Personal v Real Property

I had lunch with a professor from last semester that no longer teaches at my law school. I told him that I was having some issues with property. Not that it's that hard to understand two weeks in, but more that my Professor asks questions like, "Property is acquired by......." and is looking for a very specific answer. It's not like we're in the end of a case where the point is that property is acquired in certain ways. It's just an open ended question out of left field. So, I feel a little lost. I brought this up to my old professor, and he said - "well by now you understand that there are two types of property right? real and personal...certainly you've learned that by now". And well, no, we haven't. But tonight she brought it up when discussing replevin and theories of damages in property. Which is fine, she can teach in whatever way she wants to, but I guess I'm having a hard time seeing where this all fits in. We're working through all these acquisition theories, which is the way that it's traditionally taught, but it's incredibly confusing, thus far anyway. But, with his help, to put everything in the scope of real vs personal property, it's helping a little bit....I think. :)

So, that's that. Con Law is still taught by an amazing professor with a passion for the subject. He brought us all in our own little personal copies of the Constitution because he was so frustrated one night when his was misplaced. Love. It. He's great.

Torts and Civ Pro are both frustrating. I'm mostly frustrated with Civ Pro because my professor hasn't really taught us anything yet, other than rules of evidence. We're working on summary judgment supposedly, but we spend most of our time talking about his case and the applicable law, and his frustrations in his own case. Crazy, right? But I guess that that's an argument against adjuncts. I usually love them, but this semester I'm finding them frustrating.

So, that's my semester thus far. A little dreary, and not that fun. But I am looking forward to do projects for midterms instead of tests. I think that's going to be much, much better than essay's and mbe's. :)

Til next time. :)

Professors: The difference between good and great.

I had two classes last night. Two very different classes. The first one was okay. You can tell the teacher came straight out of the box with "getting to know you" exercises and flexed her Socratic muscles right away. She was into teaching, and spent time telling us how she's been a life long teacher and has taught every age. She also went over all the mundane details of the class, start times, end times, etc. She was a teacher, through and through. Didn't get me excited about property, but you can tell she loves to teach.

The second class? Con law. Taught by someone who lives, breathes, and loves the Constitution. He loves it enough to carry a copy with a torn off cover that's seen better days rolled up in his back pocket at all times. You can tell, that even after teaching it for years, he's fascinated by the document and how its interpreted and how it plays out in today's world. He talked about wanting us to have a curiosity, and a real thirst for learning and understanding the constitution and the role it plays in our lives. He didn't come out with any ice breakers, and barely talked about his syllabus, but spent the time sharing his passion for the Constitution with us, and in turn, it made us excited to get into the material.

The difference between the two professors? I'm intrigued by Con Law, and don't really care about Property. To see someone have such a passion, such a thirst and fascination with the material can't help but spark that kind of reaction in students. To see someone who loves to teach, but isn't excited about the material? It's just another class with another professor. So, so far? Looking forward to con law, not sure where I stand with Property. We'll have to see how today's classes and the rest of the week go before I pass any real judgments.

Second year 1L

Whenever I tell law students from other schools that I'm a second year 1L, they look at me like I'm crazy, like I failed my first year. Unfortuantely, with part time students, we're still considered 1L's our second year, because we haven't completed our 30 credit hours to have that 2L status, and we won't until we're done with the fall semester.

Unfortunately, this also means that coming back this year is a little nerve wracking. I've decided to take on an additional course, and am now taking Property 1, Torts 1, Con Law 1, and Civ Pro 2. Not an easy course load by any stretch of the imagination, and I'm afraid that it'll be even more difficult with working 40 hours a week, and not having a bunch of time to study these very foundational subjects.

Oh well. It seems like Torts wont be so bad. We're doing a few "projects" this semester. Oh, and I get to outline the constitution! Yay? :)

Also...

New 1L's? I know that campuses give you discussion groups and all sorts of groups to ask questions and get to know each other. Use them, they're great. However, be cognizant of what you put on them. Do not discuss what weapons you are going to bring to campus because you feel unsafe in a downtown location. Don't discuss how drunk you got last weekend. Don't talk about what drugs you've tried and liked. Do not be the 'gunner' on the forums. Be respectful, ask questions, and then just observe. These are public forums, and god forbid you say anything that makes the law school reject your admission, puts you on their radar in a negative way, or could come up on character and fitness when you sit for the bar. You don't need to be front and center and let everyone know you. You'll ruin your reputation before you even step foot into a classroom, and that's not how you want to start off with the people that will be with you through your entire career. This extends beyond law school, and you need to understand that when you practice and have cases to refer, you don't want people to not refer you business because you're THAT person that no one likes.

