1L year is now over! I've finished the law review exam (ugh), all my exams (double ugh), and am basically just waiting for grades before I say goodbye to life as a 1L. Since finishing the law review exam, I've spent several days getting my life back together. My apartment is now significantly cleaner, although there is a stack of paper about three feet high waiting to be recycled in our living room. It's not all mine - I have been eyeing my SO's growing mountain of paper on his bureau for about six months now (he's also a graduate student), and decided that while I'm throwing out paper, we might as well make a clean sweep - but I'd say about 1.75 feet of it does belong to me. When I finally get rid of it, I imagine the feeling's going to be pretty cathartic.
So, what was 1L year like in retrospect? I'd say that unlike most people, I both really liked it and did not think it went by that fast. Of course, that may be in part due to fact that I got to move in with the SO, move back to a part of the world that I like a lot, and experience various other major personal developments that have nothing to do with law school itself. Still, I think that most people I've talked with did not think 1L year was as bad as predicted. What general advice can I offer now that SB and I are rising 2Ls?
(1) Ignore the top part of this post, and go in with really low expectations. It definitely helped that I thought 1L year as going to be the worst experience of my life, and was instead pleasantly surprised.
(2) Realize that there's going to be a really steep learning curve. The first two months of your first semester are going to be really difficult. In comparison, the rest is cake.
(3) Get a hobby. Get enough sleep. Eat right. Sorry, I'm sure I'm starting to sound like your mother. But honestly, the most unhappy people I knew were the folks who were all law school all the time. I may be totally off on this one - perhaps I'm not going to get the super great clerkships that the more intense people got or graduate with a "laude" attached to my degree. But I decided that there's only so long that I was willing to wait for my life to really start, and that if I didn't start doing the things I wanted to do now I was going to be in my mid-thirties before I could.
(4) Apply for a lot of summer internships, since they're apparently a lot harder to get than you'd think. Maybe if the economy's turned around by next winter, this won't be relevant.
(5) Put effort into making friends.
(6) Don't be afraid to change the way you study as you figure out what works for you. Don't feel pressured to study exactly the way other folks do - i.e., if using commercial outlines doesn't help you with exams, then don't use them.
(7) Probably, your law school will invite interesting people to come talk. Even if you are super busy, go see those people. They were inivited because they are probably actually interesting, they will help you to think about your career, and plus then you can call up your parents and say "I got to see X,Y,Z person" and your father will rail about the inequities of one political party or go "that's nice, sweetie" depending. (I would say that's just my family, but I think it's a pretty universal phenomenon.)
Hm...I wish I could come up with more, but that's all I've got. Enjoy your summer! SB and I will be posting sporadically, I think....probably mostly about the job search for next summer. We'll see you next year for life as a 2L at YLS and HLS.
Tuesday, May 26, 2009
Thursday, May 21, 2009
Slightly Less than 14 Hours to Go...
...or at least, until I *really* need to start my Property exam. Most of our exams are self-scheduled, meaning we can take them any time during the two-week exam period. Almost everyone I know has left at least one of their exams until precariously late in that period, which ends tomorrow at 5pm. I am one of those people. Property makes me want to die.
But not actually, you know? Sure, it's not the *most* thrilling topic (Cat, I know you agree with me on that!), but it could be worse. Still, I kind of blew off Property this semester for a host of reasons, and now I've let it go on too long - kind of like a relationship that you know you have to break off, but you kind of hope it'll get better if you just wait and see? [I'm pretty sure "wait and see" is a doctrine relevant somehow to property law...in the Rule Against Perpetuities?]
So here I am, the night before I absolutely need to take Property, and I'm wasting time falling in love with this blog: http://tinyartdirector.blogspot.com/ [Premise: Awesome artist father gets instructions from young daughter about what to draw. Father draws. Daughter critiques, and either accepts or rejects, often while saying something outlandish and/or funny.]
***
But not actually, you know? Sure, it's not the *most* thrilling topic (Cat, I know you agree with me on that!), but it could be worse. Still, I kind of blew off Property this semester for a host of reasons, and now I've let it go on too long - kind of like a relationship that you know you have to break off, but you kind of hope it'll get better if you just wait and see? [I'm pretty sure "wait and see" is a doctrine relevant somehow to property law...in the Rule Against Perpetuities?]
