Cryptic Notes

One thing that separates me from most of my classmates thus far in law school is that I take notes on paper with a pen during class. The issue with typing my notes is that I type rather quickly, and it's very easy for me to fall into a pattern of just transcribing the course instead of actually engaging in the material. In law school, the professors regularly call on people to engaging in a substantive conversation about the subject matter, so it's better to stay right with them than to drift off into taking dictation.

After class, I like to go back over my handwritten notes, both from my notebook and from the textbook, to type up a summary of what we discussed to solidify it all and make it easy to protect the data from loss.

As I sat in this sweltering library today, I pulled out my notes written in the margins of the case we were discussing today.

Written at the top of a page in the middle of the case:

"Key difference here: public officials engaging in official grocery store--essence of 1st amendment."

This case has nothing to do with a grocery store. We weren't discussing grocery stores.

Grocery stores have nothing to do with the first amendment.

I'm going to attribute that one to the heat...

Heat

I think that I've mentioned (repeatedly) that it is quite warm in New York right now. We had a few cool days where it rained, and I was so happy, but now it's hot again. After a basically sleepless night of tossing and turning, looking forward to heading to my frigid law school, I pulled my hair into a ponytail (no point in even trying to do the hair here--too hot) and jumped on the roasty-toasty subway.

I walked the rest of the way to school as I pondered how I may never adapt to the fact that it just doesn't cool down much at night here (the low and the high are very close to each other. It's odd for a girl from the mountains). Then, the sweet moment arrived when I entered the law school...

...only it wasn't sweet. It was sweat. The air conditioning is broken today. I spent my first class all cooped up in a room full of people where I thought I was going to suffocate.

The worst part? When all of this is over and I'm done with my studying for the day, I'll head back to my little sweatbox apartment.

Sigh. When is it going to be fall??

(It should be noted here that I am LOVING New York. I would love it even more if it were 20 degrees cooler...come on, fall! Really, there are only two or three things that I don't love about New York. This is one of them.)

Speedy Delivery

One of the perks to living in the greatest city in the world is having one's groceries delivered.

Today I got my first order, and I have to say, it was pretty fabulous. The prices are lower than what you find in the store (still higher than Utah, but I'm adapting).

You order whatever you want online, pick a delivery window, and then a guy shows up with carefully packaged groceries, including cleaning supplies, produce, frozen foods, meats, and basically whatever you want. He leaves the packages and tells you to have a nice day. He is not permitted by the company to ask for a tip, which is good because I have no money and that would've been awkward.

I live up a couple of flights of stairs, so it is really nice to have my groceries just arrive in my kitchen.

Brief Law School

As I checked my email before I started in on my heavy studying for the day, it occurred to me that I haven't updated the blog as to what my schoolwork is like, so here is a brief update.

First, I should establish some of the terminology that we'll be using over the next few years (more details about each course in a later series of delightful posts). More to follow, I'm sure, but here's a start:

• 1L - first-year law student (ME!) Next year, 2L, year after, 3L
• Elements - one of my first year courses. Full name: Elements of Law.
• Civ Pro - another first year course. Full name: Civil Procedure. 
• Torts - another first year course. Full name: Torts. (Tricky, I know...)
• Writing - yet another first year course. Full name: Legal Writing and Lawyering Skills.
• Contracts - you guessed it! Another first year course! Full name: Contracts
• Cardozo - my law school.
• Section - my group in law school. Our class is divided up into several sections, and each section has all of its courses together. They do this so it'll be easier to get to know each other and form study groups, I believe.

For the past week or so, we've been in orientation. Each morning, we go to Elements for a couple of hours, and then we have additional activities in the afternoon (lectures, panels, discussions, etc). Monday, all of my other classes will start as well, and Elements will continue through mid-October. Each day, I will spend about three hours in classes, and then have the rest of the day to work on homework and assignments. Since I worked full-time and then went to school for about three hours per day when I was in undergrad, I suspect I'll be able to find a good balance. Of course, I'll probably have to cut back on my blogging, which has already been lacking a bit, but you'll just have to take what you can get.

So far, law school is just fine. Most of the conversations are really interesting, and there's a lot of variety of activities. The people are all really different from each other, so there's a good diversity of views and backgrounds. I'm the only person in my class from Utah. In fact, today a guy couldn't remember my name, and after I told him what it was, he told me that he had wanted to just call me Utah but didn't know if that would be offensive. I told him that as the only person in our class (about 250 of us) from Utah, I'd probably turned around if he called me that, and that'd be okay. When I tell people I'm from Utah, they usually pause and say, "Oh." I'm not really sure what that means (haven't bothered to try to figure it out), but I suspect that they may have some interesting ideas about me. I'm not too worried about it though--I have some interesting ideas about some of them, so I suppose we're all just making assumptions all around!

I have only been in class with one of my professors, and he has been excellent. I've met another one who I think will probably be pretty interesting, and I've heard excellent things about two of the other professors, so I feel like I really got the best schedule. Our section doesn't start class until 10:00 or later every day, but we're always out pretty early as well, and we got some great professors. This probably means that in the spring, we'll have the mean, scary professors and have to go to class at 8:00 every day, but I'm enjoying this semester while it lasts.

