Off on vacation for winter break! I shall return in January with even more things about my life you wish you didn't know. I'm thinking about talking about cooking, too, because I feel like I should eat healthier.
Ooooh, how about a list of resolutions/goals for the new year? That sounds fun.
1) Eat better! Less frozen foods and more fresh foods!
2) Regular workout schedule! None of this "too busy" or "too lazy" crap.
3) Take better notes! That shouldn't be so bad now that I've sorta figured this law school thing out a bit.
4) More order! This ties in with 2- gotta be orderly with life so that I can be more efficient and effective with time.
5) Do fun things more :) At least once a week, take a few hours and do something fun. Or, hey, more than once a week!
6) Experiment with cooking! Ties in with 1.
7) Talk with friends and family more! Catch up with folks at least once or twice a week?
I guess that's good for now. Back and at 'em in January!
Friday, December 17, 2010
Saturday, December 11, 2010
1 To Go
Just one exam left until sweet sweet winter break freedom.
I took a take-home exam the other day. It was a very interesting 24 hours. The exam instructions suggested/implored that we continue to eat, sleep, etc so I did. In talking with some fellow exam-takers though, it would seem that a number of them spent the entire 24ish hours on it. I've heard from some if not most upperclassmen and all of the professors that spending all of your time on it is a poor decision. I'm ambivalent. I chose to sleep for 6 hours and I certainly didn't work on it for the other 18 or so hours.
I think that for some people, pulling all-nighters isn't a big deal. I certainly have pulled a lot of them in undergrad and my feeling is, well, the results are fine, so what's the big deal? Some people think they can handle it and do so just fine. I only got an hour or two of sleep before my turning in most of my college papers and those turned okay (The same can't be said for my memo, but that's a different story)
Sure, proofreading your exam is not going to be effective with little sleep, but hey, to each his own. A 2L I know took the same exam, pulled an all-nighter, and did well. Don't change your study habits unless you find them ineffective eh?
I took a take-home exam the other day. It was a very interesting 24 hours. The exam instructions suggested/implored that we continue to eat, sleep, etc so I did. In talking with some fellow exam-takers though, it would seem that a number of them spent the entire 24ish hours on it. I've heard from some if not most upperclassmen and all of the professors that spending all of your time on it is a poor decision. I'm ambivalent. I chose to sleep for 6 hours and I certainly didn't work on it for the other 18 or so hours.
I think that for some people, pulling all-nighters isn't a big deal. I certainly have pulled a lot of them in undergrad and my feeling is, well, the results are fine, so what's the big deal? Some people think they can handle it and do so just fine. I only got an hour or two of sleep before my turning in most of my college papers and those turned okay (The same can't be said for my memo, but that's a different story)
Sure, proofreading your exam is not going to be effective with little sleep, but hey, to each his own. A 2L I know took the same exam, pulled an all-nighter, and did well. Don't change your study habits unless you find them ineffective eh?
Tuesday, December 7, 2010
Lies they told me about Law School
A few observations in what may become multi-part series
1) "we're not as competitive as (insert peer schools, better ranked schools, lesser ranked schools, other law schools in general)"
Ha. Haha! Ok, maybe this was true when the job market was better? I don't know, I wasn't there. This whole "no competition" thing is BULLSHIT. Well, I know for a fact it's bullshit here, I don't know how bad it is at other schools but I'm willing to venture a guess that it's bullshit there to.
Ok, so no one (at least... not here) is going to be tearing pages out of the library books (come to think of it, I haven't uh, needed any library books. Everything is on Westlaw/Lexis)
People, I'm sure, will help you out if you miss a day of class and need notes or if your computer crashes and you lose your outlines etc etc. That's not what I'm talking about. There's no overtly cutthroat shit.
But, there's this vibe of competition because, well, there's got to be half the class below the median and half the class above the media (I suppose some people have to be at the median, but I'm trying to make this easy). The people below the median are going to, generally speaking, have a harder time finding jobs than those at the top. Furthermore, those at or close to the very top will have an even easier time.
Most people have invested a lot of time and money into going to law school They may have moved their families, their significant others, etc with them. People are going to be serious about this stuff. It's not like undergrad AT ALL. Please don't let the admissions people fool you. It will be competitive whether you choose to compete or not. Not officially ranking you isn't going to change that at all.
2) A law degree is really versatile
Yeah, for being a lawyer. You can do a lot of different kinds of law! For other things, well, you don't exactly need the law degree, but it'd probably be useful for showing them that you're an idiot who went to law school and then didn't do anything law related. I'm sure there's exceptions to this, but, come on, what kind of job is there that doesn't require a JD where you'd think to yourself, "Gosh, I could get this job without a JD, but I really want to drop 150k on a superfluous degree to make myself more qualified...?"
