T-Minus 1 Week and Counting...

My very first law school final examination is one week from tomorrow. The class is in a frenzy. Questions in class have gone from substantive issues regarding the material to slighted inquiries as to the format/questions/grading scheme/etc. of the exam. I've heard people ask the professor, "What kind of writing style do you want on the exam?"

Seriously? This isn't writing style school. It's law school. Here, I've been in law school as long as you and I can answer that question: he wants the writing style which shows him that you know the law and that he can sleep at night knowing he gave you his stamp of approval to go out into the world and practice law as a profession. While two exams of equivalent substantive quality might be distinguished by superior formatting, organization, or writing style, that's not a productive area of discussion.

But this is where the men are separated from the boys. It's going to be interesting when the Spring semester starts and everyone has their grades. I predict that the top 20% will volunteer their accomplishment to everyone else, and the bottom 80% will mostly keep their mouths shut, with some intermittent lying sprinkled around here and there. In my opinion, however, there aren't going to be many surprises. The "contenders" as I call them, borrowing a the context of the term from the NBA, are pretty easy to spot. And there are a good number of them. In fact, I surmise that several people who deserve B's or even A's will find themselves with a C+, unfortunate but mandated victims of the curve. It's going to be interesting, to say the least.

Alas, I must return to my furious Property outlining. I am almost done. Just have Leaseholds left to cover. All in all, I loved my first semester of law school. I intend to go into my finals as prepared as I can possibly be. There's no sense fretting over what you can't control, and anything above and beyond your very best is something you can't control. Watch out December 11th at 4:00pm, for there will be some debauchery, depravity, decadence coming from Section B.

Happy Thanksgiving to everyone. I have much to be thankful for.

Cougars, Neo, and Collaborative Finals

The tension is like a clothesline getting tauter and tauter with each passing hour; the only question is how intense the vibrations up and down will get and how much they will disturb and disrupt those who let them. There are but 2 and a half more weeks of substantive classes left in the first semester of law school, and final exams are starting to loom over the horizon, casting an onerous shadow over us all. My first final is December 1st at 1:00 in the afternoon; the Monday immediately following Thanksgiving Break. One thing I can be thankful for already is that my first final is Property. As I've said before, Property is my weakest class, and so the extra time over Thanksgiving to prepare will be very beneficial. Though I feel lately like my comprehension of Property is starting to congeal and take shape much more than before. Perhaps Contracts is now my weakest class. Anyway, my point is that the anxiety of upcoming final exams is palpable already. Who knows what it will be like come the last few class sessions. It seems that the universal notion is that "I must beat the curve" kind of attitude. The first semester of grades are (supposedly) particularly influential in determining several things, such as class rank, ability to get on the law review, eligibility for certain programs and internships, etc. etc. The pressure is mounting, and people are trying to cope with it. People are already foregoing social outings in favor of spending 12 or 13 hours at a time in the library on a Saturday.

I, however, am not among them. I feel little to no pressure at all. The tension, the anxiety, the mental burden ... they all avoid me like the plague. In fact, my only concern is that I'm not concerned. Perhaps that's more dangerous than what anyone else is feeling. Perhaps I should be in the library every free minute of every free day, nose in the case (or horn) books. Perhaps I overestimate myself or underestimate law school or a combination of both. Perhaps I will get a rude awakening when I open that Property exam, or worse yet, when I receive my grades. If that's what happens, then so be it. I am confident that I am doing my best, balancing the priorities and tasks and responsibilities and obligations to the best of my ability, and that's all I can ask of myself. As Keith Green taught me, I'm just going to keep doing my best, pray that it's blessed, and let Jesus take care of the rest.

One thing that added a small, unexpected dash of complication into the whole process was the news that our Civil Procedure final will be take-home over the span of 48 hours and collaboration is permitted among students in groups of up to four. This is a little like a wrench being thrown into the system, as the problem of free riders pops up and everyone in the class gets concerned that someone who doesn't deserve to get a better grade than them will end up doing so by attaching themselves to a more well-prepared group (each group turns in only one exam and the Professor doesn't know who worked on the exam or if it was done by an individual or a group). If you elect to work alone, you look like an elitist schmuck. If you don't, you run the risk of the mandatory curve taking away too many A's from group exams to afford them to another full group. It's quite a pickle and some people are really struggling with it. Personally, I'm not worried about it. I've got my plan and I'm going to stick with it.

The law school Halloween Party was everything it purported to be. It was held at a bar called Hemingway's here in San Antonio, which has two stories, a deck/patio, and a DJ area. I went as Neo from the Matrix movies:

It was a total blast. That's me on the right there. /flex. The party lived up to all the hype. Some of the costumes were hilarious. Some of the notables are as follows: one girl went as Bill Belichick, clad in a too-big gray New England Patriots hoodie. It was perfect. One of my buddies went as a JW, complete with short-sleeve white dress shirt, short tie, backpack, and bicycle helmet. It cracked me up every time. Of course, there were lots of Sarah Palins and one of my other buddies went as Joe the Plumber. I went out and tore up the dance floor with a little help from my regal friend, Crown. It was funny when four dudes dressed up as the Village People got out there and the DJ played YMCA. Haha. I love the Holiday season, Christmas espcially, but this is one year that I'm actually sad that Halloween is over.

In closing, if any of you wonder what it's like sitting in a law school class, allow me to part some of the clouds for you. The following video was included in an e-mail sent by my Contracts professor to myself and everyone else in Section B as a follow-up to our in-class discussion:



That's right. We spent a good portion of class on Thursday talking about Cougars.

I love law school.