worse, that’s for sure.
Tonight for classes, I just have to review what I’ve read for Torts and Criminal Law to prepare for class.  Aside from that, I’m free as a bird – technically.  Might be a good idea to do some laundry tonight.  I also need to pick up my apartment, especially the kitchen.  It’s a mess, to say the least.  Or maybe I’ll do laundry after class tomorrow – that’s another option, especially since I won’t be limited by needing to leave for class.
My classes are now over for the day – now I just need to go over the stuff for Torts and Criminal Law for tomorrow, especially Criminal Law.  When I get home, I’m cleaning my kitchen, running the dishwasher, and listening to the Cubs I think.  Tomorrow morning I’ll either sit and watch

Monday

It’s the day that never ends. Even after having just one Monday, I can tell you it’s already going to suck in terms of study time.  I’m in class from 9-9:50, then 10:30-11:45, then 1-1:50 and then 2-2:50.  Last week at least, I then went home and had roughly five hours of studying to prepare for Tuesday’s classes (four of them again).  I’m hoping I don’t have that much reading/briefing to do tonight.  I would really like to finish the tissue box I have going – there’s not much more to do with it.  I also need to go to bed early, as I slept like crap last night.

I’m such a dork. I’ve so gotten into twitter in only the week since I’ve signed up. I’ve gotten into it both in terms of following people and in terms of writing my own tweets.  I find that very humorous too.  Sarah’s been trying to get me to join for months and all it takes is finding a celebrity that I wanted to follow more easily.

I think I’m going to try getting some of my reading done in the library after classes today, specifically Contracts and Criminal Law.  The idea being that I can take care of those classes and not have to lug the books home.  The books are awful to say the least.  I may try the same tactics for my Civil Procedure class, as those three Casebooks are huge.

Monday is now over and it wasn’t as bad as last week. It helped that I didn’t have any torts to read tonight. 

Another week

Right now I’ve got season three of Bones on while my dishwasher runs and while I write up my formal case brief for my legal writing class.  It’s due tomorrow morning.  So right now I’m finishing that up, after which I’ll have a light dinner followed by beignets. Okay, no beignets tonight – just don’t feel like making them.  It’ll be Tuesday or later before I have time to make them.

All in all, I’m doing pretty good. I’m sitting on my loveseat watching tv while downloading Microsoft Office 2010 on my netbook.  I’m prepared for class tomorrow. The weather’s turning into fall.  This week appears to have a lot of fall weather in store and that’s a-okay with me!

Saturday

Even though I know I’m going to spend the vast majority of Saturdays studying, I like the mostly unstructured nature of Saturdays.  I say that, but really it is structured kinda.  I mean, I get up by 8:30, have breakfast and hit the books for a few hours before taking a break and hitting the books for another few hours.  I’ve pretty much decided that given how much Mondays suck for me this semester, that when I study on Saturday I’m also going to take a look at my Monday night workload and see how heavy it is and see if I can take on some of it over the weekend.  I didn’t study at all after classes yesterday and I think I’m going to have to change that.  I may not go all out on Friday nights like I do the rest of the school week, but I think I need to do at least a little studying on Friday afternoon.

I talked to my mom yesterday.  I wanted to know if the insurance card had arrived yet, but it hadn’t.  I should call the clinic on Monday and make sure that’s not going to be too big of an issue if it’s not here by the 31st.  I’m hoping it’s not.  I also mentioned to her that I’m thinking of coming up in October, probably the weekend of the 15th if I can manage it.  I told her I picked that weekend because that’s the weekend Ohio State comes to Madison to play the Badgers. The game’s on ESPN and I don’t get ESPN.  Speaking of college football, they announced yesterday that several of the BCS games, including the Title Game, will be on ESPN.  If my Badgers are playing in any of them, I may have to stay there longer than I’d initially planned on.  Initially I was only thinking of going up a few days before Christmas and staying through the day after New Year’s, but I’m not sure now.  I’d hate to miss my Badgers playing and I’m not the type to go to a sports bar to watch a game.  I’m not the type to go to a bar at all, come to think of it. 