Psh.
1) "we're not as competitive as (insert peer schools, better ranked schools, lesser ranked schools, other law schools in general)"
Ha. Haha! Ok, maybe this was true when the job market was better? I don't know, I wasn't there. This whole "no competition" thing is BULLSHIT. Well, I know for a fact it's bullshit here, I don't know how bad it is at other schools but I'm willing to venture a guess that it's bullshit there to.
Ok, so no one (at least... not here) is going to be tearing pages out of the library books (come to think of it, I haven't uh, needed any library books. Everything is on Westlaw/Lexis)
People, I'm sure, will help you out if you miss a day of class and need notes or if your computer crashes and you lose your outlines etc etc. That's not what I'm talking about. There's no overtly cutthroat shit.
But, there's this vibe of competition because, well, there's got to be half the class below the median and half the class above the media (I suppose some people have to be at the median, but I'm trying to make this easy). The people below the median are going to, generally speaking, have a harder time finding jobs than those at the top. Furthermore, those at or close to the very top will have an even easier time.
Most people have invested a lot of time and money into going to law school They may have moved their families, their significant others, etc with them. People are going to be serious about this stuff. It's not like undergrad AT ALL. Please don't let the admissions people fool you. It will be competitive whether you choose to compete or not. Not officially ranking you isn't going to change that at all.
2) A law degree is really versatile
Yeah, for being a lawyer. You can do a lot of different kinds of law! For other things, well, you don't exactly need the law degree, but it'd probably be useful for showing them that you're an idiot who went to law school and then didn't do anything law related. I'm sure there's exceptions to this, but, come on, what kind of job is there that doesn't require a JD where you'd think to yourself, "Gosh, I could get this job without a JD, but I really want to drop 150k on a superfluous degree to make myself more qualified...?"
Psh.
Monday, December 6, 2010
Final #1- RECAP
Sooo, the long awaited day finally came. First final! An early morning one, wooo. I tried to get to bed at a reasonable hour because, y'know, cramming at that point probably isn't gonna change much and being able to think rationally and coherently is probably more important than a few hours of extra studying. Unfortunately, whether it was due to anxiety or what, I tossed and turned for quite some time before falling asleep. I woke up early too, so the end result was probably around 5 hours of sleep. I felt REALLY alert though, the adrenaline was pumping before I even woke up.
So I get ready with all my little snacks and drinks (Chocolate! Mwahahahaha) and eventually end up in a room with part of my class. It's a 4 hour exam.
Right away I make the mistake of tackling the biggest problem first. I was thinking to myself, "Self, what you don't want to do is do the small ones first and then run out of time on the big question worth the most points and have to rush that"
POOR MOVE SELF
Ok, well, that might be a good idea for some people, but my brain wasn't really wanting to be smart and think analytically and all quite yet, so it was probably a huge mistake to tackle the most complicated and intricate problem first that was worth like, half the exam. Ooooooops? It would have been a better idea to tackle one of the smaller problems first just to get the whole noggin warmed up (kinda cold today).
Nevertheless, I did the 50% problem first. I remember starting to read the fact pattern and making notes to myself and then starting to outline my answer. By the time I was done with all that I looked at the time and WHAT?!??! 30 MINUTES WERE GONE.
I started to panic a little bit. I drank a lot of water and tried to connect the facts and whatnot to the legal concepts we had learned. I don't want to go into details that much, but let's just say...
1) Could have prepared more
2) could have prepared better
3) could have done better
But, it's over now, so no use regretting it. Like I said yesterday, this semester has definitely been a lot of help in determining what the heck I should be doing to properly prepare for class and finals. More on that later.
I pounded that thing out and hit the word limit about an hour and a half into the exam (word limit = in the middle 2000's, so doing that in about an hour = wait... is that even possible am I not remembering? Oh well, don't care) I tried to finesse with it a bit and then moved on to another problem. It was a much smaller, less complex, yet still hard as hell problem, which took about 50 minutes. If you're keeping track I have like 1:30 left at this point. I tackle a more complicated problem which eats up about another hour. With the remaining 30 minutes, I go over the last problem because the world limit is... WAY INSUFFICIENT. Holy cow, I was like 150 words over! And the world limit was in the middle 1000's, so that was a sizeable chunk. I had all this time I could have spent on both of the complicated essays, but I ran out of space. Clearly I had a lot of superfluous fluff in there. Oye.
Anyways, I think what I learned from this is to uh, start earlier and know the elements of legal principles better. I could picture that stuff on my outline, I just blanked on a few things. I think a big problem with closed book is that if you tell me a case name it usually jogs my memory enough for me to recall the facts and holding, but without that little prompt it's wayy harder for me to pull it out of thin air. Anyways, thank goodness that's over with.
