You are currently browsing the category archive for the '2L' category.
Okay, so I’m a little weird. I should never make decisions during or immediately after finals.
I’ve decided to stay at my previous web host and not move here to blogger. There “may” be a move to a different domain name in the future, but that will be permanent when/if it happens. (Epilogue: Can’t I just stay at one host? Geezuz.)
So, if you are reading this on blogger, please return to the “real” Becoming a Jackal.
I’m back.
The break from blogging after finals was not a planned break. I went from my last day of finals directly to work the next day. I’ve been averaging about 10 hours a day at the office, which is good because it means I’m busy.
This blog needs some DIY spiffing in the worst way. I have to sit down with Photoshop and Dreamweaver to pretty the place up.
Finals went as well as finals ever do. I really detest the process. The monotony and the grind are impossible to describe to anyone other than a current/former law student.
And I’ve discovered that unexpected heat waves are not appreciated by those of us who wear dark suits every day.
These new digs need some major spiffing. Unfortunately, I’m in the middle of writing a lengthy research paper due tomorrow and have one more final. After that, I can plunge into a new blog template – probably linkware until I have time to get creative.
The blogroll will be moved over soon and updated.
The archives are going to be a massive project. There is no way to import entries from Movable Type to Blogger. I have my archives saved into an xml file. I haven’t decided if I’m going to enter them all by hand, copy and paste sections into different categorized posts, or what.
I’m downsizing. Long ago I had a fantasy of building more of a website with the blog as an add-on. Life took over and the blog became THE website. Why pay for the damned space when I have blogger for free!
The archives have been saved to an xml file and once school is out, I’ll be able to start plugging in my archives.
For now it’s back to finals land!
This semester has been a beeatch.
But in three weeks it will all be over, good or bad.
I have a major research paper due in a couple of weeks which I haven’t started. Well, I’ve done the research, set up the outline and started plugging in notes. My hope is that if I plug in all my notes with citations, writing the paper will be easy. Well, that’s my hope.
My first final is May 1 and I’ve done nada to prepare.
All I want to do is pull the covers over my head and sleep until the end of this term. I’m sure I am not alone. This is the time of year where most law students are sick of being law students.
On the bright side, in just a few more weeks, I will be 2/3 of the way through law school.
Spring Break is over. I had a lovely productive plan for Spring Break. This was The Plan:
- Take Saturday-Monday off law school.
- Work Tuesday and Friday at the office.
- Wednesday and Thursday, pay attention to law school.
- Begin work on my research paper in earnest.
- Put together my oral argument for appellate advocacy.
- Do dry runs of my oral argument. Dogs as audience.
- Start note cards in professional responsibility.
- Start note cards in Sales and get a grasp on class in general.
- Do all my reading for the next week.
This is what really happened.
- Took Saturday through Monday off.
- Ended up at the office on Wednesday also.
- Spent Thursday housecleaning.
- Spent Saturday dealing with sick canine at vet (he’s fine).
- Started work on oral argument Saturday night.
- Completed work on argument Sunday – no dry runs.
- Read for international law.
- Sales reading benched until this afternoon before class.
- Professional Responsibility?
- Research paper?
- Ate like a pig all week.
In summary, I failed miserably. And worse, I don’t feel all that bad about the fiasco. I’m hopelessly addicted to procrastination.
I’ve been absent and regular readers (if I have such an audience) are probably dropping me off their RSS feeders to make room for blogs with actual content.
Once I get through this week, I should be more talkative. My final legal writing project (EVER!) is due this week and as usual I am behind.
More later.
Over and out.
Today is my final final. I hope it goes much better than my final in Admin Law on Tuesday which was gory.
First, the prof, although delightful, did not really cover the material in class. She would go off into amusing stories about the world of practicing admin law, which we would stupidly encourage. It was a late afternoon class, so naturally we enjoyed the chance to let the prof ramble and avoid really getting down to business. This turned out to be wrong on so many levels. I had no notes to work with – well I had notes, but there were only a few tidbits and bullets here and there. As a result, my Outline was constructed almost entirely from the big-assed book. I got desperate enough to download some student outlines from our school site and plugged in some missing material. Unfortunately, no outline existed for this particular prof, so I had to make do.
I completed my 26-page outline and it was a thing of beauty. I’m thinking of putting it on E-bay because it should be published! Gorgeous.
Alas, outline was of little use.
I stumbled to the exam forcing my eyes open after a night of insomia followed by getting up in the dark to finish the dreamie outline. Our exam consisted of a “practice” portion in which statutes, rules, and other administrative miscellaney was presented stapled to a series of questions. Also, multiple choice were included which I appreciated.
Then it went downhill. The multiple choice were…odd. There were a few softballs, and some that required some thought, and some referring to materially we didn’t really cover. Grrreat. Then the practice portion. I flipped to the first question and realized that it was going to be highly freakin’ irritating to flip back and forth and back and forth to complete the exam. No matter, all steam ahead.
But, the questions. Oh my God the questions. I read and re-read them and for the life of me could not figure out what she was asking. Did she want a dissertation of everything wrong with the rule, the proposed rule, the statute? What? What is the call of the damned question????
They say that students who fumble through their open book materials and outlines during an exam are the C students. Well, we were all flipping. And then we had to flip the damned exam back and forth back and forth. I was aware we were all flipping and no one was writing much. Whew. I wasn’t alone. But, the fact remains that I blew chunks during that exam.
