Exams! (Again)

So, again we're studying for exams, but this time around, it is a LOT less stressful. Most obviously, it clearly helps knowing what a law school exam is. Having already taken four, I feel like I have a much better handle on what to expect, and how much time I need to devote to reviewing each subject. Also, I have one less exam this semester, since my elective was graded based on ten short papers. Plus (thank god) none of my exams will involve property law, unlike last semester.

The fact that exams are less stressful is helping with getting my outlining done one time, since I tend to procrastinate things that I'm really worried about. Also, I've got about a bazillion things to do before I move down to DC this summer, and I don't want to do them. So, I'm procrastinating doing them by studying for exams. In fact, if I can give you one tip for studying, that's it. Find something else to procrastinate as a substitute for outlining procrastination. OK, that may only work in my bizzare psyche, but trust me, it really does. This semester, I've also taken advantages of the fact that my classmates are brilliant, and am trading outlines. Some people work in study groups, which I think works really well for them. For me, if I don't make my own outline, I'm never going to learn the material, but having someone else's outline to fill in gaps is really helpful after I'm done with my own.

Since I've been thinking so much about outlining recently, I'll expound on the subject a bit more. I forget where I read this - I think Volokh - but someone somewhere once observed that too many law students treat outlining as it were the exam, rather than merely a study aid for the exam. I think that it's true that each outline really does need to be tailored to the class. If your professor is going to ask you about squibs, cases in the footnotes, and things you spent three minutes of class time on, your outline needs to be about 32904578629 pages long, indexed, alphabetized, with little colored stickies and a detailed table of contents. (I had a professor like that.) If not, and probably that won't happen to you more than a couple times during law school, an outline that long will kill you during a 3 hour exam. Something a lot more svelte will be much more useful, since the professor expects you to actually think about the question, rather than dump your outline into the test. What I do is write an outline with everything in it, but then put it on a diet, as it were. That way I have the security blanket of the long outline, but then a pretty short outline that I actually use during the exam.

OK, I realized I should go back to studying. Lest you fear that I am planning on spending the next two weeks in Langdell Libray, fear not. I have plans to go see a very talented friend sing in a concert, drink mojitos while watching the Kentucky Derby on a friend's porch in Cambridge (don't ask, and it's not with Harvard folks), and go play a couple rounds of pool. I think I may not tell some of my classmates though. There's always one who will give you that look.

Attack of the 0Ls

This past Thursday-Saturday was the admitted students program here. By the numbers, I:

* Gave one (1) unofficial tour;
* Staffed the registration desk for three (3) hours, during which time I had only one (1) person previously known to me unexpectedly show up in front of me;
* Gave directions to The Table at least eight (8) times;
* Ate five (5) free meals - highlights included two (2) bottles of Raspberry Ice Tea Snapple and one half (1/2) of a delicious chocolate-covered Rice Krispie treat - in the span of about thirty (30) hours;
* Accidentally directed people to go to room 128 instead of room 127 at least five (5) times before realizing my mistake;
* Currently have seven (7) HUGE Gladware containers of leftover food in my fridge because the wonderful guys at the takeout place WAY misoverestimated how much food twenty (2o) people would eat;
* Met, by my best guess, at least one third (1/3) of the class of 2012.

After all that excitement...the most telling number of the rest of my weekend: 7 (the approximate number of hours slept over the past two nights, combined).

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Things I Love About Cambridge

In keeping with SB's post, a list of things I love about Cambridge/Boston:

*I love, love, love the various tea/coffee shops in Harvard Square. I do most of my studying in the mornings in them, and kind of rotate through them on a weekly basis. My top three are Dado Teas, which has really nice herbal teas and bubble tea (among other things) in a store with a TON of windows so you can watch the Square as you work, Tealuxe, which has simply the best tea I've ever had, although they do have a tendency to play loud punk-rockish type music, and Burdicks, which has amazing hot chocolate and other assorted dessert-things.

*Harvard Square/Harvard on the weekends. There's always a ton of people out, even in the middle of winter, and there are usually street performers. 

*If you want to see where you'll be spending a lot of time as a HLS student, try out Cambridge Commons. The beer is excellent, the food is not bad, and it's right near the law school, so lots of us are there a lot of the time. If you're looking for more night-life, the Kong is super popular with  law students (I've never been myself, actually). 

*If you're feeling adventerous enough to leave Harvard Square, there are a bunch of great parks and museums in Boston. My personal favorites are the Isabella Gardner Museum (free to Harvard students), and the Harvard Botanical Gardens. I also love walking down the Charles River - it's free, there's a lot of boats on it, and since it's spring, it's mobbed.

 

Things I Love In New Haven

I know a bunch of people that read this blog are prospective/admitted students, and a lot of you are going to be visiting various schools over the next couple weeks if you haven't already done so...and hopefully, you have plans to come to Yale. [If you're on the fence about whether or not to visit, my advice: DO IT. You'll never know whether you're making the right decision until you really *feel* a school in person.] Other people who read this blog are just our non-law school friends...and you guys should visit, too!! (I'm looking at you, NS, MT, and JS.)

