1L Done

My last final was last Friday morning, and then I had a last project thing that took place during Monday, Tuesday, and today.

Now it's all over. YAY!

In some ways, it feels like I've always been in law school. In other ways, I can't believe I'm already done with my 1L year. I'm a 2L now! CRAZY! My sister is a big fan of the 2L year, as she likes to refer to it as the "LL year." It's true that I'm going to be participating in some stuff this coming year that she would definitely approve of, so it probably is pretty accurate to call it my LL year.

Now it's summer. You can tell because over the past few days, it has suddenly gotten really hot here. Wait, what? No spring? Yeah, we had just a couple of nice weeks, and now it's Hotsville here. (That's not really encouraging any of you to visit...hmmm...)

So, what are my big summer plans? Since you all have very appropriately not asked, or waited to ask until very recently, paying due deference to my busy, tumultuous schedule, I'll tell you! I have an internship here in the city, so I'll be starting that on June 6th. I'm very excited to be back in an office environment and doing some work that matters. Beyond working, I plan to read, relax, and see some things in New York that I just haven't gotten around to seeing yet (uh, Staten Island, anyone?).

Today, I went down to the New York Public Library (not the one with the lions...I went to a closer branch, but yes, I do occasionally go by the one with the lions, and yes, it's gorgeous) to present my ID and verification of residency so that I could get my library card! I was like an 8-year-old girl, bouncing with excitement for her first library card. The public library system here is massive, and anything they have can just be requested to show up at your local branch for pick up. So convenient! They literally have every book that I have on my gigantic list of books I want to read. When you're in law school, you don't really read for pleasure much because you spend all day reading for school. So whenever I hear or read about a book I want to read, I add it to my big list of books, hoping that some day I'll have a chance to read. After a semester of reading thousands of pages of dense text, I'm looking forward to making as big a dent in my gigantic list as possible.

My library also has a surprisingly cool option to check out books electronically and read them on your iPhone. You just do it all online, and then when your rental is over, the book just disappears and you don't even have to remember to return it! Not that it's hard to return books here, since there are a bazillion branches of the library and I can return my books to any branch, but...

(Bragging? Me?? Sure. There are some fantastic perks to living in a giant city. One is the library. Another is having anything you want delivered day or night. Jealous? Come visit me.)

I'm also hoping to get out of the city for a weekend or two this summer and maybe do some camping with some friends from church. It is so, so beautiful here, and I'm ready to explore!

At the end of the summer, I have a small break between my internship ending and school beginning, and I'm toying with the idea of flying to Utah for a quick visit. It's an expensive time to fly, but I will have a new nephew by then, and I sure do love my nephews...

All in all, I suspect it will be a fantastic couple of months, even if it is a bit of a sauna in this grand city.

Motivation

My very first job was working at a fast food restaurant. (Side note: there is enough material from that job to write not just a blog, but a memoir, I swear...) One of the assistant managers at the restaurant was a guy named Dan. Occasionally, Dan would yell, "Where is my motivation??" And we'd all reply (with varying levels of enthusiasm, depending on what had happened so far that day), "Go, Dan, go!"

I'm working here on a really, really unpleasant project, and all I want to do is sleep and go to the park and watch TV and sleep some more. That memory from my first job keeps popping into my head, and I sigh to myself, as Dan did periodically, "Where is my motivation??"

I seem to have run out of motivation from this long, long semester. I think I need a vacation to recharge. Or maybe just some Timbits. Or both. Who wants to come visit me?? 

Such A Waste

Ever since I moved to NYC, I've been totally fascinated by the various people that one passes in the subway stations. There are many people, and I have many favorites that I don't have time to talk about today.

The one that's on my mind lately is a pretty big group of people, but there are just a handful of women that I see more than the others. I like to refer to them as the "Holy-God-Will-Bring-Judgment-Day Ladies" since they all have big signs that say "Holy God Will Bring Judgment Day." As long as I've known them, they've been patiently handing out pamphlets in the subway stations letting everyone know that Judgment Day is upon us, arriving on May 21st. They are 100% sure that this Saturday will be the end of the world. Well, not technically. They say all of the very righteous will be sucked up into heaven this Saturday, then there will be a massive earthquake that will shake the whole earth, and then over the next five months, everyone who is left will be destroyed as the world and universe are demolished, ending some time in October in the total annihilation of everything.  Their method of arriving at this date is quite complex, but they're quite certain, and totally not shaken by the verse in the bible that talks about no man knowing the day.

Anyway, I have to say, Saturday is a REALLY bad day for the world to end for me. I mean, come on. If the world is going to end, couldn't that happen BEFORE I spend two weeks taking finals instead of the day AFTER I finish?

Final number three tomorrow, final number four on Friday. Almost there!

Strangely Disappointed

I saw a headline to a New York Times article today called "A Disputed Surgery Helped Colon's Comeback."

When I clicked on the link, I found out it was about a person named Colon, not someone's colon having a comeback because of a disputed surgery. I was instantly less fascinated by this crazy headline, once I discovered that it was not, in fact, crazy at all.

The Finals Countdown

*cue the music*

Yep, folks, it's that time once again! FINALS!! I always tell people that finals are the victory lap after the big semester of learning. This semester, I'm very excited for my classes to end. I had one class where I didn't care for the subject (but was required to take it), a class where I didn't care for the professor, a class with a ton of assigned reading, and a lot of other things going on.

But now, the end is here! Classes ended last week, and I've been hunkered down in my apartment, doing my best to study. My first final is tomorrow (2:00 pm EDT, for those of you who pray/think nice thoughts/cross fingers). My second final is Friday morning. Then I have the weekend to prepare for my next final, on Tuesday, and then two days to prepare for my last final, Friday morning. Then I will be DONE with my first year of law school. I can't believe it! It feels like I have a lot to do before it's all done, so I'll still be pretty busy over the next few days. Both of my exams this week are closed book, which is rough for law school, and having the two of them right in a row is a bit overwhelming, but it'll be over in a few days!

I was just doing some reading when my textbook for the course with the exam tomorrow dove off my couch, into the trashcan. I think this is a sign. Time to stop studying. :) Or time to take out the trash. One or the other.

Law School Tidbit: Contracts II

We were reading a case in Contracts about the broken levees in New Orleans after Hurricane Katrina. The plaintiffs in the case were suing their insurance companies, who refused to cover the losses because "flooding" was excluded. The reasoning is kind of long, so I won't bore you with it, but the bottom line is that the levy breaking counted as flooding, so the people lost the case.

Professor: What's your remedy? Well, it's not law; it's Brad Pitt. Life's not all bad.

Law School Tidbit: Criminal Law

Early in the semester, after having a student give the facts of a case, the professor notes what he thought was missing:


 “You left out the most important fact of the case: everyone was really drunk. For most of our cases, you can just take that as a given background fact.”

And that has turned out to be so true.