School Supplies Review

I thought I would do a follow up on which of the school supplies I bought at the beginning of the school year were useful and which weren't.

• eBags Router Wheeled Laptop Convertible: I used this bag everyday. It holds a lot: I could fit my laptop, two casebooks, assorted smaller supplements and my lunch bag in it along with all the necessary accessories. There are a lot of pockets and I used all of them. The pockets on either side of the retractable handle were good for an umbrella and my laptop power cord. The side pockets were good for water bottles or thermoses. The front pockets were good for organizing all the other miscellanea, like pens, highlighters, cellphone, etc. The bag rolls really smoothly, although towards the end of the year the wheels got a little noisier. The only problem I have with the bag is that it is pretty large and heavy. There are other bags that hold just as much that are not as big and heavy. However it has held up really well to daily use and still looks almost brand new.


• Elle Essentials - Christy Lunch Bag: I used this bag pretty much everyday as well. I could fit several gladware type containers in it for my lunch and snacks throughout the day. I like the way it looks, but this ended up not being at all important because I usually stuffed it into my backpack rather than carry it separately because the straps are not quite long enough to carry it over my shoulder. The shape of the bag worked well for being stuffed into my backpack because it is not very tall and fits in my bag on top of the books.


• Skullcandy Proletariat Noise Canceling Headphones: I didn't use these at all. They seemed a little too conspicuous and I usually didn't need to block out noise to study -- I can read cases with background noise. When I did need to block out some particularly loud or distracting conversations nearby I just used a pair of earbud headphones and some Brian Eno and that worked fine. I think these are probably best for listening to movies or music on an airplane.


• BookBuddy - Students Choice! BookStand-Snaps in a 3-Ring-Binder: I didn't use this either. Although it might have been better for my neck if I had, I need my book lying down flat so I can highlight it.


• Classic Collegiate Edition Weekly Wire Bound Planner - Aug 07 - Jul 08: This I used everyday. The weekly planner has just the right amount of space to keep track of classes and other appointments as well as to-dos. This was my main way of keeping track of reading and assignments as well as meetings and appointments. I still used my google calendar for appointments also, but having a paper planner is more useful when you are not constantly in front of a computer.


• Classic Julie Morgenstern Time Map: This was also pretty useful. I used it to create my weekly reading schedule for the semester, for example I would block out time to complete each reading assignment (for example on Thursday afternoon I had blocked out time to read for Tuesday and Wednesday's property class) and then each week I would refer to that schedule to fill in all my reading assignments. Of course a few weeks into the semester I didn't really need it anymore to figure out my schedule, but it was still useful to have just for planning purposes at the beginning of the semester.


• Sharpie Accent Retractable Highlighters Assorted 8 pack: These I used, but when they ran out I just bought standard yellow highlighters. I didn't need all those colors and even though they were retractable they ran out really fast. I still do occasionally use different color highlighters to highlight the case names in the notes or the name of the judge who wrote the opinion, depending on whether that's necessary for the particular class (It was mostly necessary in con law, not so much in the other classes), but for general highlighting I just use yellow.

School Supplies

I mentioned recently that I had been shopping for school supplies. I thought those of you who are also starting school soon might like to know what I bought. So here are the supplies I got for law school:

• eBags Router Wheeled Laptop Convertible: This bag might make me look like a big nerd, but I don't care. I am going to be walking a mile each way to school and bringing my books home at night since I will be coming home at 4:30 and resuming studying after the little guy goes to bed and I don't want to carry all those heavy books and my laptop on my back.


• Elle Essentials - Christy Lunch Bag: This bag is super cute and might make up for the wheelie backpack. It is insulated and has a zipper on top to keep everything cool (or warm). It can hold a couple small tupperware containers with an ice pack and a few other small items, and a 20 oz bottle of water lying down on top of everything. The strap is just long enough to carry the bag on my shoulder.


• Skullcandy Proletariat Noise Canceling Headphones: I am to use them when studying in the library to cut down on distracting noise. I haven't really put them to the test yet, but they had good reviews on Amazon. When I tried them briefly in my living room they did cut out a lot of background noise, but did not silence the sound of the little guy crying, so I don't know how helpful they will be if someone is having a loud conversation near me. I'll let you know if these are worth it after I've done some field testing.


