Woo woo woo woo wooooooo! It finally hit me this morning – my first year of law school is half done. Time to get myself up north and rock the family, friends, powder, and the sweet sweet joy of not studying.

Not to mention the RAWWK itself. In a few short days, Los Tres Hermanos de Explosion will victoriously reunite for yet another raucously dissonant noisemaking (and beer-drinking) session. Michael’s neighbors can’t wait!

but one hell of a contract law final standing in my way. Thankfully, it’s my last of four, and I’m almost looking forward to it.

Not to eulogize prematurely, but being back in school has certainly been a shock to my system … in a good way. I feel like I’m making up for time I wasted and lost when I was in college, and actually applying myself toward school is providing a catharsis that I’m only experiencing for the first time.  My expectations of performance, while still high, are tempered somewhat by my full-time day job – a dubious responsibility that I share with less than a third of my 1L part-time class.  Most of the rest are kids just out of undergraduate who either didn’t want a full load to start their law school career, or were originally seeking the full-time program and got shuffled into the part-time program by admissions.  Among the older people looking for a wholesale career change, around half quit their job prior to matriculating.  As such, the competitive landscape is unusual, to say the least, and the forced grading curve is really screwing with my usually accurate spidey sense of how I actually did.

I did how I did (and will do as I will do), and think that my efforts were close to my maximum capability with what resources and intellect I can muster.  I have a lot of things driving me right now – my aspirations for the future, some amount of (perhaps misplaced) pride, my sense of duty to the world around me … but most importantly, my desire to rejoin the people and places I love in a better position to help and support them.

So to my family, friends, and the beautiful and wild Great Northwest – here’s to you, and to hoping for the best.  If I succeed, it will have been because of you. 

I will see you soon.

Flemish brown ales (like the aformentioned Liefmans Goudenband) pair beautifully with nutty cheeses like Gruyère, Beaufort, and Parmigiano-Reggiano.  Especially when they’re accompanied by the sweet taste of victory, namely over 14-page memoranda of law.

I’ve been asked repeatedly how I’m able to retain my sanity as a full-time professional and a nearly-full-time law student.  The answer, in short, is that said sanity retention is almost a forced chore.  Let me take that back.  It is a forced chore.  However, I find that I still have plenty of time to avail of my many hobbies … more time, it seems, than many of my non-working classmates.

Not surprisingly, it all boils down to time management, and it’s actually made somewhat easier by having to work during the day.  I am by nature an expert procrastinator, and quite easily distracted by shiny objects and beer.  But when confronted with 40+ hours of work and 30 hours of school per week, I quickly realized how unbelievably valuable time is to those without enough of it (namely, myself).  For the first couple weeks of this arrangement, I was probably sleeping 4 or 5 hours per night, and my stress level was through the roof.  I think that it was during one of these frantic episodes that I, quite literally, slapped myself repeatedly and asked myself WHAT THE F#*& I WAS DOING.  

After calming down from these mild histrionics, I reflected upon my inner nerd and popped open Excel.  After a bit of numerical finagling, it became obvious that with optimal efficiency, I could easily get my 7 hours of sleep, and have Friday night as well as an entire weekend day to do whatever I felt like.  Doing so, of course, would require a strict regimen of ignoring distraction and finishing whatever homework I started.  I only had to force the new schedule upon myself like for a week before it just became normal.  I admit, it is somewhat unnatural for anyone to claim a 70-80 hour week as normal, much less manageable, but it really isn’t as bad as it seems if you actually look at it:

Weekdays, except Friday:

• Alarm: 0730
• Shower, etc.: 0730-0800
• Work from home: 0800-0930
• Take the train to work: 0930-1000
• At work: 1000-1745
• Take the train home: 1745-1815
• Drive to school: 1815-1825
• Class: 1830-2030 (or 2130, depending on the day)
• Drive home: 2030-2040 (or 2130-2140)
• Make and eat dinner: 2040-2130 (or 2140-2230), half of which I’m eating and studying simultaneously
• Continue studying: whenever I’m done with dinner until 0000
• Whatever: 0000-0030
• Bedtime: 0030

Friday:

• Same as above, except I get home around 1800 and don’t study at all

Saturday:

• 8-12 hours of studying, more if necessary (i.e. a paper is due)

Sunday:

• The joy of doing as little or as much of nothing as I feel like.

I mentioned that having to work makes time management easier.  It’s counterintuitive, but true nonetheless; having to get up at the same time every day, and knowing that work always takes up a certain amount of time per day helps with scheduling what’s left against what’s left to be done.  

One last important note:  I find it crucial to continue doing stuff I like whenever I can, especially when it involves physical exertion.  The only time I went two weeks without hiking, going for a bike ride, working out, or even just heading out for a quick jog was at the start of the school year.  At the end of those first two weeks, I don’t think I could have even written a summary of Green Eggs and Ham, much less properly brief a case.

Ok, I’ve moved on to a St. Bernardus Abt 12 and it’s time for me to focus on that rather than this silly post.