Thursday, October 18, 2007

Frugal Law Student

It's mid-semester and I've realized that I have spent most of my money for the semester already. Don't be so shocked, most of that was used to pay for moving expenses. Moving from abroad I had to buy all new furniture and furniture is definitely NOT cheap! So I've been trying to find ways to save $$ and still enjoy the finer things in life and afford the essential of law school survival (COFFEE).

I realized after looking at my quicken that I spend as much $$ a week on Starbucks that I do on food during the week (weekends I always go out and spend waaaay too much!) I spend a minimum of $5 a day on coffee, sometimes as much as $10. OUCH!! That's between $125 and $200 a month on Starbucks!! HOLY BOLLUCKS!! No wonder I'm broke! I order a quad grande soy latte, sometimes vanilla if I'm feeling extravagant. That darn "latte" and soy part adds up. On Monday I discovered that with the creamers they finally have soy available for free too!! woo hooo!! Now all those dairy allergic people aren't discriminated against!! So I now only spend $2.50 on the same amount of caffeine. How do I do it? I order an extra hot quad espresso in a grande cup and add my own soy milk. It's not steamed milk and I do miss out on that little frothy-ness on top, but seriously an extra $2.50 for warmer and a little froth?? I let it cool off so much anyway before I drink it that it's not much different anyway. At least the way I reason it!!

And on that note, I'm off to Starbucks to get my fix to help me get through the reading due for today!

XOXO

Monday, October 15, 2007

3 Years

All the recent law school grads are hitting "refresh" and holding their breath, waiting for Bar Exam results. Good Luck to you all!!



this will be me in 3 years!!!

until then I will continue to pretend to study and drink lots of wine.

Friday, October 12, 2007

Gossip Girl

Hello Fellow Law Students,

1L Elle here.

Remember that song you learned in kindergarden "make new friends, but keep the old, one is silver and the other's gold" ? Law school is really challenging that! My old friends, my best friends are all starting to bitch that they heard from me more when I lived 5000 miles away than they do now that we live in the same city, 1 mile apart! It's getting really hard to manage new friends, old friends, family and law school!

I wish law school friends could merge with old friends, but old friends are all at completely different places in their lives than all the 1Ls who are straight out of uni and are all about getting wasted every night and hooking up with each other.

Speaking of hooking up, the incest (dating/hooking up within the section) is really starting to get around! The beginning of the semester everyone was being discrete, not no more!! Their discretion is no competition with the gossip girls in our section. Our section night out last week was one huge gossip night! Oh my goodness the things that i saw and heard! I'd love to share, but I don't want any gossip to come back around about me, so I'll keep my mouth shut...for now.

until then, back to studying
xoxo

Wednesday, October 10, 2007

Hate the Law?

I'm reading law school message boards and there seems to be a lot of 1Ls who hate law school. Is that what's supposed to be happening? I don't really see it at my school. Everyone is stressed out about midterms (which can't hurt your grade) and starting to fret over outlines...I mean, I bitch about the reading and the research and the writing, but honestly, its not that bad. Definitely not bad enough to drop out and lose $25K. But now that they mention it, I wonder if that's why my Civ Pro class seems so empty. Or maybe they just decided that they can teach themselves the law? I'll have to investigate and see who's missing.

On another note, I have my ticket home for Thanksgiving!!! :-) I'm leaving super early on Tuesday and coming home on Friday night. It's a short break, but it's so close to finals that I'm one of the only ones who is even going home! If it was any other holiday then maybe I'd spend it w/ my friends in New Law School City, but Thanksgiving is the only holiday that my family isn't completely dysfunctional, only minimally! Plus my baby bro is home from Iraq and about to be deployed back to another military conflict area and I want to spend some quality time with him (i.e. try to beat him up, get beat up by him, and then get some brotherly advice). I can't wait!!

Monday, October 8, 2007

What Weekend?