• BookBuddy - Students Choice! BookStand-Snaps in a 3-Ring-Binder: This is another product whose useful I cannot really attest to yet. TopLawStudent recommended getting a book stand "to hold up your large casebooks during long study sessions" and this one had good reviews and is small and inexpensive so I figured I would try it out.


• Classic Collegiate Edition Weekly Wire Bound Planner - Aug 07 - Jul 08: This is the planner I got. It has each week over two pages and each day of the week has a place for daily tasks and a place to write appointments, but there are no times pre-filled in for you, which I prefer. I got a cheap vinyl cover for this at Office Depot that will protect it and hold a pen.


• Classic Julie Morgenstern Time Map: I will use these time maps to map out my weekly schedule, filling in my class times, study times, workout times and times at home with the little guy and with hubby. This will save me having to put these routine events on my calendar and will help me figure out what I should be doing at any given time. This came with 10 blank time maps as well as a pouch that snaps into my planner so I can use it as a bookmark to the current week.


• Sharpie Accent Retractable Highlighters Assorted 8 pack: Oh yes, highlighters. Retractable so they won't dry out as quickly and in lots of colors.

Counting down

It is now about 85 hours until my first law school class. I got my schedule a few days earlier than expected -- they posted them online yesterday. I am really happy with mine. The timing of the classes is perfect for the schedule that we worked out with our nanny, and, get this, after the first three weeks of Legal methods (which is morning and afternoon Monday through Friday) I have no classes on Friday! I have Torts and Contracts in the morning Monday through Thursday and Civ Pro in the afternoon Monday through Wednesday, and our legal practice workshop on Thursday afternoon. I have two and a half hours free in the middle of the day Monday through Wednesday which will be good for going to the gym or the library. My professors look good too. I was reading the comments from former students and they are all pretty positive. Prof Legal Methods is said to be a good introduction to the Socratic method, Prof Civ Pro apparently is really good at explaining difficult concepts, and Prof Contracts apparently has an economics slant. Prof Torts is an unknown since he is a visiting professor and Prof Legal Practice Workshop is new, so he is also an unknown.

In other news, things went really well with the nanny this week. She and the little guy got along well. Wednesday I showed her where everything is and went over the little guy's routine. Thursday they went for a short trip to the park and Friday they went to the Children's Museum. I am very comfortable leaving the little guy with her. So now I am really ready to start school.

Miscellanea

It is less than a week now until school starts. I have been buying school supplies and trying to get a few last things done. Many of my future classmates have arrived in town and have been arranging various informal get-togethers. So far I haven't participated in any. I think maybe I just want to have this last week of family time before law school takes over my life. I am, however, planning on going to a wine and cheese tasting being held by my school's women's group later this week and I might go to the Student Senate sponsored party Saturday night. We'll see.

I got portraits done of the little guy last week. He was very cute. He just got his second tooth on the bottom and now the first one on the top is already coming through. It's weird that it was two months between the first and second tooth and only two weeks between the second and third tooth. Maybe they'll keep accelerating and we'll get done with this teething business in the next couple weeks. Hah!

We also applied for passports for myself and the little guy last week. We have a trip to Mexico with my family planned for winter break so, with all the delays in getting passport applications processed lately, we figured we needed to do it before school starts.

Our nanny is starting tomorrow. She will be coming for just three hours a day for the next three days to give the little guy a chance to get used to her and her to us before she starts for real next week.

Finally, we just found out that the little guy has a mild allergy to eggs. They seem to give him a rash and a blood test confirmed he has egg antibodies, or whatever. It is probably something he will grow out of, but for now we need to avoid eggs.

Two Weeks to Go

My law school orientation starts in twelve days. It is only two days long, so it is now exactly two weeks until my law school classes start. It really hit me the other night that in two weeks I will be walking into a law school classroom as a law school student. I could see the classroom and everything. I am still feeling some intermittent anxiety about school. I think the comparison I made in the post I just linked to with pregnancy is really appropriate. The decision was made a long time ago, but I have this long gestation period before anything happens. And, for me, having a long time to think with nothing much to do leads to anxiety. Anyway, I will be fine in two weeks when school actually starts and I am busy.

