And Happy New Year!

The last few days had been spent with family, and NO law school reading! My sister was in town from southern CA, so we spent the 26th with her. Then I took the kids to SF for a couple days for some shopping and fun. Not much else going on now. Just lots of reading to do.

I'm really loving my new car. It had 15 miles on it when I got it, and as of last night, I already had put 700 miles on it.

Anyway, my kids are going to Disneyland for a few days next week with my sister while I go back to classes. Doesn't seem fair! Im not ready to go back yet. Kind of a drag to be back on the 2nd. I definitely don't feel rested, relaxed and rejuvenated!

We don't have any plans for New Year's Eve yet. We'll probably just stay home, watch some movies and enjoy some of our favorite champagne. Sounds pretty good to me!

Wishing everyone a Happy New Year!

Merry Christmas!

Merry Christmas all!

Here's a little gift to you: our Bus. Org. final in May is NOT comprehensive, and only covers the spring material. I noticed the difference in the fall and spring syllabus, and emailed the professor, and here is his reply:

"I tend to emphasize spring semester material on the spring exam. This
emphasis means that the spring exam covers only spring semester material."

Cool.....I guess this means I can forget the corporate opportunity stuff. And it means that my only comprehensive final will be in Property. YEAH!

I wish everyone a very safe and merry Christmas, and all the best in the new year!

It's Here and It's Mine!

I picked up my new car yesterday- wow, it's so fun to have a new car! It's been 4 years since I had my last one, and 7 years since I bought my first SUV that this is replacing. Even though it is the same model, this one is so much nicer! They have added a lot more features. For example, in addition to regular radio, in dash cd player, and 6 cd changer, I now also have satellite radio and a built in ipod hookup! :) I also really like the automatic back door opener and closer, which is so handy when your hands are full. I think I'm going to keep this one for a long time too!

The first assignments for spring classes are now online. Just a note in case, like me, you browse using Firefox. Several of the files will not open properly, so use IE and they will be fine.

It really sucks that no more grades have been posted yet. I keep checking several times a day anyway. At least I'm not wasting gas and time having to drive over to school to check like last year. I'm betting now that nothing will be posted until January 2. Oh well.

I picked up my daughter last night after getting the new car. I'm so glad she will be here for 3 weeks this time. It's hard to believe she already finished her first semester at MIT. The grades for freshmen are pass/fail only, so she won't have any problem there, and it sounds like she did well on all her finals too. Just good to have her home!

Why Do I Get Sick on School Breaks?

I caught a cold over the Thanksgiving weekend, and now I have another one. I always wonder if somehow my body just knows it can relax, so then it is more susceptible to germs or something. I don't feel that bad, but I have an annoying cough. Hopefully I will be better by Thursday when I go up to the bay area to pick up my daughter.

Also on Thursday, I will be getting an early Christmas present because I will be picking up my new vehicle at the bay area dealership we ordered it from. :) I got my last new car 4 years ago (and it still only has 22K miles on it!), so it will be fun to have another one!

I am now ready for Christmas- the gifts were bought before December and wrapped last week, the tree was decorated yesterday and today I did my Christmas cards. Only 2 are going out of state, so hopefully most of the others will get them in time. Just need to pick up my daughter (and get better)!

Christmas Tree--Finally!

We got our tree on Saturday, but we went over to the coast yesterday to see hubby's family, so didn't get to decorate it until today. Here's a look:

I still need to put out some presents, but I think I'll do that tomorrow.

Now, I have a slightly disturbing video to share with you. Here is my cat, Tiber, with her favorite part of Christmas.

Property Grades NOW Online

I got better than my GPA on it, so I'm happy!

Property Grades will be posted TODAY

I ran into my Property professor while at school this morning to finish up my cite checking. She said the Property grades will be online sometime today. I asked her how our class did overall, and she said it was the weirdest thing because instead of having the normal bell curve distribution, the grades were like a flat line- evenly spread out. She said she has never given so many As or Fs!

I've checked and they aren't there yet. Of course, I will be compulsively checking until they are.

I'm Done!

Just got home from my Con Law midterm. Either I'm totally brilliant and spotted and adequately discussed all issues, or I'm a complete idiot and missed more than I saw. It just seemed too easy to me. Because I'm not particularly fond of this subject matter (to put it mildly), I'm leaning towards the latter. At this point, however, I don't really care. I'm just happy to have the next 2.5 weeks off.

I do have tons of stuff I need to do though. First on my list is completing my Law Review cite checking, which I will do tomorrow. Then I need to decorate my house and get our tree, neither of which I've done yet. Then I need to wrap all the gifts, but thank goodness my shopping is all done.

