Weekly Recap #1

So I've officially completed my first week of law school. So how was it? Well I'll tell you what I told my mom, "it feels like I'm learning how to tread water, but I've always known how." Now you're probably thinking, "what the hell is she talking about!" Well I've always wanted to do this and I know that sounds horribly cliched, but it's true and I think that this is what I've been put on Earth to do. This is my Personal Destiny and it's something I really want and "When you want something, all the universe conspires in helping you to achieve it." (That quote is from The Alchemist by Paulo Coleho and if you never do anything else in life, you should read this book.)

So you probably don't want to hear about that, you want to hear about my first week. So I have Civil Procedure, Contracts, LP (which is the traditional lawyer skills class everyone eventually takes), and Torts. So as far as Contracts goes I have no earthly idea what is going on, but I will continue to take notes and wait as the "big picture" reveals itself. (Everyone tells me that this will happen so I'm gonna wait and see). In Civil Procedure and Torts I'm not lost and I'm even having fun. I mean did you know that the United States can sue property (money, treasure, etc.)? I mean that just flabbergasts me, but after speaking with an upperclassperson I understand why it would be done (in some cases). And in LP, well we haven't really done much.

So my advice from my experiences so far:

• Get the locker. I did and it's saving my life. I mean if I wanted to I could leave my bookbag alone until it's time to go home.
• For the basic things (such as the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure) look to the Westlaw and LexisNexis tables. I got two free copies (one for school, one for home). How greedy you say? Not really because these companies will eventually bleed me dry to allow me to use their search engines. Save some for the others you say? These companies are currently bleeding hundreds of thousands of attorneys dry to use their precious search engines so they have an excess of these things (just think everytime one is taken, the rep wil lsimply replace them with two more).
• Don't join everything right away. I am sitting back and just observing and I haven't "joined" any student organizations yet, but I've applied for a mentor (which requires mandatory meetings) and signed up for small group sessions (which meet every other week) so I've got some stuff filling my plate. I've singled out one group that I may like to join and I'm going to go to an informational meeting (and get free lunch) soon and make a decision.
• Use Google Calendar. I use it and have a widget on my desktop and that will show anything I've put into my calendar for the next seven days. So it's always there.
• Enjoy the time that you have to yourself. Learn to relax and decompress during that time because other people will be super high strung and if you're not careful it will rub off on you.
• Listen to those who have already jumped in the water when they tell you the water's fine (and believe them when they tell you there are no sharks).
• Have fun. You're not paying $150,000+ to come out with some sort of depression or anxiety. Relax and accept things as they come and you will be fine.

So that's it. Now I'm going to start my one post per week rule and if something exciting or important happens I may have more than one per week. But in closing I want to say good luck to all the other 1L's out there, hang in there to all the 2L's and 3L's, and congrats to all those who just took the bar.