Time was passing at warp speed so I just guessed at the damn question (erring on the side of more is more) and started shotgunning. Flip, flip, flip, flip. The proctor blared out the ten minute warning and a few people left. I suspect these people simply couldn’t take it anymore, said the hell with it, and walked. I kept going. Flip, flip, flip.
When time was called, I resisted the temptation to turn my exam in to the trashcan. I handed it the proctor wishing there was another way to pass the class.
I heard various mumbles that made me feel better. A lot of students didn’t know what she was asking and it appears the vast majority of us did not finish. There were no victorious smiles. Everyone had the resigned smile. You know, the kind of smile you issue when you write a bad check hoping your paycheck will hit the bank before the check? That kind of smile.
It took a supreme force of will to sit down and work on con law yesterday. But, the sight of my 38 pages of notes soothed me. There was actual material in my notes! Yay. But it took about eight hours of solid work to complete my outline and type up some quick analysis crib sheets. I missed a few classes, but lucky me, the prof posted all of her slides. I intended to plug in the info into the outline, but by the end of the long day, I threw up my hand and just typed “See Slides” on a few sections. There aren’t many and they are sub-issues. I know enough about the issues to spot them, but I will have to flip, flip, flip to give a reasoned answer.
Today at noon it will all be over. Come what may, I will be halfway through law school.
My Admin Law exam is this afternoon. I may have to say a rosary or kill chickens or something prior to the exam.
Upon printing out my notes I realized that I pretty much phoned it in during this class. My notes are … not helpful. Granted, the prof tended to go off on weird rambles and then not get to the material until the last 20 minutes of class. However, I was under the ether by then and didn’t take notes to catch the pearls of wisdom. However, I knew this going in because I purposely picked this prof for the entertainment factor.
So for the last day and half I’ve been constructing my outline. I still have about four sections to complete before the exam this afternoon. Normally I would then condense said outline, but there is no time. It’s open book so my outline has to be chock full of info especially since I have a shakey grasp on the material.
I didn’t get to sleep until sometime after midnight. Then I dreamed in admin law hypos. Crap. At 6:00 this morning I bolted out of bed motivated by stress.
I’m going to sit back down and finish the outline after I finish this post. But first I have to find my rosary and a live chicken.
Today is my final final. I hope it goes much better than my final in Admin Law on Tuesday which was gory.
First, the prof, although delightful, did not really cover the material in class. She would go off into amusing stories about the world of practicing admin law, which we would stupidly encourage. It was a late afternoon class, so naturally we enjoyed the chance to let the prof ramble and avoid really getting down to business. This turned out to be wrong on so many levels. I had no notes to work with – well I had notes, but there were only a few tidbits and bullets here and there. As a result, my Outline was constructed almost entirely from the big-assed book. I got desperate enough to download some student outlines from our school site and plugged in some missing material. Unfortunately, no outline existed for this particular prof, so I had to make do.
I completed my 26-page outline and it was a thing of beauty. I’m thinking of putting it on E-bay because it should be published! Gorgeous.
Alas, outline was of little use.
I stumbled to the exam forcing my eyes open after a night of insomia followed by getting up in the dark to finish the dreamie outline. Our exam consisted of a “practice” portion in which statutes, rules, and other administrative miscellaney was presented stapled to a series of questions. Also, multiple choice were included which I appreciated.
Then it went downhill. The multiple choice were…odd. There were a few softballs, and some that required some thought, and some referring to materially we didn’t really cover. Grrreat. Then the practice portion. I flipped to the first question and realized that it was going to be highly freakin’ irritating to flip back and forth and back and forth to complete the exam. No matter, all steam ahead.
But, the questions. Oh my God the questions. I read and re-read them and for the life of me could not figure out what she was asking. Did she want a dissertation of everything wrong with the rule, the proposed rule, the statute? What? What is the call of the damned question????
They say that students who fumble through their open book materials and outlines during an exam are the C students. Well, we were all flipping. And then we had to flip the damned exam back and forth back and forth. I was aware we were all flipping and no one was writing much. Whew. I wasn’t alone. But, the fact remains that I blew chunks during that exam.
Time was passing at warp speed so I just guessed at the damn question (erring on the side of more is more) and started shotgunning. Flip, flip, flip, flip. The proctor blared out the ten minute warning and a few people left. I suspect these people simply couldn’t take it anymore, said the hell with it, and walked. I kept going. Flip, flip, flip.
When time was called, I resisted the temptation to turn my exam in to the trashcan. I handed it the proctor wishing there was another way to pass the class.
I heard various mumbles that made me feel better. A lot of students didn’t know what she was asking and it appears the vast majority of us did not finish. There were no victorious smiles. Everyone had the resigned smile. You know, the kind of smile you issue when you write a bad check hoping your paycheck will hit the bank before the check? That kind of smile.
It took a supreme force of will to sit down and work on con law yesterday. But, the sight of my 38 pages of notes soothed me. There was actual material in my notes! Yay. But it took about eight hours of solid work to complete my outline and type up some quick analysis crib sheets. I missed a few classes, but lucky me, the prof posted all of her slides. I intended to plug in the info into the outline, but by the end of the long day, I threw up my hand and just typed “See Slides” on a few sections. There aren’t many and they are sub-issues. I know enough about the issues to spot them, but I will have to flip, flip, flip to give a reasoned answer.
Today at noon it will all be over. Come what may, I will be halfway through law school.
