Rib day

This week is going by much faster than last week! Today was pretty routine. I woke up early and got ready for work. When I came downstairs, I took out some ribs for dinner. There are 2 schools of thought on how to tenderize ribs before the final cooking: (1) Boiling them and (2) slow baking them. Of course, purists will argue that a third school is the best (slow cooking the ribs in a smoker), but smokers here are few and far between. The method for rib preparation was introduced to my best friend Aaron and myself by our pastor in Baltimore. Of course, Aaron perfected the technique over the many months that I lived with him and his wife Julie in Baltimore, and I have carried the technique to Chicago. It has met with great acclaim and success here. I put the 5 pounds of ribs in to cook all day (very low heat).
I then went on my merry way to work...er...school. Torts was first, and the professor was as entertaining as ever. Lunch was with Justin and Steve at the Chipotle across the street from the school, and I then made my way to the library to start on my reading for tomorrow’s Constitutional Process class. I also reviewed the cases for Contracts. Contracts, as I have mentioned before, is now my favorite class. The professor challenges me in a way that is new, scary and somewhat invigorating. No matter how well I think I have prepared for her class, this never seems to be the case when I set foot in the class. She asks questions that I have never anticipated and makes me think long and hard on the meaning of every sentence from our casebook. I want to do well in her class not just for the grade but because she deserves my best efforts. Hands down, she has to be the best teacher I have ever had.
Immediately after class, I went to the library and spent 3 more hours doing work until heading home. As soon as I came through the door, I started up with the ribs. The grill was lit, and the ribs were coated with….no, I won’t share this without getting the OK from Aaron. After all, it is his magic that made them so good and it is his secret to share. Some friends came over for dinner, and after we finished eating, I excused myself to tackle Civil Procedure reading while everyone else stayed downstairs and talked. Thankfully, Eric cleaned everything up. All in all, it wasn’t an out of the ordinary day, but I am still looking forward to the time when the synthesis of the material will begin.
That’s all for now. Wednesday beckons!

Monday, August 29

Monday is almost over now. The day started with the struggle to awaken with the normal desire to relax in bed as long as possible. I shook myself awake and was out the door, but I missed the bus by mere seconds. I thought that it would be one of those days. I walked to the El stop and marveled at the relative serenity at that time of the day. The El was packed with people, and felt like the proverbial sardine in a can, not really able to move very much until my stop was 2 away. I went to the library and reviewed my Constitutional Process notes for the morning class. The class was pretty good, as we were discussing a method by which the US Supreme Court is able to avoid controversial topics. It seems that they invoke this method pretty often. After 3 classes of Constitutional Process, I am looking forward to following the confirmation hearings of our newest Supreme Court justice. Following class, I had lunch with my friends Justin and Steve before heading to the library to review Civil Procedure before class started. Civil Procedure will be my most challenging class, I think. The professor calls on someone at the beginning of class and then continues to go back to them throughout the class. The entire class is “on call”, so to speak. I have decided to review my notes before every class in an effort to be ready when I am called on. I have already noticed a shift in my level of preparation from last week’s topics to this week’s topics. Civil Procedure was as good as ever, and I have spent the last 3 hours here in the library finishing up my reading for Contracts tomorrow. Thankfully, I was able to finish my Constitutional Law and Torts reading over the weekend, so I feel as if I am a little ahead of the game. My plan is to head home, eat dinner, and work on the disaster that is my living space that still needs work.

Sorry for the boring post, but this is really a day in the life kind of day. Mondays!!!

Saturday!

