Half way there.

My civil procedure and contracts finals are done.

Civil procedure-

I walked into the exam and when it started I got sick. I couldn't think so I got up, went to the restroom and ran my wrists under some cool water. I came back, sat down and did as well as I could. I think I messed up the first few multiple choice questions and I'm not sure how well I did on the essay. Its probably not an A but I also didn't fail. So glass half-full I suppose.

Contract-

What the fucking fuck was that? 90 minutes to type as fast as you could in issue spotting memorized racehorse word vomit. I type between 90-100 wpm. I typed the entire time and I still missed two issues by virtue of the fact that there was not enough time. At the end of 90 minutes we had to stop typing and move onto the multiple choice. The multiple choice had easy questions and medium questions, but nothing terribly difficult.

I hit a ton of issues and had some decent policy points to make. I know I hit a few things that only people that memorized every slide, the cases and their outline would have gotten. However, I missed a statute of frauds issue and I didn't address specific performance (even though it wasn't valid for either party in the fact pattern it still needed to be addressed, I ran out of time).

Anyway, I knew the whole syllabus and all the material forwards and backwards and I likely still didn't get an A.

Two more attempts left. I'm still swinging for the fences, but these exams are hard.

Twas the night before finals.

Civil Procedure is tomorrow morning. I did everything I could to prepare for this week. I have no idea how I will do compared to everyone else but I will at least do as well as I possibly could.

My grade, and everyone else's, will depend on the curve. Almost a quarter of the class will fail out at the end of the first year.

I'll have a more fun blog post before my birthday (dec. 26th).

I plan up uploading all my materials after finals are over for anyone to download. Outlines, case briefs, memos, rough drafts...

The penultimate week

My first final is civil procedure. It is next Saturday at 8am.

I recovered fully from being sick. I lost 10 pounds but I'm gaining it back. I didn't weigh very much to begin with.

I rolled through studying this week. I'm at the 70 hour mark between classes and study hours. I worked with a few study groups, took practice tests and updated all my outlines.

I have some positive and negative remarks about California Western. I'll start with the negative and end with the positive:

Negative:

-The library is not open 24 hours. This is odd. I like being there late and studying. I guess this is somewhat of an uproar as there is a facebook group and a petition to leave the library open. The general feeling is that the tuition is at an all time high and the student services are at an all time low.

-The attrition rate weighs pretty heavily on the student population. It makes everyone stressed and depressed.

-This last comment isn't so much a complaint about the school as it is something I feel like venting. There is one student in my section who for whatever reason has gone out of his way to become disruptive in class. I think he claims he will be in the top 5 or 10 percent. I have my suspicions.

Positive:

-The review sessions put on by the Women's Law Caucus are very helpful. I went to a contracts review session and they gave me an outline to augment/ correct my own with. They also taught me how to engineer an attack outline and how to approach my contracts exam.

-The tutors are extraordinarily helpful. They even proctor practice exams. The tutors also give feedback and help explain complicated hypotheticals and practice problems. They also cut straight to what is applicable to the exam.

-My legal skills professor is very pleasant. She went over my final memo for the class and gave some helpful suggestions.

Evaluating myself:

Property - I did well on the practice exam. I even nailed a pretty hard future interest problem which had language that could be interpreted two different ways. You had to determine the intent of the drafter and argue for two different parties. I like the future interest problems.

Criminal Law - I did well on the practice exam. The professor for this class wants very concise answers and does not like irac. I feel like I am going to be OK during this final, but its the kind of test that if you misread a question or miss the call of the question you could bomb the final.

Contracts - This class gets a mixed review. The professor wants us to essentially write an essay about everything we have learned and apply it to a fact pattern. This means outlining the course during the exam and sticking in facts. I am fine with this. However, the format makes me uncomfortable. Its a race horse issue spotting exam. The professor also only allows 90 minutes for the essay portion and then you are not allowed to go back and edit it.

Civil Procedure - I have a firm grasp on the material for this course. Unfortunately, so does everyone else. I think the professor scared everyone into studying like mad. Another negative point is that the exam is going to be 'easy' according to the professor, which means it will be difficult to differentiate myself from the rest of the group. This is also an exam where if you misread the question you can bomb the final.

Legal Skills - The final memo is all that is required. There is no final. My legal skills group is a 1/4 of the full section. My group has some good writers who certainly communicated with the professor more than I did throughout the semester. I had my professor look over my paper and outside of a few minor errors everything seemed ok. I have my doubts as to whether I will get the A. I certainly will not fail or anything, but I don't know how my writing reads compared to others. From what I can tell the top papers are somewhat of a toss up as to who gets the A and who gets a B. This class is not included in the GPA to determine if the school asks you to leave or not.

If I took all my finals right now I would not fail them. Hopefully I can polish things up a bit and get a few As. But who knows? Nothing in law school is a given.

getting sick for a week

I got sick last Thursday evening. I rode my bike home, sat down on the couch, and I knew something was wrong. My temperature was between 99 and 101. I had an overnight century ride on Saturday and obviously that didn't happen for me but on Friday I encouraged my fiance to go and told her I would be fine.

