Two Weeks In

I know it’s a cliché, but I’m gonna say it anyway: I can hardly believe it’s only been two weeks. Quite apart from the actual amount of material we’ve covered -- which seems, from the perspective of my tired brain, like quite a lot, but from the perspective of how far we’ve gotten in our enormous textbooks, like hardly anything -- I am quite certain that no other semester in my academic career has so quickly and thoroughly engaged my interest, mentally fatigued me, made me so anxious about my abilities, or so rewarded increased effort. To put it another way: it’s hard, but worth it.

I’ve spent the last several days dealing with mounting anxieties surrounding my note-taking and studying habits, or lack thereof. I’m not sure whether to blame myself, for being sort of lazy about both of these things all my life, or Metro State, for never really making it necessary to overcome that laziness. Regardless, something had to be done. As of today, I’m feeling much better about it. I have a study schedule for the week (though that will be altered drastically, I’m sure, when Eleanor arrives); I have settled, for now, on a method for briefing the cases I read; and I am beginning to form at least a vague picture of how I might condense my various notes throughout the semester, in order to have an outline to study come finals. (For any law students reading this, I have found the book Law School Confidential -- particularly Chapter 8 -- extremely helpful in all of these steps.) I’m starting to feel like a real student. And even better, I think I’m beginning to understand what the hell all these cases are really about.

So: stress levels down, confidence levels up. All things considered, if I really have found the right track for myself after a mere two weeks, I probably should be grateful. Of course, I’m remaining open to the possibility that this new-and-evolving plan will turn out to be useless, and I’ll have to start from square one. Not looking forward to it, but remaining open.

Beyond all that, I should mention the most important thing, which is this: so far, I absolutely love law school. My two “substantive” classes (Torts and Civil Procedure) are so, well, substantive (“having a firm basis in reality and therefore important, meaningful, or considerable,” per New Oxford American Dictionary). Every reading and every class session are filled to the brim with truly important information. Contrast this with the typical philosophy course, in which at least half of each class is wasted by the students’ incoherent rambling, and the other half, on occasion, by the professor’s only somewhat less incoherent and rambling lecture. The readings are good, and may be important for a test or final paper, but even then they’re not “important” in the sense that knowing them may mean the difference between being a good lawyer or a bad lawyer, winning or losing a case. The awareness that what I’m learning may make a difference in other people’s lives (to say nothing of my own) just adds an incredible sense of urgency and significance to everything. Maybe it’s exaggerated, but it’s there, and if nothing else it makes absorbing this enormous amount of detail a great deal easier than it might otherwise be.

So anyway, on to Week Three and the implementation of my new study plan. I’ll let you know how it goes.

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P.S. According to the professor, Civil Procedure is actually considered “trans-substantive.” But whatever. You get my meaning.

The Calm Before the Storm

Yesterday was the final and, interestingly, most helpful day of my orientation -- despite also being the only optional day. I guess the second half of the day was pretty typical of the rest of the week: Lots of general you-can-do-it encouragement sprinkled with handy facts, this time mostly on the subject of note-taking and studying. But the first part of the day was all about how to brief a case, i.e., how to read a judge’s opinion (explanation of how and why a case was decided as it was) and break it down into its significant parts. It’s been made very clear over the past week that we will be reading a lot of cases (thousands), and that much of our success in law school will depend on our ability to brief these cases in a way that helps us to understand and retain the relevant facts therein. Unfortunately, this has generally come in the form of a hearty, “Make sure you’re briefing those cases!” but without any explanation of just what in the world that actually meant, and I get the feeling that most of the class, like me, was getting steadily more anxious about it. Anyway, long story short, one 1.5 hours session sufficed to lay these anxieties to rest (at least for me), and I am already reading the cases differently, with a better eye for what I’m really trying to get from the text. It’s a good feeling.

Most of the rest of Orientation was helpful, if not particularly substantial. Probably the most important part for me was hearing over and over again, from current and former evening students, that this really is possible: I can do well in law school, and even do “extra” things like be on the Law Review, if I want, while still having at least a little time to spend with my family. At one point, we spoke with a panel of evening students, one of whom said he has a full-time job, a wife, and two kids, and is ranked very high in his class, and in his three years of law school he has almost never had to do school work on a Sunday, reserving those instead for family time. That was tremendously reassuring.

