come on Chargers!

Those poor Bolts.  They haven't had the best luck, especially coming down after the loss against Oakland last week.  I'd rather not talk about it...

This post really has nothing to do with the Chargers, I just needed to update since I haven't written in so long!  I knew this would happen.  Oh well, will drop in when I can.

I am really REALLY getting settled into school now and am quite happy with it most of the time.  As was expected every once in a while worry rears her ugly head but you have to push through.  It's like survival mode sets in when you don't have time to be stressed and freaked out, you only have time to go to work.  I've finally caught up and gotten ahead for this coming week and finished a big writing project early with time to revise where I can.  School is great and I can really feel myself learning.  What has been nice of late is that I'm actually realizing where my strengths and weaknesses lie (in terms of subject) so I've been able to manage my time a little better.  For example, Contract and Civ Pro have been pretty much on track, Property is quite straight forward, but my life is consumed by the constant struggle of staying up with Crim Law.  It isn't necessarily that the material is difficult, there is just SO MUCH of it!  So, I spend my time making flash cards and updating mind maps for crim, reading extra for Civ Pro (in preparation for the day my professor finally decides to steal my dignity in class) and TRYING to keep my apartment clean, though usually to no avail.  

Fishy is doing well and quite happy aside from the grey weather.  He doesn't have the prettiest view out the window nowadays due to the fog and wetness but he is healthy and his house is cleaner than mine.  He gets his bath once a week just like the doctor ordered and while he hates it and knows when its coming, I think he knows it is best for his well being : )

this guy looks most similar to him in terms of color, though CCJM is usually much more happy looking! Fishy looks this way when he sleeps but usually his fans are extended and it makes him look a lot bigger.

Eli is doing very well.  He has moved into his new house down the road in El Cajon and seems to have settled in nicely.  He's really lucky; he found the apartment through a friend who lives right next door, so he shares this duplex with one of his buddies!  Great neighbor situation.  He is getting used to his new store location as well but seems to be enjoying the opportunity to meet new people and start fresh somewhere.  He heads off to Scotland on Wednesday for the World Championship Drum Solos for the first time in the professional category.  Off he goes with a sponsorship from his band, paid flight an all!  Last time he went was as a juvenile division competitor, a contest which he won twice!  It's been a while since he has done this sort of thing but he is thrilled to be back in the game and I can't wait to see how he does.  He works very hard practicing and perfecting his sets, I know he will have fun and his hard work will pay off.

Tata for now, off to make lunch and get ahead in...you guessed it...Crim law!

i worried this would happen...

Its been almost 2 weeks since my last post and I wish I could say it's due to my lack of time because of ALL THE HOURS I STUDY EVERY DAY...right...but it really is just laziness.  When I do have a few minutes to write, I usually choose instead to stare at the wall, talk to my fish, or watch tv online.

So what an odd turn of events that in the moment when I am feeling the LEAST productive, headache and blazing hot apartment and all, I decide to write.  I don't even know what to write anymore, nothing in law school is new and exciting 5 weeks in.  Same classes the same days, same work load, same fellow classmates trying to psych each other out.  I can't stand it!  I must be plateauing.  I feel out of place that I seem to be the only one NOT freaking out about school right now...the fact that I am not worried and that I continue to stay on top of my stuff is nerve wracking because everyone around me makes me feel like things should be MORE difficult.  I can't stand it!  I just can't wait AT LEAST until this semester is over and everyone knows where they are.

In property tutoring the other day, our tutor mentioned how nervous she was that grades were coming out that day from Summer classes.  I don't understand how people can be worried about the day grades come out.  Shouldn't one be more worried about the day you take the test?  Once you finish it what more can you do, right?  Gosh even right now while I'm sitting here I'm trying to figure out what I could POSSIBLY do to get ahead of other people.  It wasn't supposed to be so competitive here at Cal Western!  Come on, kids, we aren't at Yale for crying out loud!

I supposed I should just calm down and get back to my apartment but it is a distinct possibility that I'm just upset about how hot it is in my apartment.  The higher the temperature the more annoyed I get.