So wrong.

Welcome to h1n1 hell.

Thursday though to Saturday evening was just a horrible preamble to this vicious disease's magnum opus: my near total destruction.

Saturday evening the fever started spiking up and down between 100 and 103. When it reached 104 I made that first post. I didn't think I could get worse than that but I stood corrected. 105 was the peak and at that point I became pretty dysfunctional. 3am-6am is kind of a blur. I vomited and got dizzy and had severe diarrhea which made it almost impossible to stay hydrated.

I couldn't control myself very well. I started hearing things I knew weren't there. I could hear my mom in the kitchen for a little while. I could hear my fiance at the door struggling with her keys coming to help me.

After that I slowly trended upwards. I sent a text message at 6am asking for help. My uncle is a doctor and he called me up and talked me through what I needed to do. I had to take a cool shower. The shower was brutal but it did help me bring my temperature down.

I did my best to follow what Professor Stiglitz told us in case we caught the flu. He told us to stay on top of the reading. It was hard to do. I did some pretty bad soft tissue damage to my insides during the violent heaving. I couldn't take my knees away from my chest much longer than 15 minutes at a time for a few days. I had to eat soft foods like bananas and applesauce till they healed.

I said in that previous post that my fever went away. It did, but not for very long. It kept coming back around 101 on and off until today.

Class by class damage report:

Property:

I am behind in the reading. I missed three classes. I'm going to get caught up tomorrow and make an appointment for office hours.

Criminal Law:

I am behind in the reading. I missed one class session. The class only meets twice and it was cancelled once.

Contracts:

I am up to date on the reading but behind in my understanding of the material. damages/ remedies are difficult and the professor likes everything done a particular way. if i can't figure out the important stuff from the tutoring handout key then I'm going to go to office hours.

Civil Procedure:

I am up to date on the reading and the professor cancelled class this week. I have to email the tutor and get the handout I missed but other than that I am fine in this class.

Legal Skills:

I went to this class on Thursday and had my paper peer edited. I need the peer edit for the final paper. My memo is written for the most part but it needed blue book cites and because I wrote the thing in pieces it needed some serious work to get it to flow. I worked on it with a fever and it certainly fell short of my usual standard. I got what I needed though even if it set my fever off again and I immediately went home to collapse in exhaustion.

Overall impact:

Pros: A number of my classes were cancelled this week so if I had to pick a week to get sick it would be this one.

Cons: Everyone else is healthy and cranking away at outlines and practice exams while I've been laid out for a week.

My classmates:

my study buddy is a huge help and offered me notes and someone else who I hardly talk to just offered to send me his class notes out of the blue just to help out.

the one person I asked for notes from wants to trade for my outlines. i don't mind this because i will understand my outlines better than anyone else will but its weird running into people who always insist on their 'cut'.

I was planning on visiting my folks for Thanksgiving, but that might not be possible anymore. :(

still @ home

the fever is gone. I'm really weak. I'm stuck drinking powerade and eating bananas, rice and applesauce until my guts heal. I can't sit in one place for more than 40 minutes without feeling like someone is stabbing me. I tried to read but my brain/ eyes get tired after about 2 cases.

After I made the last post things went downhill fast. Being alone and that sick is pretty scary. I'm glad it didn't happen during finals.

Screw the student health plan

I have the flu. Not just a small one either. As I write this I feel dizzy and I have fever of 104. Student health website (aetna) does not function and neither does their customer service number.

Reporting the flu to the school did nothing either. I've gotten no response from the school.

I'm alone, vomiting, and can barley stand up.

get your own health care.

finals month.

I started grinding for finals. It is, for lack of a better word, a bitch.

Status:

-2 of my outlines are behind, but they are my strongest classes.

-2 of my outlines are up to date, but they are my weakest classes.

-I am attempting to finish all the course work for legal skills today and still get civ pro reading/ briefing done for tomorrow.

I took a few practice tests last week. The practice tests are a rough experience. I have to get my minimum contacts test down to a science. Contracts seems like a race to the finish. You have to write like crazy and always argue both sides even if the other side is a poor argument.

Some people are reading ahead to the finish so they can start studying. I've opted out of this. I'm better at learning the material by reading/ briefing, going to class for the corresponding lecture, and then incorporating it into my notes. I learn the concepts best by reading, writing and listening to them back to back.

This Thursday-Sunday are going to be exam days.

I am very anxious about all this. I've never really worried about grades because I've always done pretty well. I went to a really competitive undergrad too and I didn't even worry this much about my thesis. I think the nervousness stems from three parts. 1) I've never done this before. Summer enrichment helped but it definitely has nothing on the pressure presented by fall finals. 2) I see three or four people that are consistently outworking me. They are in the library from 7am to 9 or 10pm. You're not supposed to worry about what others are doing and just focus on making sure you can apply the concepts but I can't help but end up slightly intimidated. 3) The exams are all or nothing. It feels like the fall semester really sets the tone for the rest of law school and summer job prospects.

Anyway, wish me luck.