First Impressions

All right. So I said I would blog, but I haven’t been. I’m sorry, to those of you who have been waiting. In my defense, I don’t know when I could have done so, considering that I have been on the go from the moment I hit Malibu. I get up in the morning, I go to class, I do homework, I go to bed. Get up, repeat. I spent all of last weekend doing homework due the first day of class. (Welcome to law school.) This is the first genuinely free time I’ve had in a week, and I’m still fighting the urge to go work on homework I have sitting here on the table next to me. Thursday and Friday’s work is done, but I still need to review for class, outline the first section of Civil Procedure, and get started on the stuff for Monday (of which there is quite a lot). In short, things are a little busy.

But!

They are really, really good. Law school is hard, I’m not going to lie. I’m two years out of practice with this whole school thing, and my study habits and critical reading skills are shot. I’m picking them back up as I go along, but law school in general is, I’m discovering, a whole lot of trial by fire. The experience so far has gone pretty much like this: Last week, they spent three days (Weds. through Friday) explaining how to swim. You know, “when you get in the water, you want to move your arms in big circles, and kick your legs a lot.” Then they sent us home with some assignments prior to starting school: “go home and practice moving your arms and kicking a lot while sitting in your bedroom.” Then this week, they pretty much just tossed us into the deep end, and occasionally they shout instructions at us. When they feel like it. And every so often, I have epiphany moments: “Ah! If I keep my fingers together, I stay afloat better.” But mostly I’m just going through the motions, trying to train myself to think the way they’re trying to teach me to think when I have no clue what we’re talking or reading about half the time.

The weird thing is, I LOVE class. Despite my continuing fear of getting called on (which hasn’t happened yet, although I have volunteered a couple of times), I really enjoy class discussions, and the subject matters are really interesting. I just am not as fond of the workload. There’s a lot to do, not much time to do it in, and I’m still not always certain what it is I’m supposed to be doing. My roommates and I confer a lot. Interestingly, but unsurprisingly, conversations around our kitchen table center often around cases we’re reading for class and what we think about them. (Although they can, and often as not do, turn into conversations about the most ridiculous, fluffy, mindless things.)

But what, I know you’re asking, have I actually been DOING? Specifically?

Well. Let’s start with basics. I live in the law school apartments, which are on-campus dorms directly across the street from the law school. It’s great. I walk five minutes every morning to get to class. It includes a decent set of stairs (or two)…but on this campus, the stair situation could be a lot worse. Anyway, God has blessed me with three amazing roommates. We each have our own room within the suite, which is nice, although we end up squished in around the kitchen table to do homework as often as not. If you haven’t inferred as much by now, we get along pretty well. So far, no major hitches, and a lot of similarities. (For one thing, sarcasm runs rampant in our room some days ^_^)

School is, like I said, pretty interesting. They’ve divided us into three sections (A, B, and C), and each section takes most of its classes together. Everyone is taking five classes this semester—Contracts, Civil Procedure, Legal Research and Writing, Property, and Torts—but each section is taking them from a different set of professors (excepting LRW, which they’ve mixed the sections together for). Next semester we’ll be adding Criminal law to that list, which is exciting to me. I don’t want to practice it, but I’m fascinated by Crim law, and I’m really eager to start that class. I am very lucky in that all of my professors are supposed to be very good. I like some of them (and their teaching styles) better than others, but there isn’t a single professor or class which I dislike (not even contracts, surprisingly enough, nor civ pro, which is really dry). And while I cringe every time a professor’s eyes sweep the room looking for a new victim to call on, I have yet to be truly bored in a single one of my classes. While the Socratic method is a stressful way to learn, it has the advantage of fostering discussion and debate, so I end up really loving class, even when I’m trying to hide from my professors in plain sight.

Now, if only I could decide which programs and activities I want to join (for NEXT year. They’ve pretty much told us 1L’s don’t do much their first year in clubs. ^_^). I’m planning on doing one of the London programs, but I don’t know if it will be fall or summer semester. And I had no idea just how many different areas of law there are to practice—there are so many to choose from, and I’m interested in so many, I have no idea how to start narrowing down my options!

So school is good. Life is good. And even though I’m not terribly excited about the complete and utter lack of free time…I can always go study on the beach. I have done so, in fact. And it really doesn’t get much better than that!

Well, I’ll try to do this again next week. In the meantime, I love you all, and miss you dearly! ^_^

It all began with Myspace...

Do you remember where you were when Myspace happened? (And by "happened," I mean "became a national addiction," "brainwashed everyone twenty-five and younger into becoming recluses despite being a social networking site" and generally "took over the world.") I do. I was in college. I remember because grades campus-wide suddenly dropped and internet slowed substantially as students flocked to their computers, clogging the bandwidth with their inane messages, flashy profile designs, and invasive surveys (which everyone seemed to love despite the seemingly inevitable TMI). I remember because my roomate was obsessed. I watched in awe as she messaged, posted surveyed and designed for hours on end. I didn't get it. People were messaging each other on Myspace when they were just down the hall, one room apart, in the same room!

I will never do this, I swore to myself as my roomate cackled into the glow of her computer screen and typed madly. I will never join Myspace.

But then graduation loomed on the horizon. I was moving back home, out of state, while most of my friends would remain in Portland. I am a terrible telephone communicator. How was I to keep in touch? After much thought, I heaved a sigh of great trepidation and coaxed my roomate away from her own account to help me set one up for myself.

The shame!

And then there was Facebook. By this time, the names of social networking sites had become verbs. Scheduling attempts, assignment questions, the sharing of life experiences: "I'll Facebook you!" became the answer to all of them. ("Facebook" is a noun, people!) And once again, I swore I would never join it--I had Myspace; what did I need with a second social networking site? But most of the people I know here at home are on Facebook. And I am as bad at short distance telephone communicating as I am at long distance. I was getting complaints. "How come you never pick up your phone?" "Why didn't you call me back?" "Amber, you are the hardest person to get ahold of." Sigh.

Facebook became a communication necessity for me. For that ten minutes or so a day, I actually spoke to people, received messages, and, you know, found out what it was people wanted when they tried to call but got my Voicemail instead.


But blogging. That was something I would never do. What's the point? What do you talk about? Who in their right mind would read it?

And yet...I am about to leave for law school. I have one day left here at home before the upheaval and drastic changes associated with "moving" and "school" begins again. (Are you ready for that one, everybody? Remember in-school Amber? *Snickers* You have a week to prepare yourselves for the insanity before school actually begins. Consider this your one fair warning!) And I've heard rumors about law school. Nasty rumors. They include mention of "no time" "you'll hate it" "don't get discouraged" and some rather more colorful phrases I'll not be repeating. I have been told I might even be happier moving to Mexico to be a waitress on a beach. I get the feeling I will not have a lot of time. And yet, everyone says they want to know "all about it." I am to keep everyone updated on how I'm doing, what it's like, who I've met, so on and so forth. That's an awful lot of phone calls. Have I mentioned that I'm really, really bad at communicating via phone?

So here I am, yet again doing something I swore I never would. I am blogging. So that I can tell all of you all about law school all at the same time. If this thing will save me time and stress, I am so there. We all know how obsessive I am over grades...and how un-obsessive I am over my phone.

And for someone who never wanted to blog to begin with, this first post is much longer than I expected.

Well. Don't say I didn't warn you. I did say "brief" was the oxymoron of my life.