The real last post

Regarding the UCSD merger: shoot first and apologize later. This edit is intended for a few individuals.
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I'm going to keep a 2L blog (which will likely exist as another law commentary blog) and a list of links to things my classmates from 1L worked on.

Far and away the best person I worked and studied with during 1L is Augustin Peña. He lost a family member to gang violence and has actively worked to mentor kids in an effort to divert them from gang membership and introduce them to a more successful life. His links are below:

http://powertomentor.blogspot.com/
http://www.powermentor.org/


My brother created an iPhone application. It is a very simple way to 'photoshop' images into pictures you're taking with your iPhone. It is called PictureFriends. (I helped a little with the website and its a really fun app to play with)

http://itunes.apple.com/us/app/picturefriends/id404460002?mt=8
http://picturefriends.ctlynch.com/

LINK TO 2L BLOG:
http://californiawestern2l.blogspot.com/


Please contact me if you are interested in hiring a law clerk.

I am no longer a 1L.

This is my last post. I am finished with finals and I am now a rising 2L. Upon reflection I kind of let my dork flag fly a bit but I think overall the blog is probably a pretty fair representation of what it is like to attend California Western as a 1L.

Here is a run down of spring semester finals and a reflection on the 1L experience.

TORTS:
Torts is a hard class. I had professor Lynch. It's a very subjective course and the multiple choice probably set the curve on the final. I downloaded law in a flash on my iphone and did all the practice problems. I can still remember the essay hypo. Closed Note.

CIVIL PROCEDURE II:
Professor Stiglitz is a difficult professor and he gives away no free points on his exams. Do practice multiple choice problems and make sure you know all the material. Our short answer essay problems had nothing to do with his questions from past exams. I'm not sure how I did on this exam. I think most people walked out feeling tricked by the professor. Closed note with a handout FRCP booklet.

CONTRACTS II:
Professor Barton wants you to word vomit everything you learned from the semester into the essay. The multiple choice is hard. I used law in a flash to study for this class. I lost track of the time a little bit and dwelled on the first question a little too long determined not to miss easy points like I did last semester. This caused me to feel rushed through the last two essays which were worth 10% each. Closed Note.

PROPERTY II:
Professor Smythe is probably the best professor I've had from undergrad to present. He is very easy going and never hides the ball in class or on exams. Open Note.

LEGAL SKILLS II:
I have mixed feelings about this class. I really liked the oral advocacy exercise. The final assignment is an appellate brief. It takes a lot of time and is only worth 2 credit hours. It also does not count against you if you're on the brink of failing out of California Western. The course material isn't exactly helpful to learning legal writing and the best resource is the professor. I think ultimately I learned the most from the student honors instructor who helps out.

For all the substantive classes I prepared all my own outlines and I went to all the tutoring sessions offered. The tutoring sessions are run by upper division students who did well in the class. I can't stress enough how valuable it is to go to these tutoring sessions even if you feel like you don't need it. You'll feel much better when you are outlining or reviewing for a topic and you have the tutor's handout and they respond to your 3:00 a.m. questions about non-mutual offensive issue preclusion or whatever.

Life as a California Western 1L:

1L is a weird experience. You have a lot of work and there is no escaping it. You're surrounded by high stress and highly competitive peers. I'll start with the bad and finish off with the great parts of the school and random personal advice.

The Bad:
California Western really pours the pressure on to do well and escape the attrition rate. The first semester the attrition rate seems like a foreign thing. Everyone is confident in their own abilities. The gravity of the attrition rate doesn't really sink in until you're in class a few weeks into the second semester. People will be asked to leave and some will leave on their own.

Certain social aspects feel like a sequel to high school life. Students form little cliques together. There are a lot of spoiled kids who came straight out of undergrad and haven't worked a day in their lives. They seemed to have had the most trouble keeping up with work though. I think this is probably a trait universal to just about every law school. My friends at Emory, Davis and UCLA have said pretty much the same thing about their 1L experience.

A few people have emailed me saying they got the 'if you can keep an 80 we'll pay for your school' scholarship and wondering how hard it is to keep an 80. An 80 is above the median and grading is on a 95 scale so it's difficult to keep an 80. I don't know what the average grade is because the school doesn't report it which means it is probably below 80. You're gambling with a lot of money.