I need to get back to my studying, but I'll leave you with one last thing you may not know about law school: they feed you here. All the time. It's great. For the past couple of days, bar review companies have been sponsoring lunches so that they can try to convince us to buy their products. They give us mugs, shirts, and a free meal, so they can try to convince me to buy anything they want. Joke's on them: I'm a broke student!

How Things Are

Lots of people have kindly been inquiring into the state of things here in the big city.

Hot.

Really, really hot.

Other than that, things are pretty good. I moved into my apartment on Tuesday afternoon. It was incredibly hot and difficult. I had my long-suffering parents and my baby brother with me, and they all worked like crazy to get all of my belonging into my apartment. They put my bed together and my table and chairs, and then they were off for the rest of their road trip back to Utah.

I've found the two big competing grocery stores near my house. Naturally, big is a very relative term. They're not super big, and the organization of them still baffles me. (Looking for cold cereals? On the aisle with diapers, naturally.) One seemed to have a few more things that I would normally use, but sadly, the prices are pretty comparable. Of course, it wouldn't be sad if the prices were even just a tad bit lower, but whatever. I'll adapt. People might suggest that I eat cold cereal and ramen noodles or something, but I have a moral opposition to ramen noodles, and cold cereal is shockingly expensive here. I'm still trying to figure out what I will be able to afford to eat. I can tell you one thing for sure: I'm headed to Utah for Christmas with an empty suitcase, and it's coming back to NYC full of groceries.

I've been to school for two days now. So far, so good. I'll write more about school in another posting.

Tomorrow I'll go to my ward for the whole block. Last week, I just went to sacrament meeting. The chapel in my building looks like a regular chapel that got whacked in half. It's pretty adorable. The best part about my ward is that it meets so, so close to my apartment! No subway ride required. It's very convenient, especially since church is at 9:00 am.

All in all, there's not too much to complain about. I haven't finished unpacking yet, but I'm getting closer each day. If all else fails, the piles of boxes everywhere could be construed as some sort of modern decor.

Invested

When I lived in Provo, people wore BYU football t-shirts all over town. They'd be at work, at school, at the grocery store, at the gym...you name it, people wore them there.

Each year, the school would produce a new shirt. Some time in the last couple of years (they all run together, shirt-wise), BYU's shirt had the slogan "Fully Invested" on it. I never bought the shirts, and that particular year, I had a long-running joke about how I couldn't purchase said shirt because I was, in fact, fully divested.

So here I am, beginning this law school journey.

I quit my job.

I sold my car.

I packed all of my worldly belongings.

Today, I spent an inordinate amount of money on books. (Perhaps the expense is due to some sin tax I've incurred for destroying all of those trees.)

Tomorrow I sign a much bigger lease than any I've ever signed.

Classes begin Thursday.

In basically every aspect, I'm now as invested as it gets.

An Update

Several of you have inquired about how things are going.

Here's a quick Q&A about things these days.

Readers: So, how's New York?

Liz: Hot. Big. Humid. Fast. Small. Tall. Rainy. Sunny.

Readers: (Long pause)

Liz: New York is lots of things, but mostly, it's great.

Readers: Have you found an apartment?

Liz: Yes. I should be signing all of the paperwork shortly. There was a little hiccup in the timeline for the apartment, but I seem to be on track for moving in this week. When I get a bit more time, I'll write out the whole story for you all.

Readers: So, is your rent expensive?

Liz: Yes. This is Manhattan.

Readers: But how expensive?

Liz: Plenty expensive, but I'll manage just fine, thanks.

Readers: You're not going to tell us how much?

Liz: Nope.

Readers: Are you still a tourist, or have you become a New Yorker?

Liz: Mostly still a tourist. I still count the times I've seen a rat on the subway (4 so far), I still come out of the wrong exit at the subway station (it's much trickier than it sounds to get it right), and I still sometimes stop to stare up at the buildings.

Readers: Anything else you can tell us so far?

Liz: I'm now operating in Eastern time zone, so please check your clocks before you phone or send me text messages.

Readers: Did you know that this post wasn't very entertaining? Are you going to step up your game soon?

Liz: That really remains to be seen. School starts on Thursday, so I hope I'll have something interesting happen there. I'll do my best.

Injury Quiz

Here's a simple, multiple-choice quiz for you all.

What heinous beast recently attacked Liz?

A: Closet door

B: Waffle iron

C: A wolverine

D: Hugh Jackman

Eye, Injured

Although I frequently injure myself, I never cease to be amazed by the new and interesting ways I find to injure myself.

Recently, I was sweeping the back porch of my parents' house with a standard household broom. As the broom swung back and forth with its pendular grace, for reasons I still cannot explain, my head somehow came into contact with the top of the broom.

Pause and imagine a sweeping action in your mind. You can see how the top of the broom moves in the opposite direction as the bottom of the broom, right? Now imagine what happens if your head is in slightly the wrong spot as the bottom of the broom swings forward and the top swings back toward you.

It hit me right at the corner of my eye, where the bone is right under the skin with nothing to shield it.

It hurt.

A lot.

For days.

And right when it happened, I couldn't figure out how on earth I had done that to myself.

But after a few hours of consideration, I can't for the life of me figure out how I haven't ever done it to myself before now.