Here in Chicago, it is a beautiful Saturday. It is a little warm, but these ARE the dog days of summer. People are outside enjoying the weather, there are live bands playing, and the smell of grilling meat permeates the neighborhoods. This sounds like a great day, right? Well, I was lucky to enough to experience all of these things on my way to the library for an afternoon of studying. Although there are quite a few upperclassmen here, I have only seen a few of my classmates. Either (1) they are well ahead of the game and don’t need to come in on the first weekend or (2) I am actually ahead of the game. Either way, I really don’t care. I am here to succeed, and I think that by approaching this as a 7 day a week proposition and spending some time with the material outside of class, I will gain a better understanding of the issues. Don’t get me wrong…I would much rather be out having fun, but this is something I have chosen to do. It is a responsibility that I do not take lightly. Many of you have written to me about how you are rooting for me, and for that I thank you. Messages like those are wonderful motivations for days like these.

There was a palpable sense of relief when we finished the last class of the day yesterday. Of course, I went to the student lounge to get some of my reading for Monday out of the way, but I gathered with the rest of my classmates after a couple of hours to toast the end of our first week with a cold Bud Light (read glorified water). I went home, showered, and met up with a former Bio-Rad co-worker of mine who was in town for the day’s Cubs game. I called it an early night. The week had taken a lot out of me, but I was looking forward to sleeping in on Saturday. I woke up at 10 (!) and watched a movie that I had recorded on my DVR, RKO 281. This is one of my favorite films now and should be a companion film when anyone watches Citizen Kane. The film is based on a documentary (the Battle for Citizen Kane) that outlined the behind the scenes struggle to get the picture released. The genius of John Logan (the screenwriter who also wrote a little film called Gladiator) was to place Welles in the position of William Randolph Hearst, the newspaper magnate who was also the basis for the character of Charles Foster Kane in Welles unsurpassed masterpiece of American cinema. Logan succeeded in drawing some parallels between Hearst and Welles to the point where the watcher gets a new appreciation of the nuances in Welles’ performance as well as idea of who Hearst really was. Liev Schreiber portrays Welles and is magnificent. He has the same voice and mannerisms, and he is close to being a dead ringer for the young Welles. John Malkovich is Wolf Mankewicz, the tortured drunken screenwriter and close confidante of Welles who rises up like the proverbial phoenix to write the masterpiece that few thought he was capable of writing. When you add James Cromwell as Hearst, Melanie Griffith as his mistress, and Roy Scheider as the head of RKO, the result is nothing less than stellar. I highly recommend this film. If you can, watch this film before watching Citizen Kane.

After watching the movie, I got myself ready, came downtown, and was at the library by 12 PM. It is now 4:30, and I am getting ready to get out of here. I plan on playing tennis with my friend Susan and then relaxing for the rest of the evening. Tomorrow is another day at the office!

Well, it will be a short entry today. Sorry, but I am extremely tired (but in a good way). Today, classes started at 10 AM, so I had a bit of down time this morning. I was able to pack a good lunch and get downtown for my Legal Analysis Class. Legal Analysis was almost 2 hours long, and I was already feeling tired from the long week, but at least I was eating lunch at the normal hour. My friend Justin is in the same section as I am (the Legal Analysis sections only have 15 people in them), so after the class, we went to lunch. We ended up heading to….any guesses….yup, POTBELLY’S.!!!! YES. I know that I said I packed a good lunch, but it would make an even better dinner. The afternoon was taken up by more Civil Procedure and then I was off to the library. I wanted to see how much work I could get done while still at school. Would you believe that I got ALL of it done? It’s true. I was able to make my training session with David with time to spare. I came home to find that my roommate had thoughtfully purchased a birthday cookie in lieu of a cake for me-complete with Shrek on it (I am quite the movie lover, as most of you know. I am now showered and ready for bed, but I wanted to update you on my birthday. It was pretty uneventful, but thanks to some great e-cards from my friends Aline, Lisa, and Jennifer (no, I am not a player. I think that only my female friends tend to send e-cards!), I had quite a few smiles to bring me through the day. I am also pretty sure that my folks tried to call me from India. I was in my Legal Writing course, so I could not answer, but the fact that they tried to call still made me feel pretty good. My best friend Aaron also called me at 11 PM his time. That meant a lot to me as well. I am truly blessed to have such wonderful people in my life (those of you reading this know it when I am talking about you!!).