The Good:
If you're in California Western it means you're living in San Diego. The quality of life here is incredible. The weather is great and you can run, bike, swim, surf, hike, camp, party throughout north park, south park, hillcrest, PB, OB, gaslamp. Produce here is really cheap.

There are a lot of fun student groups and ample opportunities to get involved with the campus. I didn't use the career services to find my summer internship. My friends who did said the career services are almost overzealous in finding you summer work. There are a lot of on campus interview opportunities and community service work to get involved with.

California Western is currently in talks with UCSD about merging. From what I can gather it seems like the only impediments are external political factors and maybe internal UC politics. It's looking more likely than not to happen in the next few years from the sound of the townhall meeting I posted about in January. I hope this happens and Cal Western goes public with UCSD. I wouldn't go here based just on that possibility until there is something more concrete but it's a really exciting time to be a part of California Western/ UCSD. The two schools already share a lot of resources which is another great part about Cal Western if you're interested in exploring it.


Random Advice:
I went into 1L engaged. I'm 25 years old. I love my fiance and she is a pillar in my life. I'm lucky because I get to go home to my best friend each night and she supported everything I did. Most of my friends who went in engaged or with a significant other are now single. Their grades almost certainly suffered as much as they did emotionally. I don't really feel comfortable giving relationship advice but having a life partner is a team effort so pick carefully.

Make sure practicing law is something you really want to do and not just something you think is awesome from watching too many episodes of Law and Order. Law requires really close attention to detail and uses a system including some weird, archaic and poorly written rules. Law school isn't one big Law and Order exercise where you're in trial at light speed making dramatic oral arguments and slinging back scotch on the rocks with big cigars like Wiliam Shattner in Boston Legal. You're doing really tedious legal research, reading cases, briefing, attending classes, practicing hypotheticals, and reading E&Es until the cows come home. It doesn't stop or slow down and the amount of information you're given can feel like trying to drink from a fire-hose until you get a better grip fitting the legal framework together.

If you're uncertain about law school I'd recommend taking the summer enrichment program California Western offers. It's a pretty good insight to how California Western/ any law school education works and you'll be better prepared for the first 6 weeks of classes than your peers who didn't take it. I think it's 1,000 dollars which is a small price to pay if you decide you hate law school (much better than piling on 1L debt and deciding you'd rather watch paint dry). If you know you already want to practice law and you're passionate about it I'd recommend reading "Getting to Maybe", "The Insiders Guide to Your First Year of Law School", and if you really want to let your dork flag fly you can learn the minimum contacts analysis from the civil procedure E&E (MC analysis is basically the same regardless of professor or what school you go to).

Exam preparation is key. The people who did well figured out how to take a law school exam. In undergrad you can get away with 'passive learning' which is basically just reading the material and showing up for class. To some degree you do this in law school by reading and briefing cases and outlining the course. The 'active learning' aspect is crucial to doing well where you take the concepts you've picked out as important and you begin to drill them. You must take practice exams, use Bar Bri or Cali exercises, answer the questions in the E&Es and I personally really liked the Law in a Flash cards app for the iPhone.

A good strategy for closed note exams is to build an attack outline in addition to your normal outline. The attack outline should just have a checklist of things you run through to make sure you covered everything you needed during your issue spotting. To some degree you should have common answers memorized and ready to write down as soon as you spot the issue (like an introduction and basic framework of your minimum contacts analysis for civil procedure I).

Stay healthy. Get adequate rest and exercise. A few of my friends put on about 20 pounds or so over the year. 20-30 minutes of taking a break to walk around each day isn't going to destroy your GPA. If you make yourself sick/ catch a cold during finals you haven't really done yourself any favors by abusing yourself to study more. At a certain point in the semester you should probably stop going out and partying on weekends. You're just burning the candle at both ends and if you're just wasted during the day Saturday and Sunday you've fallen behind on your work. I got H1N1 fall semester. My advice is to avoid that like the plague that it is (if thats even possible). You can go back and read my posts about it if you want.

Use California Western's student tutors. They're really good. They know the material and they'll help you out.

California Western is a tough but good school. The merger with UCSD makes it exciting to be a part of the student body right now. The attrition rate is bad but if you want to practice law in San Diego it's not a bad option. They offer discounted bar prep. classes and have a pretty nice career services administration. The faculty is knowledgeable and helpful. The upper division 1L tutors are excellent. The library even comes with an ocean view. You can walk to the waterfront (NOT the bar) for coffee and studying and you can even pitch your umbrella and hammock for studying at the beach on the weekends. Just remember to hit the ground running and you'll be alright.

