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.

Weekly MILS Roundup #5

This week's Moms in Law School Roundup is at PT-LawMom. Next week it will be at A Little Fish in Law School, and the following week it will be back here.

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.