The first three weeks will just be Legal Methods which is like Intro to Law School and is a pass-fail class. After Labor Day the rest of the classes (Contracts, Torts, Civil Procedure) start. Unfortunately we do not get our schedules until the first day of orientation, so I can't make plans for how I am going to spend my days or look up what prior students said about my professors or buy books. Oh well, it is probably for the best... I would be obsessing over everything if I had my schedule. As it is I am forced to do other things, like buy highlighters and a lunch bag and a planner.

By the way, my time and task management system has changed somewhat since this post. I am still using Life Balance, but I am no longer using Rainlendar. Instead I reinstalled Google Desktop (it came installed on my Dell and I had uninstalled it) and have a google calendar gadget in my sidebar. I am also using Mozilla's Sunbird to view and edit my Google Calendar. I tried to use Sunbird a while ago and could not get it to work properly with Google Calendar, but now, with the Provider for Google Calendar add-on, it does. So I can access my calendar in my sidebar, in a desktop application or on the web. I like that. Also I have decided to get a paper planner as well so I don't have to pull out the laptop every time I think of something I need to do or want to check what I am supposed to be doing. I got a weekly planner that has the week over two pages and no times so that I can just enter stuff free form. I think I will use it mostly to write down my most important tasks for the day (Life Balance will help me figure out what those are), things I think of when I am not at the laptop, and events that I want to go to.

Recurring Dreams

I have been having school related dreams lately, but, for some reason, in my dreams being in school always means living in the dorms, even though I won't be living in the dorms and the last couple times I attended school I didn't live in dorms. I think it must be because I feel like law school is going to take over my whole life more than school did the last couple times I matriculated.

Anyway, a couple nights ago I had this dream that I was coming back to the dorms (the dorms in this dream were the dorms I lived in as an undergrad) and coming up to the guard desk and I couldn't find my ID. I don't know if I lost it or if I didn't have it yet because school had just started, but I got delayed at the guard desk and while I was standing there talking to the guard I heard the little guy crying from my room and a woman at the guard desk heard it too. She said, "Oh, a baby!" and I said "That's MY baby!" I think at that point she let me through. Then when I got up to the floor that my room was on I couldn't figure out which room was mine. I had the room number but I couldn't decipher it, it was like 7G9 or something like that and I didn't know what it meant (not being able to find my dorm room has been another recurring theme in my dreams lately). So, I finally find the room and go in and the little guy is crying in his crib and I feel horrible for leaving him alone.

I had another dream a while back where I was living in the dorms and sharing a room with a couple other people and hubby and the little guy were not living with me and were living in separate places. The little guy was in some kind of nursery and I went to visit him there and was so sad that he was living in this institutional-type place. I remember saying, "WHY isn't there some place where we can all live together?!?"

I guess my subconscious is expressing the fear that I might be abandoning my family in some way by going to law school. I know I'm not, but I guess it's all related to what I was talking about last week -- the feeling that I won't be able to be a good mother if I am doing something else. Anyway, I know that, for me, I have to do something else or I won't be a good anything, but it is still there.

Ready

With just over a month until law school my earlier anxiety is gone and now I am feeling ready, even eager, to start. I went shopping last week and bought some new clothes that fit -- I have lost some weight recently and now weigh less than I did before I was pregnant, so everything I owned was too big -- which has probably added to my confidence level.

I am also getting back in to reading some books from my pre-law reading list. I finished Gideon's Trumpet, which was good, although at times it seemed padded with a little too much basic info on the Supreme Court. But I was unfamiliar with the history of the right to a lawyer and Gideon himself was an interesting guy, so I thought it was a worthwhile read even though it was fairly light. I have now returned to A History of American Law. It is a long and pretty dense book, but I think that it would be useful to have that background and if I read just 10 pages a day I will be able to finish it before school starts. I am actually aiming for 20 pages a day though, because I would like to have time to read something else before school starts as well.