Goodbye readers. Goodbye blog. Goodbye 1L.




Post Script:
If you liked the blog or found it useful you can use the donate button to buy me a cup of coffee which fueled my 1L learning and blogging. Or, if you're the eccentric rich type you can pay my tuition! :D

The button is off on the side bar and you don't need a paypal account to donate (just click on one of the little card graphics when you get to that point) ------->

I finished legal skills... then the earth shook.

No joke. I put the last period into my appellate brief and then BAM:

http://maps.google.com/maps?f=q&hl=en&q=32.0931,-115.2491(M6.9+-+Baja+California,+Mexico+-+2010+April+04+22:40:39+UTC)&t=h&z=6&iwloc=A

We rocked and rolled for about 30 seconds. My dog flipped out and and hid under my desk (which has a glass top). I had to pull him out from his hiding place. Crazy!

So long Justice Stevens

I am very interested to see Obama's next appointment.

In Bush v. Gore, 531 U.S. 98 (2000), Justice Stevens wrote a scathing dissent on the Court's ruling to stay the recount of votes in Florida during the 2000 presidential election. He believed that the holding displayed "an unstated lack of confidence in the impartiality and capacity of the state judges who would make the critical decisions if the vote count were to proceed." He continued, "[t]he endorsement of that position by the majority of this Court can only lend credence to the most cynical appraisal of the work of judges throughout the land. It is confidence in the men and women who administer the judicial system that is the true backbone of the rule of law. Time will one day heal the wound to that confidence that will be inflicted by today's decision. One thing, however, is certain. Although we may never know with complete certainty the identity of the winner of this year's Presidential election, the identity of the loser is perfectly clear. It is the Nation's confidence in the judge as an impartial guardian of the rule of law."

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Paul_Stevens

Two internships?

I'm getting ready for finals currently. Studying is going pretty well. I'm a little further behind than I would like but this weekend I'm catching up and memorizing some black letter law. Thats it really.

Another internship I applied to asked me to talk to them when I finish up my internship in SB in June. They might have a bunch of work and I offered to do free legal research for them. Its an environmental group which is what I am really interested in. Law is pretty fun and I like working with lawyers (maybe I'm a freak?).

My reflection on the oral argument:

The sophisters were pretty brutal with their scoring. Their input is pretty valuable though. It felt a lot like rapping. You research and know everything you want to say backwards and forwards. You get into a flow and do your best to destroy your opponent's argument and leave them nothing to come back with. Definitely a fun experience. Honestly, Professor Stiglitz is infinitely more intimidating and after getting speared in his class I've developed almost no fear of having to answer an intelligent person's calls for information.

Its beautiful today and I'm really loving the weather. :)

I pleased the court!

I presented my oral argument last night. I pleased the court. I only made one error when I looked down to make sure I hit all my points in my closing. The oral arguments are a part of the legal skills competition. Due to the error I probably didn't win anything but it I had fun participating.

Time for torts.

Is Adderall cheating?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Adderall#Performance-enhancing_use

I personally don't use it and I think using amphetamines long run is probably a pretty bad idea. It certainly won't make a person any smarter but the ability to focus continuously for hours on end is a pretty big advantage over those who don't take it. I think everyone knows people who take some sort of ADD medicine to study without having a real medicinal reason for it. Does it make the academic playing field uneven? Should it be considered cheating?

Getting ready for finals.

My outlines are almost done. Hopefully I'll have the black letter law memorized by next week. I have my oral argument presentation next Tuesday for legal skills. Hopefully that goes well.

March Madness is seriously impeding on my ability to get anything meaningful done.

My civil procedure professor is a California Lawyer Attorney of the Year

http://www.callawyer.com/story.cfm?eid=908041&evid=1

Brooks and Stiglitz led the California Innocence Project (CIP) to win reversal of convictions in 2009 for three clients who had been imprisoned for many years. Earning the release of a wrongfully convicted person is one of the legal system's most difficult feats; only 27 post-conviction exonerations occurred nationwide last year, according to the New York Innocence Project's annual list. CIP was responsible for all of the California exonerations, after working on the cases for as many as nine years.