I promise to have a longer entry tomorrow…oh, wait, it’s Friday…maybe the longer update will be on Saturday.

A Good Day

As I start to write this post, it is 11:40 PM CST. In another 20 minutes, it will be August 25, and I will be 34 years old. Today has been the busiest day by far, but I think that I am finally getting a handle on how to approach my assignments. I am also getting used to a schedule that allows very little time for personal reflection and too much time devoted to studying. My efforts to do my work as I wish to (reading and rereading everything and doing outside reading to boot) has not materialized as I had hoped because of several moving-related errands that needed to be run immediately following classes. At least now, I can spend the time from the end of classes until 7 or 8 pm at the law school library getting some work done. I intend to take Saturday mornings and Sunday afternoons off (at least during the NFL season), so I really need to put in the extra time during the weekdays.

I have already found someone who I think will be a very good friend. Justin is from Cincinnati (yes, he was following Huggins firing this week) and is in the same IP writing section as I am. We have the same outlook on school and the approaches, and I think that we will form the foundation of a study group. This morning was a little tricky as the Con Law professor was handing out seating charts for the semester, meaning that if you didn’t show up early enough to claim a seat, you might be relegated to a bad seat. People (myself included) were piling in as early as possible to insure their spots, and the hallways were jammed. I was able to get seat 25 (my spot in all the classes) with no problem. 25 is 2 rows back from the podium and on a side aisle that leads directly to a door. I like seat 25. Con Law was interesting again today. We studied the limits of the Federal Judiciary in deciding cases. I was surprised to find that, if a case is before the Supreme Court and Congress passes a law that alters the original charge of the case, the new law supersedes the old law. This mostly comes into play with things like writs. Except for one incident, I was pretty happy. What was the incident? The professor asked for the literal translation of the phrase Habeas corpus. I raised my hand and answered “you have the body”. The professor corrected this and said that it meant “bring forth the body”. Keep in mind that I had 5 years of Latin prose and poetry classes in high school and did well on the AP Latin examine. I kind of shook my head in disbelief. Who is going to look the fool? The Professor! This will happen when students look up the phrase on their own. As soon as I came home, I consulted my Black’s Legal Dictionary to look up the literal meaning…Booo-ya! I was right. I was worried that I was losing my Latin, but I find that it’s all coming back to me in law school.

The afternoon class was Civil Procedure. The Professor here is a relatively nice guy unless he is asking the students questions. He tends to be more on the sarcastic side, but I think that he is just trying to give us thick skins. We will definitely need them in the real world. Today, we were covering what is necessary in pleadings. I had no idea that bringing a civil suit against someone required not only the requisite forms and documents but that the appearance of the complaint must follow the rules of civil procedure. If this is a federal court, there is only one book on Civil Procedure. It was a very interesting class.

After school, I had a training session with David. I was a little anxious, as the stress of the move and the beginning of law school found me catching a cold. I hadn’t worked out in almost a week, and I knew that David would be merciless. Instead of pain, however, I was happy to find that I have made some significant strides in a short amount of time. It was a very good workout, and it reiterated to me the importance of keeping up my physical fitness while in law school. I got home by 7:40, ate a quick meal, and then it was off to the study for 3 hours of Civil Procedure. Tomorrow I have Legal Writing and Civil Procedure. Hopefully, I can get a lot of reading done in school .

Is it only Tuesday?

Another full day of classes, and boy am I tired! I can’t believe that it is only the second day of classes. I had forgotten about the daily grind of classwork and evening reading. Today started at 6:30 AM. I hadn’t slept well thanks to a late summer cold with coughing fits that woke me up. I was able to get on the bus today by 7:30 AM and was on campus by 8 AM. Since my first class didn’t start until 9, I took the opportunity to go down to the Starbucks on the first floor and get some hot tea. The first class of the day was Torts, and this one was a long one-lasting one hour and 40 minutes…and no breaks! I have to admit to being a little confused during today’s discussion of negligence versus strict liability, but I think that I can clarify my confusion when I do my reviewing this Saturday. After Torts, I went to lunch with a group of students in my section. It was a unique experience going to lunch with people born in 1983, but I was able to participate in the discussion by contributing as the grumpy old man. The best part of the group was that everyone went to the library before the afternoon class to study. These are the type of students I should hang out with. They are extremely friendly as well. I think I made some new friends.

