Legal Fictions

Sunday Afternoons...

...are tough time... I spend atleast an hour wondering what I want to get out of this week, what do I need to finish, how much work do I have to do.... and then finally feeling overwhelmed. Then I spend an hour online...looking for distractions, and today I ended up on book in Amazon describing all the other things I can do with a law degree besides becoming a lawyer. There are some things about lawyering that I like. And there is a LOT of very boring work involved too. In my internship I have 4000 pages of document review waiting for me. Ridiculous. Pointless.... for an internship. I wanted to learn.... thats why I went there... guess I'm learing the reality of doing Antitrust work.

So...do I want to be a lawyer? I realize that I am not going to be some hot shot partner at Skadden, thats is out for my future.... Law school can be a total gut check like that.... if you really want it.. .you gotta work for it... so the real question is what do you REALLY want? because if you find that... you will get it. I know what I am spending most of my time doing at my internship is NOT what I really want... I know what I do like though.. .and that is oral argument, brief writing, presentation about issues that I find compelling....

But where do I find a forum to do that...? that is the point of my next search....for a summer job.

Lessons to take from studying for finals

Ok, this is for those of you who are in the other 90%. These are the most practical tips that I can possibly give you. Heed these words. I have my Civil Procedure Final tomorrow, and I WISH, WISH, WISH, someone had told me this before I started law school, and FORCED me to go through with it.

Step 1 - Summer before your 1L year, BUY "Examples and Explanations; Civil Procedure" by Glannon.
Step 2 - FINISH THE BOOK COVER TO COVER! Including all the explanations.

The one thing I really didn't understand last fall is that ALL law school course MUST cover a prescribed curriculum from the ABA. Therefore, everythng you need to know IS accurately covered in the Study Aids. You can trust them. You will learn that material IN CLASS.

If you do these two steps you will have a HUGE head start. 1/5th of your class load will be extraordinarily lightened. You will walk into class KNOWING what your teacher is talking about, and THEREFORE, you will be able to actually learn what they WANT to hear instead of trying to figure it out on the run. Then when exams come around (for me, my Civ Pro exam is TOMORROW!) you will be able to focus on putting down what they want to hear!

If you don't do this, you will be where I am now. I am struggling to figure it all out. Struggling to get through all the cases. Realizing that there is no way I am going to do well. Basically, giving up. DON'T end up in my situation.

Now, IF you can, do the same thing that you did for Civ Pro with Contracts also. Contracts and Civ Pro are the two hardest classes. Every school has them in the first year.

Good luck!

"To live is to function; that is all there is to living."

--Holmes

Well.... I did well in my practice orals! I have to do the finals now next week... but anyway, it has been motivating. I didn't break down, I didn't fall apart... I didn't melt... I thought all that might happen. But when your up there on the podium, and you know what your talking about, it just comes naturally. Thank GOD!

Unproductive Day...

I wanted to be a better student today.. a bit disappointed in myself. There is a certain amount of apathy/inertia that must be overcome in order to start working. Once you start moving though, it seems to be a self sustaining momentum. I need to find a trick to break the inertia quickly. The problem of course, is that I know my own tricks. Ha.

Crunch Time

Well this is it... now is when things get serious... now is when I have to start playing catch up for all the slacking I have been doing all year. Is it doable in a month? Do I care? I think I just need to measure my performance against myself. Can I cover all the topics that I need to cover... can I do a good job? Most importantly.. .did I really try? Did I put in the necessary effort? Will I be proud of what I did?

Well its done

The final draft of my Moot Court Brief got submitted today. No matter how many times we said we would get it done in advance, it still came in at the last minute...in fact, an hour late. Although, this time, at least, I was done with my portion a couple hours in advance. My partner, seemed to run long. However, I still didn't have the kind of time to do the careful rewriting I promised myself I would do. It is however, FAR better than our rough draft....Shieza! ANYWAY... this has been hell week. Didnt't even bother going to class... spent all my days... full time with my friend Westlaw. So I learned how to do legal research... woopeee.... actually, it was kinda fun to finda a case that was exactly on point. That was cool. You get this feeling like you are hammering nails in the other guys coffin. ... maybe I want to be a litigator after all... After an hour and a half of sleep in the middle of the afternoon, I almost feel human again. Maybe I will go to the gym.... Now I start to understand when people described the first year of law school as hellish....