Look what law school has done to me! I spent my whole weekend studying and not partying in New Law School City! Well, not the whole weekend studying, I did do brunch with the girls on Saturday AND Sunday. And I did catch up on all the shows that have backed up on the DVR. Oh, and I did some reading for fun (the first time since classes started 5 weeks ago!). And there was some baking time spent. And I cleaned my room and kitchen (the living room and dining room is on the list for this week). I did get through the first 3 LEEWS disks (for the 2nd time). I did get caught up on my Crim reading and finished my Civ Pro reading for the week, but don't even get me started on Con Law!!!!

Ok, so its not like I wasted the weekend, but I didn't party OR get all the studying done that I needed to. This is what law school has driven me to. I spend the week in class, library, Starbucks, studying all the time, drafting memos, or sleeping. The law school dominates so much of my time that I'm now skipping out on going out with my friends so that I can stay home and clean and bake and do all those ordinary people things that I couldn't find time to do during the week. I do always manage to go out on Thursday night, that's my reward for surviving another week. And I usually manage to go out on Saturday night, but that depends on how much studying I get done during the week and if I have Legal Writing to work on.

I really wish there was a break somewhere, time to breathe, relax, go on vaca, time go visit my family, lots of time to go shopping (that of course requires $$ which is in short supply these days). Just time to sit outside with a cup of coffee and read the paper and not be worrying about the reading that is due and the exams that are looming in the distance.

I think this week I will kill myself getting ahead of all my classes and i will spend the weekend with my best friend shopping, gossiping and drinking lots of wine!

Friday, October 5, 2007

Law School Secret

I found this on http://postsecret.blogspot.com a site where pepole anonymously send int their secrets.



I wonder, is this a secret that I'll harbor in 3 years? How long after law school will I regret becoming a lawyer? I'm still determined to not let anyone break my spirit and deter me from becoming a lawyer, but it's getting more difficult. Yesterday someone saw my portfolio from my around-the-world trip and they offered me a pretty sum for some of the pictures. Could I make it as a travel photojournalist?

I've been in law school for 5 weeks now. Some classes are starting to "click" and others i'm SERIOUSLY drowning! I want to go to office hours but I don't even know what questions to ask to help me understand! On a good note, all that work I put into my first memo really paid off! My rewrite was not too hard!

Back to the library, on a friday night, my life is really starting to SUCK...but here's my secret...I'm actually loving the law school challenge!!

Monday, October 1, 2007

Fall is Here!!

It's 7:30am and I cannot sleep. 6.5hrs of sleep and I'm completely energized. Ask me on Thursday morning if I'd get up at 7:30am and I'd punch you in the face, but today I woke up to the first real Fall day of the year! I slept with the windows open last night, it was around 50 degrees and I was able to sleep snuggled up under my warm duvet. I woke up and watched the sunrise. The weather reminds me so much of arriving in France. And listening to a city is wake up is amazing. At 6:30 all I hear is birds chirping, 7am cars start moving around, by 7:30 the kids are up and off to school, neighbors are out for their morning jogs and Starbucks runs. By 8am horns will be honking and construction will resume on the building across the street and the puppies will be barking. Until then I'm sitting on my balcony watching the world wake up, drinking my coffee and actually thinking about opening my crim book. I love the mornings so much more than the nights, for observing that is. In the morning its a brand new day, everything smells so fresh, and there is so much possibility and optimism, like the dream that I'm actually going to get in a run this morning, finish my reading for Crim AND finish my memo rewrites. By nightfall, the day is over, everyone is tired after the long day of working, you realize that you didn't get 75% done of what was planned, but there's still that optimism that you'll stay up all night and be ready for the next day, after you watch all the shows you've Tivo'd and share a bottle of wine with your friends and caught up on all the law school gossip.

The semester is already almost half over!!!! Not to panic anyone or anything!!!!!! OMG, I haven't started outlining yet! I haven't finished listening to LEEWS again! All the panic is already starting to hit everyone. Just as we're starting to understand the cases and the classes are finally starting to "click", Legal Writing is ramping up to kick our a$$es. If it's only October 1 and people are going crazy what will Dec 1, right before finals, be like?????