No guys yet, though that’s to be expected.  In case, I’ve not mentioned it yet, there are 135 1Ls (first year law students) and somewhere around 52 women.  So there are plenty of guys in my class (and I suspect in the upper years as well).  However, I only have half of that 135 in my classes.  The rest are in the other section (imagine grade grade school days where you were with the same people all day, and the teachers were the ones who changed rooms).  It’s kind of nice for this first semester, as finding your way around the law school building is one less worry to deal with (as it’s a bit confusing).  That way you have time to learn the building and explore a little.  And who knows, maybe there will be a grad student in another area who’s LDS that I’ll meet at church tomorrow (I didn’t go last week as I had a headache and didn’t feel well – wanted to make sure I wasn’t getting sick before classes started).  The rest of the university doesn’t actually start until this coming Monday, so who knows.

On a different subject, I just have to mention how wonderful Microsoft OneNote is.  It was introduced as part of Office 2007 Student Edition and it’s an awesome program to say the least for students.  It’s a note-taking program and is so much better than Word for taking notes.  Seriously, if you ever get the chance to play around with it a little bit, do so.  The best part is how organized it can keep me.  You create notebooks, and within those notebooks you create sections and within each section you have pages.  So I keep a notebook for each of my classes and then a personal notebook.  For my four core law classes, each notebook has three sections – Reading Assignments, Class Notes, and Cases.  I can also create Outlook tasks and reminders directly from OneNote or I can take an email from Outlook and send it to OneNote if I need to.   It’s just an awesome program.

To the maybe one person reading this blog – have you ever felt like you were meant for something more, but you don’t know what that “more” is, or how to even get there?  I think for me, that’s a large part of why I’m in law school.  Being a lawyer, or even just having the law degree, is a way to do more than what I was doing. 

Tired

Definitely tired this morning.  I think I need to make my bedtime 10pm sharp, so that means getting ready for bed about 9:30 so I can actually turn out the lights at 10.  That’s probably not always going to be possible, but I’d like to do that wherever possible.  My routine is to get up at 6:30 Mon-Fri regardless of what time my first class starts (Mon-Wed that’s 9am, Thurs is 11am and Fri is 10:30 am). Saturdays I’m planning to be up by 8am and not that much different with Sundays.  Even if I don’t have great gobs of studying to do on Saturdays, I will need to get up relative early anyway given the medication I’ll be on after the 31st.  If I’m on Vyvanse again (and I seriously hope so) I can’t take my medication if I’m going to be awake less than 12-14 hours from the time I get up. So I’ll be taking medication Mon-Saturday and do my best not to take medication on Sundays just to give myself a med break – plus I want the ability to sleep in.  When I’m on Vyvanse I can’t sleep in.  In other med news, I think I’ve finally accepted that with the exception of any possible pregnancies in the future, I’ll be on medication for the rest of my life.  Having tried to get through the first week of law school without meds, I have a better appreciation of why meds are so necessary.

In other news, I’ve become a twitter fiend in the last two days.  I’m constantly there, updating my twitter feed and following that of others, mostly celebrities.  The biggest celebrity I’m following is Joey Fatone.  I found his first single last weekend and fell in love with it.  I’ve listened to it over and over again and I now know all the words.  I can’t wait for his cd to come out and I’m hoping he tours and ends up somewhere in the area..  I’d love to go see him in concert.  I suspect he’d be great in concert.  Really, he’d only need to come to the Rockford or Chicago area and I’d be able to go.

