test time

tomorrow is my first exam (crim pro - criminal trial stuff...specifically 4th, 5th, and 6th amenment issues). a few days ago i went to the beach with my roommate and we got burned. she had a base tan from weeks of sunbathing and i had fresh white skin. at first we thought she was more fried than me, but as the days have unfolded my skin has turned progressively redder. although, i think thats also attributable to the mass amounts of lotion that i've slathered on my hot skin (and later i was told this is NOT a good idea because the oil locks in the heat). so, the past few days (three to be exact) have been miserable. hopefully by tomorrow i wont be in much pain and the test will go smoothly.

i feel good about tomorrow's test mainly because i've been exclusively studying for it the past four days. as for my other tests (next one is contracts on thursday) i'm not feeling so great. i havent put in any time on them (apart from making poster boards) so i'm starting to get a lot of anxiety. main question - how am i supposed to learn all this material in such a short time??? but, then i think that in 10 1/2 days i will be done with my first year of law school...i can hardly believe this. a whole year of law school?!? unbelievable. it will be nice to be done for a summer and have so much time to spend with joel. i miss him a lot...which brings up another issue - london. should be interesting being away for 4 months.

well, i'll update as the tests come and go. should be an exciting couple of weeks. i have a great study group - amy, john, ben, aaron, and me. we have a lot of fun together and study well together. today we went to lunch at john's garden and then later today we are going to take a full practice test for crim pro (without the multiple choice questions its a two-hour essay exam) and then we are going to talk about what we wrote. should be good and informative.

ciao for now.

i'm done!

with first year classes. what a relief!

now i just need to get through the next two weeks of finals. today amy and i "studied" together. our plan of attack is to make poster boards that have all the information we need to know for the test. so that's what we worked on today.

tomorrow i am going to start focusing on my first exam: criminal procedure. i have a feeling this one is going to be a beast - more than all the others. i'm anticipating all the material we learned this semester will interact with one another whereas in other classes its fairly compartmentalized which makes test taking easier. also, we have only had one semester of criminal procedure but we covered almost the entire text book (about 1000 pages). so, yeah...by tuesday i have to know 1000 pages worth of material and be able to combine it all and know when one event triggers another. oh well, cant win them all.

so tomorrow i'm going to start the track routine. last semester i discovered exercising while memorizing my outlines. i think it helps me retain the information better that way. so what i like to do is walk around the track here at school and recite the outline to myself. i did this last semester with my criminal law class. i'm sure some joggers thought i was crazy mumbling stuff about murder and rape and theft.

this semester i'm going to do the track thing for all my classes. actually, the track is not a bad place to be. its nestled in the center of the school and has an amazing ocean view with palm trees dotting the sides. sometimes i also see the deer prancing along the hills. i'm pretty lucky to be in such a gorgeous location (though i rarely get outside the law school walls....but when i do it sure is wonderful).

i'm hoping to also get a tan at the same time. i need to prep my ghostly white skin for the upcoming summer. joel and i are going to be spending a lot of time in the pool. can't wait!

well, i probably should get to bed so i can wake up at a decent time and start the studying process all over. pray i survive another finals session!

hi blog

well...its been awhile (i sometimes have an overwhelming urge to state the obvious). to you faithful readers who have not given up on me, here's a brief synopsis of life lately.

i made it through the moot court experience....barely. recently, the moot court team was accepting applications from first years. i walked in a 50 feet radius around that application. there is no way i would voluntarily put myself through that experience again. actually, it was a little fun...but not enough to make up for the tortuous parts.

i have a summer job! not sure if i posted about this yet, so if i did disregard this paragraph. this summer i will be externing for a california superior court judge in westminster. i met with the judge awhile ago and he's great! i cant wait to learn from him about this whole lawyering process. i will also be working with a couple of my classmates and will only be working tuesday through thursday. this means that i have a lot of time to relax, regroup and spend time with joel before going to london in the fall.

speaking of joel and the summer, we have some fun things planned. right after our semesters end we are flying to washington to spend time with family and friends. both of us have family there (his parents, siblings, aunts and uncles, and granpa and my aunt and uncle and cousins) and we both have friends...just another reason why we are so compatible.

we are also planning weekly barbeques and pool parties at joel's and i think some 80s parties thrown in there. this should be an excellent summer...which is definitely needed after this year.

everyone kept telling me second semester would be easier than the first one but its turning out to be sooooo much harder. first, our professors think we actually get this stuff now so they assign a lot more reading (case in point - at the beginning of the year i had to read 7 pages in property...for today's assignment i had to read 23 pages). this may not sound like a lot, but trust me it is. second, i am exhausted. and third, i have to maintain a great gpa (this is actually harder than it may seem).

so all in all, i am stressed beyond belief. my face is breaking out (including a huge nasty zit on my back), my stomach is in constant knots and i am not sleeping any more. why you ask? well, finals are in two weeks and i am not even close to being ready. i'm praying something miraculous happens between now and may 1st (the first final).

i'll try to update this again but no promises....its hard to tear the nose out of the books.