After lunch was the first Contracts class. The professor spent most of the class on expectations for the semester and her embracing of the Socratic teaching style, and I started to get a little nervous. In actuality, it was a great class. I was happy that I was able to answer all of the questions on the assigned case correctly. I was home by 5 PM and made dinner. I allowed myself one and ½ hours to relax before I started my reading assignments for the evening. 3 hours later, I was done. Have I mentioned that I am tired?

A full day of classes

After a very short night's sleep, I gathered myself together for my first day of classes. I made it out the door in plenty of time and was downtown with 1/2 an hour to spare. I was surprised to find that there were lots of students already waiting for classes to start, and I decided to get to my future classes early enough to get a good seat. The first class of the day was Constitutional Process. The Professor was a congenial sort who lectured like a history professor. I like the method of question and answer, but from the first day, the "gunners" were identified (i.e., those individuals who are trying desperately to draw attention to themselves). I am all for participation in classroom discussion if one's comments moves the discussion forward, but when you ask a question that is, at best, tangential to the matter at hand, the entire class suffers all for the sake of your ego. My patience was low for these individuals, and I was happy to find out after the class that others felt the same way. The class itself was interesting. The discussion on Marbury v Madison showed me the dangers of jumping the gun in surmising why the judge found what he found. I wrote in yesterday's entry that Chief Justice Marshall fulfilled the duties of his office in opposition to his own political affiliations. Boy was I wrong. Even though Marshall supported his rival Jefferson, he was able to censure Jefferson within the first section of the decision, writing that Marbury legally has a right to his commission as a justice of the peace. The real meat of the decision lay with the court's ability to be a check on the powers of the legislative and executive branches of government. If the legislative branch makes the laws and the executive branch puts the law into action, the role of the judicial branch is to review the law to make sure that it falls within what is allowed within the constitution. Judicial review and the ability of the court to decide if the laws are constitutional are the two most important things to come out of Marbury v Madison. This is something to think about!

After class, I decided to go and get my U-Pass. The U-Pass is a transit pass that allows students to take unlimited rides on Chicago mass transit during the school year. When you consider that a one-way ride on Chicago mass transit costs $1.75, and when you consider that I will be taking it at least twice a day, the utility of such a pass becomes readily apparent. The lines were long, but I still had time to grab lunch before heading to Civil Procedure

Civil Procedure was also interesting. The gunners were quickly ignored by the professor, and the professor was able to engage the students quite well. Civil Procedure covers the rules of how civil courts function. Yes, there is a guidebook that describes everything you need to know about civil procedure, but it is, in fact, more interesting than you might think. When you are watching courtroom dramas and you see, for example, one party destroying evidence during discovery, they are breaking the law as described in Civil Procedure. There are no statutes against it, but the procedural laws are being broken. Civil Procedure lasted for another 1 hour and 10 minutes. I am pretty happy that I have not noticed the time going by when I am in class. The professors are great, and I have no complaints. So far, law school is everything that I thought it would be.

After class, I made a beeline for the El to get to my old apartment. I wanted to finish cleaning it out so that I could give up the keys and be done with it. I had a moment of sadness when I left it, though. I liked my studio, it was cozy and it was home. I have no doubt that, with time, my new digs will also feel like home, but I am not there yet. As soon as I came home, I fixed dinner and helped Eric take some of the trash out. Slowly, the place is coming into focus. For the last 3 hours, I have been doing my assigned reading for Torts and Contracts for tomorrow. Another full day awaits me!

