Checking in.

Yeah, I know, my blog has essentially become a graveyard. To anyone who checked in here regularly and missed the lack of content over the last couple of months, my apologies; it’s just tough to juggle everything, and obviously the endless free time I had before I moved out here (and honestly, my comparatively vast amount of free time during summer school) just aren’t around anymore. With that said, I’ve always detested those who play the “too busy” card while still spending a decent chunk of free time doing whatever they want, and while I haven’t had a huge chunk of free time, it does still exist.

In any case, I do wish I had at least kept a journal of my time so far, as 1L will likely go down as one of the most significant years of my life and it’s just flying by. My first final of the exam period is just three weeks away now, which is a really scary thought in all honesty. As I discovered while taking the LSAT and my summer final, no period of time feels long when you’re spending the whole time rooting for the clock to not run out. I need every study moment I can find, and right now three weeks seems really, really short.

So, football season is here.

Unfortunately I just can’t see being able to put in the time to do all of my weekly football posts that I did in previous seasons (power rankings, picks, NCAA top 25, etc).

I’ll still be keeping up on football of course, and I’ll blog about it when I can, but my school workload just won’t allow me to put multiple hours every week into blogging about it on a consistent basis. Sorry to Gabe and whoever else that likes coming here for my football stuff. Again, I’ll blog when I find the time to.

Things have hit full swing.

On the first day of orientation, the IU Dean of Student Affairs flatly told us, “Some days you’re just going to say ‘law school sucks’…I’d just say go with it for a while.” He also told us, in all seriousness, that 40% of law students deal with serious depression during the time they’re in school. Yikes. I plan to be in the 60%, but that’s an intimidatingly high number. If nothing else, it probably means that I’ll have a front row seat to some unfortunate personality transformations. Let’s hope not though.

Things are about to hit full swing again.

The fall starters are arriving in town. I’ve spent the last couple of nights socializing with a few of them, there’s a function I’m getting ready to go to where I’ll meet quite a few more. If nothing else, I’ve already got my social core network down…hopefully I like a ton of these new people, but whether I do or not, I’m not generally worried about the social end of things.

Work-wise, things are about to get hectic. Summer start was only about 2/3 of a full law school load, and I felt somewhat busy then, so 1L will certainly be taxing. If I don’t blog for periods of time, that’s why. My free time will be spent trying to do some socializing and I’m certainly setting aside some time for following football. It’s a positive thing that my favorite sport is largely confined to weekends. I’ll still have to get work done on the weekends, but I still think I can free up enough time to spend a few hours watching on Saturdays and Sundays.

I have to sit through orientation again on Monday/Tuesday (blech), and class starts Wednesday. The difficulty level makes me nervous to a certain extent, but I should be fine.

I’ll try to check in periodically.

Favre.

I don’t think it’s worth devoting a long post to him again, but I’ll acknowledge it.

I was fooled. I thought he was really done this time. I also thought that Rafael Palmeiro was on the level when he adamantly denied ever using steroids. I also thought that Sammy Sosa was a decent guy during his home run chase. Sometimes I get the wool pulled over my eyes. This one makes me feel dumber because of the whole “fool me once, shame on you…fool me twice, shame on me” thing. I knew that Favre was a phony long ago. It’s become silly to believe anything he says. But I believed him.

So, bring on another season of oversaturated coverage of Favre, I guess. I hope he makes a fool of himself. To be honest though, I think he can’t help but be an upgrade for a team with no quarterback, and it seems like it’s going to be an NFC North battle for the division title between by far the two least likable teams in the division, the Bears and Vikings. I hope the Packers can rally the troops and prove me wrong, but they look like a third place team to me right now. The Lions? I don’t even know why I felt the need to mention their name.

Nashville Trip Report (Part 4)

As you can tell, my days up to this point had been rather full. I was lacking energy the day after my trip down Music Row. I eventually rolled out of bed, headed over to Bob Evans, but there was a bit of a wait late on a Saturday morning. I put my name on the list, but figured I’d quickly drive over to Cracker Barrel too to see if the wait was shorter. I managed to get an immediate table there, so that’s where I had breakfast. I have to think that the only reason Bob Evans was slightly busier at this time was because its lot was connected to several hotels, where a person has to go down the road a ways to get to Cracker Barrel. That’s precisely why I went to Bob Evans first, and I’m one who’s loyal to Cracker Barrel as still being my preferred restaurant. Anyway, good breakfast as usual. And yes, I know that I spend an inordinate amount of time mentioning Cracker Barrel on my trip reports, they should send me a gift certificate or something.