The most recent peer freak out has been a result of a writing assignment we have coming up.  We are supposed to be getting ready to write a memo and lots of legal research will go into it looking up cases and precedents to use in our writing.  I NEVER got worried about writing assignments in college.  I waited until the last minute while everyone else freaked out, and I still did well while most everyone else did ok, but was still stressed.  Can't I pull that off here in law school?  Or at least can't I pull off starting work on time and not freaking out?  For goodness sakes no one KNOWS how to write a legal memo or do perfect legal research yet, how can you be stressed about having to do something that no one has taught you yet?  Do your work, try hard to understand and synthesize everything that comes at you, and just do your own thing.  I hate that people show up to class literally saying out loud "This assignment will kill me, the one that's due on Monday." Iris:  "You mean the assignment that hasn't even been posted yet?"  "Yes that one!  I'm freaking out!"  Iris:  "How could you be so stressed, you don't even know what the assignment is yet..."  "So what!  It's still stressful!!"

That's it, by George I think I've got it.  People are stressed because they think they are supposed to be stressed, as though stress will produce better work product.  Screw that, such things have never worked for me.  As a matter of fact, off I go to enjoy a glass of wine before I dive back into my contracts homework and legal research.  Take that, you tight-wad first year ninnies!

I will never again be afraid...

I am SO ready to start week 3.  This feeling is definitely a product of me having slept through this entire weekend (aside from going to bat with a cop...how exciting! More on that later...) but it is also because this week I got to see my first real scalping, that's right...in person!

We were sitting in Civ Pro, praying as we normally do that the professor wouldn't call on us because it was 8:00am and we were still waking up to the day.  The poor soul who he did call on was such a good sport but then again how good of a sport can you really be when you're having your scalp ripped off like an orange peel for an audience of 90 other people?  I don't even remember the question that he asked her, something simple about the procedural history of a case but immediately upon diving into her answer she started saying the wrong things.  Instead of letting her finish her thoughts, because he has no time for such things, he interrupted her every few words.  Standard procedure.  However this time when he tried to interrupt her not only did she keep talking...she repeated the word he interrupted her on about 15 times in a row like a nervous tick!  And she laughed!  In his thousands of years of teaching Civ Pro to idiot first year law students the professor has probably seen and heard it all so this didn't really catch her off guard.  Each incorrect answer became more and more incorrect...she'd answer a question, he'd passive aggressively ask her one in return that proved her wrong, she'd answer that one wrong again.  Finally when she started on another repetition of the word trial trial trial trial trial trial the professor interrupted her, not with another question, but by saying "Did you even do the reading reading reading reading reading reading reading reading?"  This was the point where people craned as far as they could to see if she'd begun crying yet.  Finally, mercifully, he called on "co-counsel," a girl who like the rest of us had been waiting in angst for him to just call on ANYONE ELSE who could've quickly and correctly answered his questions, which she did.

I will never again, in Civil Procedure or in any other class, be as nervous as I used to be about getting cold called in a class.  People say the professor can smell fear.  So, the key will be to exude so much confidence that it drives him away like a mosquito from deet.

I loved this weekend, partially because I got so much accomplished on the sleeping and studying front.  However a girl has to get out on the town and let loose every once in a while so my Saturday night found me making new friends at Giblins Pub to watch Eli play some music.  My party animal self had 2 little Stella Artois over the course of 4 hours, hardly enough to warrant worry over driving home at the end of the night.  Apparently that is where my conscience and I go our separate ways.  As I slowly and carefully pulled out of the parking lot and up to my first stop sign I noticed someone a block ahead of me has been pulled over.  "Sucks for you, dork!" I thought as I came to a COMPLETE stop so I wouldn't be the next one to fell the swift hand of justice on my right buttcheek.  UNSUCCESSFUL.  Immediately when I pulled away from my stop sign the lights went up and I was pulled over by this man:

