August 19, 2003

Brain Dump

So, first, happy 1-year birthday to effinchamp--his photos have made many of my days.

Second, I left orientation after two sessions today. I probably could have skipped the entire day. I don't do well with baby-steps. I also don't quite get the idea of a mock class... why wouldn't we just start real classes? I'm sure there are plenty of people who received quite a bit of useful information from the orientation sessions I missed, and I'm happy that they did because I was able to put that time to use by taking a gorgeous drive down highway 1, stopping at a small farm and buying fresh heirloom tomatoes, spending time at a beach for the second time this week, and then coming home in time to get in a 2-hour work out, all before 7 pm.

Third, at the risk of sounding spoiled, arrogant, and all the other negative adjectives usually attributed to law students, I'm not certain that I buy into the 1L-is-the-hardest-thing-you-will-ever-do dogma. Sure, classes haven't started, and I'm speaking way out of turn. Maybe the whole "learning to think like a lawyer" transformation will be painful as fsck. If and when I'm wrong, I'll take it back and let you know just how wrong I was. But, given the information that I have so far, I'd be withholding the truth if I didn't share that I'm not convinced that this year is going to be close to hell:


  1. 14 hours a week of classes
  2. several tolerable (even pleasant) and non-competitive section-mates
  3. 62 pages of reading by friday
  4. professors who are better communicators than the majority of my engineering and science instructors


Even if the reading is increased 10-fold, it's still only 30 hours of reading in addition to class. That's plenty of spare time in my week for a social schedule, working on my golf game, and a good solid workout program. When discussing my confusion over the 1L hell with a friend (a brilliant engineer, who is disdainful of lawyers, and well, just about everyone else as well), he pointed out that the average law student probably needs 20 hours per week of reality TV, which can really cramp the studying schedule. I laughed. I also hope he's right. It would be wonderful if this year was actually easier than life on the outside as long as I'm as disciplined as I was in my career. Somehow, given the testimony of the people who've gone before me, I'm not certain I'll be so lucky. But, I can hope...



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