You're in law school. Use your brain people.

Worst blogger ever? This gal.

Well, my first part of my 1L year is over! What a relief. Unfortunately, I'm still a 1L credit wise until I complete 30 credit hours...since I've completed 18, and am taking 12 in the fall, it looks like I'm technically a 1L until Christmas. :)

Summer has been awesome so far. I'm not in summer school since they released the calendar during the Spring semester, and I had already booked my Europe trip over the beginning of classes. As it turns out, it's actually been a blessing. The class I was going to take has had 4 different professors in 6 weeks. Sounds like a hot mess, and nothing that I want to gamble with my GPA with.

...speaking of GPA. I did fairly well. But, I really thought going in that all that advice that C's are the norm for the smart kids in law school didn't apply to me. Well, I got one C and the rest I got B's, but I realized, that C is the majority, and the curve forces it to be that way. Especially in smaller sections. And my law school curves us with our little section, and then ranks us in with the bigger classes, which makes the system completely skewed, but I guess that's how it is. Either way, my ranking isn't a clear picture of my standing, at all. Overall, I'm happy with my GPA. So, that's what it is I guess.

I'm starting to gear up for the fall semester, especially since I've added another class on to the standard 3, and will now be taking 4 lovely classes a week. Civ Pro 2, Torts I, Property I, and Con Law I. It'll be a big schedule, but I think I can handle it.

Thankfully, things have slowed down and improved in my personal life. It's amazing that you walk into law school, meet people, form bonds with them, and come out a year later with a whole new family. It's been a great experience so far.

I'm gonna work on being better at blogging. I hope. :)

Breakdown

I am a silly, silly girl. Why oh why did I think that I could take on finals and moving and a trip to Europe all at once? Plus the curveballs of life, and I've broken down twice this week. No bueno my friends, no bueno.

Having fun, working hard.

Second semester of law school. It was so hard to start. And now with only a month left before classes end, I'm actually doing really well. Surprisingly enough, I pulled A's on all of my midterms (SQUEEEEEE!), and am preparing already for finals. I feel like I finally have somewhat of a grasp on this whole law school thing, and with some minor tweaks, and can really do it. It's an amazing feeling. I'm not scared and over preparing anymore, instead I'm being methodical, and not stressing as much. Last semester was intense...I crammed every single thing in my head that I could just incase it was tested on. Now I'm getting the concepts, understanding how to apply them, and am doing better. Now, don't let me fool you, I don't understand everything, but I'm trying to understand the concepts and how to apply them. It's awesome.

The only thing that I am nervous about right now is the summer and next semester. I'm not taking any summer classes because I'm going to Europe for 2 weeks, and the semester starts while I'm gone. So that puts me at needing to take four classes next semester, which is basically 6-9PM four nights a week.  It's busy with three classes, I can't even imagine how I'm going to feel with four. The good news is that my writing classes will be done, so that'll lighten my load a bit. And I can't try and write on to law review until the Spring semester anyway, so I might as well just take four and see where the chips fall.

Also? How everyone tells you that your law school friends will be your friends forever? I hope that's true, because I really love the group of friends that I've made. They're amazing, flawed, real people, but we have a lot of fun together, and there's some real connections made. I really do hope that I know them for the rest of my life. :)

Anyway, I know that I haven't updated in forever, so I thought I'd give a quick update on what's going on with me. As finals come up and I get more stressed I'm sure I'll update this more often. :)

Being an adult

I think that sometimes I let a lot of things slide. Things that mean something to me, things that I realize that I deserve and should ask for. But I let them slide, and instead make excuses for others. For why they didn't treat me right, for why they didn't do what they were supposed to, for why they let me down. This is true both personally and in law school. In my head, I excuse the behaivor away, and that's not good. I know what I deserve in relationships. I do, I know that. But I excuse away why I don't get it, why I have to make and force plans with anger and disappointment, why I have to make all the moves, when in the beginning, I was the reluctant one. I'm so tired of making excuses, and not living up to what I deserve. I mean, why settle? I know that my expectations can be sky high, I've always been that way. But really, right now, my expectations are not that high, they're at bare minimum, and I'm dealing with getting even less. And I really really dislike it right now. I understand that there are reasons why what's happening is happening and I probably need to hang on a bit longer, but I'm becoming frustrated with waiting. Really freakin' frustrated. All of the time. And today, I came to school, and I sat at a table, and I did the monster contracts reading, and I prepared myself for class. And I walked into class understanding the material, knowing the cases (as much as I can anyway), and feeling good about it. And that's the way that I want to feel with relationships too. Maybe it's too much to ask, but I really, really can't believe that that's too much. I'm at the end of my rope. And it's been a long, long, long rope. With lots of chances, and lots of disappointment. There's been some really awesome and good moments, too, and I can't fail to acknowledge those. The lows are low, but the highs, are so very freaking high and awesome.