I can't remember if I mentioned this before. My birth family has gradually gotten away from buying gifts for each other. (Just the siblings, not my parents.) First we picked names for each other, and then we had all of our kids exchange gifts, but some of us really wanted to do away with it altogether and only buy for our parents. Of course, my youngest sibling didn't want to, because he felt his kids (the youngest of the cousins) were getting the short end of the stick because my kids got gifts for 18 and 16 years, and his only got them for 7, 9 and 12 years. (Of course, that is only because that is how long they have been alive.)

We kind of had some disagreements, but finally came up with a solution. We decided, as a family, to "adopt" another family, and buy them gifts. My brother is involved with a mentoring program at a poor school here in town, so through that, we were able to get the name of a family that needed some help. We found out the names, ages and sizes of their kids, and on Friday, as a family, we are going to go shopping for this family, then together wrap everything up. On Saturday morning, we are going to deliver all the goodies to them.

We are doing this instead of exchanging gifts with each other. I'm actually very excited about it and expect it to be a lot more meaningful than just giving gifts to each other. I'm hoping it becomes our new family tradition. : )

Thinking Ahead

Last night, perhaps in an effort to avoid studying for Con Law, I got out the spring syllabus for that class and wrote out the assignments on my calendar. What I noticed right away was because the first week of classes starts on Tuesday, January 2, this normally Monday night class was going to meet on Thursday night, January 4. That alone didn't bother me, but twice later we have Monday holidays in the spring semester, and apparently both Monday classes hold make up classes on Thursday. Of course, the problem is that I have another class on Thursday afternoon (Bus. Org.). I could go the the Wednesday evening session of that class, but I am going to have Crim Trial Practice on Wednesday nights. If I were the class cutting type, I suppose this would be of no concern to me, but I have not missed a single class yet and don't intend to.

I figured I had 4 classes and only 3 slots to take them. I didn't know if I was going to just pick and choose which one to miss or what. I emailed the assistant dean and asked her and found out that Bus. Org. does not meet on holiday weeks. Also, my Con. Law professor was not supposed to have a class on Thursday of the first week of school, so they had him change his syllabus to reflect that.

Net result? I'm glad I don't have to miss some classes, but I dread I will be stuck with Bus. Org. for 2 weeks longer into the semester.

Tax Exam

I can't believe I forgot to post about this the other day. In my tax class, there is one guy that the professor likes to tease, and whom tries to dish it back to him. Anyway, on the final on the second question, the man in the question had the last name of ZONUM, and he had created a new legal filing system using pictures instead of words. He called this system YNOT. This was funny enough, because the professor had previously teased this student about using such a pictorial system. Anyway, if you were clever enough to read backward in the exam, you would see the student's name. lol Nice to have a little laugh in the middle of an exam sometime.

Ok, so I was the bigger person today. Even though my ex-husband deserves nothing, and certainly not spending time with our daughter when he refuses to help support her (financially or otherwise), I didn't want my children to be apart from each other on Christmas, so I worked out a schedule with him so we each have them part of the time, and they will only be apart on Christmas morning for a few hours. (Normally we do the every other year thing, but this year even though it is his year for my son, my daughter is now 18 and since I'm the only one supporting her, she will be with me. I didn't want it to be so awkward for them, so I set aside my personal issues with him and worked it out for them.) It's not what I would ideally do if I could control everything, but I can't, and so this is the best solution for the world I live in. Plus, at least I can see both kids on both Christmas Eve and Day and not have to dread what is going to happen.

I've Come to a Conclusion

It is not a good idea to have 5 days in between exams. Even though it is crazy, it is better when they are 2 days apart because at least you have momentum working for you. When you have 5 days, it is all to easy to not take it quite so seriously because you have "so much time". Of course, add to that having an open book, open note exam and you can see my problem.

In other school news, I decided to take Crim. Trial Practice for sure and ordered the books online. I'm hoping it will help me decide if I want to practice criminal law in addition to helping me prepare for moot court. The class is being offered pass/fail only, so that will also take some of the pressure off. In addition, I've heard that Community Property info changes so much that it is better to take it as close as you can to when you take the bar exam so you don't have to unlearn and relearn things.

Oh, enough of this....Con Law is calling.

Grades Will Be Online Sooner

I think, anyway. I emailed the school asking if the grades would be put online as they were turned in by the professors, or if they were going to wait and post all of them at the same time. I got the following reply:

We post grades as we get them in from each professor, but no grades will be posted until after all mid-terms (and finals) are completed this week.

The last exams are this Wednesday, so I suppose that means (at least in theory) some grades could be posted on Thursday. According to another student, our Property professor expected to have our exams done this weekend, so maybe at least that grade will be online this week. Would be nice to have some feedback before Christmas.