There are a few minor law school related tasks to attend to before school starts, like completing my student loan entrance interview online (I actually already did this but the financial aid office doesn't seem to have a record of it, so I sent them the email confirmation I got and have to follow up with them on that next week), getting in touch with the person responsible for certifying my enrollment to the VA so I can get my GI Bill benefits, and signing up for or submitting a waiver for the student insurance. I won't find out what professors I have or what my schedule will be until the first day of orientation (although I may be able to find out a few days earlier online), so I can't buy books or start filling in my weekly schedule or anything like that yet. I do have the schedule for orientation though. Ours is just two days, and the second day is optional, but highly recommended. I plan on attending both days, but will probably skip the evening stuff so I can get home in time to relieve the nanny and put the little guy to bed.

Duplication of Effort and Inconsistencies

My school has now created four separate websites for the entering class. First the admissions office gave us the admitted students page, then they gave us a bulletin board so we could get to know each other and look for roommates. Then the student services office created a site about orientation and enrolling. Finally they created another site where we could post our profiles and chat. Not only are there four completely separate websites, but each has a separate login. In addition, because the bulletin board created by the admissions office was pretty lame, some students created a Facebook group. So there are potentially three different places for students to post profiles and chat among ourselves and two places to look for information on the enrollment requirements.

Another weird thing... we had to send in a picture of ourselves that will be used for the hard copy facebook and given to the professors for seating charts. They asked for a passport sized picture. If you mailed it in they had a form with a little box showing that the picture should be 2 x 2.5 inches. But if you emailed it to them the requirements were different. If you were scanning it in they said it should be scanned to 3"x5" at 300 dpi. Which is weird because 3x5 is a totally different ratio than 2x2.5. Then if you sent in a digital camera picture, they said it should be at least 2000 pixels wide, which is strange because 3x5 at 300 dpi is only 900x1500 pixels. I sent them a digital camera picture that I cropped to 3x5 at 300 dpi. Based on what I heard from the various discussion boards they were pretty much accepting whatever they got, so it probably didn't matter, but I found the inconsistent requirement confusing.

A little anxiety

In my last trimester of pregnancy, as it became increasingly obvious that there was a baby inside of me after all, the reality of my situation hit home and I began to wonder what I had gotten myself into. Maybe it was all a big mistake, maybe I wasn't cut out to be a parent. I am having a similar feeling now, with less than two months until law school starts. What have I gotten myself into? Am I really up for this? Am I really going to be able to handle school and family? Am I going to feel out of place with my classmates? I've thought about these things before, but law school is really starting to feel real now and that changes everything. I thought I had a pretty good feel for what law school is like from reading all these law school blogs and everything, but suddenly I feel like I don't have any idea what it is going to be like. I think I am feeling this anxiety now because there is really nothing for me to do before law school starts. Having things to do keeps my brain occupied, but now that my to-do list is basically empty my brain has nothing to do but worry. Not that I am worrying that much, but when I stop and think about law school now there is anxiety.

I have also joined my class' Facebook group and reading the discussions there has made me feel out of place among all the recent grads. Probably the Facebook group skews younger than our class as a whole. At the admitted students' days I met at least two people who graduated from college the same year as me and at least one of them was pretty set on going to my school, but I don't know what their ultimate decisions were. Anyway I have always known I would be one of the oldest people in my class, but that hadn't really concerned me until now. When I was in the Air Force I was older than most of the people that I worked with, but that never bothered me and they didn't generally notice. Now it is different though because I am married and have a child, it is that more than my age that will set me apart. I am not just worried about what my classmates will think of me though, I am also worried about whether I am really going to be able to keep up with law school and do all the things I want to do without completely sacrificing my family life. I know people do -- I have several examples in my blogroll -- but it still worries me.


At the same time, I am enjoying these last couple months of spending my days with the little guy. He's starting to be pretty fun -- he can do more stuff and is more expressive. We go to the park now almost every day. I found a couple of playgrounds that are not crowded in the mornings and I can let him crawl around on the equipment without fear of being trampled by shrieking kids. And with everything all set for law school I can really focus on him. That is what I am trying to do, instead of letting my brain think of all the things that might go wrong, or all the ways I might fail at being a law school student or a mother.

We Have a Nanny!