So, that's what's going on in my life. I have 6 weeks left of my first year of law school. It's about to ramp up and become intense and incredibly hard again very quickly. I can handle it, it's what I do. But that's just what's a-goin' on me with me. :) Happy second half of the semester.

Dear law school:

Midterms, an oral argument, and a paper in one week?

No thank you!

Drama

Law school is full of drama. And I hate that word. I really hate people who say, "I don't do drama", because you know that those are the exact people that perpetuate it more than everyone else, and that is their defense. But people in law school? It's like, "oh I need a study break! let's make other people feel uncomfortable!". It's freakin bizarre, and I really dislike it.

Really, really dislike it, especially now that it's affecting my own personal friendships with people that I really care about. But I guess that's how it is, right? You put 60+ people together every single day with tons of stress, and this is the kind of stuff that happens. I just...am a little disappointed and disheartened by today and the state of things. By this whole week, really.

I guess that's just how it goes. Oh, how I love midterms.

Last one! One picture of me!

Taken on vacation last year while driving up the Pacific Coast Highway. :)

Dos. Dos songs.

2. Rufus Wainwright - Hallejuiah

1. Jimmy Eat World - Dizzy.

Tis all for the evening. :)

Three Films

Gotta say, I have the 10 day challenge fatigue. Lame, but I'm sitting in my legal writing class trying to come up with three films that I like, and listening to my Professor talk about sanctions from FRCP 37 and how we should ask for them in our papers if necessary. 

3.  A Time to Kill - favorite book ever, and I love me some Matthew McConaughey. :)

2. Zombieland - come ON, who doesn't love "Nut up or Shut up!" 

1.  The Invention of Lying (Only because I've had it on Netflix for over a month now, and still haven't watched it. Lame, I know). 

Four books. Who has time to read anymore?

My favorite four pre-law school books:

4. World War Z

3. The Giving Tree

2. On the Road

1. A Time to Kill

Five Foods! Yum!

5. Pretty much anything homemade at this point. I'm so used to living on the fly and on the go that I hardly ever get to sit down and enjoy a home cooked meal. So, I really appreciate a home made meal, and I'm not too picky about what it is at this point. :)

4. Sushi. God, I love sushi. Seriously, I bet I could eat sushi everyday. It's fantastic when it's done right. :)

3. Fresh tomato and mozzarella. (Caprese salad). Love love love. Drizzle it with some basalmic vinegar and I'm a happy camper. Oh, and don't forget the basil. 

2. Coffee. Is coffee a food? Sometimes it seems like it is. If it's not, it should be. So, I'm making 

1. Pad thai. It's the best food, ever! :)

Six places

I had a busy day today, but I wanted to come and (lazily) put up 6 places. Hopefully I'll have time to edit it tomorrow......

6. Paris. I booked my plane tickets there for this summer, and I can't wait to turn 26 in the city of love. :)

5. San Sebastain, Spain. My favorite Spanish town, that I will once again be visting this summer. Love that my last name is a street there.

4. My head, on a really great and comforting shoulder. That's a place right? Snuggling for the win.

3. My bed, which is so comfortable, and where I'm writing this from right now.

2. Cascade, Id. One of the most charming and adorable small towns ever. One I've been lucky to visit almost every summer since I was a little kid.

1. Manhattan, Ny. Love it, can't wait to go back and visit all my friends! :)

Okay, kind of lame, yeah? But I'll try and edit it later and give more details. Gotta hit the hay tonight. :)

Happy Valentine's Day lovahs.

What I want...

I feel like a kid in a candy store! Seven wants, and it can be anything, not just realistic things?! Kay, well, here we go....   :)

7. A redo. Silly, I know. But I want to go back to October and do things differently. I hate admitting that, because I had a lot of fun and developed some great relationships, but I wish that I would have done things differently. 

6.  To just be happy and content. Nuff said. 

You're probably thinking, this chick doesn't want any STUFF?! No, uh I didnt say that. So, you know, here's 5 things I'm dying to buy, but haven't because I either haven't gotten around to it, or they're way too expensive. 