I just saw that new dates have been posted on the school's web site (which I don't like now that they changed it. It is too wide and annoying!). This spring our finals end on May 9, summer school is from June 6- July 17, moot court is July 11-13, fall registration is August 16, and if all goes well, I will finish my last law school exam on May 7, 2008. Wow, less than 17 months to go!

Only One More

After completing my Tax midterm last night, I have only one midterm left- Con Law. (More about that in a minute.) I'm feeling pretty good about Tax. The first question was a no brainer, and the multiple choice were mostly very easy because I had studied the previous tests so much and knew the answers to almost all of them. The second question in determining the tax for the couple was harder than I thought, though mostly because our instructor told us that he would make AGI an even number, and mine wasn't, so that bothered me. Of course, I got over it, realizing that it isn't an "all or nothing" question.

I was also kind of bent that the exam was supposed to be 3 hours, ending at 9:30 (ok, maybe 9:40 since he started us 10 minutes late). I normally like to exit my exam (on Examsoft) and get it uploaded a few minutes before the end of the time so I know there won't be any issues in doing so. When I stopped about 9:25 to do that, I noticed on the board written "Time left: 60 minutes" but I had neither seen nor heard the professor do this, so I assumed he had done so at 8:30. Anyway, I exited my exam, uploaded it and got my stuff together when the professor comes in and writes "30 minutes to go" on the board. WTF? Nice. Well, there was nothing I could do at that point, since my exam was turned in, so I just left. Who wants to be taking a test until 10pm on a Friday night anyway?

I'm sure I did well enough to pass, but if I HAD known it was going until 10, I probably would have spend a little longer trying to find my errors/omissions on the tax problem. Whatever. At least I am done with that class for all eternity.

I now have 5 days to prepare for Con Law. As mentioned before, it is an open note/outline and open book test. Not that it makes it any easier. But I do have one outline already fully prepared, and I just intend to prepare a shorter one, and then read through both of them enough to feel familiar with everything. I'm not very motivated, since I do hate this class, and this is my last test. I did promise myself a day off this weekend, so I'll probably spending tomorrow getting out the Christmas decorations. Definitely much more fun than Con Law!

Freaked Out and Stressed

Fortunately, I can say that my exams do not have me feeling this way. To the contrary, I am feeling quite confident and just happy to have the chance to show what I've learned. It makes me feel kind of strange because it seems like every other student I talk with is majorly freaking out about each test. Sometimes I'm even surprised that I'm not more stressed because when I think about, maybe I should be. So maybe down deep I'm either completely confident in my abilities, or maybe I just don't care.

Last night's Crim Law exam was pretty much as I expected. Beforehand, I had timed myself and it took me 20 minutes to type out (from memory) the list of offenses and defenses and the laws for each. I decided that was too much time to "waste" during the exam, and once it started, I just took 3 minutes to write out the list of offenses and defenses (without the laws) to make sure I wouldn't miss spotting anything while reading the fact patterns.

I think I did really well. I wrote about 1500 words for each of the 3 questions. I finished about 20 minutes early, and then went through and re-read it all, adding a few small things here and there. I'm sure I missed stuff (as I am sure I did in Property), but I really think I will get a decent grade (above 70) on both of them. (Not that I can say the same for Bus. Orgs.)

Now to Tax. I did a lot of prep work for that test last weekend, so now I need to refresh myself with it and get ready for tonight's exam. It will be a different kind of exam with all the calculations and stuff- not like a normal law school exam. We actually get to use calculators!

Ok, well I suppose I should get to it and stop wasting time on here......

23 Criminal Offenses...

and 7 defenses....that's what I've been working on memorizing that last day and a half for tonight's Criminal Law exam. I don't have them down "pretty", but I have enough that counts.

I'm not expected this test to be very difficult really. I think it is going to be more about how much info can I cram in there in the time we have. After reviewing past exams and answers, it seems like if you have the time and need more to talk about, you can talk about what things would be if the facts were different or more fully explained. Not sure I will be able to be that ambitious. I'm just happy if I can remember all the crimes and their definitions.

I normally put all of our Christmas decoration up (including the tree) the first weekend of December. Because I'm busy studying and because I'd rather the tree be somewhat fresh when my daughter gets home from MIT on Dec. 21, I decided to postpone it. But it just doesn't seem right without things looking all festive and ready for the holidays. I think I'm going to get the decorations out and up this weekend, and get the tree next Thursday, once I finish my final test on Wednesday night (Con Law).