Apparently according to Officer Scruffykins, I'd "blown RIGHT through that stop sign!"  He'd had to "slam on his breaks so as not to hit me!"  I was so excited when he let that crap out of his mouth...my newborn lawyer mind jumped into action and was just DYING to be let loose to massacre this guy.  Needless to say I got out of the ticket after making him look like the jackass he was, only to drive away and see the rest of the Carlsbad-at-midnight scene.  It was as though someone had hid easter eggs and a huge group of children had frolicked off to find them...except instead of frolicking children it was smelly cops in police cars and instead of easter eggs it was innocent, GOOD SAFE drivers!  Well...maybe.  I did make friends with a man named "Will" who consumed 3 beers and 2 shots in 2 hours before my very eyes.

Moral of the story is, I wish cops weren't so bored in Carlsbad, and I will continue enjoying my weekends much more than I ever have before.  I know this week will just fly by and I'm definitely going to try and put up pictures this Friday night from the Farmer's Market I have coming up!  Yay fresh produce!

Back in Sunny SD

Well the weekend was fabulous.  On both days Prince Charles members swept the drumming competitions, with people placing in every event - we grabbed first place in grade 1 tenor (ME!) grade 2 tenor, grade 1 snare, and then assorted seconds as well.  Eli won the professional snare competition but that's old news since he has quite literally been doing that since he was 15.  The band won drumming both days and 1st place overall on Sunday.  Here are the videos!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b5Aa4mj1LGY

The medley contest where we somehow got 3rd out of 3 in all categories except for drumming, which we won!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Gilg18nLy0w

The MSR (March, Strathespey, Reel) contest which the band swept 1st for in all 4 categories.  Another 1st in drumming!

It was a fun weekend, fabulous to see all my friends and a pleasant departure from nonstop law school on the brain.  The more I thought about it the more I realized how much I need something like pipe band to keep me sane through my law school years.  It comes naturally to me, I enjoy it, and I have so many wonderful friends in it.  Plus throughout the season it gives me something to look forward to; having random trips to contests punctuate the nonstop "wake up, go to class, study, go to sleep, lather rinse repeat" reminds me that there is a real world outside of the Cal Western library.

So far in school I've begun to develop this uneasy feeling that law school was supposed to be much harder than it actually is.  Granted, I'm a week and a half into my real classes but so far I have yet to miss a reading assignment or a brief and have even had time to start outlining my courses, all while maintaining a steady flow of Big Bang Theory online and learning to use my new kitchen.  Wasn't this supposed to be three straight years of barely scraping by and being constantly terrified that you'd flunk out or get a question wrong in class?  I didn't expect to walk back to my car every afternoon thinking "I never thought I could be this happy," but then again what a nice surprise it is.

Getting down to the moral of the story, I always as far back as I can remember had an inkling that I would be a lawyer as I've written before.  Finally after believing that for my entire life I am actually concretely on my way and my dreams are just beginning to come to life.  I'm making friends, I enjoy each of my classes (truly!  ok I hate Contract, but I'm trying to be optimistic) and I live in a beautiful place.  It reminds me of the point in Sex in the City 1 where Charlotte confesses to Carrie that she is terrified something will go wrong in her life because she is just too happy; she's finally become pregnant after years of trying, she is the only one of her friends in a happy healthy relationship and she has an all around secure and wonderful lifestyle...nothing can be that perfect...something is bound to slip up.

But I think it is perfectly normal and actually necessary for us to allow ourselves to enjoy our good fortune.  We work hard for those things that we really want and once you finally draw closer to your destination it is ok for you to pat yourself on the back and enjoy that success, enjoy sing your dreams come to fruition.  After all, if you can't enjoy that one thing you work so hard for (be it school, a career, a happy relationship or a healthy body) what is the point of trying at all?

packin up my first weekend away from "home"

Here I sit half a week into my real law school classes and I'm getting ready for Pleasanton weekend.  What is this...my 6th year there?  I'm really looking forward to it; being in school for this ultra short amount of time has already made me realize how much more I appreciate the weekends!  The week days seem to have passed so quickly every night when I finally put my computer to sleep, I want this first year to go by quickly but...not too quickly!

