Happy Holidays!

Happy Holidays!

I have been having a lovely and relaxing break so far. I have joined a gym to start getting healthier and to give myself a stress reliever that does not involve impotent glaring at strangers. I have also spent some time with those most important to me: my partner, my dog, my Xbox and Lara Croft (not necessarily in that order).

Grades have not been released yet so I still have no clue how the first real semester of 1L year went. In fact the day grades come out hubster and I will be at a casino and hotel (our Xmas pressie to ourselves) and I will not be able to look them up till i get home the next day. Thankfully casinos provide free alcohol. Unfortunately, it only takes a glass of wine to out me on my ass.... oh well.

Tort This

My haphazard studying for my tort final is appalling. I have spent most of the day devising a million things that need to be done RIGHT NOW (like writing this) as a way of procrastinating and avoiding torts. It's not that i don't like the class because I do. And I like the teacher, he is an absolute hoot. he is a cross between a preacher and Malcom X. There is at least one point during every class where I want to jump up and start talking in tort tongues. However, what I don't like is the fact that he wants us to be able to spit 50 million different analysis aspects back at him per question. Example, him going over our "practice exam" (paraphrased for your reading enjoyment"

"If you mention A, I will give you 2 pts, if you mention B I will give you 2 points, if you mention C, even though there are no facts to support it and its not really relevant to the matter, I will give you 2 points."

SO, basically if I memorize my entire outline and vomit it onto the exam paper I win?? I am honestly so burnt out on studying I could care less right now. Luckily my paralegal education gave me nice background in torts so i have a lot of passive knowledge to pull from. The rest will come from the tests/elements from the current class I think are important and exam likely, and the gift of bullshit I was so amazingly blessed with.

Now, I am going to go back to reading the Pendergrast novels..... I mean studying, or facebooking, or staring at my dog while he sleeps.... whichever......

Still Here. Just Buried

I am still here, just buried under a pile of legal pads, used up highlighters and Examples and Explanations supplements. I had two exams last week, property and contracts, that I surprisingly feel good about despite the fact I spent the majority of the semester surfing the net during class (don't do it kids, I hope I don't in the spring). Now I just have intellectual property and torts this week.... wish me luck.

On a good note I have an appointment with a local gym that is doing a fitness program and taking volunteers. I hope I get in. Its hard for me to stay motivated about my health whne I am in school, I am hoping being a part of something like this will help.

Well back to re-writing my IP outline over and over until I can recite it in my sleep. See you on the other side!!

"Finals" Countdown

My first final is exactly one week from today.

I have been studying hard and looked to really bat the whole finals study crunch thing out of the park, allowing myself to feel, maybe not confident, but pretty good about my legal knowledge.

At 12:30 I begin sneezing and now I can barely breathe through my nose. My eyes are watery, itchy and on fire. I have to re-read every sentence I type to ensure that I am not speaking gibberish due to the large layer of wtf-ever that has surrounded my brain.

*shaking fists in air, Kleenex waving furiously* WHY GOD, WHY?????

************

On a lighter note, vote for Namby. Or burn forever in the fiery pit of eternal damnation. Your choice.

Good Show Moron

It finally happened, I got called on and was completely unprepared for it. Right before class I had a, how shall we say, intense conversation with the hubster. One which we were continuing over facebook during class (yeah yeah, I know, I was supposed to be paying attention). So... of course, I am called on. I had read the case, but it was on Monday when I read it and I hadn't reviewed it like I normally do because I was otherwise occupied. And this is the day he called on me. So I stumbled through, did ok I think, but still feel like a complete ass. Perfectionist A-Type people take this kinda of stuff hard and it will haunt me until I get high on paint fumes from painting the house this weekend. Oh well.....

Maybe I need to leave the laptop in the locker next semester huh?

Studying, Bar Apps and Resumes

I am hip deep in school work. I have memo's due, daily assignments, outlines to keep up and review to fit in. I am looking forward to Thanksgiving break, not because I have hours of fun-filled recreation planned, but because I am planning on studying, and over the weekend following, promoting my little direct sales biz at a local craft fair.

I also have an appointment with career services so I can try and start looking for a job for the summer, either paid or unpaid, at this point I would just be happy for the experience, money would just be a bonus.

