No longer cursing my decision to NOT go to Tulane!

Well this hurricane shit is pretty fucked up! I can't imagine how it must feel like for the people. I had a friend from undergraduate who went to Tulane (for a short time I considered the thought too, but decided not to for academic reasons), and she has had quite a few days.

They sent all their students either home with their parents (it was during undergrad orientation) or shipped them off to Jackson to stay at those dorms. They did a nice job of evacuating everyone, though contact with "Jen" was impossible to reach until this morning but I was happy to get a quick mass email from her. Thanks for that! :)

On another note, I am facingt sort of a blogging dilemna. I have something I really want to write about, but it was so crazy and so random and so utterly unique that if I put any details down here the crazy freak who involved me in her train wreck will definetly know that I am talking about her. On the other hand, no one reads this blog and if they do I have no evidence of it. Ah.... I guess I wont do it... I told boyfriend about it and thats good enough.

My weekend was a waste

I am pretty frustrated with myself at the moment. I had planned to spend a decent amount of time studying this weekend. I wanted to do most of my reading and briefing for next week. Yea... you know where I am going with this.

I spent the entire weekend staying out too late (like 6am) and feeling so tired the next day that I was unable to study and had to spend the afternoon drinking beer in preparation for the extended beer drinking later that night.

Arghh. The only think that works out for me is that originally I had to have my first day of work today...and they've moved it to friday. This means I should at least be able to do my reading for the class tonight, and more if I stop being a giant slacker.

Sigh....

This will be the hardest experience of you life!

Why is it that everyone loved to psyche out law students? Every person that I have told I am attending law school for the first time comes back with a version of this witty response, "Oh... I heard first year is impossibly difficult, I hope you make it". 2nd and 3rd year students tell me how much torture the first year was and faculty and deans all try to scare the shit out of us poor first years. Why do this? I knew this was going to be hard? I mean I would think so! Theres a zillion laws and cases and so much crap lawyers have to learn. I knew I was going to have to learn it too. This isn't exactly news to me. I didn't expect to have some chip implanted into my brain that would fill me with this knoweledge.

There was one person whose advice I will take. She did not try to scare us unreasonable. She simple said, it will be hard but try to keep some balance. You are working, you are studying that leaves little to be enjoyed in life. Keep something in your life you enjoy so you don't go nuts. I have of course taken the advice but not followed it. I have kept little that I enjoy in life because I don't see how to fit it. I have this journal and I enjoy that, but as for activities, I suppose I will save it for weekend nights when I have already spent 9 hours studying during the day.

But please people when someone tells you they will be going to law school find something more constructed to say. Try any of the following:

" Good for you!"
" Congrads!"
"Good luck!"
"Thats a great career."

Try being positive, because most of us are already experiencing a feeling which is a cross between naseau, terror, and a tiny bit of excitment.

Thanks, thats my public service announcment.

Can you recite the facts of the case?

Something happened to one of my classmates that I am sure will happen to me at some point in my career. I dread this moment like no other. I will try to avoid it, but inevitable it will catch up with me, most likely this year, even more likely this semester.

Professor: "Miss. Unprepared will you please recite the facts of the Shaheen case for the class?"

Miss U: " Uhhh.....well...."

Proff: " Well? You did read the case did you not? Are you prepared for this class?"

Miss U: " Well, I....skimmed it...but...uhhh no."

Proff: "You do realize the only grade you will have in this class is a final. My only other experience with you will be through your class participation."

Miss U; " I am sorry, I know. I wont let this happen again."

Proff: " I hope not. Let this be a warning to the rest of the class, you do not want to end up in this position. I will call on you at random and you will be prepared."

Miss U: Looks mortifies and mumbles "I am sorry."

Several people raise their hands to recite the statement of fact, myself included. I am strategy, where If I answer enough questions voluntarily I will not be called on at random enough because he will be satisfied with ripping to shreds my volunteered answers.