I do have all my shopping done (thank goodness for the internet!). I'm still waiting for a few things to arrive, but hopefully they will be here by the end of next week so I can sit down and get them all wrapped while my son is still in school.

Ok, back to Crim....

One Down, 3 More to Go

Just finished my Property midterm. I feel really good about it. There were 2 essay questions, each worth 33 points, and some future interest problems worth 34 points. I had worked on a lot on the future interest stuff in the last few days, and I actually think I did very well on that section. I'm sure I forgot things in the essays, but overall, I'm happy. (Of course, I say that now. I may not feel the same once I see my grade next month!)

One thing I noticed is that since I am more used to having classes at night now (compared to last year when all my classes were in the afternoon), I didn't feel tired during the exam at all. I still would rather have exams in the afternoon, but at least I didn't feel like I was dragging the last hour or so.

Next up is Crim Law on Thursday evening. I have an outline I like, but I haven't really looked at it since last week, so I'll be memorizing that and going over all the old exams for the next 2 days.

Tax is on Friday, and I feel like I'm already prepared for that, so no worries here. I have all the info and formulas for the 2 essays already copied into my tax code book, along with the questions and answers to the 4 dozen most commonly asked multiple choice questions. I'll probably spend Friday reviewing my notes and jotting a few more things in my book, but I don't anticipate too much stressing over this test.

Constitutional Law is a week from tomorrow. I will have 5 days to prepare for that. As I mentioned previously, that exam is open book and open note. I have made my outline already, but I need to go over the old exams, and probably add some stuff to my outline. Five days will give me plenty of time to do that.

Other than last month's Bus. Org. test (which I KNEW would be horrid), I thought Property would be the hardest. I'm now thinking Crim. won't be too bad. Tax is going to just be a matter of going through the steps. Con. Law will be yucky (because I hate the subject), but it shouldn't be impossible. Makes me feel like it won't be so bad now. I must be tired. Time for bed....

Study, study, study

The review session for tax yesterday went until 7pm! I'm sorry, but sitting in a classroom on a Saturday night when I am starving because it is way past dinner time SUCKS! To make matters worse, the local electric holiday parade had my normal route blocked, so it took me even longer to get out of there.

The good thing is, I think Tax now makes sense to me. I know what I'm going to have to do on the first exam question (figure out if it IS income), which is no big deal. And for the second question, determine what is the person's tax due (which after the review session doesn't seem so scary now). I have most of the answers for all the multiple choice questions, so I just need to write a few more things in my book and I'll be ready for that test, which isn't even until Friday.

I did decide my Property outline was too big and bulky to help me study effectively, so after reviewing the midterm exams and sample answers for the last 5 years, I cut and revised and took it from 34 pages down to 12, 4 of which is future interest stuff. I'm feeling a lot better about that now too after working on that all day and feeling like I know all the rules of law I need to.

While at school yesterday, I got the registration material for the spring. I had been planning on taking Community Property in place of Tax (since both are one semester only classes). However, another class caught my eye, so I'm going to do a bit of checking and see if Criminal Trial Practice might be a better class for me to take this spring. (Need to see if I have to completed Evidence and Crim. Pro. first or not.) It sounds like a fun and interesting class, and I met the professor last summer when I was a time keeper in his "courtroom" for moot court. I'm thinking the practice in that class would be a nice preparation for moot court in addition to helping me see if I really want to be involved in Criminal Law.

Ok.....back to studying, at least for a little bit longer...

Weekend of Studying

What else do you do when you have 3 exams in the coming week?

I have my outlines done for Property and CrimLaw. My Property one is way longer than it should or needs to be, but I don't have the time now to refine it like I would prefer. This exam is on Tuesday, and I do not feel at all prepared. I did spend some time yesterday going through some of the future interests stuff, so hoping that helped.

Crim is on Thursday. My outline is pretty nice, and I don't think that exam will be as difficult, but I still need to memorize a lot. I'm not sure how much I will be able to do for it until Wednesday though.

Tax is on Friday. Unfortunately, the review session for that is today at 3:30pm. That sucks! Who wants to spend a Saturday afternoon at school? Of course, if I was at home, I'd be studying anyway, so maybe it doesn't matter, except I'd be studying for Property instead of Tax. We can use our Tax Code books for the exam, and write (not computer printed) anything we want in there. Because he has plenty of sample answers to the essays questions online, I don't think those will be too difficult. For the 20 multiple choice though, they can be more tricky. I was able to get my hands on answers to 2 years worth of his multiple choice questions, and since he uses the same questions a lot, that will help. I did organize my code book and index and start to write some things in there. Honestly, after today, I probably won't think about Tax again until Friday morning.

I guess I need to get moving. Off to start the studying....