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.

To keep up with the reading load to prep for class is reasonable enough; it’s several hours a day of work outside of class, enough to make you feel somewhat busy, but not too bad. The thing is, just doing the reading in the course syllabus isn’t going to land you a good grade in a course. You also have to read outside study aids and supplements, and work at developing your study outline for the final. It adds up quickly to a lot of work. When I try to fit in time to work out, it gets even busier. And this summer class isn’t a full load, it’s just one class…I’ll be taking four when the fall semester starts. That doesn’t mean the workload will quadruple; my summer class is being done at an excelerated pace of 2-3 classes per day, so I would estimate that my current workload is about 75% of what it will be in the fall. Still, that will be a very noticeable bump when it happens. I’m really glad that I’m doing this summer start and getting my feet wet first.

Early in the week, I mentioned that I was thinking of adding FSN to my cable TV package so I could watch the Mariners. By the end of the week, I was wondering how much I really need to be subscribing to cable TV at all right now. My TV is barely on since class started, and football and The Office aren’t even in season…so I’m paying for what, exactly? It’s a double-edged sword; I don’t know how much I want to be spending all of this money on cable, but paying the premium for DVR service is clearly necessary if I want to keep up on a few shows (though I suppose there’s always Hulu). I guess I’ll probably keep paying for the whole package for now, maybe re-evaluate at the end of the month since I wouldn’t save any money by disconnecting it before then anyway.

Let me be clear: I’m not complaining about any of this. If anything, I’m celebrating it. I’m not an insignificant cog in an insignificant department anymore…I’m doing fulfilling work and gaining knowledge. I have direction, and an ambition with more significance than “get to another weekend.” It feels good, even if it’s overwhelming at times.

Kind of funny in retrospect that I shut down that other law blog, and it’s now all I feel like I can write about, because law school is already taking over my life entirely. Oh well, most of it is some hybrid of law school and personal stuff, so I think it’s fine that I redirected it all here.

And now, I honestly need to stop blogging and get back to work; I went out with my classmates last night and there’s another party tonight, so it’s not like we’re just working hard all the time. There’s plenty of fun going on too. Still, I need to make good use of the rest of my weekend.