So, after talking with her references, all of whom said she was wonderful, we offered the nanny we interviewed last week the job and she accepted. So childcare is now arranged for the school year. The current plan is that she will care for the little guy from 10:30-4:30 Monday through Friday. I won't get my class schedule until the first day of orientation, but the fall schedule of classes is online, and there is no class that goes later than 4pm, except a possible class from 4-5 on Friday afternoons. If I have the misfortune to be placed in that class then we will have to adjust our schedule slightly, but, otherwise, I should be able to be home by 4:30 every day. I anticipate leaving for school around 8 in the morning, perhaps right after putting the little guy down for his morning nap, so hubby will only have to watch him from when he wakes up from his nap (around 9:30 or 10) until 10:30, when the nanny arrives. I think it will work out well. I should get to spend a couple hours with the little guy in the morning and a couple in the evening before bed.

With that taken care of, my To Do list is pretty empty. I already sent the school everything they need to enroll me: transcripts, immunization records, etc. So now I can just relax for the rest of the summer, enjoy spending time with the little guy, and maybe get some more reading done. Speaking of the little guy, he's going to be 11 months next week and he is getting close to walking. He has been using a plastic file box and the dining room chairs as walkers: he pulls himself up on them, then pushes them forward and takes a step, pushes, steps, etc. He can go pretty far that way. I will often hold onto the back of the chair while he is holding on to the side of the seat and move it slowly along and he walks along with it. He also has been practicing standing up without holding on to anything. He only does it for a couple seconds at a time, but I know that very soon he will be running around. And in not too long he will be talking. It's exciting to see all this stuff happening right before our eyes.

Progress Report: Childcare Search

After my last post on finding childcare we decided that, rather than look for a family daycare for the little guy, we would look for a nanny. I just decided I wasn't that comfortable with the idea of a family daycare, and all the daycare centers I found are already full for the coming school year. Most nannies I have spoken with charge $12-15/hour and, since we will only need her for 30 hrs/week (since hubby will watch the little guy in the mornings), a nanny is actually cheaper than the daycare centers I looked at (although still probably more expensive than a family daycare), and she can also help us keep up with some daily chores, like dishes and sweeping/vacuuming, which is a big bonus.

So, I put an ad on craigslist for a nanny to care for the little guy starting in August. We got many responses, but only a few were promising. I made a list of my top three or four candidates and started calling them. The first two I spoke with sounded good on the phone, but one never sent me her references and the other one's references didn't check out (I spoke to one reference, but I got the feeling it was her mother or some other relative; the other number she gave me was a wrong number, and after I emailed her to see if I had written it down wrong she never got back to me). Another candidate did not want to work in our neighborhood.

But there was one candidate was at the top of my list almost from the beginning: she was one of the few who actually sent me a resume, even though I specifically asked for one in my ad, she had worked for a couple of families with children the same age as the little guy, and she worked for both of those families for more than two years, she also recently completed her AA degree. We met her yesterday and we liked her. I have spoken to one of her references so far and she gave me a glowing recommendation. So we are thinking she is the one. I still have a couple more references to talk to and we will do a background check, but I don't expect anything bad to turn up.

So hopefully she will work out and we will be all set for childcare for the year. I am still thinking that I will probably put him into a daycare next year, when he's 2, since I will be able to submit applications early enough to possibly get him in to one of the daycare centers(most of the ones I looked at have a winter application deadline for the following fall) and at that point he would probably get more from being around the other kids and in a more structured environment.

Book Review: The Lost Children of Wilder

A couple days ago I finished The Lost Children of Wilder: The Epic Struggle to Change Foster Care. Although at first the writing style annoyed me, about half way through the story started to pick up some momentum and I began to get into it. The book uses the story of Shirley Wilder and her son Lamont Wilder, both of whom spent their entire childhood in foster care, to illustrate the problems with New York's foster care system and foster care generally. In addition the book follows the case bearing Shirley Wilder's name and Marcia Lowry, the lawyer who brought the case against the city and the religious foster care agencies. It is a powerful story and it really demonstrates what a difficult and emotionally charged problem the care of children who's parents are not able to care for them is.

One of the main things I got out of this book was a better understanding of how children end up in foster care. I had assumed that children in foster care came exclusively from homes where they were abused or intentionally neglected, but the author makes clear that many children end up in foster care simply because their parents cannot afford to care for them. This is a failure of our society, rather than a failure on the part of the parents and is more proof that for all our talk of "family values" we don't value families enough to take care of them. It is so odd that we would rather pay strangers to care for a child than give the child's own parents the assistance they need to raise the child themselves.