So I get ready with all my little snacks and drinks (Chocolate! Mwahahahaha) and eventually end up in a room with part of my class. It's a 4 hour exam.
Right away I make the mistake of tackling the biggest problem first. I was thinking to myself, "Self, what you don't want to do is do the small ones first and then run out of time on the big question worth the most points and have to rush that"
POOR MOVE SELF
Ok, well, that might be a good idea for some people, but my brain wasn't really wanting to be smart and think analytically and all quite yet, so it was probably a huge mistake to tackle the most complicated and intricate problem first that was worth like, half the exam. Ooooooops? It would have been a better idea to tackle one of the smaller problems first just to get the whole noggin warmed up (kinda cold today).
Nevertheless, I did the 50% problem first. I remember starting to read the fact pattern and making notes to myself and then starting to outline my answer. By the time I was done with all that I looked at the time and WHAT?!??! 30 MINUTES WERE GONE.
I started to panic a little bit. I drank a lot of water and tried to connect the facts and whatnot to the legal concepts we had learned. I don't want to go into details that much, but let's just say...
1) Could have prepared more
2) could have prepared better
3) could have done better
But, it's over now, so no use regretting it. Like I said yesterday, this semester has definitely been a lot of help in determining what the heck I should be doing to properly prepare for class and finals. More on that later.
I pounded that thing out and hit the word limit about an hour and a half into the exam (word limit = in the middle 2000's, so doing that in about an hour = wait... is that even possible am I not remembering? Oh well, don't care) I tried to finesse with it a bit and then moved on to another problem. It was a much smaller, less complex, yet still hard as hell problem, which took about 50 minutes. If you're keeping track I have like 1:30 left at this point. I tackle a more complicated problem which eats up about another hour. With the remaining 30 minutes, I go over the last problem because the world limit is... WAY INSUFFICIENT. Holy cow, I was like 150 words over! And the world limit was in the middle 1000's, so that was a sizeable chunk. I had all this time I could have spent on both of the complicated essays, but I ran out of space. Clearly I had a lot of superfluous fluff in there. Oye.
Anyways, I think what I learned from this is to uh, start earlier and know the elements of legal principles better. I could picture that stuff on my outline, I just blanked on a few things. I think a big problem with closed book is that if you tell me a case name it usually jogs my memory enough for me to recall the facts and holding, but without that little prompt it's wayy harder for me to pull it out of thin air. Anyways, thank goodness that's over with.
Sunday, December 5, 2010
Less than 12 Hours!
Aight, so, less than 12 hours to my first final! Egads, what am I doing?
I found a rather interesting and really uh, well made outline for my class online. I think it's kind of a rare thing to find such a helpful outline because most people online have professors that don't teach the way your professor teaches. However, my prof taught pretty much the book, and this outline is of the book, essentially, so it's super helpful.
Thought for next semester- I should obtain the most useful outline for a course and supplement it as the course goes on so I don't waste time at the end making the outline. Yes yes, they say the making of the outline is a big part of learning the material, but if you weren't lost for most of the semester (like I was) perhaps it wouldn't be so hard to learn it to begin with? Food for thought, I guess we'll see how it goessss.
I found a rather interesting and really uh, well made outline for my class online. I think it's kind of a rare thing to find such a helpful outline because most people online have professors that don't teach the way your professor teaches. However, my prof taught pretty much the book, and this outline is of the book, essentially, so it's super helpful.
Thought for next semester- I should obtain the most useful outline for a course and supplement it as the course goes on so I don't waste time at the end making the outline. Yes yes, they say the making of the outline is a big part of learning the material, but if you weren't lost for most of the semester (like I was) perhaps it wouldn't be so hard to learn it to begin with? Food for thought, I guess we'll see how it goessss.
Thursday, December 2, 2010
Oye
So there are scant few days until finals and I am WAY underprepared. I wish I could be like everyone else and be like "Oh yeah, I've got this and that outline done" but uh, I really don't. My only hope is for my procrastinating ass to kick it in gear and get this stuff done!
I have 1 take-home exam this semester and the rest are shorter in-class ones. Thank god for that take-home one, because my brain is so frazzled, there's no way I'd be able to remember everything if all of my exams were take-home.
Woah, what the hell am I doing writing a (very short) blog post? I need to friggin outline this crap. Folks, life really sucks right now if you're a law student.
I have 1 take-home exam this semester and the rest are shorter in-class ones. Thank god for that take-home one, because my brain is so frazzled, there's no way I'd be able to remember everything if all of my exams were take-home.
Woah, what the hell am I doing writing a (very short) blog post? I need to friggin outline this crap. Folks, life really sucks right now if you're a law student.
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