So here I am, the night before I absolutely need to take Property, and I'm wasting time falling in love with this blog: http://tinyartdirector.blogspot.com/ [Premise: Awesome artist father gets instructions from young daughter about what to draw. Father draws. Daughter critiques, and either accepts or rejects, often while saying something outlandish and/or funny.]
***
Sunday, May 17, 2009
Its the End of the 1L World, And I Feel Fine
Exams are finally done, which is super exciting, but I can't relax quite yet - the law review competition is in full swing. Each year, 1Ls at Harvard happily finish their exams and celebrate exuberantly...for a grand total of two days. Then, many of them - upwards of 200, I'm told - take the week-long exam to get on the Harvard Law Review. I forget how many actually make it. It's not very many, so perhaps I'm blocking it out. I'm one of the multitudes, but I'm trying not to get my hopes up too high. There are two parts to it - an editing component, and writing a mock student note. None of it sounds incredibly fun, but I'm going to give it my best shot. It's too good of an opportunity to pass up for basically no reason (i.e., my desire to watch back-to-back episodes of Law & Order and sleep 14 hours/day).
When I finally finish everything this Saturday, I've got a week worth of vacation before I head down to DC for the summer. I'm planning on seeing some family living in New England and generally getting my life back into order after some minor exam-induced chaos. Like I mentioned previously, exams this semester were not a cake walk, but unlike in the fall, I don't need a couple weeks of lying comatose on the couch to recover. I'm not quite sure what will happen to the blog, as SB heads off for points less muggy and not built on a swamp. What do you think SB? Are we on vacation until August? (After of course, some obligatory end of the year reflection.)
When I finally finish everything this Saturday, I've got a week worth of vacation before I head down to DC for the summer. I'm planning on seeing some family living in New England and generally getting my life back into order after some minor exam-induced chaos. Like I mentioned previously, exams this semester were not a cake walk, but unlike in the fall, I don't need a couple weeks of lying comatose on the couch to recover. I'm not quite sure what will happen to the blog, as SB heads off for points less muggy and not built on a swamp. What do you think SB? Are we on vacation until August? (After of course, some obligatory end of the year reflection.)
Thursday, May 14, 2009
Things I've Been Doing Instead of Studying for Finals
I only have two final exams this semester, because a) I'm in a clinic, which only gets a credit/no credit designation; b) see a), but for a journal; c) one of my classes was finished halfway through the semester, so I took the exam just after spring break.
As such, I am now doing everything BUT studying for my two exams. [I don't really feel anxious about these two exams - yet - in part because it's kind of arbitrary, I think, whether I'll get an Honors or a Pass grade in both of them. I *could* work hard to get an H in either/both, but I'm just not sure I care that much.]
Some things I've done instead:
* Graded papers for the undergrad class that I'm TAing. This is torture. Some of these kids CAN NOT write. They're juniors & seniors at Yale, and yet they have trouble forming complete sentences or creating logical arguments. Sometimes I wish that I read the papers while slightly buzzed, but that would be irresponsible TAing, I imagine, and I'm not getting paid the big bucks to be an irresponsible TA. If you want to talk about being irresponsible, look no further than one of my students, who after getting a week-and-a-half extension on the only graded assignment of the semester, insisted at 11pm that she needed a "few more hours" to polish her paper that I had told her was do-or-die due at 12 midnight because I needed to read it & grade it before going to bed/getting up uber-early to get on a train [see below]. At 1:08am, my plea of "Please, for the love of my sleep schedule, send me what you have now!") was met with "Just 15 more minutes, promise!" Those 15 more minutes turned int0 30, which resulted in a not-too-happy SB. The paper was, to put it lightly, underwhelming. I found out today that she's taking the class pass-fail. "Underwhelming" = she passed (and with a pretty good grade!), because I'm a really really nice TA. [To be fair, a couple of the papers have actually been quite good. Hooray!]
* Went to NYC. Twice. In 30 hours. I have to get a special tourist visa to travel to South America later this month because the Consulate General of a certain soccer-crazed country demands outrageous fees and rather excessive procedure, in retaliation for the US doing the same to their citizens. Fair enough, I suppose, but I don't make US immigration policy! In any case, I had to either make two trips to NYC to drop off and pick up my visa, or pay a bundle to a private company to do it for me. It turns out to be cheaper to take the Metro North and do it myself. Ironically, the first studying I've done this finals period happened when I opened a Property hornbook on the train and again in the Consulate waiting room.