I went back to the hotel and just relaxed for a while. I didn’t have any big plans before my Grand Ole Opry show that night…or at least until dinner before the show.

Nashville Trip Report (Part 3)

I headed home from The Bluebird, and got another good night of sleep. It’s wonderful to just be able to sleep in, with absolutely no need to be up by a certain time. Granted, my summer class schedule allowed me to start my school days no later than 10, so it wasn’t a huge issue at that time either, but I still generally needed to wake up and get stuff done. On vacation, the pace of “get whatever you want to get done whenever you want to” is even more lax.

Nashville Trip Report (Part 2)

I really enjoyed the bus tours I took in Chicago, so I figured I should give one of the most reputable tours in Nashville a shot also (the top-rated one was unfortunately down due to “medical necessity”). Tommy’s Tours sounded like it would fit the bill in any case, and it was convenient in that he swung by and picked me up right in front of my hotel.

Nashville Trip Report (Part 1)

Yeah, I’ve been lazy getting this up. I stayed busy for the vast majority of the time I was in Nashville, and the wi-fi in my room was the worst I’ve experienced in a hotel room, so I didn’t spend a ton of time on the internet anyway. Excuses aside, here’s the report…

Some pictures of Bloomington.

I mentioned in previous posts that I wanted to get out and snap some pictures around here. Bloomington really is a beautiful place to live and go to school. I woke up earlier than expected this morning, and decided I’d do some photography while the sun was coming up and it still wasn’t too hot out yet. Maybe not my finest pictorial to date, but there’s some decent stuff in here.

My first law school final exam (trip report)

Alright, I know I said that I couldn’t see being able to say much, but you know how much I love story-telling, so if you want an account of how the exam went…here it is.

The day before the test, I took my final practice exam, the 2008 fall exam that is the most recent one our professor administered. I had taken a few past practice exams but had broken them up over time, and had never gone four hours straight. I decided, to see where my endurance was, I should sit and take the 2008 exam under simulated test conditions, rigidly timed in the library, and go for four hours straight. By about the two hour mark, I was feeling very mentally strained and tired. I ultimately made the decision to quit at that point, because I didn’t want to simply contribute to further fatigue the next day.

Brief update.

Just a bit more than 38 hours to go until my first law exam. Honestly…I feel pretty darn good about it. After doing some practice exam questions a couple of weeks ago, it put knots in my stomach to compare my answer to the sample answer that he put forth as a good one. It blew mine out of the water. Now? I don’t know, I think I’m going to be okay. I’ve got the organization down as far as how this prof likes things laid out, I have little confusion on they key concepts, and I type really quickly (which will be a bigger bonus with this guy than with future profs; he’s notorious for giving a nice bump to simply mass-producing lots of words in the course of four hours, assuming the words are pretty much on point).

At times, I’ve wondered if my classmates still might know the material better than I do…but the more I see them stressing out and reacting to the upcoming test, the more I think that there’s plenty of people I can beat out. I’m not getting cocky, I honestly think I have little chance of an A and am mostly just hoping for an A- (but will be fine with a B+, since it’s above the median and keeps me on pace to hold onto my scholarship money)…but in any case, the chance of a disaster happening on Tuesday’s final feels really small to me. Maybe it won’t go that well, maybe I’ll get my grade in a month and come crashing back down to Earth, but…for now, I’m content to be fairly non-plussed while many of my classmates freak out.

This is probably the last post I’ll put up about this before the test. In any case, I’ll report from the Hyatt Place Opryland in Nashville on Wednesday if I don’t check in earlier.

Final exam to come, but I’m done with my first class.

The last couple of days, the professor has explicitly told us that nothing that we covered would be required material for the exam. As a result, I didn’t really pay attention, except when he got to talking specifically about how we should prep for the exam, what he wanted to see on it, etc. In general though, these class sessions were not worth a whole lot.

Sage words.

In sifting through some advice on the web about how to best succeed on law school finals, the topic deviated a bit more toward law school in general…I had high appreciation for this piece of advice that one 3L passed along.

