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.
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