5. Let's start off small. I saw this in West Elm and loved it. I always have water on my bedside table, and I adore this (the blue one)water carafe and want it! :) 

4. Since it's Valentine's season, Tiffany's sends me emails about how I should get someone to buy me diamonds everyday.  And the other day, this ring was their email, and I love love it. But, it's $1250, so it's a no go for me. 

It's sorta sad, but I can't really think of anything else that I really want right now. I'm sort of content. 

3. A new, fabulous apartment! I have to move soon and I want to find a great place to live for a few years. 

2. At least one A this semester. :)

1. Love. Well come on, Monday is Valentine's day! And I really need to get back to studying anyway. 

Fearless

Eight fears! Oh man, I really dislike this one, but let's see what I can come up with. 

8. The people I love dying. This is pretty heavy, I know. And I do realize that it's going to happen, but I fear it all the same. I have a bunch of really lovely, awesome people in my life, and I treasure them all, and want to keep them all forever. Dying doesn't really fit into that so much. So yeah, let's pass on that part. 

7. The people I love getting sick. I think the only thing worse than the people I love dying is watching them get sick and wither away. Things that I see everyday like cancer and crazy diseases, I'm terrified that those same people that I adore? That they're going to really sick and I'm going to be powerless to do anything about it. 

6. Bugs! Oh my, bugs. Bugs bugs bugs. I am freaking terrified by them. This is evidenced by me finding a cockroach once and calling my best friend, and then my mom to come to my house and kill it immediately, because lord knows that the first thing I do when I see a bug is run to my room, put a towel under the door, and pray that it won't come in and get me! 

5. Not graduating from law school. Law school is such a huge, massive thing, that not graduating is just...unacceptable. But still, I'm afraid that something will happen and I won't. 

4. Dark water....ESPECIALLY lake water in Arizona. I mean, every summer we hear all the time on the news that this person or that person died in the lake and their body wasn't recovered. That means that in that lake, there are just like, thousands of dead people. Therefore, I am scared of dead people filled dark water. Terrified, really. I always freak out when I first jump in, and hang on to some sort of flotation device. Like, the boat. :)

3. Ghosts. Not even gonna touch on this one, but I'm sort of terrified that they're real and that someday one is going to haunt me. 

2. Leeches. In rivers. Oh man, I'm getting the heebie jeebies even thinking about them. 

1. Any sort of surgery. I always have weird off the wall reactions to anesthesia, and I'm really terrified that someday I'm going to need an operation and I'm going to like, wake up on the table in the middle of it in some serious pain. 

I know, my fears are silly and mostly irrational, but that's all I'm prepared to delve into right now. :)

Endlessly endless love.

Nine loves. Today is a perfect day for it. I'm selling Valentine's Day hearts for the SBA and am feeling a little mushy. So, without further ado. 

9. The horizon. I know, cheesy right? However, I remember sitting on the beach one day, looking out at the ocean, and wishing with everything that I was that I could find that spot, right where the ocean hits the sky, and just, be there. I've always associated the ocean and the sky with peace, and I've always wanted to take a boat into the middle of the ocean where there's no one and nothing, and just...be. I can't even fathom how utterly peaceful that would be. When I need a happy place in my head, this is where I go. 

8. The Train song "Marry Me". I absolutely love it. Who doesn't want that? Yes, it's cliche and it's overly romantic, but it is 4 days before Valentine's Day. And I'm still a romantic at heart. :)

"You wear white and I'll wear out the words I love you, and you're beautiful."

7.  How strong I can be when I need to be. I have this irrational fear of needles, and I've passed out before when someone's come near me with one. But recently I knew that I needed to suck it up and get an IV recently and not have it be a big deal. And that's exactly what I did, and I am so fucking proud of myself that it's not even funny.

6. My kitty, who is freaking awesome. Sometimes she's annoying and bugs me, but really, she's the best little kitty ever. Who could resist this? 

5. My crazy (in a good way) Momma. She's the best, and seems to know when I just need her. It's awesome to have a Mom that I can also say is my best friend. 

4. My Grandpa, best man in the world, hands down. 

3. The friends I've made since starting law school. They are an awesome, intelligent, caring group of people, and I'm lucky to surround myself with them. 

(I'm not going to post pictures of them - sorry!) 

2. Coffee and snuggles in bed on a cold morning. Especially when I'm allowed to use him to warm my cold feet on him. Now that's amore my friends, that's amore. :)

1. Hot chocolate (this could be because I'm craving some right now, but I do love hot chocolate). And apple cider! :) 

I swear I'm gonna stick to this one!

