Read everything, skip nothing
So I finally fucked up this past week and it was the scariest thing of law school so far. The night before class, I was tired and I was trying to finish my 60 pages of readings so I skimmed over the last few pages of my last readings. In the notes of one case, another case was mentioned. I highlighted the main point of the case and finished. In class, my professor called on another student and had them stand up and brief the case. Had that been me, I definitely would've stammered through it trying to remember who was suing who and why, therefore definitely pissing off my professor.The moral of this story is to brief every case, not just the main ones. At least I had read through the notes of the main case, which you should always do. And read the footnotes. It's awkward in class when the girl besides you asks a question and the professor just says, "If you read the footnotes you would've known the answer." I'm just super happy that I wasn't called on and I hope my professor didn't pick up on my initial oh shit panicked look when he brought up the case.
About living alone
I've wanted to live on my own for a year now, and law school was the perfect excuse to. There's definitely some pros and cons to it.
Pros
- You can study comfortably at home without being bothered
- Your house is just as tidy or messy as you want it to be
- No one will steal your food
- No one will keep you up or wake you up before you want to
- No one wasting electricity
Cons
If you do live by yourself, your main concern should be to not be on the ground floor and if you do to not face the street. My window is at ground-level, right by the street and I'm still not comfortable with that yet. Sometimes I'll stay up until 2 AM because my AC kicks on and the rattle makes me paranoid that someone is trying to break in, even though I know the AC is on.
Also, your bills won't necessarily go down as much as you think they will. The city will charge you for basic amenities such as garbage disposal and sewage in addition to your utilities. You also won't have anyone to split the cable and wifi bill with. I've found the easiest way to save money is to unplug all your crap! Little things like leaving your straightener plugged in all day still uses electricity, even if it's not on. In my living room, I have a power strip with my TV, DVD player, cable box, wifi, and printer all plugged in so I can easily flip off the switch on my power strip before I go to bed and flip it back on when I get home from school the next afternoon because I use none of that in the mornings.
It can be pretty lonely at first. When you first get to a new town and know no one, you get home and might not talk to anyone unless someone happens to call you. This doesn't exactly help you adjust to your new life.
Getting in reading shape
My classes are thinning out a little. The first day of class there was only maybe 10 seats empty in each class, and now there's almost complete rows that are empty. Twice already a professor has called someone from the roll sheet and they weren't in class. And when signing in, I noticed that a good number of people had only signed in only 1 or 2 times. I don't know if people are dropping like flies because they decided that law school isn't for them or if they're already skipping class.
Also, did I mention that 80% of law school is reading?
I'm an avid reader and have even been in a book club before, but I've never done this much reading in my life. I've heard the advice to start reading scholarly books and other hard books the summer before law school to get you used to it, but honestly I think that'd just burn you out. Reading for class every day is like making yourself get in shape. You run and you run and think wow I must've ran like 2 miles by now at least, and then you realize it's only been two blocks. There should be a term for getting in reading shape.
I'm an avid reader and have even been in a book club before, but I've never done this much reading in my life. I've heard the advice to start reading scholarly books and other hard books the summer before law school to get you used to it, but honestly I think that'd just burn you out. Reading for class every day is like making yourself get in shape. You run and you run and think wow I must've ran like 2 miles by now at least, and then you realize it's only been two blocks. There should be a term for getting in reading shape.
More money, more problems
So I finally got approved for another loan, and it's making my head spin. I'm very upset that I would be borrowing $27,000 and paying back almost $50,000. And that's not including the government loan I already took out! Or my other two years of school!! Holy crap I'm going to have to sell my soul and be a corporate lawyer just to pay off these loans. My sister mentioned that after I get a new car, my parents will be putting the title in my name so maybe next year I could put the title of my car up to get better interest rates. But gambling with a new car is scary too! These are my rate and payment options from the Sallie Mae site, and that's with my dad cosigning.
I'm literally going to be living alone, ground level, facing a side street. Ahhhh the terror.
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