The weekend is over

This weekend marked the end of the formal move-in phase. My roommate Eric is now ensconced downstairs, and we spent much of the weekend getting the place into shape. There is still a lot of work to do, and I feel kind of bad that I left a lot of it for Eric to do. I didn't do it on purpose, but my studying kind of got away from me (more on that later).

There were 2 fun adventures this weekend. The first adventure started at 6:30 on Saturday morning. I was meeting some movers hired by my brother to pick up some furniture for the new place. The furniture was in Oak Park, and the plan was to load up the furniture, drop some of it off at my brother's place, and take the rest of it to my place. Now let me pause here to say that the house where the furniture was located was built in 1880, and many of the pieces were rather large. Can you see where I am going with this? The best part was when the movers and I had to disassemble a large and HEAVY spiral metal staircase to get a sectional sofa out of the top floor. The moving took up most of the day and I was done by 2:30. I was exhausted, but I spent the rst of the afternoon mounting 2 window A/C units. Most of the heat in the house goes to the top floor (duh!), and since the thermostat is also on the top floor, Eric and I were envisioning huge electric bills that neither of us are equipped to pay for. I also set up my bedroom as I wanted it. All in all, it was a productive day. We then met up with some of his friends and relaxed a bit.

Sunday came too soon. Our job today was the basic shopping (Eric had stuff that he needed and I had stuff that I needed). It has been a while since I had a roommate (well, if you don't count the 6 weeks or so that I lived with my brother last year-long story). Getting used to a roommate dynamic hasn't been that hard, however, because we are good friends. So, we went shopping for window blinds, and household cleaning stuff. I hung the blinds and put away my kitchen stuff when I came home. I spent the rest of the afternoon picking up stuff and putting things away. Around 4 PM, the time had come for me to start the long process of studying. I had been dreading this moment, for I was worried that I would get bored. I didn't want my mind to start wandering, and I really did not know what to expect from the legal texts that were staring at me, mocking me with their forbidding thickness....

I have 2 classes tomorrow: Civil Procedure (the hows and whys of courts) and Constitutional Process. I tackled Civil Procedure first. I had 50 pages to read, and I started outlining the chapters as I read. I found this to be extremely helpful and I learned a lot. Surprise, surprise..studying the law was interesting! It wasn't as bad as I had feared. Civil Procedure took me 3 hours, though, and I was dreading how long Constitutional Process would take.

I looked at my assignment for Constitutional Process. I had to read the US Constitution and analyze the legal doctrines discussed from Marbury v. Madison. I set about reading the Constitution, and I was amazed-truly amazed-at how powerful this document is. Our entire Federal Government is in this small document drafted 218 years ago. The way that the government has worked for those many years was framed by our Founding Fathers. I didn't remember getting this excited about the Constitution when I read it in government class in high school. Check it out, and you will see how impressive this document truly is. Marbury v Madison was even more interesting. This was a situation where the Chief Justice of the Supreme Court interpreted the law in such a way that it forever defined the limits and scope of the highest court in the land. Even more amazing was the fact that, in doing so, Chief Justice John Marshall went against his party affiliations. Think about this for a second. A justice putting the Constitution first and his own allegiances second......how often does that happen in this day and age? I was impressed.

After I completed Con Process, I looked up at the clock. Over 4 hours had gone by since I first sat down at my desk!! I am still concerned about whether I can keep up with all of the material, but if the material stays this interesting, there is hope for me!

A Day of Rest....NOT!!!

For my first night in a new apartment, I slept pretty well. I guess I can attribute that to the number of nights I spent away from home while in the employ of Bio-Rad. At last count, this year I had spent around 51 nights away from home by the end of July alone. When you travel as much as I had to, you get used to sleeping in hotel beds pretty quickly. I once joked to my Dad that when I arrived home for a visit, I half expected to have my miniature soap all wrapped up ready for me to use. I think that staying put will take some getting used to.