I’m debating going to see my family in October.  I’ll be well into the semester and hopefully I can drive up on a Friday afternoon and drive back Sunday after church.  I’d like to do it the weekend of Ward Conference so that I can see the Nelsons too, so I’ll ask my mom what weekend that is.  I’m not sure it’ll be possible, but I’d certainly like to. What weekend Ward Conference is will determine the feasibility of going to see my parents.  As I’m writing this, it’s interesting that I’m avoiding using the word “home” to describe my parent’s house.  It’s home and yet it’s not anymore.  In a very real sense, my apartment is home now.  Having looked at the Badger football schedule, the game on the 16th of October against Ohio State is on ESPN or ESPN2 – channels I don’t get.  So long as I can swing it, that’ll be the weekend I go see my folks.  Plus, it puts a decent amount of time before I’m there again over Thanksgiving. I definitely want to be able to watch that game, and it’s not likely going to be on espn3.com and I REALLY want to see the game.

It’s strange.  As annoying and frustrating as I’m finding parts of law school and living on my own, I don’t think I’ve ever been happier.  I’m sure part of that is knowing that I’m exactly where I’m supposed to be. 

Day Two

I’m sure there will be days where I’ll hate it. Days where I just want to throw up my hands in disgust and frustration and just have to walk away for awhile.  But for right now, I’m REALLY loving law school and I’m enjoying it.  Granted, I’m all of a day + in classes, and still haven’t had two of my classes, but I’m loving it.  I’m loving all of it.  I love classes, I love my apartment, I love being away from home (mostly on the last one – I do miss my family and the dogs but still!)  Everything about my apartment and the law school, and even the campus to an extent, feels like home.  It’s interesting, the degree to which I’m sure that I’m exactly where I’m supposed to be. 

It felt like my phone was ringing off the hook last night, but it really wasn’t.  I talked to my mom, then the Sister Missionaries (more on them in a minute), and then I talked to my dad last night too.  The Sister Missionaries called because they want to come pay me a visit.  They’re coming by on Saturday about 2pm.  They want to share a message, and I think just make sure I don’t need anything and that I’m all settled in. 

I also have to remember to call my cousin tonight – it’s her birthday today and she called me on my birthday.  We’re only about 6 weeks apart.  It’s so strange to think we’re 25 years old.  It sounds so foreign to say it.

Classes and PDocs

Well, today starts my first day as a law student.  Woo hoo!  It’s finally here.  It’s hard to believe that I’m a law student now.  In order to help myself not skip class, I’m going to do my best to think of law school as a job with only a set amount of PTO.  That should help me not skip classes.  That’s important given that in law school, there are serious consequences for skipping class – the kind of consequences I didn’t have as an undergraduate.

In other news, I scheduled my doctor appointment for meds.  It’s on August 31st at 5pm. I need to decide if I’m going to drive to class that day or take the bus.  Mostly I need to look at the bus schedule and see if the bus is feasible as I want time to head back to my apartment and drop of my computer and books before heading up to Beloit. 

Overall I have a nice class schedule.  It certainly could be worse (and I definitely had worse as an undergrad!)

 

Monday: Contracts from 9-9:50 ; Criminal Law from 10:30-11:45 ; Basic Legal Research from 1-1:50 ; Legal Writing & Advocacy from 2-2:50

Tuesday: Contracts from 9-9:50 ; Criminal Law from 10:30-11:45 ; Torts from 1-1:50 ; Legal Writing & Advocacy from 2-2:50

Wednesday: Contracts from 9-9:50 ; Civil Procedure from 1-1:50 ; Basic Legal Research from 3-3:50

Thursday: Criminal Law from 11-11:50 ; Torts from 1-2:15

Friday: Torts from 10:30-11:45 ; Civil Procedure from 1-1:50

Overall it’s not a bad schedule by any means.  It also means that on any day other than Wednesday, I can make a 5pm pdoc visit in Beloit without too much trouble.  That last part is something I’m very grateful for!   I’ve decided that I’m going to do my best not to study at all on Sundays.  The rest of the week I’m still trying to set up a routine of sorts.  I’ve decided that even on Thursdays and Fridays when I don’t have an early class (well, early is relative), I’m still  going to get up at 6:30 to keep that routine.