There really wasn't a happy ending and the case itself seemed to do little to really bring about change other than focusing attention on the problem (which certainly isn't nothing as the attention did bring about changes, but few changes were achieved through the law). In a way it was kind of discouraging because this issue is one I am interested in, but the book left me with the feeling that even if I dedicated my life to improving the lives of children in foster care, as Marcia Lowry did, I might, in the end, feel that I hadn't accomplished anything.

Looking Back and Ahead

Back in January I shared my goals for this semester. Since the semester seems to be over for almost everybody who was in school I figured I would go back and see how I did, and maybe set some new goals for the summer.

These were my goals for this semester:

• Keep my son alive and healthy: He has now completely recovered from last week's stomach bug, and, other than being extra cranky due to teething (finally!), is doing well, so check.


• Keep my son from torturing the dog: Check. We actually had an incident where my dog snapped at my son, not because the baby was torturing her, but just because she was in a tight space with the baby crawling toward her and she felt trapped, so now I keep them well apart.


• Do my taxes: Check!


• Fill out financial aid applications: Check!


• Decide which law school to go to in the fall: Check!


• Sell our house: Check!


• Find a place to live: Check!


• Do some reading to prepare for law school: define "some."


• Go see a movie with hubby: as zuska predicted, this was the hardest -- we have not been to a movie.

So for this summer my main goal is to find daycare for the little guy. I have a list of family daycares near me that accept children his age, so I need to start calling them to see if they have any openings. It looks like hubby is going to be able to start working from home soon, which means that hopefully we will be able to work it out so that the little guy isn't in daycare for more than about 6 hours a day. In the morning hubby can keep an eye on the little guy while checking email and doing some of the more mundane tasks of his job, then drop him off at daycare around 10 or 11, and hopefully I will be done with school around 4 or so and can pick him up then. I'm hoping that the family daycares can be fairly flexible about when we drop off and pick up the little guy so that if I have a particularly long or short day, or hubby needs more baby-free time to get things done that we will be able to adjust our schedule.

(By the way, I am going to try calling my son "the little guy" or maybe "LG" for short, because "my son" and "the baby" sound so impersonal and DS is so un-original).

Installing Software for Law School, Part II

Aside from taking notes, the other important thing I need my laptop to do for me is help me keep track of what I need to be doing for my classes, for any other activities I get involved in, and also to take care of myself and my family. So, a good task management program and calendar is essential. And, for me at least, I think that task management is more important than a calendar. I may change my mind about this once school starts and I have a lot more things going on, but I feel like a program that helps me be productive during my unscheduled time is more important than a program that keeps track of my scheduled events. So these are the programs I have installed to help me manage my time:

Life Balance -- This is a great task management program which is available for Windows, Mac, and Palm. It is not cheap, but I haven't found anything else that has the features that this program has. The program allows you to break your goals down into tasks and sub-tasks, and sub-sub-tasks, ad infinitum. It allows you to specify whether tasks must be completed in order -- i.e. if one of your tasks is to write a paper, you might break it down into "pick a topic," "do research" and "write an outline," etc, and then specify that those tasks must be done in order, so that the program doesn't tell you to write an outline before you have even picked your topic. It lets you specify places for your tasks and even specify hours that those places are open -- so if one of your tasks is to go to the bank that task will only come up when the bank is open and you could actually go there. You can specify whether each task is a one time thing, something that has to be done by a due date, something that has to be done at a certain time (an appointment), or something that has to be done routinely (like once a week) and then you can set how much lead time you need for each task so that the program can start reminding you to do your task in time for you to get it done. You can probably tell I really like this program -- I haven't even mentioned the balancing part of Life Balance, but you can find out about that on their website.

Rainlendar -- Although Life Balance can keep track of appointments, that is not really what it is best at, so I do need some kind of calendar program. I chose Rainlendar because it is a great little program that I can keep open on my desktop all the time that provides a visual representation of the events on my calendar, and because it is free. It looks like a gadget, and I wish it were because I keep it on the right side where the windows sidebar is and sometimes the sidebar interferes with me being able to click on it. Anyway, I love the little icons and the way the days can be displayed in different colors depending on what type of things are going on that day. Also, it is pretty easy to customize the display -- I took the skin it came with and changed it just a little to be more appropriate for me (i.e. less business categories, more school categories). Rainlendar uses standard iCalendar format, can display multiple calendars, and, if you buy the pro version, can display online calendars and Outlook appointments.