In July a Los Angeles County Superior Court judge granted a motion by CIP and Plourd to dismiss charges against Reggie Cole, convicted in 1995 for a shooting death and sentenced to life in prison without parole. In August a San Bernardino County judge granted CIP's request to reverse the murder conviction of William Richards, who was tried in 1997 and sentenced to 25 years to life. In September a U.S. Central District Court judge granted a petition filed by CIP and Multhaup, reversing the 2002 attempted murder conviction of Rafael Madrigal Jr., who was sentenced to 53 years to life in prison for a gang-related shooting incident. In each case, CIP presented exculpatory evidence and new testimony proving the innocence of the client.

Congratulations professor Stiglitz. He is probably the most terrifying professor.

Tonight I went to an Entertainment Law forum (free food!). It was really interesting. There is another session tomorrow night that I'll be attending.

Time for some legal skills.

Internship!

I will be interning with the Santa Barbara DA's office this summer. :)

Its unpaid so I'll have to find another part time job to pay the bills but I'll gain experience with the law.

UCSD and California Western Merger Townhall Meeting

California Western held a townhall meeting to discuss the possible UCSD-Cal Western merger. The students asked questions and the Dean gave answers.

Highlights:

Someone asked who the school perceived as political obstacles to the merger. The Dean pointed the questioner to the San Diego Tribune without directly naming anybody.

-I interpreted this to mean USD as they didn't have exactly positive statements to make about the possibility of a UC law school eclipsing their program. Apparently the merger failed in it's last iteration due to local politics. This is odd considering the second largest city in California does not have a public law school.

I asked when the merger would be complete if everything went smoothly. The answer is late 2010 or 2011.

The person who answered the question had been present for the last attempt at merging and seemed very optimistic about the momentum the schools had towards a merger.

Why am I blogging at 2am? I misread a legal skills assignment and had to do the whole thing over from scratch. fml.

Edit:

I read this article:

http://www.signonsandiego.com/news/2010/jan/28/ucsd-looking-law-school/

A lot of the comments came from individuals who lack reading comprehension skills. So here is the tl;dr response for critics: 1) there is no increase lawyers created by this merger and 2) California Western is already financially viable so there would be nearly no strain on the state to support the school.

Mediocrity

Grades came back. I have two above where I think the median is and two below. Once I get my exams back I'll know what I need to work on.

I need to find an internship in San Diego.

Exciting News: California Western and UCSD Panel

I am delighted to share this email the students received today regarding a possible merger between California Western and UCSD.

For many years, California Western has explored ways to expand our decades-long partnership with UC San Diego while strengthening our mission to educate and serve. Today we announce a significant development in this endeavor and I want you, our students, to be among the first to know.

Late Tuesday we announced that representatives of California Western and UC San Diego have formed a joint committee to consider an affiliation that would lead to the creation of a public law school in San Diego. Click here for the news release we distributed.

The proposed affiliation holds many potential benefits for our law school. Joining with UC San Diego creates new opportunities for research and collaboration while honoring our mission and values. It enhances the reputation and visibility of our faculty, alumni, and students. The proposed affiliation offers each of us the opportunity to be a part of something larger than ourselves, the chance to provide a living legacy to our region that will make a lasting difference for years to come.

I anticipate some media coverage of this development. As the news becomes public, you may hear or read about it in the workplace, online, or in social situations. I encourage you to share your questions and comments with Assistant Dean Kathleen Seibel or myself.

I also invite you to attend a students-only town hall meeting to learn more about our conversations with UC San Diego and what they might mean for you and the rest of the California Western family.

Tuesday, February 2
12:15 – 1:05 p.m.
California Western Auditorium

As we move forward in these conversations, our first commitment remains you, the California Western family. You make us who we are and we could not do this without the support of the faculty, staff, alumni, and students whose commitment and accomplishments allow us to consider this exciting proposal. I will continue to bring you updates as events unfold in this process.

Sincerely,
Dean Steven R. Smith

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I plan to attend the meeting and I'll report back with any details.

Here is where the link leads:

Media Contacts:

Judy Piercey, UC San Diego – (858) 534-6128 or jpiercey@ucsd.edu

Pam Hardy, California Western School of Law – (619) 515-1545 or phardy@cwsl.edu

Local Educational Institutions Form Joint Committee to Consider

Establishment of UC San Diego School of Law

January 26, 2010 – The University of California, San Diego (UC San Diego) and California

Western School of Law (California Western) this month formed a joint committee made

up of faculty and administrators from both institutions to consider an affiliation that

may lead to the establishment of a UC San Diego School of Law. It is envisioned that the

law school would be self-supporting and no state or UC San Diego campus funds would

be needed to make the new law school viable.