<<Just remember to call your mom, read a book, have a beer, and stay out late with your classmates taking about non-law related things. You’ll be in school with some of the smartest, most interesting people in the US… don’t miss out on that.>>

That’s really well put. While I would be happy for everyone in my class besides me to turn into a knuckle-dragging idiot come 1:00 next Tuesday for a few hours (for purposes of the grading curve), in general I’m really happy to be amongst some of the best and brightest minds that I’ve ever been amongst in my age group…and I can’t tell you what a relief it is that the majority of them are very cool people too, given how many smart people are incredibly awkward.

One week to the final.

Crunch time has arrived. I’ve got a week until my first law school final. It’s a bit stressful, but I simply have to remind myself of two things:

I know, it’s been a while.

I’m busier on a consistent basis than I’ve ever been, I think. Full disclosure: within “busy,” I’m including social time, which obviously isn’t an actual obligation when you’re single. Regardless, I’m sort of doing something all the time, and extended moments when I’m at a computer with nothing in particular to do (the usual conditions for blogging) are at a minimum.

But, it’s Sunday night, on the eve of returning to the classroom, and I can’t get myself in gear to do more schoolwork.

End of week 1.

My goodness…I sure did change almost everything about my life.

Back in Washington, I would grind out my boring, slow 40 hours a week at my desk at work…but when those hours were over, the weekend was mine and I had absolutely nothing to stress or worry about (except the looming thought that I would have to be back at that desk come Monday morning). On the other hand, it’s already strikingly obvious that you’re pretty much a law student 24/7. Stress and anxiety are going to be a part of the picture a lot more often. Getting out of work for the day meant freedom…getting out of class for the day here is only the beginning.

I’m sufficiently intimidated by the academic aspect of this. I think I’m going to do well, but it’s going to be a ton of work; I’m competing for grades in a curved environment with a bunch of people who, make no mistake, are as smart or smarter than me. Not that they’re all necessarily as smart or smarter…but in general, to pull top grades, I’m going to have to beat out a ton of people who are intellectual peers. This means both working harder and working smarter, focusing on the right things.

Good sign.

The prof kept our morning class session 8 minutes past the scheduled end time today. I wasn’t even annoyed by it. In fact, as the scheduled end time had come, I was worried that we were going to end up quickly glossing over the case in question, which I found pretty interesting.

I compare this mentally to how I felt when the safety meetings (or whatever) at work began to run long, and…well, let’s just this is an encouraging sign about how good of a fit this law school thing might be.

Alright, I’m officially a law student now.

Class started yesterday, and now I’m through my second full day of it.

*Orientation was basically as brutally boring as expected yesterday…as far as 8 hour days go, it felt insanely long. I needed a nap afterward. With that said, the class part itself was something I liked. You could say that the professor picked on me the first day, but it wasn’t about the reading material we were supposed to have covered (I was prepared if he did). He was about to draw an example, and said, “I just have to pick on you because you have a Scandinavian name. Do you know what lutefisk is?” I said, “Ummm…well it’s a food, I’ve never had it.” “That’s pretty good,” he said (a pretty good answer, I guess?). Then he proceeded to ask me to basically be his example as he drew an analogy that had nothing to do with the initial question. I spent the next 90 minutes trying to figure out why the heck he asked me about lutefisk.

7/5/09: More notes on the eve of my return to the classroom.

*4th of July came and went without me seeing a firework. Rain and thunderstorms and a lack of desire to watch fireworks by myself meant I didn’t bother. It was the one bad day of weather we’ve had here since I’ve arrived (it was forecasted correctly), weather is back to being fine today and the 10 day forecast looks really good. Instead of seeing fireworks, I did head to the theater and watch The Hangover. I’m happy for any excuse to see Ed Helms (Andy Bernard on The Office) act in new material during the summer; Helms does a good job, the movie is pretty funny. It’s got an insanely high IMDb rating that I don’t quite understand, it was no classic comedy by any means, but it was worth watching once. I’d give it a 6/10.

*Seriously, driving myself around this town is painful at this point. The layout of the town is actually pretty logical and shouldn’t be confusing (even if the plethora of one-way streets is annoying), but it seems like the road lane lines are in need of a new paint job or better lighting or something, because driving home from the theater last night was downright treacherous; I couldn’t keep track of my lane for the life of me. I keep telling myself I’ll adjust and get used to it.

*Seeing the Mariners win a series off the Red Sox (hopefully sweep, they’re leading in the 7th right now) sure makes me wish I could be turning on the games. I was definitely planning on springing for the sports package in the fall so I could watch Pac-10 football, but I might just have to add Fox Sports Northwest to my package now if the M’s are really going to stay in the pennant race.