Frequent Citations

Sleeeeeep and Bankruptcy

Last night I got a whole six hours of solid sleep in clean sheets. So nice!! So I slept in, so I'm not going running this morning. But today is my last day to learn Bankruptcy: I'll undoubtedly be doing much pacing while I'm trying to parse the Absolute Priority Rule out of 1129(b)(2)(B)(ii).

I'll be trying to remember to ask if it's a railroad. Is the property a seat on the Chicago Board of Trade? Is this Local Loan and the lien doesn't pass through, or is it Carrerra (Carerra? Carrera?) and it does?

Maybe it's just Moore v Bay--obscure.

Two Down And I'm About Out

One exam was identical to the practice questions the professor had handed out, and one exam was the old-fashioned closed book and no notes and no computer type. Both were brutal in their own special ways, but now all I have left is Bankruptcy on Saturday.

My head is aswirl with fraudulent conveyance and automatic stay and preferences and priorities. I have bits and pieces but nothing has really gelled. Worse, just when I think I've got something down it goes all wonky and I end up with more questions than I started with. My Code book is getting quite frayed, my table is awash with printouts and highlighters, and all I want to do is curl up and take a nap for about 3 days.

The keys to the place I'm taking for the summer never arrived, so that's a big worry in the back of my mind.

And Boy's graduation is this weekend and as far as I know, nothing is planned.

This would all be more fun if I didn't feel so totally ill. At least I didn't actually throw up during the Public Land and Resources exam this morning, so I'm grateful for small mercies. And my parents are arriving today so that will be wonderful--people will get fed!

Where's My Overdrive?

I need to study faster. Much, much faster.

And maybe blog less.

PSA: I have cookies. GirlChild baked last night. They're the good  kind too. (Ok, they're all the good kind.)

This Could Get Ugly

Sometimes I really wonder what I've gotten myself into and whether I'll be able to extricate myself. Not only because I'm afraid of failing, which I am, but because at a certain point I just am not sure I can continue to work through the pain.

Even though I've been doing it for decades.

I haven't been able to breathe right since finding out this morning that one of my exams is going to be closed book--a little fact he didn't bother to pass along at the beginning of the semester, as he's supposed to do. But not breathing is simple panic, and there's nothing to do but keep going. The problem is, how long can I keep going?

Because, for the second day in a row, I have the kind of headache that makes you nauseous, and unable to string together a handful of coherent words, and that makes it really freaking hard to write a paper. Even as I'm typing this, I'm not quite sure what I'm writing and I'm fairly sure I shouldn't post it, although I might anyway. If this is how I react to stress (and there's a lot more to it, but stress is without a doubt a contributing factor) how am I going to deal with the BIGLAW world of constant pressure and deadlines only with billions of dollars on the line instead of a handful of grades? Egad.

I've always coped and assumed I always would. Maybe it's age, but I'm beginning to wonder about that strategy.

Maybe it's simply been too long of a year, and not over yet. Today I told a bunch of 1L women that by the time exams are over they should feel wrecked, because otherwise they're not trying hard enough. Go me, perpetuating the system.*

*In my defense, I was telling them to work hard and try to get on a journal because we need more women to work their way onto Law Review. Yes, that's right: buy into the system and change it from the inside. That is indeed the line I'm selling.

Talked Out & Far Behind

For all that I needed to get done yesterday, and I did manage to get some real work done, much of the day was frittered away with LR stuff. You know, there were conversations about massive upheavals in procedure (we're for it) and plans for parties (we're for those, too) and some time standing around in groups of people staring at each other and shaking their heads with very, very mixed emotions.

But today I am at the point of being so frighteningly behind that, after posting this, I may not access the Internet(s) for hours! Not even for email!!!!!!!!

If it's life-or-death urgent, or you have chocolate for me, you know where my adversely-possessed library table is.

