arg

What day is this? Oh yeah, it's the day I quit law school.

Posted 10:02 PM | Comments (3) | law school

About, please

I just have a simple request: If you have a blog, could you please make an "About" page that tells me just a little, even a teensy weensy bit, about who you are, maybe where you are, maybe what you think you're doing w/your blog and/or w/your life? It's easy to do, and your readers will all appreciate it because it helps put what you say in a meaningful context. Mine's a little outdated, but it gives you the main idea. Oh, and please don't make me navigate to your early posts and sift through them trying to see if you wrote some early "this is who I am and what I think I'm doing here" post. If you wrote one of those, just link to it on your front page with a simple little word: About. Please?

Thank you.

Posted 06:18 AM | Comments (9) | meta-blogging

Sick and Cranky

Welcome to the spring headcold. Your head swells three sizes and feels like it's going to explode. Your nose runs constantly and no drug seems capable of stemming the flow. You cough and sneeze explosively and constantly. Avoid quick movements—they only make your head throb more. In fact, avoid all movement, if possible. Stay in bed. Sleep. Read. Drink juice and tea. Be sick, get better, life will be good.

Oh, but you're in law school. So you go to class. Shall you take some perverse pleasure in the fact that you're likely spreading germs to all those around you so that they can be sick during your moot court competition this weekend, too? After all, if law school is a zero sum game, your reduced capacity is their gain, and their reduced capacity is your gain, right? So yes, you should go spread germs liberally, hoping to decimate the ranks. Then, just when their colds are peaking, yours will be on the mend, and you'll win all the marbles!

See, going to class when you feel like crap and would really much rather stay in bed could have a silver lining!

Meanwhile, maybe it's just that I'm sick and easily amused, but I don't think this will ever get old so even if you've seen it, treat yourself again to the Rumsfeld Fighting Technique.

Posted 06:12 AM | Comments (1) | law school

Not Now, After Finals

It's still crazy time. In fact, recently I've had lots of "oh crap I have so much to do I'm going to suffocate or explode" times. And I even worked hard this past weekend. Er, harder than usual, that is. So if I've got so much to do, why is it so damned hard to concentrate on what I'm supposed to be doing?

I ran a 5k Saturday morning that was a huge amount of fun. It just felt great to be pushing myself hard for a finite, concrete, tangible goal that I was fully capable of achieving. And it felt good to do better than expected at something for once (that hasn't, um, exactly been my experience in law school thus far). I came in at just over 26 minutes for the 5k, which isn't great, but not awful for someone who hasn't been inside a gym or done any sort of regular exercise program in, oh, about a year or more. Yes, I'm a lump, but maybe that's why it felt so good to get my lumpishness moving like that. I don't think I've run a 5k since high school, when for two seasons I was on the "cross-country track" team, always bringing up the rear. I was never much of a runner; I kind of hated it when I started, but the cross-country track team was good training for the cross-country skiing team, and that I loved. I grew to like running, too, and I think maybe I've missed it. Yes, I have.

It's good to be reminded forcefully and unequivocally of things you enjoy. The last thing about which I had such an affirmative reaction was, strangely enough, the journal competition the first weekend of spring break. Before that? I dunno exactly. And that's at least partly because law school has become such a slog. It's work. I'd almost say drudgery. But then, it's not so bad. There are bright spots, sure, but should it really feel this, um, unfun?

It's that question that keeps making me wonder whether I should be here at all. The other day Falconred, who is applying to law school right now, wondered aloud whether going to law school was really a good idea for him. As i considered what advice I might offer (not much, really), I wondered: Does it mean anything that my first reaction was to tell him not to go?

I'm apparently not alone in asking this question. Over at Stay of Execution, Scheherazade recenlty wrote: "Don't Go To Law School." She explains:

Don't go to law school because you're not sure what else to do, or because your parents really want you to. Or, at least, don't go to a really expensive law school for those reasons, unless you have the means to do so without incurring big big debt. Don't go to law school, in other words, to avoid making a decision about your life as an adult and what you want it to be like. Because if you incur big debt and make your peer group an extremely competitive and perhaps atypically unhappy group of people you will limit your ability to make that decision, clearly and well and for the right reasons.

Brilliant, as usual. And so, well, why does that seem to hit me right where I live? Is it just because of all those "oh crap I have so much to do!" moments? Is it simply that the pressure's beginning to mount at the end of the semester and I'm getting anxious about all that I have to do in the next 6 weeks? Or is it because I suspect that really, well, I just came to law school to avoid making a decision about my life as an adult and what I want it to be like?

Which brings us back to running, in a roundabout way, because it's something that woke up my body and brain and said unequivocally, "Hey, this is good." Law school doesn't do that. Almost nothing even remotely connected to law school does that. The journal competition sort of did that, but what does that mean? What does any of this mean? Does it mean I should be thinking of doing something else come Fall 2004?

And the answer to that question is clear: Not now, after finals! The unexamined life may not be worth living, but there will be plenty of time for that examination—after finals! I wish I could go to Florida "to think about where I want to be and what I want to do after this semester." But I can't. I can't even think about it. Not now. After finals.

Posted 06:38 AM | Comments (2) | law school

Property Review

After nearly 7 hours of review yesterday, thanks to the entertaining and straight over the top Professor Paula Franzese, I have now reviewed estates in land, conveyancing, recordation, adverse possession, landlord/tenant basics, and a drop of water rights, among other things. I didn't attend any of the BarBri review sessions last semester, so I can't say how this one compares, but if Prof. Franzese comes to your school (via the BarBri video), I'd recommend going to the review. It's long, but it seemed to be a nice summary of the general 1L introduction to property law. Plus, you'll learn the Bobby Brown rule of property, the Destiny's Child Doctrine, and the Greg and Marsha Brady rules of co-ownership and tenancy. And you thought property was boring, didn't you? (If you'd like the notes I took, just ask.)

Beyond property, those of you heading into another season of finals might get a little lift from Franzese's advice on grades:

Only you create the reality that your grades represent. No one else. View them as an opportunity for learning, self-knowledge and growth. Throughout, keep your head high. Do not be cruel to yourself. Beyond a healthy discipline, be gentle with yourself. Hold tight to your dignity, integrity and belief in yourself. You are precisely where you should be. You have succeeded before. You are a success now.

That advice appears to be connected to something called "Humanizing Law School" from Florida State University College of Law. The program offers more advice for law students, if you've got the time to check it out.

Posted 11:17 AM | Comments (4) | law school