Surfacing

I am officially done with my first year of law school, so I thought I'd post an update. I have a few more posts in draft stage that I plan to post over the next couple of weeks, then I guess we'll just see what happens after that. I definitely won't be as busy over the summer, but at the same time I probably won't have as much to post about.

The rest of first semester went fine. It was busy, but I wasn't overly stressed. The study period before exams was actually less stressful than the regular semester because we had a full week between our last class and our first exam. I only studied during the day and felt like it was just the right amount of time. I mostly studied at home which probably contributed to the somewhat relaxed feeling of study period. I have heard that there is a lot of tension in the air at school during study period so I'm glad I missed out on that. My exams went fine also. I walked out of each feeling pretty good but having no real idea of how I did. It seems impossible to know how you did on a test with no right answers and where your grade depends on how everyone else did.

The first week of the winter break was really busy with holiday stuff and then just after that settled down we took a trip to Mexico with my family. It wasn't exactly a relaxing vacation, in part because of the curious toddler and the non-baby-proofed hotel room and in part because we all got sick (not from the water or food or anything, just a bug we all passed around). Most of my grades came out while we were in Mexico, which I wasn't expecting (I'd been told not to expect them before February) and they were fine. Nothing stellar, but all above the curve.

Second semester started out a little rough. We got back from the trip one day before classes started, and then during the first (or was it second?) week of classes the little guy got a pretty bad stomach bug. I missed several classes to take him to the doctor and stay home with him. And, of course, I got sick too.

After we all recovered I started getting serious about my summer job search. I had sent out several applications before Christmas but hadn't heard from any body. I went to a job fair, I went on a bunch of interviews and I kept getting rejected. I had had a mock interview and the interviewer had told me I did well, so I don't think that my interviewing skills were the problem. I think I just wasn't what people were looking for. I was a 1L looking for a public interest job related to children with a background in government and information technology. I was counting on my community service experience to show my commitment to public service and interest in children's issues, but it wasn't super impressive. By March I was getting really worried that I wouldn't find anything. Luckily new jobs kept popping up on PSLawNet and so I kept sending out applications. I became expert at re-writing my cover letter as I broadened my search beyond what I though I originally wanted to do and I learned about some cool organizations. One of which I hope to work at next year. Anyway, I finally got a job in April, with three weeks of classes left, and I am really excited about it. I think that it is the perfect job for me this summer, I think I will be able to find a good note topic there, and I think it will help me get a job at the organization I want to work at next summer.

So anyway, I was distracted through much of second semester by the job search. I was less engaged in my classes second semester even though I would have thought that I would have been more interested in them than the first semester classes, just based on the subject matter. And it was not the fault of my professors. They were all really great and really engaging and entertaining. I think that I just had less energy and enthusiasm second semester. For that reason, and also because the job search and moot court stuff took up so much time, I felt that the second semester of law school was much harder than the first semester. I did get really stressed out and I think it affected me physically, because my stomach was acting weird for a couple months in March and April, I kept thinking I must be pregnant, but the pregnancy tests kept coming back negative. Anyway, that cleared up before exams. We had our full week of study period before exams again, although this time I had more to do because I hadn't really done any outlining during the semester, my notes were spotty in places, and I hadn't really briefed the cases. But I still felt that I had enough time to prepare and I think exams went fine. I haven't gotten my grades yet though, so who knows?

After exams I had a couple days off before the writing competition for law review. I got my hair cut, ran some errands and watched some TV. We had a week for the competition which was just an essay, no bluebooking. I spent about 24 hours total on it. Six hours the first day, then a one-day break with the little guy, and then four or five hours for each of the next four days. I feel pretty good about it. If I don't get on law review, I hope to get on the one specialty journal that I applied to.

And that brings us up to the present. I have a week off before I start my summer internship and will be spending it going to the park with the little guy and taking him to visit his cousin and his grandma.