The onset of exam period makes certain things true:
1. I will spend more time wasting time because I am an executive procrastinator who finds five gazillion other things she'd like to do once the pressure is on and she is faced with exams and deadlines. Organize my bookshelf? Plan for the summer? Plot novels I will never write? Start blogging again about pointless things? Let's go!
2. I will eat out a lot more because cooking takes up time I must reserve for procrastinating on studying. Oh my credit card bill of the month will undoubtedly make me sad. See? This is why I need to plan for the summer and the job I must acquire to provide myself an income. These things are important - clearly more important than the more imminent exams.
3. I will hate undergrads with a passion. I know and love my share of them as long as they are not actually anywhere in my proximity. Undergrads I encounter and am required to deal with personally make me wish there were a ditch or moat surrounding the law school into which all undergrads fell. They are crawling all over the place when exams approach, desperate to find some place to study that isn't their dorm or their overcrowded undergrad library. Understandable, of course. To which I say: GET THE HELL OUT OF MY SCHOOL, YOUNG DESPICABLE WASTES OF SPACE TAKING UP MY AIR. Or, y'know, with actual curse words substituted in.
The list goes on but I should...study...now...
26 April 2010
21 March 2010
Leave my friends alone!
Not only does law school frak with your life directly, it does so through your friends, who can't play with you because they have stupid seminar papers due. Thanks a lot, law school! Here I am having to procrastinate ALL BY MY SELF. Aaarrgghhh!!
Also, in a somewhat belated complaint, I think it is so typical of law school to schedule spring break over daylight savings time so we lose an hour. Just couldn't stand to give us any more time off if you could help it, could you? :P
And it's raining, which is also somehow the fault of the School of Law.
Also, in a somewhat belated complaint, I think it is so typical of law school to schedule spring break over daylight savings time so we lose an hour. Just couldn't stand to give us any more time off if you could help it, could you? :P
And it's raining, which is also somehow the fault of the School of Law.
11 March 2010
wow, so this is classy and inspirational
I think our seminar professor is trying to guilt-trip us? He just sent out an email telling us that most of us didn't try hard enough at the five-page section we turned in the week before spring break. See the two attached examples of EXCELLENT WORK and 55 ENDNOTES per page. Dude, it was a 5 pg rough draft, I'm sorry I don't have 800 sources. I will! When I spend more than a weekend writing five pages.
I am torn between mild amusement and serious annoyance. I will write you 3 million footnotes in the final draft, I promise. Have no fear at my ability to BS in abundance, at great length, with citations.
I am torn between mild amusement and serious annoyance. I will write you 3 million footnotes in the final draft, I promise. Have no fear at my ability to BS in abundance, at great length, with citations.
02 March 2010
optimism is for people who remember what sleep is
So here's the story:
You're at your computer talking to people, surfing the Net, doing the whole procrastinating-from-actual-law-school-work deal that you've mastered by this point in your law school career. You feel kind of tired and you remember you only slept for a few hours last night because you stayed up late to write the five-page paper due in your seminar. It's about midnight or so - you really aren't paying attention.
The next thing you know, you're waking up to your cell phone singing your alarm at you. You slap blindly at it, guided only by sound and instinct, and shut it off. Twenty minutes and two alarm alerts later, you sit up in bed, look at your clock, and think: When the hell did I go to bed?
More importantly: How the hell did I get to bed?
You're tucked under your covers, the lights are off, and your laptop's sitting shut on your desk.
You don't remember closing the laptop or shutting off the lights or crawling into bed. And you weren't anywhere near an alcoholic drink last night. Turning on the laptop reveals that you shut it without turning it off - four conversations are still on the screen, all with responses you ignored (apparently in your sleep).
You rub at your eyes and wonder whether you need to start drinking coffee at night too. Or maybe, you think, maybe you need to start sleeping more. Earlier. To make up for the perpetual deficiency since starting law school (or perhaps even university).
The moral of this story: It's law school's fault.
Actually, the story is irrelevant. It's always law school's fault. That's what you learn when you attend: law school is miserable. The end.
Epilogue: Work sucks too. :( But at least you're getting paid instead of getting into debt.
You're at your computer talking to people, surfing the Net, doing the whole procrastinating-from-actual-law-school-work deal that you've mastered by this point in your law school career. You feel kind of tired and you remember you only slept for a few hours last night because you stayed up late to write the five-page paper due in your seminar. It's about midnight or so - you really aren't paying attention.