* Packed my room and moved my stuff into storage and a different apartment. Our subletters needed our apartment on a certain date, which just so happened to be a date before we really wanted to vacate. So I'm now subletting someone else's apartment for the week, because I figured I'd be more productive here in New Haven than somewhere more exotic. Productivity has not been particularly high, however. On the upside, there are nice neighbors & it kind of feels like being in a hotel for a week.
* Organized a few summer events with YLS alumni for a student group I'm involved in. Wished that I'd actually be in densely-populated cities this summer, so that I could go to the events.
***
As such, I am now doing everything BUT studying for my two exams. [I don't really feel anxious about these two exams - yet - in part because it's kind of arbitrary, I think, whether I'll get an Honors or a Pass grade in both of them. I *could* work hard to get an H in either/both, but I'm just not sure I care that much.]
Some things I've done instead:
* Graded papers for the undergrad class that I'm TAing. This is torture. Some of these kids CAN NOT write. They're juniors & seniors at Yale, and yet they have trouble forming complete sentences or creating logical arguments. Sometimes I wish that I read the papers while slightly buzzed, but that would be irresponsible TAing, I imagine, and I'm not getting paid the big bucks to be an irresponsible TA. If you want to talk about being irresponsible, look no further than one of my students, who after getting a week-and-a-half extension on the only graded assignment of the semester, insisted at 11pm that she needed a "few more hours" to polish her paper that I had told her was do-or-die due at 12 midnight because I needed to read it & grade it before going to bed/getting up uber-early to get on a train [see below]. At 1:08am, my plea of "Please, for the love of my sleep schedule, send me what you have now!") was met with "Just 15 more minutes, promise!" Those 15 more minutes turned int0 30, which resulted in a not-too-happy SB. The paper was, to put it lightly, underwhelming. I found out today that she's taking the class pass-fail. "Underwhelming" = she passed (and with a pretty good grade!), because I'm a really really nice TA. [To be fair, a couple of the papers have actually been quite good. Hooray!]
* Went to NYC. Twice. In 30 hours. I have to get a special tourist visa to travel to South America later this month because the Consulate General of a certain soccer-crazed country demands outrageous fees and rather excessive procedure, in retaliation for the US doing the same to their citizens. Fair enough, I suppose, but I don't make US immigration policy! In any case, I had to either make two trips to NYC to drop off and pick up my visa, or pay a bundle to a private company to do it for me. It turns out to be cheaper to take the Metro North and do it myself. Ironically, the first studying I've done this finals period happened when I opened a Property hornbook on the train and again in the Consulate waiting room.
* Packed my room and moved my stuff into storage and a different apartment. Our subletters needed our apartment on a certain date, which just so happened to be a date before we really wanted to vacate. So I'm now subletting someone else's apartment for the week, because I figured I'd be more productive here in New Haven than somewhere more exotic. Productivity has not been particularly high, however. On the upside, there are nice neighbors & it kind of feels like being in a hotel for a week.
* Organized a few summer events with YLS alumni for a student group I'm involved in. Wished that I'd actually be in densely-populated cities this summer, so that I could go to the events.
***
Monday, May 4, 2009
Two Notes on Music During Study/Exam Period
I. I absolutely *adore* Songza. My current playlist is literally just anything and everything by Sun Kil Moon. It's folksy indie music that's all relatively quiet & subdued, so it can block out background noise without distracting me. Particular favorites: Carry Me Ohio, Exit Does Not Exist, and Trucker's Atlas.
II. Earlier this week I had one of the most traumatic experiences ever in the YLS library. I went into the Foreign & International Law Reading Room (Room 0008) on L1 - one of my favorite places to get work done, because it's normally isolated/quiet/doesn't involve the distraction of ten thousand people walking by (as you can tell by now, I am very easily distracted when I should be working - I have ZERO self-discipline without a hypothetical gun to my head). In a rare moment of promise, I came prepared with headphones, since I wanted to listen to some peaceful tunes while revising a handful of final papers for the class that I'm TAing for this semester.
Scene: I come in, sit down at one of two big wooden tables; the other is occupied by another 1L girl who I know mostly through my roommate [for the purpose of the rest of the story, it should be noted that while this girl is really nice, she is also really intense]. We nod hello, and she gets back to work. I plug in my MacBook, plug in my headphones, turn on my music and get to work. I'm being uber-productive, editing page after page [aside: these kids have another thing coming if they think this counts as fluent, well-reasoned scientific argument...]. After about 20 minutes, I go to adjust the volume on my music and realize that MY HEADPHONES HAVEN'T BEEN PLUGGED IN - or, they've been plugged in, but not into the correct jack...so the other girl has been exposed to my music (quiet, yes, but still...the whole purpose of headphones is to keep your music yours) and hasn't said anything about it.