New Laptop: What I'm Installing for Law School

I am writing this post on my new laptop. It arrived on Monday and I have spent all week un-installing and installing and moving files and generally making it my own. Since this laptop is primarily for school I have been looking for software that will help me be more efficient and productive once school starts. I am going to do several posts on software that I think will work well for law school. First up -- note taking software. I know there are a lot of different options out there, but these are two that I think will work well for me:

• Microsoft OneNote -- Actually I got Microsoft Office Home and Student 2007, which includes Word, Excel, PowerPoint and OneNote. I mentioned before the good deals on software from the Academic Superstore, but Amazon had the better price on this. Anyway, I have heard lots of good things about OneNote from other law student blogs, so I am going to try it out. I like the tabbed notebooks and the fact that you can type anywhere and include clippings from the web or wherever.


• ZuluPad -- This is a free text editor that works kind of like a wiki. You can create lots of pages that link to each other. What I like best is that this software creates links automatically when you type the name of a page. I was imagining using this for taking notes in class: say I have briefed a case and have a page with the case name as the title, then when I type that case name in my notes a link to my brief is automatically created, I could then click on the link to look at my brief in case I get called on, or just have it linked for reference when I am reviewing my notes. The main drawback to ZuluPad is that it is pretty much just a plain text editor. The $15 pro version has bold, italic and underline and lets you change the font (but it has to be the same font for the whole document), but I think that I am going to need more features than that.

In my next post I'll tell you what I've installed for time and task management.

My Laptop is on its way!

I emailed ExamSoft again this week and found out that they are now compatible with Vista, so I went ahead and ordered my laptop for school. I chose a Dell Inspiron E1405 because it's relatively small without being overly expensive, because Consumer Reports said that it has better battery life than the equivalent HP laptop, and because I've heard a lot of complaints about HP's service, not to mention my own hubby's negative experience with them. I didn't really consider anything other than Dell or HP, I don't know why -- I guess those are the brands I am most familiar with.

So, anyway, I got notice today that the laptop is now on its way and should arrive on Monday. I am really excited to have my own computer again. I have been using hubby's desktop for the last six months since we haven't really had space for two computers. This will be almost the first PC I have owned (I did briefly own a PC laptop that I got used about 9 years ago. I don't know what happened to it). I am a mac person. But I am comfortable with Windows too, and Vista looks pretty cool. I can't wait to get it all set up and make it my own!

One book down, twenty-three to go

So, it looks like my eyes are bigger than my brain, or something like that. I bought all these books, but at this point I rather doubt I will get to read them all before law school. In the last three months I have started five books and finished one. Of course the move and unpacking put a temporary halt to all reading, but now that we are pretty well settled I have been getting a little reading done in the evenings.

The one book I finished is Getting To Maybe. Although I won't truly be able to attest to the utility of this book until after my first exams in the fall, I think this was a good book to read before law school. The book demystifies law school exams, making them less intimidating. I think that alone is reason enough to read it before school starts. Another reason I think it was good to read it now is that, by understanding how law school exams work, I can know what to pay attention to in class and can study more effectively throughout the semester. Also, the book not only explains in great detail the kinds of questions you will see on law school exams and how to deal with them, it has good tips for taking notes, outlining and studying. I will definitely need to look at this book again as exams approach, because there was a lot of useful information in there.

I am currently reading The Lost Children of Wilder: the epic struggle to change foster care. The story of the little girl is heartbreaking, but the author's style is getting on my nerves. She starts in the middle, then jumps back in time to give background on the people involved, which I guess in itself isn't bad, but the way she does it just seems so formulaic, like somebody made a rule that you're not allowed to tell stories from beginning to end, instead you have to start with the characters in a car on their way to some important event, so that you create a drama and suspense immediately, then you go back and tell the whole story of how they got there. Anyway, the reason I am reading this book is that I was thinking it might get me excited about the end result of law school -- becoming a lawyer -- which is something I haven't been spending much time thinking about lately. But I might abandon this book and go back to something more practical. I'll keep you posted.