I'm still a little apprehensive and don't know what to expect, even out of myself.  I only have one class tomorrow so I spent less time today than I have in the last two days preparing, even though it is my most difficult class, Civil Procedure.  The professor seemed to be pretty interesting and upbeat in our first class yesterday but he has such a reputation that no matter how many hours I spend preparing for the smallest amount of material I am still scared out of my wits.  My Legal Studies teacher made an interesting remark today about how the first time she really tried at all in anything was law school, and I found it comforting not only to know that she'd succeeded that way but that so had my classmates, who all chuckled in a very knowing way.  I tried enough in undergrad to get by with quite decent grades, so not knowing for sure if I've studied enough is unnerving.  All I can do is my best, while trying to have fun at the same time.

So, in the name of trying to make the most of my long weekend, off I go to restudy my civ pro and property readings for the 4th time.  Enough yet?  When is Friday?

I know it's bedtime when I hear the Seaworld fireworks...

I find myself cozying up to my Civ Pro reading here on the eve of my substantive classes.  I've graduated from "Introduction to Legal Studies, Writing and Analysis" to Contracts I, Criminal Law, Legal Studies, Civil Procedure I and Property I.  I spent my Sunday finding the perfect balance between law school and real life:  doing my reading while tanning at Moonlight beach.  As I've said many times...if you have to go to law school, San Diego isn't a bad place to do it.

The one constant in my three-ish years of law school will be my search for balance between non-stop studying and having a happy, healthy outside life.  To pull me back from the ledge as I teetered on the brink of insanity, Eli presented me with one of the most wonderful gifts I could've gotten right now (outside of winning the lotto...).  During my freakout listing of the things I miss from home (my dogs, my bed, my family...) I exclaimed: "I hate being so alone at home!  I need a fish or something!"  No less than a day later as Eli was dropping things off upstairs, I came in my living room and found myself face to face with none other than my new room mate and charge:  a beautiful blue beta fish!  Someone to talk to, take care of, bounce ideas off of, argue with, tell jokes to and best of all...he's a captive audience!  What more could I need?  I aptly named him Chief Justice John Jay after our nation's first leader of the Supreme Court.  They are supposed to last 3-5 years but I'm already trying to decide what I should name his replacement in the event that poor little Chief Justice John Jay falls victim to an overheated apartment or death by boredom.  So far he is thrilled to join me on my law school journey and he happily waves to me whenever I come home...that is if he isn't napping.  Chief Justice is very fabulous after all and we all need our beauty sleep.

This weekend I'll travel to the Pleasanton Highland Games for a much anticipated end-with-a-bang to this year's pipe band season with Prince Charles Pipe Band.  I can't wait to see my friends, and maybe Nat and John!  It will be a great competition; both Eli and I have solo competitions and I'll be competing with the band as well.  Best of all, the hotel where we are staying is full of people I love and don't often get to see, so bagpipe music and beer will flow freely!  Good times to be had by all, and a great departure (again) from the law school hustle and bustle.

Off I go to bed, dreaming of Kirksey v. Kirksey, consideration, the difference between a gift and a promise, and that's just tomorrow's Contracts discussion...a full review of my first three professors to follow shortly!

Goodnight from Iris and CCJJ!

I miss my loud smelly hairy dogs

What an exciting day yesterday turned out to be.  Our first oral arguments...well...mock oral arguments anyway.  I've grown up knowing that I enjoyed arguing so the prospect of standing before a panel of student "judges" pleading a case and being asked questions sounded positively delightful.