Immediately, I say, "Oh my gosh, I'm SO sorry - I had no idea my headphones weren't plugged in!" Which, of course, sounds totally stupid, as they're hanging from my head...she says: "Oh, no problem, it's like, not a big deal at all." But kind of in that voice that lets me know that it totally WAS a big deal. Eek! I feel bad, because I'm relatively stress-free at the moment (at least academically), but I know others are freaking out about exams and papers and (at the time, earlier this week) finding out whether they passed the first stage of the Journal-joining competition.
In any case, I feel a little less awful when I come back later, after a few meetings. I sit down and double-check to make sure my headphones are correctly plugged in this time - yes. And then, the same girl comes back. And sits at the same table as me. So I guess she doesn't hate me? Then, another guy (an LLM, I think) comes and sits at the other table. Plugs in his headphones. Turns on his music REALLY LOUD. The girl can hear his music, too, and her head snaps to face him: "Could you, like turn that down??"
Him, realizing he's being spoken to, but not sure why: "Oh! Do you want me to turn it down?"
Her, visibly agitated: "Yeah, could you turn it down? Yeahthanks." She turns back to her work, scouring a book and frantically typing things on her computer.
Me, thinking to myself: Phew. Glad that wasn't me.
***
II. Earlier this week I had one of the most traumatic experiences ever in the YLS library. I went into the Foreign & International Law Reading Room (Room 0008) on L1 - one of my favorite places to get work done, because it's normally isolated/quiet/doesn't involve the distraction of ten thousand people walking by (as you can tell by now, I am very easily distracted when I should be working - I have ZERO self-discipline without a hypothetical gun to my head). In a rare moment of promise, I came prepared with headphones, since I wanted to listen to some peaceful tunes while revising a handful of final papers for the class that I'm TAing for this semester.
Scene: I come in, sit down at one of two big wooden tables; the other is occupied by another 1L girl who I know mostly through my roommate [for the purpose of the rest of the story, it should be noted that while this girl is really nice, she is also really intense]. We nod hello, and she gets back to work. I plug in my MacBook, plug in my headphones, turn on my music and get to work. I'm being uber-productive, editing page after page [aside: these kids have another thing coming if they think this counts as fluent, well-reasoned scientific argument...]. After about 20 minutes, I go to adjust the volume on my music and realize that MY HEADPHONES HAVEN'T BEEN PLUGGED IN - or, they've been plugged in, but not into the correct jack...so the other girl has been exposed to my music (quiet, yes, but still...the whole purpose of headphones is to keep your music yours) and hasn't said anything about it.
Immediately, I say, "Oh my gosh, I'm SO sorry - I had no idea my headphones weren't plugged in!" Which, of course, sounds totally stupid, as they're hanging from my head...she says: "Oh, no problem, it's like, not a big deal at all." But kind of in that voice that lets me know that it totally WAS a big deal. Eek! I feel bad, because I'm relatively stress-free at the moment (at least academically), but I know others are freaking out about exams and papers and (at the time, earlier this week) finding out whether they passed the first stage of the Journal-joining competition.
In any case, I feel a little less awful when I come back later, after a few meetings. I sit down and double-check to make sure my headphones are correctly plugged in this time - yes. And then, the same girl comes back. And sits at the same table as me. So I guess she doesn't hate me? Then, another guy (an LLM, I think) comes and sits at the other table. Plugs in his headphones. Turns on his music REALLY LOUD. The girl can hear his music, too, and her head snaps to face him: "Could you, like turn that down??"
Him, realizing he's being spoken to, but not sure why: "Oh! Do you want me to turn it down?"
Her, visibly agitated: "Yeah, could you turn it down? Yeahthanks." She turns back to her work, scouring a book and frantically typing things on her computer.
Me, thinking to myself: Phew. Glad that wasn't me.
***
Havard's Answer To Yale's Cupcake Truck
And it's delicious! A cupcake store just opened up in Harvard Square, and I couldn't be more excited. Although, watch out - I ate just one cappuccino cupcake, and I already feel like I've eaten my normal sugar consumption for the year.
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