So, in my spare time (read: in class), I read all the awesome law blawgs that I have linked here. And it turns out that a couple of them are doing this 10 Days of you Challenge. So, hello bandwagon, I'm going to hop you. If nothing else, just to prove that I can in fact do something that I say I'll do (see: Reverb challenge). So, here's a lovely graphic describing what it is I'm supposed to be doing, and here is my first post! :)

Ten secrets. Well, I'm not actually going to put ten things on the good ole' world wide web that no one knows about me (scandalous!), but instead I'll put 10 things that I bet no one that reads this knows:

10. I was a freak about naming my cat. My adorable kitty, gotta love her. See, when I first got her, I had no idea what to name her, but the adoption place needed me to put a name down. Since she has half an orange face and half a black face, we decided to name her 'Frenchie' after the beauty school dropout in Grease. Let me tell you something, I hated that sucktastic name with everything I am. What's even worse? We bought her a little kitty nametag that read: Francine. Hello Lame-o. So, I renamed her Kitty. And then finally Bella, which is what I wanted to name her before all this Twilight craziness came out and everyone had to name their animals Edward and Bella. 

9. Venti Skinny Caramel Macchiato's will get you everywhere with me. I love them, they are awesome, and if you bring me one, there is close to nothing that I won't do for you. However, most people around these parts haven't figured that out yet. 

8. I'm an obsessive organizer about law school because I'm paranoid that one day I'm going to boot up my laptop and everything will be gone, or I will have forgotten how to use my fancy macbook. 

7. My biggest pet peeve in the world is late people. I am always early for a reason - it's respectful. I've always been told that being early means being on time and being on time means being late. So, alas I am always 10 minutes early to every appointment I have. And if I'm running late, I always, always, always call. I am so super annoyed when people don't show me the same courtesy. This leads nicely to the next one.....

6. My expectations of everyone are far too high. I feel like I know that I surround myself with good people, so my expectations of them are somewhere in the vicinity of very, very high. And when I'm let down by people I'm really really bummed. Something I'm working on. 

5. Second semester, and I'm still terrified of speaking up in class. Yep, I wasn't really forced to first semester, and I feel like I'm still stuck in that terrified spot. But, be proud, I volunteered on a hard question and got the answer right last night in CivPro.  I'm working on it. 

4. I love people watching. I think people are endlessly fascinating. And some are just a tad silly. And I adore watching them and taking it all in. 

3. I'm not religious at all now, but when I was 16, I joined a Southern Baptist Church, and spent a year as a youth group leader, preaching to all sorts of people. It was an interesting experience, and one that I grew out of at this point in my life. 

2. I once dated a cowboy that, under his hat, looked like Dr. Phil. 

1.  I sort of love law school. I know, I know. It's not something that's really talked about. But I met a lot of awesome people here, and I read about a lot of fascinating stuff. Sometimes it feels like there are about 10,000 pages of reading  and 18 different things to get done in half an hour, but all in all, I really love this experience so far, and I can see the value in it. 

...

This too shall pass, right? Right?!

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Couldn't say it better myself....

"Sometimes stupid questions trip you up in law school." - My favorite law school friend.

So, so true.

Motivation

Motivation is incredibly hard to find this semester. Last semester I was afraid enough to want to spend my weekends in the library. This semester? I'd rather watch a marathon of Real Housewives.

Is it like this for everyone?

made it

The beauty of being worn is knowing you've made it through.

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New Semester

First day in the library, it feels weird to be back. I dont want to see some people, I'm happy to see others, and I'm trying to get a study plan figured out for this semester. I thought I had to come here and do a bunch of reading today, but my awesome contracts professor has decided that a system of two days of reading and one day of review is going to work out best for us. Which, I gotta say, is awesome. But, I wonder if we're going to get quizzes, and be held to a higher standard. Either way. Pretty awesome.

Second semester is hard. Break was just enough time to get me used to naps and having time to myself and all that fun stuff. Only working was pretty awesome. Back to working AND school? Not so awesome, but I'm gonna find some motivation at some point (I hope!).

Good luck this semester!

Blawg Neglect

I've been in my old non-law school life for a few weeks. And it's been all around glorious. I'd forgotten what it's like to nap and not have any commitments at night! :) Alas, we go back Tuesday, so I'm back in the thick of it. I've been hanging out at some of the admissions events (as an sba rep, not a creepy person) talking with the new students, and I can't help but wondering if I was that freaked out when we started. And then I realized that yes, I indeed was that freaked out before school started. So it's been going trying to talk them down from the ledge and meeting some new people.

Other than that, just trying to get through the readings and get ready to back into the swing of things. April 25th has a big target on it on my calendar. :)