So, where was I? Oh, yes. So I hopped out of bed (well, dragged myself anyway) and went downstairs to have some food. Today was a training day with David, my trainer at the gym. I have learned to always have food on board before I train (especially when I train with David!). I gave myself a couple of hours and finished watching "Friday Night Lights", the movie based on one of my favorite books. If you have only seen the movie and not read this classic exploration of high school football in small town America, I highly recommend it. As a matter of fact, if you have not read it, you should stop reading this blog and go out and pick up the book. After I finished the movie, I made my way to the gym. There were not too many people in the gym, and I immediately went to warm up before meeting David.

I like working out with David (and I am not just saying this because he might be reading this). David is one of the first trainers I have worked with who listens to me and is working towards the same goal as I am. Of course, I think he gets a little too much enjoyment out of punishing me. I always learn a lot when I work out with David, and today was no exception. In the past, I had kept the pretty same routine. Like everything else in life, however, you run the risk of getting used to a workout routine, and the routine that used to keep you fit will no longer cut it. Enter David. He has introduced me to a number of different workout techniques and philosophies. We also crack wise about pro football and the world in general. Today, David took me through a chest workout from heck. On days that I lift with David, I don't have any energy for cardio, so after an hour, I was done.

I called Comcast to see what was up with my appointment. They said that they would get back to me in 20 minutes, so I decided to get some food for lunch and to go home. I called Comcast after an hour had gone by, and they informed me that someone would be out by 8 PM (!) Resigned to another day of waiting, I did some more unpacking and read a book on transitioning from college to law school. I found it extremely informative and feel a lot better about starting to break down cases into briefs this weekend. I was going to take a midday nap when I was jolted from my slumber by a call from.....da daaa! Comcast! They would be here in 20 minutes. Sure enough, 2 workers showed up and had me hooked up in no time. I spent the late afternoon setting up the high speed accounts and configuring my wireless router. You guessed it...I am writing this entry while hooked up to my wireless router!!! Success!

Tomorrow will be an interesting day. I have to wake up at 6 AM and get to Oak Park to pick up some furniture for the new place (thank you, bro!). I hope to get done well before noon, as the Air and Water Show will be going on in Chicago, and the roads will be packed. Following the morning activities, I plan to spend some time in my office and work out. I might head out for a while with Eric, but I hope that I can rest a little bit on Sunday. I am definitely coming down with a minor sore throat. When it rains......

Moving day

So after the high stress of starting school the last 2 days, I got to enjoy the relative low stress (Ha!) of moving to my new place today. As I mentioned in previous posts, I am always amazed by how much I have stored while living in a studio. I have come to the conclusion that most of the boxes contained old bills, check stubs, credit card receipts, etc. These are things that I don't want to part with because of the danger of identity theft. Now I know that you might be thinking "but Artful, that is why they make paper shredders". I happen to own a paper shredder. The darned thing is the size of a small elementary school trashcan (you remember those...the ones that come up to your knees and quickly fill with the snotrags of toddlers...but I digress..). The result of having such a small wastebin is that it fills rather rapidly with the volume of receipts, credit card offers, etc that I get on a daily basis. THis has made me lazy with regard to my shredding, resulting in a small forest being stored in tiny pieces within several large (and heavy) boxes. I know that one day, I will spend an afternoon looking through all of the boxes and shredding, but not today. Today I have to move!

So, the movers arrived at 8:30 AM. They worked rather quickly and were done by 1 PM, which is a very good thing because I had to take my brother to the airport (another long story for another time). The place is still a shambles, but I have been picking my way through the mess. At least I was able to set up my office space, the most important part as I will be spending most of Saturday and Sunday preparing for the week's law classes. I am excited about my study space. It is entirely geared towards scholarly endeavors (i.e., no TV or video games to distract me, and the desk faces the wall instead of the window (no daydreaming while watching the world go by). I am ready to get started. I also spent most of the afternoon and evening waiting for the high-speed internet installer who never showed. Now, I can understand if the installer was busy. I had an appointment for between 3 and 5 pm. What I do not understand is that it is now 10:07 and I haven't heard from Comcast. I have called them several times and have spoken to their customer service representatives(who is already having a heck of a week with the scandal in Chicago-if you are curious, go to the Chicago Tribune website), but no one could give me an answer as to when they would show up. In the meantime, I waited here the entire day. ARRRGH!!!!