So that’s it. I am fully oriented. Now begins the real deal. Of course, as I said, I’ve been reading the books already. I have advance assignments that amount to roughly 100 pages of reading -- not much, I’m sure, compared to what’s coming -- and I’ve completed about half of it. Some of it’s a little confusing, but this is often because a certain piece of reasoning will hinge on, say, a Latin phrase I’ve never heard before. It’s been suggested that we read each case the first time without worrying about such things, or highlighting or taking notes or anything, and I haven’t done the second reading of any cases yet, so I haven’t looked up those Latin phrases (or other, presumably English, words I don’t know). Apart from such stumbling blocks, though, it’s not seeming too impenetrable. I suppose I should be thankful I’ve spent the last decade or so reading philosophy. If I can manage even an educated guess as to what the hell Kant is talking about half the time, I ought to be able to handle anything any law professor can throw at me. I just need to learn the jargon.

All in all, I’m feeling pretty good about where I am as I await my first real law class. Apart from feeling academically prepared (as much as I probably can be), I feel good about the rest of the class, too. My fellow students in the evening division seem, on the whole, engaged, intelligent, serious, and agreeable. (Yesterday’s sessions were split into mixed groups of day and evening students. At one point, I was part of a small group with three day students, clearly fresh from their undergrad, and let’s just say, they helped lay to rest any lingering misgivings about being in the evening program.)

For the weekend, we’ve got Dashiell’s birthday party at Grandma’s tonight, Amy has her baby shower tomorrow, then book club tomorrow night.

Oh, and yesterday, we ate carrots right out of the garden! (OK, we washed them off first.) And the sunflowers are finally blooming, and I just discovered a second pumpkin growing beneath the leaves, and the mystery plant appears to be producing a squash-like something, and some of the corn looks like it’s about ready to fall right off the stalk. Gardening is cool.

It Begins

Tonight is the first session of my week-long Orientation at DU, which will run Monday through Friday, roughly 5-9 each day. It’s a remarkably full docket (little legal jargon for ya there). Tonight alone we are scheduled for a box dinner; tours; a welcome from the Chancellor, the Dean, and the President of the Student Bar Association; an Introduction to Law School; an Introduction to Student Affairs; an Alumni Council presentation; a talk on something called “Denver Partnership with Community Day;” a talk on the student health center; something on “Colorado Lawyers Helping Lawyers;” a presentation on Lexis Nexis (a legal research tool); and an introduction to the various administrative departments -- all in three-and-a-half hours. The other four evenings are similarly packed. I only hope things aren’t too rushed to be especially helpful.

So, on this my final day of anticipation, what am I feeling? Hard to say, really. It’s not actually the first day of classes, which I’m sure will bring a whole new set of worries, but it is the day I’ll meet the people I’ll be spending a significant portion of my life with for at least the next year-and-a-half. (First-year law students, or 1Ls, are assigned to a “student unit,” and all the students in each unit take all the same classes together for the first year. And the first “year” for part-time evening students such as myself takes a bit longer than a real-world year.) So today, at least, I’m less concerned about my academic abilities and more about my social skills: Will there be “mingling” preceding the box dinner? Will the other students already have met each other at one of the pre-first-year get-togethers, all of which I have been unable to attend? And what the hell do first-year law students at DU wear, anyway? And is it different for something like this from what you would wear to class? (Some of you might be surprised to see me worry so much about clothing, but it’s a natural outcome of the combination of [a] knowing the undeniable impact of first impressions, and [b] being fully aware of my own lack of competence both in meeting new people and in dressing myself -- for which I like to blame my color-blindness, but let’s face it: that has nothing to do with whether to wear a button-up and slacks or a T-shirt and shorts, now does it?) But then all of this is balanced with the sneaking suspicion that it’s all ridiculous and baseless, and most of the other 80 students won’t know each other either, or know what to wear for that matter. And I remind myself that this is the evening program, which means my fellow students will all be actual grown-ups, not 23-year-olds who have been out drinking together all last week, but who have jobs and families and more important things to worry about than why Chris Curtis turned up in flip-flops and his shorts and T-shirt don’t even match. So to sum up: I’ve got some butterflies, but I know they’re ridiculous, and I doubt they’ll last the day.

For now, I have seven hours before it all begins, and I intend to spend it reading something unrelated to the law, drinking coffee, and just kind of hanging out. After checking the Advance Assignments page one more time, of course. Just in case...