While the YLS admissions office has some great blog posts about various things to do on campus/in New Haven, I thought I'd give my own random list of favorite things:

* This one's pretty general/overarching, but I love Restaurant Week (a week of prix fixe menus at some of the fancier restaurants in New Haven, similar to those in other, bigger cities). If you're coming for the ASW later in April, you're in luck - the next Restaurant Week is April 19-24. Call now for reservations, though, as it fills up quickly.

* Other great ethnic food. My favorites: Pan Thai Asian, Sitar, Bentara, and Skappo.

* Yale's known for its own architecture, but as a buildings buff I really prefer the School of Architecture. They have a ton of cool exhibits and lectures that are open to the public.

* Similarly, the coolest architecture on Yale's campus, in my opinion, is the Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library. This is what it looks like on the inside.

* The Cupcake Truck.

* IKEA.

* The New Haven Green. One of my best memories from law school so far is from a big picnic that a bunch of us 1Ls had at the beginning of the year. We spread out in a patch of grass on the Green and threw a frisbee. In the winter, there is a big tree lighting ceremony on the Green, too. I think it's nice that New Haven really does have a semi-vibrant downtown area, which is anchored by the Green...I'm always amazed by the number of people shopping and strolling downtown, even on week days.

* Various theatre & music options: The Shubert for touring Broadway shows and big names, Toad's for tribute bands and townies, and the Yale Symphony and Rep for cheap student tickets to quality performances.

There are a lot of other things, too, but this is probably more than enough to keep you busy for three days...

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Brief Post About Briefing

Every first year at HLS participates in the Ames Moot Court. This is not to be confused with the much cooler Ames Competition, which is a two-year process that can culminate in students arguing in front of Supreme Court Justices. Despite the fact that most people complained about the 1L Ames Moot Court most of the time, I think most of us found it pretty fun to do. Well...you know....fun for schoolwork. We all got assigned a partner from our section to work with. My partner was absolutely fantastic, and I've heard surprisingly few horror stories about folks with not great partners. As teams of two, we all wrote a brief supporting either the appellants or the appelles of the mock case. The case, by the way, was *awesome*. It was fake, of course, but it concerned the necessary level of protection for participants on Kid Nation. SB, of course, will remember the hours and hours of our lives that we devoted to that paragon of a TV show. My partner and I, as the appellants, submited our briefs yesterday. Our opponents with submit their briefs next week after reading ours, and then we'll have a round of oral arguments in front of the student advisors in our Legal Research & Writing class, as well as some outside people. The oral arguments don't count towards your grade, but they still seem like a neat thing to be doing. 

Housing Hassles

For someone who, in periods with lots of down time, watches a lot of HGTV's various house-hunting shows, I am absolutely *horrible* when it comes to dealing with the hassles of a housing search for myself.

In college, I was an RA for my junior & senior years, so I didn't go through the off-campus housing shuffle that all my classmates did. I just showed up, and I had an apartment and it was all furnished and perfect. Same pre-packaged deal for college summers.

After college, when I moved with five of my best friends to a bit city, the process was relatively painless, too (but it might have just been a HUGE stroke of good luck, since it took a lot of wrangling to get 6 people to agree to live together/submit all their paperwork/tour the place we eventually picked/sign the lease)...my boyfriend-at-the-time and I just used Craigslist, found five places that had enough bedrooms and public transportation access, and went to see them. We instantly fell in love with one, and the rest, as they say, is history. Two years later, some of the original group is still living in "the house," and it looks like it will stay a permanent fixture in our lives for the foreseeable future, even though some of us (myself and Cat included) have moved hundreds of miles away...we've got a rotating crew of friends and acquaintances ready to take over the lease, so long as the landlord doesn't realize (or doesn't care?) that we've killed the lawn/broken the banister/almost knocked down the garage/burned a hole in the sink with a hookah coal.

When it came to choosing a place for law school, I was similarly laissez faire. I don't think the reality of "law school is starting in three months!" hit me quite as it should have...so I just somewhat randomly agreed to live with a girl from the YLS 2011 Facebook group after talking to her on the phone [we picked up a 3rd roommate, too]. It's turned out amazingly: we're now GREAT friends, the living situation couldn't be better.

EXCEPT, that now we have to:
* Find subletters for the summer, and
* Pay more for rent starting July 1st.

Both of those things suck. Big time. It's been a hassle and a half finding subletters who want our apartment for the whole summer at the price we're looking for; as you can imagine, New Haven's not the hippest summer destination, so the market's depressed overall...we're now trying to calculate just how much of a hit we're willing to take, rent-wise, to get a sure-thing set of subletters lined up.

And, of course, even though the real estate market in Manhattan and everywhere else seems to be favoring renters right now, for some strange reason our rent is going up by a not-insignificant amount. So we're trying (to use our lawyering skills?) to negotiate with the management, but as we live in a pretty in-demand building, it's not really as if we're bargaining from a position of power. Perhaps I will bake caramel-chocolate chip cookies in attempt to bribe the nice leasing lady? :)

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