At least I had my unpacking to keep me busy. I am slowly beginning to realize that the electrical costs for this place will be pretty high. For this reason, I think that I will invest in a window air conditioning unit for my bedroom. If I kept the central air on constantly, I can see electric bills of $400 + dollars in my future.

Tomorrow will be a little more relaxing. I will go to the gym and then wait all day for the electric company to read the meter. Eric, my new roommate, is having the electricity billed to him and I am having the Comcast services billed to me. We will then split the difference so that we are paying the same amount. It is a good arrangement.

Well, it's late, and I am hot and tired. I am going to hit the showers and go to bed. Tomorrow it begins again!

Orientation or dis-orientation?

Day 2 of law school started a little later than I thought...7:30. I rolled out of bed and had a quick workout and quick breakfast before hopping on the "L" to the Law School (yes, I showered first!!). The first class of the day was legal writing. Now remember that I was stressing over the missing books from the reading list. It turns out that they were just recommended reading (whew). I can catch up on it from the library copies. I am planning on getting acquainted with the library this weekend. Anyway, the legal writing class was a blast. I learned how to brief a case. It looks like something that I will have to practice over and over again, but I am looking forward to it. For those of you who might not be familiar with case briefings, think back to those reading comprehension sections on your achievement tests/MCATs/LSATs, etc. This is exactly what briefing a case is like. Our first assignment is to brief a case, and I am actually excited aboutit! We have a pretty good professor, so I am looking forward to the rest of the semester. The only downside to the class so far has been the "eager beavers". I am all for class participation and discussion, but most of their questions took us pretty far off course. It was like people were jockeying to be noticed. I made a mental note to only speak when I can add something to the discussion or when called upon. I intend to be ready for my 2 classes on Monday.

Following an information session on Bar admission (where I found out that I will be put through more scrutiny than if I were applying to the NSA) and lunch (Potbelly's, the best subs on the PLANET!!), we had 2 afternoon sessions. The first was on lawyering skills, presented by Dean Rubin. Professor Rubin was a very dynamic speaker who teaches Criminal Trial Law at DePaul. He was great! He almost made me want to try my hand as a criminal defense or prosecuting attorney. I really like him and hope to have him as a professor in the future. The final session was on study skills, and this was more interesting than I thought it would be. There are so many things at our disposal fo studying that it is difficult trying to figure out what to use. The professor gave us some good ideas (study groups, hornbooks, published outlines, case notes, etc) and then we were done. I was exhausted. I skipped the welcome party to get home and do some packing. I am moving tomorrow morning, and I think that I am very close to being ready. I just want the move to be over. I am looking forward to unpacking and setting up tomorrow. Hopefully, my high speed internet connection will be up tomorrow and I will be able to update you all on how the move went.

The Madness Begins!

Well, today was the day....the first day of law school orientation and the first day of my next 3 years. I woke up bright and early at 5:30 AM and trudged to the gym. I wanted to get the academic year off to a good start. After a hard 30 minutes of cardio, I returned to my apartment, got ready for school, and was on my merry way. Orientation was held at the Harold Washington Public Library located a block from DePaul in the Chicago Loop. The orientation breakfast was disorienting to say the least. There were not enough seats for the 180+ people who showed up, and I ended up finding a place on the floor. I tried not to size up my classmates, but something did stand out. They were YOUNG...still wet behind the ears from college.

Following breakfast, we gathered in the library's auditorium and settled in for a morning of introductory remarks from a number of individuals within the administration. I found out that average age was 23 years old....meaning that most of these people were 10 when I reached legal drinking age...Oy! The morning seemed to drag on, and every speaker seemed to emphasize one facet of the first year of law school...it's HARD! I think that they mean to really scare us, but I am not intimidated yet. I didn't get a chance to speak to too many of my classmates, but I have a feeling that I will get to know my section pretty well. My section consists of one-third of the entering class. After today, we will not gather as an entire class until graduation.

