First week of law school
What a week. Not only has this first week of law school been more difficult than I thought it would be, but I’m also trying to deal with this at the same time. I can’t tell you how much I’m looking forward to sleeping in on Saturday (read: not waking up until at least 9AM :P).
I must admit that law school is quite different from what I envisioned, at least insofar as how the material is taught. I have six courses:
- Torts (two semesters)
- Criminal (one semester)
- Pleading and Civil Procedure (two semesters)
- Property (two semesters)
- Contracts (two semesters)
- Research and Writing (three semesters)
All of the classes, except Research and Writing, are similarly laid out. The basic idea is that before each class you are to read a number of cases that have gone up on appeal. You usually brief each case — an outline to help you remember the important points of the case — and then discuss it in class. Needless to say, there is a lot of reading, writing, and analyzing. The first week has been quite demanding; it’s only going to get worse. Free time is literally a thing of the past.
I’ve made some really great friends this first week. We are going to get to know each other rather quickly as we are always in the library together.
All of my classes are in one building, and as luck would have it, the entire building is WiFi’d. It’s really nice. While I do have some gripes about their authentication scheme, it’s works well for the most part. The law library is also WiFi’d, though the signal in the room that we usually rent is extremely weak.
I’m having a slight issue with the PowerBook. Given that I’m constantly carrying it around in my bag with other books, the keys are starting to leave imprints (and oil from my fingers) on the screen. While I knew some people were experiencing this problem (the screen actually being scratched in some cases), I hadn’t come across it yet. I have no option other than to place something between the screen and the keyboard each time I close it. I’m going to use a piece of paper for the time being, but if that proves insufficent, I’ll probably order the Acme iCover or JR Hill’s screen protector.
Speaking of PowerBooks, not too many people in my class have them. One of my friends has an iBook and I’ve seen one other PowerBook (the 12). I found it odd that there were so few Apple machines, but given that we are required to have a Windows machine for exams, it’s understandable (kind of).