Fall break

Thank every deity I may or may not believe in - we have a week off school. Notwithstanding the incredible amount of work I have to do by next Monday, this is going to be a much-needed release from the stress and grind of classes.

Law school is tough. It's stressful and it makes me feel stupid. I laughed at everyone else saying that when I was a naive little 0L, but it's the truth. Cases are impossible to read and get anything out of, the sheer amount of work and class time is almost overwhelming in and of itself, and legal writing is terrible. I feel incompetent and under-qualified everywhere I turn. Add onto that stresses of your personal life, and I have no idea how anyone makes it through any other school than YLS. The fact that only our reputation and our ability as future lawyers are riding on this semester make it bearable, but if everything were hanging on first semester grades - well, I'd be screwed. I thought it would be easy enough to get A's - or H's (Honors, our rough equivalent of A's but which are not awarded first semester) - after all, I've mostly done it the rest of my life - but I'll be truly amazed if I end up with any H's at all over the next three years.

Then again, there are tons of really cool things about law school - nerdy inside law jokes, awesome kick-ass friends, incredible intellectual and professional opportunities, a fast-paced exciting life, and yes, even the law itself could be a positive. It's a powerful tool to effect change, which is after all why most of us idealistic Yalies are here, and I wouldn't wish myself anywhere else right now (of course, right now, 'here' is not New Haven; I'm visiting my parents for the break!).

Summer

I have no idea what I want to do with my upcoming summer (or really even what the options are), and that's starting to worry me. What do I know about the law, and why on earth am I even here?

Memos!

Just finished writing one. It wasn't the horrible project I had at first thought it would be. It is for my least favorite class, but you can't get everything you want in life. Of course, I haven't done the reading for my classes tomorrow, but I'm too exhausted to try. I just really hope I won't get called on. Overall, I think I like law school - I certainly don't regret coming or have constant thoughts of dropping out, anyway.

Bluebooking

"The Uniform System of Citation has inflicted more pain on more law students than any other publication in legal history." - Robert Berring.

He was so right. I like writing and I like editing, and I've done a fair amount of it in recent times, but this isn't editing - this is anal-retentive, deconstructive, elitist nonsense. I think of myself as a careful, somewhat rules-oriented and compulsive person, but in the bluebook I have met my match. I am not looking forward to source citing (where we go through someone's article and their 200+ footnotes to check every little detail about their citations, including how many spaces they put where and how they abbreviate certain words and when to put a comma or when to leave it out in certain forms of citations but not others).