After a catered lunch, the members of my section and I gathered for our first Legal Writing Class. Most of the members in my section seem to be in the IP (or intellectual property-meaning patents, copyrights, and trademarks), and our professor is a current IP attorney practicing in Illinois. We learned about the organization of the American legal system (state versus federal jurisdictions) and we learned about what was expected of us for the coming year. We also received our syllabus for the course, and I was dismayed to find that one of the texts for our first reading assignment was still on backorder at the bookstore and the other text for this weeks reading was the previous edition. I am thinking that the professor might not be aware that the new edition is out and will be sure to address the issue tomorrow. Although the previous edition is on reserve in the library, I don't want to fight tooth and nail against the others in my section just to get my assigned reading done every week.

After legal writing, I went on a tour of the school (lead by an upperclassman) and signed up for a few organizations at the organization fair (IP, Law and Science, and the South Asia Law Students Association). I also signed up to be on the e-mail lists for the ABA and the Illinois Bar Association. While my classmates finished the day by chowing down on pizza, I raced home. I knew that my new computer would be arriving today, and sure enough, it was waiting for me. An Alienware 7700. A laptop with a Pentium 4 processor, dual slot loading DVD-R/CD RW drives, and 2 60 GB hard drives. I was expecting an awesome machine, but what I wasn't expecting was the size of this behemoth! It is a desktop replacement, not thin and mobile by any stretch of the imagination. I do love it, though. BTW, if there are any typos, it's because of me getting used to a new keyboard configuration.....

As much as I wanted to unpack the computer and play with it, I had more pressing matters...namely packing. How I accrued so much stuff in so short a time in a studio apartment is something that begs future examination. Tonight's objective was to pack up my kitchen and the second of 2 large closets (the first having been packed up last night). Finally, with my goals reached, I was able to settle in with my new toy.

Boy, am I tired. I am looking forward to Friday, when I will be moved in and (hopefully) close to completely unpacked.

And so the first week begins...

In my infinite wisdom, I am scheduled to move on Thursday after 2 days of law school orientation. The next 3 days should be dedicated to packing my apartment up, but there are so many details to take care of that I feel a bit ovewhelmed. I guess the end result will be all right. After all, with school starting this week and my move, I am handling all of my stressors at once. So far, the day has been pretty easy. I woke up at 8 am, packed up a few boxes, and went to the gym. I returned from the gym all ready to get some packing done. It hasn't been as bad as I fear. My current apartment is a studio in Old Town, right next to Second City. As I live in a studio, the amount of amassed "stuff" (thank-you, George Carlin) is far less that it could have been. I have fallen into the habit of moving some packed boxes from place to place without ever unpacking them. One of these days, I will have to go through them!

Where was !? Oh, yes..I returned from the gym and chatted with my Dad for a while. I intended to get right to packing, but I made the mistake of turning on the TV. Wouldn't you know that STARZ EDGE is showing First Blood, that famous 80's movie starring the red haired Caruso from CSI Miami and some guy named Stallone. This kills 2 hours. I start to do some packing and then realize that I still need to change my cell phone billing. My former company, Bio-Rad, generously allowed me to keep my cell phone number after I resigned to start law school, but getting Cingular to actually port the number has been a nightmare. After spending 2 hours on the phone with Cingular trying to get this resolved, the salesperson gets irritated with Cingular Corporate (I actually lost my cool with them), the salesperson has been extremely nice and promises to call me tomorrow about my plan. I start packing again with the Simpsons playing in the background.

I am starting to get a little nervous about tomorrow. Orientation begins at 9:30 sharp and continues until 6. I will definitely have some info posted tomorrow. Hopefully, I will get better at this blog stuff.