Laptop Dilemna

So, I want to buy a laptop for law school now so I have plenty of time to customize it and get comfortable with it by the fall, but the schools I am choosing between do not yet support Vista -- probably because Examsoft hasn't stated that they are compatible with Vista yet. I could just get a refurbished laptop with XP on it, but I want Vista and I don't want to have to pay more to upgrade later. I am almost positive that the schools will have to support Vista by the fall since all the new laptops have Vista on them now, but I don't want to take a chance on getting a laptop with Vista and then not being able to use it to take exams. So, anyway, the obvious thing to do is to just wait, but I hate waiting.

Movie Night

Now that our son is going to bed around 7pm, hubby and I have time to watch TV or movies in the evening, so we signed up for Netflix. They have a new plan that is only $5/month and you can get two movies per month. I think it will work out well for us. I don't think we can count on being able to watch more than two movies a month, but we should be able to watch two each month, so we should get our money's worth.

Anyway, the first movie we got was The Paper Chase because I had never seen it (well, neither had hubby, but he's not going to law school). I thought it was pretty good. It felt kind of abbreviated at times -- like there was a lot left out. I didn't really buy everybody freaking out about getting good grades so they could get jobs. I mean they're going to Harvard, surely they would all be able to find jobs when they graduate. From what I have heard students at the higher ranked schools tend to be more laid back than those at lower ranked schools. But maybe I'm wrong, or maybe it was different then. Also I didn't really get why Hart threw up after the first class. Kingsfield didn't seem particularly mean. Maybe Hart had just built up Kingsfield so much in his head before law school even started that it was just too much for him to be the first one called on and not prepared.

I'm not particularly afraid of the Socratic method. In my master's program I had a professor who called on people throughout class, but he never made a big deal of it if you didn't know the answer or looked in the book, and I actually like that he did that because it really kept me focused in class. I know the socratic method is not just calling on students, but as long as the professor isn't mean about it, I think it is a good thing. It will motivate me to be prepared and pay attention in class. Also, when the professor calls on you you are forced to actually process information rather than just passively receiving it as you would in a lecture, and that helps you learn and remember it. Just like creating your own outline rather than just reading someone elses helps you learn the material. When preparing for finals in my masters program I always liked to create a study sheet which was a single sheet of paper filled with little tables and definitions and other important points that I could study from. But the real benefit of the study sheet was that in creating it I had to go through all the information from class and pick out what was important and organize it -- doing that really helped me learn it.

The depiction of the study group in the movie was clearly not very positive, but that obviously would vary a lot depending on who you group up with. I tend to prefer to work alone, so I would probably not join a study group anyway, but I also think they were wrong to try to divide up the work the way they did. The main purpose of a study group, as I see it, is to give you the opportunity to discuss the material with eachother, which is another way of actively processing it and which can also help you learn and remember it. For example I have found that I remember things better after I have explained them to someone else.

So, as you can tell, I was mostly watching the movie for its depiction of law school. From what I had heard, I thought it was going to be more negative than it was, so actually I was pleasantly surprised. And now when people bring up The Paper Chase (e.g. at admitted students events), I will get the references.

Preparing for Law School: Reading Update

So, I have set aside A History of American Law for now in favor of Law 101: Everything You Need to Know about the American Legal System, which contains a very broad overview of the subjects taught during the first year of law school. I think this book is what I was looking for -- something that will familiarize me with the concepts and terms that I will be learning, without being too heavy or going into too much detail. But I also ordered a few books to go a little more in depth on the classes I will be taking in my first semester: Concepts and Case Analysis in the Law of Contracts, Torts in a Nutshell, and Civil Procedure in a Nutshell. I think these four books are going to be the extent of my preparation in terms of trying to partially pre-learn what I will be learning in law school. I also will be reading several books on skills that I will need for law school -- Introduction to the Study and Practice of Law in a Nutshell, Getting to Maybe, An Introduction to Legal Reasoning and Academic Legal Writing:. The rest of my reading will be for background (Gideon's Trumpet), about issues I am interested in (The Lost Children of Wilder: The Epic Struggle to Change Foster Care), or just for fun (The Best of Rumpole). See all the books I have so far here.