The next thing you know, you're waking up to your cell phone singing your alarm at you. You slap blindly at it, guided only by sound and instinct, and shut it off. Twenty minutes and two alarm alerts later, you sit up in bed, look at your clock, and think: When the hell did I go to bed?
More importantly: How the hell did I get to bed?
You're tucked under your covers, the lights are off, and your laptop's sitting shut on your desk.
You don't remember closing the laptop or shutting off the lights or crawling into bed. And you weren't anywhere near an alcoholic drink last night. Turning on the laptop reveals that you shut it without turning it off - four conversations are still on the screen, all with responses you ignored (apparently in your sleep).
You rub at your eyes and wonder whether you need to start drinking coffee at night too. Or maybe, you think, maybe you need to start sleeping more. Earlier. To make up for the perpetual deficiency since starting law school (or perhaps even university).
The moral of this story: It's law school's fault.
Actually, the story is irrelevant. It's always law school's fault. That's what you learn when you attend: law school is miserable. The end.
Epilogue: Work sucks too. :( But at least you're getting paid instead of getting into debt.
01 March 2010
Picking a law school
DO NOT pick your school based on the US News and World Report rankings. First, because rankings are crap. Second, because a FAR better criterion is geography. Location, location, location. If you go to the "best" school you get in to and that school is in an region with a climate that could most charitably be described as sadistic, YOU WILL DESERVE EVERY GRAY DAY YOU SEE AND THERE WILL BE MANY. You will be cold. You will look around and realize that your law school is, in fact, at the foot of Mount Doom, smack in the middle of Mordor. See that sunny area to the south? That's the undergrad campus. Remember those days, when the world was bright and full of possibilities? HA. The one and only (small) consolation we get is kicking the children out of OUR library. And they won't even let us use pitchforks :(
28 February 2010
I love people more than money (probably)
"But," you say to yourself, "I came to law school because I care about justice! How do I get a job in public interest?"
Fist of all, no you didn't. You came to law school because you didn't know what else to do with yourself, and the economy was swirling down the toilet. Don't lie.
Second: Hahahahahahahaha
You poor thing. Don't you know that your law school wants you to work for a big firm? Make lots of money and then give it back to the school! That's how it works. Go forth and interview!
Let's pause for a moment and be fair: that IS how it works. Law schools need rich alums to write nice fat checks. As a business deal, it makes sense and works pretty well. Unless you happen to be one of those crazy people who doesn't want a job based on the paycheck (what is wrong with you??).
If you want to work in public interest, you were, for a long time, pretty much on your own (this is changing slightly). Or you could work for the government. Or a firm - don't forget firms! Firms are nice! I got my internships by offering myself, for free, to worthy causes both summers. I had to do this BEFORE figuring out funding. Last summer I got a part-time job. This summer...who knows? Because the information about HOW TO PAY FOR YOUR LIFE IF YOU WORK IN PUBLIC INTEREST ISN'T UP YET. (and breathe)
I really do want to get a job I can care about. The problem is finding a cause/organization with enough money to pay me... Because while I do like people and civil rights and puppies and sunshine, I also like to eat.
Fist of all, no you didn't. You came to law school because you didn't know what else to do with yourself, and the economy was swirling down the toilet. Don't lie.
Second: Hahahahahahahaha
You poor thing. Don't you know that your law school wants you to work for a big firm? Make lots of money and then give it back to the school! That's how it works. Go forth and interview!
Let's pause for a moment and be fair: that IS how it works. Law schools need rich alums to write nice fat checks. As a business deal, it makes sense and works pretty well. Unless you happen to be one of those crazy people who doesn't want a job based on the paycheck (what is wrong with you??).
If you want to work in public interest, you were, for a long time, pretty much on your own (this is changing slightly). Or you could work for the government. Or a firm - don't forget firms! Firms are nice! I got my internships by offering myself, for free, to worthy causes both summers. I had to do this BEFORE figuring out funding. Last summer I got a part-time job. This summer...who knows? Because the information about HOW TO PAY FOR YOUR LIFE IF YOU WORK IN PUBLIC INTEREST ISN'T UP YET. (and breathe)
I really do want to get a job I can care about. The problem is finding a cause/organization with enough money to pay me... Because while I do like people and civil rights and puppies and sunshine, I also like to eat.
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