Wow, it's been a long time since my last post. Since I won't be posting as often, I decided to go with a simpler look. I'll also try to take and post more pictures this year. Things have been good since the New Year, but school has gotten really busy this semester with all kinds of extracurricular stuff.

happy holidays!

Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year!

woo hoo!

My first semester of law school is done!

one more...

One more final exam, criminal law, and I'll be done with my first semester of law school! I've also booked all of my travel plans, so here's when I'll be everywhere:

12/23: depart Chicago, arrive Los Angeles
1/1: depart Burbank, arrive Oakland
1/4: depart Oakland, arrive Burbank
1/5: depart Los Angeles, arrive Chicago

I can't wait to see everyone when I'm back in California!

almost there...

Two final exams down, two more to go... I'll be back in Pasadena on the 23rd!

recommendations

Apparel:
- Threadless, an awesome shirt website, is selling all of its shirts for only $10!

Movies:
- Don't watch Let's Go To Prison. It was horrible. Really horrible.
- I bought a ton of DVDs on Black Friday, in honor of buying a used TV from someone in my building. I'll give recommendations once I start watching them.

TV shows:
- Not sure if this counts, but I've been hooked on Prince of Tennis. I've also been watching Love Hina, as it is a shorter series, lasting only 25 episodes.
- I installed a Comcast DVR, as I miss my Tivo and Comcast only charges $9.99/month for DVR services. I decided to splurge as I hate watching commercials, and I get basic cable for free courtesy of my apartent building.

Books:
- Nothing new since law school started. Not sure if I ever posted this, but the last book I read was Evidence of Things Unseen, which reminded me a lot of Peace Like a River, both pretty good books.

Music:
- The Fray, The Kooks, Hellogoodbye. All recommendations from others, as I don't know anything about music. I also love Snow Patrol's second album, Eyes Open.

classes

I know I promised an update during the long weekend, so here it finally is. Things have gotten jam-packed in the last few weeks, I think ever since November 1, when we were allowed to meet with the Career Services Center. Turns out that we should ahve all of our recruiting work done by the first week of December, to even give us 1Ls a tiny shot at working at a firm this summer.

My section also got slammed with two practice exams plus a paper, all in the week before the final research memos were due. Now that those are done, we have about three weeks left before our first finals period, which can make or break our law school careers.

One more thing, in the midst of the schoolwork was the class scheduling for the spring semester. At Cal, I scheduled classes via phone (TELE-BEARS...), then online, but there was nothing like the lottery system like we have here. Basically, 1Ls were allocated 700 points to bid on classes, with upperclassmen receiving more points (I think 2Ls got over 2000). You research classes and professros, bid your points online, and wait for the bidding period to end to see what you got stuck with.

I don't think I ever gave a run-down on what I'm taking but here's my schedule for this semester, including the professors:

Contracts, Wickelgren
Torts, Speta
Civil Procedure, Redish
Criminal Law, Rubinotwitz
Communication and Legal Reasoning, Provensano

Here's what I'll be taking next semester:

Constitutional Law, Calabresi
Property, Priest
Business Associations, McChesney
Jurisprudence, D'Amato
Communication and Legal Reasoning, TBA

coming soon!

I know it's been a long long time since my last post, but I promise a much longer update during Thanksgiving weekend!

two months

It hit me last night that I'll be a student for the next three years. That's as long as I was at BUILD, and almost as long as I was in high school or college! I'll be celebrating my 30th birthday as a student! The student lifestyle is so different from what I've become accustomed to the last six years, and it's hard to believe that I'll spent the next three years reading, writing and studying.

In other news:
- Shake a fist! I spilled salad dressing on my MacBook, and it's gonna cost me $200 to fix it!
- No more Twinkies and Cupcakes for me

skills

I'm becoming very good at underlining.