It's Good To Be Back

I feel back where I belong: at a table piled high with books in multiple languages, an on-line Latin dictionary open at all times, the spell-checker going crazy with all the Latin words. It would be so easy to put everything into just this one class and do nothing else.

That would be bad.

I have to turn the Comment (could this one please be the last draft?) in on Monday, when cite-check begins. I have to write that paper. I have three other classes. I have to leave now, to go have a nice dinner with TFL to celebrate our anniversary and his birthday. Better (very) late than never, right? Right?

Just a few more lines about those ever-practical Romans...

Romans And Rhetoric

This quarter was supposed to be easier than last quarter. It's really not shaping up that way, not at all. On the other hand, the classes are fantastic. Four professors, each of them Big Name Tops in Their Field--which doesn't necessarily mean squat, but here they are all also excellent teachers. The two hour seminar just flew by in a heartbeat, and those usually really drag.

It is indescribably thrilling to have a law school class in which the professor suggests that the judges were not writing economic theory but were instead writing for the people who appointed them to their positions. It just makes me want to give a little round of applause. And when another professor points out that in spite of  having absolutely no legal theory the Romans nearly always got the rule exactly right--well, I nearly giggle I'm so tickled. And then he talks about the importance of nuance in language and the dangers of overly precise translation and he gets it all (I have to say it) exactly right.

Well he would, of course, because that British physicist aside this guy's probably the smartest person on the planet, but still. (Actually, he might be smarter. No one's really sure. But they're in different fields, so we'll never know.) And I also love the fact that everyone acknowledges that he is a) brilliant in a way we don't even understand, b) stark mad about many issues, but c) often absolutely right anyway. Even if he's not right, you'll never win an argument against him. Heh.

So brutal schedule, impossible assignments, phenomenal professors. Par.

And When I'm Not Studying . . .

Yesterday we had to turn in our applications for Law Review Board. True to our gunnerific year, pretty much everyone applied. Most years, only a few people don't make it because not many more apply than there are positions. This year, there will be blood on the floor. Probably mine. But if I don't make Board I'll have time to do crazy stuff such as study or watch movies--not an all-bad result.

And today, it's another clerkship meeting. On the one hand, it's amazing to get these opportunities to clerk, to be told we have pretty decent shots at appellate clerkships if our grades are good. On the other hand, it's just another form of pressure. Are you going to clerk? Where are you applying? Who are you getting recommendations from? And on, and on.

But refreshingly, there are still people who would rather cut off their left arm than clerk. They would also be the people who are only going to law school in order to make the money to pursue their real goals.

To celebrate a friend's birthday and being done with the Board Application, for better or worse, we hit the Pub last night. Mid-week celebration! It was great. Once in a while, I do know how to relax!

Whoa . . . Day 2, And Behind Already

How can this happen? It's only the second day of the quarter and I'm behind in Every Single Class. And I really thought I'd be able to have the time to read this quarter, too.

Dagnabbit.

In other news: working on the Ed Board application, heaven help me, and trying not to check my grades every five seconds. But mostly scrambling for Bankruptcy--the Gunner Extraordinaire is already doing his thing and the really scary part is that it's a new one this quarter. Don't think the old ones have gone away, either.

*whimper*

The Quarterly Schedule Dance

I had a gorgeous schedule with two seminars and no class on Fridays. But there's this class, that everyone raves about, and I went to check it out today. That was a mistake, because now I have to take it, because it is indeed fabulous. Any class that starts out by the professor telling you that legal theory is useless for the class is going to be fantastic, don't you think? Yes.

I found out that I survived Commercial Transactions, and did better than I had on Secured Transactions when I spent a lot more time on it. So there you go: don't bother to read the cases. Erm, well, or something. Of course, it would have been hard to do worse . . .

Anybody want to write two pages for me about why I should be on the Editorial Board? No? How about a little 30-page paper? A few article reviews? Sigh.

First day of the quarter. I'll be here late, trying to catch up.