Plus I am beginning work on the bar app I have to submit by October. October? Why I am worrying about it now? Because I have account for every address and job, and get signed affidavits from all my former employers that I am not a crackhead or some such thing. Being 32, that gives me A LOT of info to track down.... it's all about the 6 P Rule.

A Great Step Forward in a Long Journey

This is a little late because I got caught up in school, but The big news in the GLBT community last week was Pres. Obama signing the Matthew Shepard Act into law. This law brings the GLBT community into the classes protected from hate crimes. It was a long, painful road to get here, but it makes me even more optimistic that every day will bring more headway on the GLBT rights front. I get discouraged sometimes because it seems like everything we want to do is a fight. My beloved and I want to adopt a child within a couple of years of my graduation, we want to get married, and we want to protect what little we have scraped together while working towards our future. But to do all this we have to take 50 million more things into account than your normal couple.

For example, adoption. The state we live in makes it illegal for us to adopt a baby, since technically, we are still a gay couple. So we are looking at out of the country adoption but the international adoption book says that no country will KNOWINGLY place a baby with a gay couple. So I apply as a single person? Doesn't that disregard what will be a 12-13 year long, great relationship? Where does that leave Hayden as a parent? And what about us being a trans couple and Hayden legally being male by then? Or do I try to get pregnant even that it will cost a mint, and due to health problems, I might not be able carry it to term? But it will give us more protection as a family.

All of these things to think about just to start a family with my partner. In some ways its good because we can plan, but bad because we HAVE to plan. The hope I have for it all is that it will be easier for us because I am (well will be) a lawyer, that the rules will change, and that everything, as ususal, will work out exactly the way it is supposed to.

I am an Epic Fail

I am a published writer, as in books. Don't let my typos fool you.

I am the person who took graduate level English Classes in undergrad for fun, sometimes 2 at the same time when I needed "cheese" classes.

I am the person who had their papers used as examples for other students on the CORRECT way to write a paper.

I just got my first Memo back for review from my legal writing teacher. I haven't seen this much ink on one writing assignment in my entire life. My lofty sense of writing talent fell to the ground like a deflated balloon (don't worry, there wasn't a 6 yr old in it!).

I am the person who thought they could write, but apparently was mistaken.

I am epic fail....

*sigh*

Now, its a pride issue that I have to turn in the final draft of the memo that is AWESOME.... will keep you updated.

Calm Before the Storm

It's coming, the crying jags in the bathroom, 1Ls walking around, muttering to themselves and the 2/3L's looking at us with pity.

It will start the week after Halloween, when it hits all of us that finals are really only 4 weeks away and we really are expected to know all of this crap, er, legal knowledge that the proffesors have been talking about while we facebook-ed. Our hearts will skip a beat, or 5, or hands will shake and we will realize the reason that we have had so much free time this semester when everyone told us how hard it was going to be was because we were only doing 25% of the work we were supposed to.

How do I know all this, and how can I be so calm? Because I did the same this this past summer, and I am wiser for it.

For those of you saying, "NO!! We don't want to be those 1L's? What can we do?"

Well this is what I am doing: outlining after each class (Its a lot easier to outline 3 classes of notes per day, then outline 3 months of 5 classes in 2 days) and I try to do 2 review sessions per subject, per week. Usually this is either a chapter in one of my Examples & Explanations books, or a lesson in CALI. While this wont get me through everything leisurely by finals, it will give me a nice solid foundation of stuff I already know, so I can focus on points I have struggling with.

Good luck everyone. It won't be as bad as you think!

Girls in Tuxes?? Not if This School Can Help It!

An openly gay girl in Mississippi wants to wear her tux in her senior pic. However, she is told that the photo will not be included. Why? Because it is against the "convictions" of the people who run the school, even though there is not policies in place to effect that women can not wear tuxes, or other masculine attire. Translation for those of you who don't have the pleasure of living in the south. "These weirdo q*ueers freak us out and instead of trying to find common ground, we are going to pretend that they don't exist."

Take the time to email the people with "convictions" and let them know that everyone's convictions are important (and in this case, protected by the first amendment), not just theirs.

Of course, this just affirms why I, an openly queer woman, am in law school and is busting her hump to open her own practice. This is the kind of thing I hope to have a small hand, if not a large one, in abolishing.

"Freedom is not the same thing as being Free" ~ PC

*edited because of my lack of grammar skills at bedtime, :)