I approached the podium, launched into my spiel, and not 20 seconds in I was interrupted for the first time. I expected this because we had been warned this was part of the experience, that judges don't have too much time to listen to fluff and if they need to ask a question they will ask it regardless of where your are in your sentence.  The question was asked...and my mind turned to glue.  It was awful.  I'd sat there in class and watched this happen to 3 students before me and thought to myself "You idiot, how could you not know how to answer that question."  Of course we know how to answer these questions but when your thought process is interrupted and the room is silent as the grave and you have a big group of judgmental strangers sending mental poison darts your way...it is a bit more difficult to do your job.  This will take some getting used to.  I eventually stumbled through my answer feeling like an idiot because, of course, what came out of my mouth was IN NO WAY what I'd originally meant to say but it was over before it started and I woke up back at my seat with my heart racing.  How fun.

Thank goodness the day ended in non-law school related fun.  I accompanied Eli on a date to the racetrack where he came out ahead $8 which paid for a third of one of our margaritas.  I can't believe how much I appreciated having been able to leave my 5 block radius in the city and see people outside of law school.  I was happy as a clam.  However it also allowed me to really realize how much I miss those stupid dogs, miss my room mate Pilar, miss Stepanski and Nikko,  miss my loud obnoxious sorority house, miss my family.  All I have to keep me company in that cute little apartment are my two little cacti who I may neglect to the point of death anyway.  I need to get a fish.

Spending the weekend in the Encinitas public library with a cup of coffee and my Contracts and Civ Pro homework.  Off to the real law school I go on Monday!  Week one:  complete.  Iris:  alive.

What I've been fated to pursue since before I was born...

Well here I am, hot as blazes sitting at my cute little desk in my cute little apartment in my cute little San Diego neighborhood with my ugly huge books and my ugly huge homework assignments and my ugly huge financial aid notifications.  According to my "Plain English for Lawyers" textbook that sentence is rife with stylistic flaws...

I've just finished my second day of pseudo class in my first year of law school.  The last two days have been split between "Intro to Legal Studies:  Writing" and "Intro to Legal Studies:  Analysis."  I'm so grateful to begin my legal study this way.  Classically your first year in law school is characterized by the terrifying experience of being made to stand in front of your peers and be forced to brief a case about something you do not understand for a professor who is very very scary, and by your terribly expensive books and your starving student fancy microwave dinners.  This will not be me in my first year at Cal Western School of Law.  Instead, very much to my liking, we spend our entire first week split into small groups of about 20 terrified first years learning the very basic skills we will need to be successful in our first year:  how to read a case, how to brief it, how to study and make outlines, how not to listen to our fellow students who are neurotic and brag about being "a week ahead in the reading for civ pro" but are actually lying to make themselves feel better.  I've just finished briefing my third case and to be honest, I feel just peachy.

I've met a few cool people in my section who I will be with for the next three years of school.  To my pleasant surprise people have come from all over the country to attend school here in San Diego!  I've met people from Columbia University, University of Colorado, Washington D.C., Connecticut, and allegedly there is even someone in my class from Simon Fraser University in British Columbia, Canada!  How aboot that, eh?  So far that is one of the better parts of this experience:  knowing that no matter how nervous I may be about succeeding in this endeavor there are 334 other students in my first year class, many of whom very well may be more terrified and clueless than I.  And let me tell you...THAT is a comforting thought.  We are all in it together.  My class schedule is exciting and my mountain of books is looming ahead in the distance, I can't wait to tackle this obstacle!

My happy little apartment is a slice of heaven to come home to.  It gets quiet (aside from the airplanes flying overhead) as I'm here on my own so I bought two little cacti to talk to about my day.  (Side note:  it doesn't bode well that I'm hardly two days in and am already speaking to plants...I need to get out...).  I've gotten along fine here snacking on snap peas and starting to develop what by the end of these three years will be the recipe for the MOST FABULOUS peanut butter and jelly sandwich you will ever try.  My neighbors are nice, my bus mates are nice (a bit smelly as it is a public  bus, but just as nice as the next person) and I am very happy.

I hope to keep this account of all three years in school so that one day, while I'm sitting in my cushy leather chair in my corner office suite relaxing after a long day of ordering file clerks around, I can look back with a smile on my time at Cal Western.  I'm ready and rearing to go and can't wait to dive in!