Trying again!

I'm going to try to show up a little more frequently!

Quick update: I am still in school and actually enjoying it. I participated in the Negotiation Competition and the First Year Moot Court competition this summer while taking 4 classes and trying to stay sane! The summer term was the first time my son actually said "I hate law school" to me--and he said it about once a week! I am also still working at an optical store as the part-time manager BUT I am hoping to get a job in the law field within the next 6 months...at least try to!

Financially my life sucks right now...you'd think that I would be flush with money but no; work cut my hours and I made a major mistake with my online checking system this summer that I didn't catch in time. THe mistake ended up costing me more than I could have ever anticipated so my new loan $ had to go toward fixing it. Now my basement is getting cleaned out and all of my craft supplies are all over my living room...I am planning to sell baby stuff--quilts and supplies online and at craft sales this term--as if I wasn't already busy enough! (but look for a posting regarding an Etsy store soon!)

As if that wasn't enough, now that I am a 2L, I have been trying to decide what to do with my legal career. Originally I thought I wanted to get into juvenille law but now I don't know...our Tax prof is a huge advocate for woman in tax law and her experiences and advice is pretty inspiring. I have an appointment with the career office soon to try to figure stuff out...I never thought that at 33 I would be questioning what to do with the rest of my life!

Oh yeah, I have a blog!

Okay, here I am, second term and I realized that I have been MIA since, well, forever! I survived first term with very few bumps. I have been forming great friendships, falling asleep while reading Civ Pro, wondering (still) if I should quit working, juggling family with work and school, trying to figure out if dating will ever fit into the fix, and I obtained an executive position on a Womens group on campus. Basically, so far so good!

My biggest issue has been time. I obtained the advice of our academic guru on campus and it has been working well this term. I switch subjects every hour, study for between 4-5 hours a day. That hour of study consists of 20 minutes reading and briefing cases (at least 2 cases--so 10 min. per case); 20 minutes working with the material, multiple choice questions, writing; and 15 minutes outlining.

I did not try this the first term and I ended up slightly behind every week and didn't study as effectively as I could have (it showed in my exam.) I am much more comfortable this term, everything is working out great!

That being said, I really need to get back to work--Torts is calling--my five minute break is long been over!

I forgot!

I was finally called on to recite a case today--I was prepared but it was a difficult one. This particular Prof doesn't believe in making his students feel inferior and is typically very gentle. Today he seemed to be asking be a lot of follow up questions and interrogated a bit. This was the type of questioning that I had anticipated when I began law school--but haven't seen it in this class yet--a bit intimidating. E, my seatmate, told me that she thought I had done well but it's all subjective, hard to know what the Prof thought. Oh, even more intimidating, I sit in the front row and he stood right in front of me when I was speaking.

The case was about a football player who got upset about his team losing so he intentionally hit a player on the opposing team during the course of the game. I was supposed to defend the Defendents argument. I stated that consent is implied due to the nature of the game (I said it a bit more eloquently in class), so he asked if a player could get away with ANY act during the game--I responded that I could see a player being liable if his intentional act was severe enough as to deny the P the ability to play football again, or if it changed his quality of life in any way. He made a comment about me asking for special circumstances which did make sense later--I made the mistake of saying that there was consent so it should be thrown out BUT if there is a severe injury--sure lets sue. He kept up the questioning a bit and there were others in the class that agreed with my points so maybe I didn't do too bad. At least I get it now, If I am going to say that the elements of anything is met or not met I cannot really put conditions on that (unless it is allowed under the law.) Oops! At least I got it out of the way--I can learn from it and move on...

Things are good!

Everything is still going well. I went to the student organization fair today--I am considering participating in Moot Court and/or Mock trial--I have been told enough times that these things are actually looked at so I know that they are important. I am thinking that I am going to declare concentrations in both General Practice and Litigation. The concentration requirements are easily combined and I figure two certificates is better than none--right!

I am trying to decide if I want to join any of the bar associations. The local one requires me to join the state bar...which would normally be fine but I hear that they start paperwork early if you join as a student--I have a poor credit history that I am working on fixing now but that may not be apparent yet. I have been a single mom for a long time--I have worked full time and often gone to school--I never obtained state assistance, I just tried to do it all on my own and there were a couple times, when I got laid off, that I had a hard time making ends meet and there were some hospital bills that I let go to collections that I still have to pay off. The hospital bills are reminents from a company that I worked for filing bankruptcy. We found out later that they stopped paying our insurance 3 months before they closed. During those 3 months I had a dog bite me, had my first asthma attack ever (requiring a hospital stay), and my son fell off a swing set and sprained his ankle (requiring x-rays) all told--I owed over $5,000. I thought I paid it off with my bankruptcy settlement but I just found out that much of it is still on my credit report and the hospital has no record of the payment. I wrote down that I wrote a check but neither the hospital or the bank had record of it. I am still researching it, I can't imagine that I could have written a check for such a large sum and not realized that it didn't come out of checking account. My fear is that this would affect my entry into the bar. I know that they are good with past financial problems if they are indeed in the past and if there is a good indication that it won't happen again.

On other news my daughter--13, has her first boyfriend (the text constantly/hand holding type, not the dating/going out kind--she is too young for that.) I am slightly annoyed by her constant "he said this, and then he did this" and I honestly think I am a bit jealous--crazy!

My son--8--just started in a public school that has a boy scout troop, his first meeting was tonight and he was super excited. I have to get him a uniform in the next 2 weeks. I am trying to decide if I want to try freecycle (if you've never tried this system--look into it--it is fantastic!!) or ebay, instead of buying new. I never considered how expensive all this stuff was when I was a Girl Scout back in the day...it is a good program though--can't complain there.