We are students in the part-time division in the evening. We have jobs, some full time and some part time. Many people are married and several have children (one poor crazy soul is a stay at home mother to 6...no wonder she needs the income a law degree might generate). It is not at all impossible that at some point something will have to give and one day we will try to scrimp by without reading all 150 assinged pages and 6 cases. It is a fact of life that there only 24 hours in a day, at least a few of which are eaten up with sleeping, eating, commuting, or other "life tasks".

The rest of the class goes on and the poor women wont lift her head from her laptop. I would be pretty embarassed, but then again it will be me eventually.

Wireless Internet is NOT always a good thing!

So, we all love the internet right? I know I do. There is a reason why you should not have internet access during class time. Because it is hard to resist the evil distraction.

I have been good, I acquired a new computer before school and didn't install AIM or any of the other messengers on it. I left out party poker or any of the other common distractions. But honestly, it takes a great amount of will power to not aimlessly read the best of craigslist or some of my favorite blogs during the lulls that naturally occur during any contracts or torts class.

I know this is bad. Its a terrible habit. I think, I must be the only one doing this. The rest of the class is so enamoured with this discussion of molested children and whether or state farm should have to pay their parents for each time they were molested or just for the overall experience of it.

But....no. I look to my left and right, down and around and almost everyone has a web brower open that they are switching back and forth too. So I think it would be fun to take note of what my classmates are doing instead of paying attention.

1. Ebay-- someone seems to be searching for computer software or something of the nature...yaaaawn!

2. AIM arguement with what must be her husband/significant other (whatever). She wants him/her to fix dinner, he doesn't want to. She pleads that she has been at work all day and at school all not, she is hungry and tired. He states that he doesnt feel like cooking, and oh yea the kids are hungry because he didnt give them anything either. The women in the next row shakes her head and rubs her temples like she feels the begginings of a migraine coming on and closes the window. I guess she will be cooking when she gets home at 8 something at night. What a nice man she has there.

3. Apartmentfinder.com....aha! someone else soon to be or currently without a place to live. I am obsessive in searching the listings myself. Hoping against hope something new and affordable will be posted on craigs list anytime now, I just have to catch it.

I realize that I have an internet problem. Not only am I playing on the internet but I am also observing other people playing on it. I wonder if the people in the rows behind me are looking at my screen. Its pretty easy in this classroom. Its stadium style seating and out about 80 people there are only 5 or 6 without a computer in front of them.

The proffesor joked on the first day that he only knows his students from the nose up, the computer screen blocks the rest of the view.

I suppose I should go back to the reading that will never end.

Where to start?

So... this is my first endeavor into any sort of journaling, blogging or anything else. But I figure I will give it a try.

So I am about 3 days into my first year of classes and I have some mixed feelings about all of this. I have wanted to be here since I was so young I could barely remember. However, this is NOT what I thought the beggining would be like at all. I was supposed to be calm, organized, -prepared, well rested. What a joke.

Here is a list (not at all in order of which shit hit the fan first):

1. I lost my apartment. I have to move a month into law school. The market in this area (DC metro) is totally screwed up. I can't find anything I can even sort of afford. Boyfriend is useless in this challenge.

2. I need to find a new job, old job does not want to change and cut down my hours. Its far away from school and home, and the boss is insane.

3. I have somehow let the papers in my life get ahead of me. There is forms EVERYWHERE. Literarly covering my desk, our dining room table, the couch. The cats have scattered some of them through the apartment. When I am not obessively writing in my daily planner and reading my endless pile of books I am fretting about the forms.

4. Money, of course, money. After paying tuition, buying books, paying for rent, and saving for the next deposit and overpriced rent payment I do not have the money for such "unessentials" as the ABA required health insurance or really anything else at all.

Thats the short list. There are off course other aggrivations, such as the bookstores sadistic ordering proccess, where they know 150 people need a book and insist on only purchasing 40 for the incoming class. No, I definetly do not need my Torts book. Yea theres reading assinged, but I would really rather have the book a week after classes started so that I can play the fun game of catch up over the weekend and read not only next weeks assignment and brief those cases, but also the ones from the week before.

OK, I am feeling a little releived from my drawn out vent. If there is actually anyone reading this, thanks for "listening".

:) First Year-