Formation of this committee follows initial consideration of a proposal from California

Western to UC San Diego, according to Paul Drake, UC San Diego’s Senior Vice

Chancellor for Academic Affairs.

“We believe the proposal has sufficient merit to explore the possibilities together,”

Drake said. “A UC San Diego School of Law would enhance the research, teaching and

public service mission of the university.

California Western Dean Steven R. Smith added, “The increasingly robust ties between

our two institutions, built over the past three and a half decades of dual and joint

degree programs, co-sponsored symposia and cross-institutional teaching, led us to look

at the possibility of a combination as the next logical step in our relationship. This could

create a public law school for San Diego with no start-up costs – and without creating a

new (de novo) law school, or generating more law school graduates.”

The joint committee will explore ways in which a UC San Diego School of Law might

build on existing strengths, enhance other academic disciplines and create unique

broad-based areas of exploration in law, science and technology.

In addition, the joint committee will consider the following issues with regard to the

proposed affiliation:

• Faculty – integrating and respecting existing California Western faculty and

planning for new hires;

• Students – attracting students with strong credentials;

• Finance – ensuring that the law school continues to be self-supporting as a public

institution;

• Governance – maintaining consistency with University of California, American Bar

Association, and Association of American Law Schools standards; and

• Transition – charting a smooth transformation into a UC San Diego School of Law.

“At a challenging time in the university’s history,” Drake said, “this proposed affiliation

would present an opportunity to advance the long-term vision of the University of

California system and this campus.”

Noted Smith, “The San Diego region could benefit from having a law school that helps

advance and support its most important science and technology industries, today and

tomorrow.”

If the Joint Committee determines that the proposal should advance, a planning

document will be submitted to the UC San Diego Faculty Senate and administration, and

to the California Western faculty and Board of Trustees. If these bodies endorse the

committee’s recommendation, it will then be sent to the UC Office of the President for a

final evaluation and decision. There is no firm timeline for making a determination.

###

About UC San Diego

Founded in 1960, the University of California, San Diego is ranked the best value public

university in California by Kiplinger’s Personal Finance magazine and the 7th best public

university in the nation by U.S. News and World Report. Named the “hottest” institution to

study science by Newsweek, UC San Diego is one of the nation’s most accomplished research

universities, widely acknowledged for its local impact, national influence and global reach. For

more information, please visit www.ucsd.edu.

About California Western School of Law

California Western School of Law is the independent, ABA/AALS-accredited San Diego law school

that advances multi-dimensional lawyering by educating lawyers-to-be as creative problem

solvers and principled advocates who frame the practice of law as a helping, collaborative

profession. Please visit www.cwsl.edu for more information.

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I kind of laughed at "This could create a public law school for San Diego with no start-up costs – and without creating a new (de novo) law school, or generating more law school graduates.” I guess the market is saturated.

Its an exciting time to be at California Western. I kind of found it odd no public law school exists in the second largest city in California.

Well, time for homework. Tomorrow is another day.

Licking my wounds and my thoughts on transferring.

I got called on in Civil Procedure and it didn't go well. The professor asked me about a procedural step. I had it in my brief but I felt like I might have written it down wrong so I stumbled and didn't really regain any kind of momentum. Anyway, I got chewed out in front of the class. It seems a little gratuitous but whatever, I'm not going to dwell on it.

Grades come out Friday. I've overheard more than a few over-confident conversations about transferring. To transfer you need to be in the top 5-10%. That means you have to do better than 90-95% of the class. I don't know why people are counting their chickens before they're hatched. From what I've read, no one should count on transferring. There are a variety of reasons for people with high lsat scores to pick a t3 or t4 school: close to home, scholarship, etc... In order to transfer a person has to beat out these students and the rest of their class. Because the exams are graded on a curve, you have rock the exams harder than everyone else. In short: you have to be the Ted Nugent of law school to transfer.

It is important to be happy with your choice of law school and assume you're going to remain in your school and in the job markets it feeds into. In this case I'm happy with California Western (maybe grades will change my mind... but today I feel good. heh) and I'd be thrilled to have the opportunity practice law in San Diego. I love this place and I don't want to leave.