]]> I feel like this:

The downfall of pride

So... I discovered that I made a seriously flawed approach to my Moot Court Brief. I thought I was doing such a great job too...and then in the end I have to completely throw out my arguments, and almost start over. This is sad... I feel pathetic. I feel like I have been on the wrong track with this for the past two months.... what a enormous f'ing waste... I could have done such a better job if I had figured out this problem properly from the beginning. At least I know what the f I'm doing now... the funny thing is, more than one of my classmates told me I was screwing up... but none of them could quite explain to me why. My ego was bit too swollen to allow me to take them seriously. Well... I understand it REALLY REALLY well now.

I know none of this makes sense to anybody else...sorry... it was more for me.

Already missed a day...

I said I would write in this every day, and I already missed a day. Anyway, I'll take a moment and write in it this morning. I have my legal writing moot court brief deadline coming up this Friday. I am re-writing the whole thing. I just couldn't be proud of the work I did the first time around. I read my roommates brief, and I realize how convoluted and poor my analysis was. His wasn't all that great, there were no "great" ideas... but at least it was clear. I think I try so hard to be a genius that I lose track of the basic need for clarity.

I actually got up this morning at 6:30 am and went to the gym for 20 minutes. It was good, in that it woke me up nicely... but I feel a little sleepy now. Time for class! and maybe some coffee...

I will keep writing in this, daily, for the next month.

There is a cycle

That everyone goes through... I think. Apathy....Energy...Apathy... etc. Some people stay on the high or the low longer than others. But they are basically mood swings. They are driven by the things that we say to ourselves about our own abilities and actions.. our self dialog. I have seriously been on the down slope for awhile...and I think I hit bottom. So I promised myself... for the next 30 days, I am going to put my best effort into my work. I am NOT going to worry about the results, I am just going to do what I need to do as well as I can. I want to have some pride in what I do. Come April 30th, I want to be able to say I spent these last 30 days well. I lived them, I did what I needed to do, I did what i WANTED to do... I will not regret them. Every day... I will come here and write where I am in the cycle... how I am progressing. Writing in this blog is a matter of facing myself, facing my fear of disappointment, facing my negativity, facing my laziness, and calling myself to attention. I will not go silently into the night....

Trying to be at peace...

So I have to face some facts, in fact in my academic life I have had to face these facts many times before. I don't think I have prepared enough. I don't think I have read enough. I don't think I will do well on finals... yet, I still have to put my best effort forward.

If you are considering law school...and you really want to do well, be sure you have GOOD STUDY HABITS... I think that is the secret to success here. The discipline to sit down and get your work done no matter what distraction may try to draw you away. That is all you need to succeed in law school.

I can...

�I can work a little bit harder tomorrow and make up for what I didn�t do today, right?�

WRONG!

(This is the biggest lie that I tell myself.)

If you don�t do today�s task today, tomorrow�s task will NEVER get done.

What does Math and Law School have in common?

Homework! I was under the misconception when I came to law school that I would be able learn the law through the classroom. Wrong! You learn the law at home...from textbooks. Being a person who never liked doing homework, this is a hard lesson. Don't be caught by surprise....

True optimists must lie to one important person:

Themselves.

-This realization came from chatting with my wife today. I am an optimist. But being an optimist has this tragic drawback of making it very difficult to learn from past mistakes. Maybe I should try pessimism on for a change??

Back to school... but a new beginning.

So.. Back in school at last.. and reading my old posts. It's surprising but reading your own words is the best way to bring back old feelings... and suddenly I'm getting back all the anger that I left with. Its good... actually, its not something that should be forgotten...

But I am at a New Beginning.... Fortunately, I did well in the only class that had a final grade that effected my GPA. So for now I have a chance to recover from the rest of the misery.... the only class I had thought I did well in ... I got a B-. Motivation... its all just motivation!

Anger is good motivation...

Finals are over....

and I'm angry.

My friends are out drinking right now...celebrating...

and I'm angry.

Everyone is soooo happy that its over with...

Anger.

.... I always know when I kicked ass on a test...and I KNOW I got my ass handed to me today. Now I can't do anything about it for another month until I get my grades...and I start getting angry all over again. I wonder... if swearing to do better next time...

"Losers try their best... winners go home and fuck the prom queen." -- a famous spy.

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