Grades, The Curve and UCSD

Grades come out next week so I feel like I should make a post about the curve without knowing what my grades are.

I do not like the curve at California Western.

The curve forces about a quarter of the class to fail out. This happens even if all the students perform well. The negative effect on students is two fold. First, those in the bottom quarter are left in an enormous amount of debt. Second, it reflects poorly on the school if they are admitting such a large volume of students that are doomed to fail.

I've heard the argument that California Western drops these students to improve their bar passage rate. After all, there is no point in going through 3 years of law school piling on debt if a student is incapable of passing the bar. The school could still maintain a high bar passage rate by simply raising the standards (gpa/lsat) of admission. This would cause the rank of the school to rise and maintain the bar passage rate.

Some posit an argument along the lines that some students are poor test takers on the lsat or slept through undergrad and still deserve a shot at becoming a lawyer. I would be O.K. with this if the school did a better job of informing the incoming class of the exact nature of a law school curve. I really think there is a 'failure to warn' on the part of the school. This could be ameliorated by publishing the curve and where each student's lsat score from the previous years lined up with where they landed on the curve. This information does not exist (as far as I know, feel free to correct me with a link).

This leaves me wondering why the school admits so many students it will simply fail out or ask to leave. The only rationale for this behavior that I can think of is to collect tuition.

Curves exist at law schools around the country and I'm rather opposed to systems that force good students completely out of the school or limit the number of As that can be given. I would suggest moving to an undergraduate grading system where displaying knowledge of the law and lawyer-like thinking gives you an A regardless of some irrelevant detail the professor is forced to use to differentiate between an A and a B.

My own grades:

I'm not really sure how I did. I studied hard and hopefully that pays off. I'll probably post my grades here so incoming students can see what I did and how well I did. My only concern is that I've revealed enough about myself that someone from my section will find it, realize who I am, and take the information the wrong way.

My impression of the tests is they're pretty standard law school exams. You spend much of the semester studying how to do well on a law school exam and the students to figure that out first will likely get the As.

I have a feeling I probably didn't do as well as I wanted which means I will have to change some things after talking to professors/ tutors. So far I've kept on track this semester. I started outlining this weekend and so far things look good. I'll adjust when grades are released on Friday.

UCSD Rumors:

A few faculty members at UCSD talk about a merger between the schools as if it is already a done deal. The rumor buzzing around the school is the next edition of the school news paper will be released when the committee to discuss a possible merger/ buyout/ whatever comes to a decision. A few of my professors keep having to cancel their office hours to serve on the committee. These are all rumors, so who knows. Hopefully we become UCSD. That would make me happy.

Google, China and International Law

http://online.wsj.com/article/BT-CO-20100113-714153.html?mod=WSJ_latestheadlines

Google announced today that it may pull out of China. This announcement came in response to China hacking the gmail accounts of human rights activists. Google has made several concessions in order to operate in China and this seems to be the straw that broke the camel's back. Google de-censored just about everything they agreed to censor to operate in China. www.google.cn actually returned search results this morning for Tienanmen Square massacre.

This presents an interesting intersection between business and international law. Yahoo! already has some experience as to whether U.S. first amendment rights extend to other countries. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/LICRA_v._Yahoo!

I wish I had something more insightful to say but I really don't. Hopefully the internet remains as free here as it always has. If whether U.S. rights follow U.S. organizations to foreign markets comes up again hopefully the courts decide to ensure the rights of U.S. businesses.

And while I'm talking about Google, I now have Google Analytics installed. I've got visitors from Germany, Stanford University and California Western. Hello world!

The call to greatness... again.

I have the professor that earlier in the year caused me to admit that serial rape might not be so bad (Professor Lynch). The first day he began socratic teaching he called on me first. He asked me about intentional torts. I did alright aside from equating 'risk' with 'high probability' and how those terms relate to 'certainty' regarding intentional torts. It was a minor slip-up, but its always important to have the right vocabulary and use it appropriately.

I haven't gotten my grades back yet. California Western is one of the last schools in the country to release their grades. The more I think about my exams the more I'm certain I probably didn't do as well as I wanted to.

The winter break is only two weeks long. I could have used an extra week but I'm not complaining too much, I crammed a lot of fun into the two weeks that I had. I turned 25 and skied off the top of Mammoth! Woo!

The professors have hit the ground running through their curriculums. This means that I have also hit the ground running. Hopefully this semester's exams go better than the last.

Cheers.