Legalese

They say that learning law is like learning a completely new language. How right they are. Pretty much all I've done today besides try to go to the gym and run a few errands is read. It wasn't even that much reading but you had to parce through it a few times to finally get the meaning. And I was lucky today. I've been told there will be many times when as many times as we do the reading, we still won't get it. As my Contracts professor, a really eccentric woman who I've been told is brilliant since she clerked for Supreme Court Chief Justice Warren Burger, said, "Even if you don't understand what you're reading, just read it. The first six weeks you're at law school you'll probably have wished you had gone to medical school."

Despite taking forever to read through cases, at least I know that those years watching Law & Order and reading John Grisham books haven't been completely wasted. While those accounts may not be completely realistic, the jargon I read now doesn't sound completely foreign. The best part is when my books explain a word and things in the tv show make even more sense. I don't know whether it's cool or scary that one day I'll be writing like the reading in my books. Imagine the day when I start writing these blog in legal speak.

Putting It All Together

At today's orientation, either the Dean or one of the professors said that they were so strict with the deadlines because this is the end, this is the finishing line of our education. And wow, what a crazy thought. My whole life I have been going through school to get good grades to go do more schooling. Yet, what I learn here will actually apply to my job and impact other people's lives.

I guess the real world application of everything I learn in law school is one of the pluses that will help me get through the pages and pages of reading. I mean, as much as I loved political science and see it very relevant as I follow politics and occassionally dabble in it, most of what I learned was to develop my thinking skills rather than be relevant to my future profession. Yet today when doing a sample briefing of a case, all the synapses in my mind were firing at full speed because the things we were trying to figure out were so relevant to our day to day lives. The best part was that I really enjoyed doing it. I remember when we ran into Alex's friend and he said how he loved law school, even contracts because he just sees it everyday. I thought he was crazy until I had to do a brief for a contract today.

I know that they probably gave us an easy example to brief but I realized that the way they were telling us how to think and look at a situation is the methodology that I really enjoy. Being very detail orientated, I loved trying to pick out all the little facts of the case to see what was relevant to the issue of the case. Trying to figure out larger themes in life, as evidenced by a lot of my blogs, was important when trying to determine what kind of broader legal question was being addressed in the case. As demonstrated by my inability to make decisions, we were told to look at both sides of an issue. And finally, I get to pull out my persuasion skills when I have to cite evidence of how a judge came up with a certain ruling. It was as though everything that I like to do I got to do by analyzing this case.

I wouldn't really say going to law school was a leap of faith, but there's a certain element of risk because it's sometimes hard to determine if the law is right for you. Obviously, I haven't even started classes yet so I can't say affirmatively that I'm going to love this. However, if today was any indication of the type of thinking and working that I'll have to do, then I know it will be well worth all the hours and hours of work. And if worst comes to worst, I can make a career out of building IKEA furniture because I've gotten really good at that too.

Getting Oriented

Today was our first day of orientation, and just like UCLA orientation, it was a big flurry of information thrown at you that evoked a lot of different emotions. There were parts of the day that made me nervous, happy, relieved, bored, etc. It's hard to even describe the really because we were thrown a lot of information. Here are some of the interesting things I learned from the actual orientation as well as informal observations that I made:

-The Chancellor and Dean of our law schools seem really cool and I liked hearing that the school wants us to succeed, not embarass anyone in class or promote cutthroat competition. I know that a lot of people might say this but the 2Ls & 3Ls definitely supported this claim.

-I'm a baby. Even though the average starting age is 24, it seems like so many other people I meet have been out of school for years, are married, and or has kids. Wedding rings all around! It's so surreal hearing everyone talk about their husbands or wives.

-I think I saw like 5-8 Asian people out of my class of 350. I must not be good at finding them because the stats say that there are more but nonetheless it's a huge change from UCLA. Also unlike UCLA, there is a sizable Hispanic and Black population here.

-If you thought the neighbors by Westwood were horrible, just come to the ritzy suburbs of DC. They protested the law school being built here so much that the school finally made an agreement that it was against the honor code for students to park on the streets around here, even if they paid to park in the general zone. Neighbors will literally follow you to your car if they have a suspicion that you are a student and look for books or a school sticker to prove you're a student and will report you to the Dean's office. True stories from older students.

-Everyone can easily identify by the first day the person who will be asking all the questions in class. The person who just likes to talk and talk even if it's not really related to the material or it just makes them sound smarter. For my section, it's the kid who sits in the front and center.

-Law school students like to drink, a lot. Some people even left orientation for happy hour. Also every week there is "bar review" where the law school kids pick a bar and all go to it Thursday after classes. As someone I met pointed out, "We think, we drink."

-Carrying my books home was not fun. That bag weighed a ton and I didn't even have all of them yet. This obviously means a ton of reading, see you next year!

-Law school kids really like to dress up, even for orientation. At UCLA I always thought I looked dressed up and now I guess I'll fit in.

All in all it was a pretty good day. Tomorrow the orientation is a lot lighter so that's good. And this weekend I look forward to putting together my furniture and hitting the books already. Oh first day class assignments. I long for the days when I thought a lot of work for the first day of class was some AP reading. Welcome to law school.

Growing Up Is Hard To Do

After a long day today, I sat down on my bed. It collapsed. Not completely, but my mattress sank into my frame and I just laughed. No, I did not incorrectly build my bed or jump on it. Rather, the material holding the wooden slats together snapped because the staple that IKEA had put in and was holding it wasn't secure. So with the help of my roommate holding up my mattress, I hammered the material back into the slat so it was taut again and would hold my mattress.

That anecdoate pretty much sums up how my whole day has been. This morning I was so excited to go to IKEA, the happiest place on earth. As we were going through the showroom picking out larger pieces of furniture for our apartment, I was very happy. I was even happier as we went through the marketplace and picked up great deals, like a $5 wok and set of great knives for $2. Yet, as we went to go pick up the boxes of furniture that we picked out upstairs, we realized that so much of it was not there and that things were mislabled or put in the wrong place. It was a somewhat frustrating experience, ultimately resulting in Chandana rolling around on the floor of IKEA because they didn't have our futon mattress (you had to be there.) Doing this whole "grown-up" thing of picking out your own furniture and trying to buy it is a lot harder than it seems, especially when you don't have your own car.

In the end, we did what we could. While we weren't able to ship all of our furniture back, we just laughed at the whole situation and sent what we could. Our round trip probably was about 3 hours of total travelling by metro and bus and it was quite the adventure. I know that buying new furniture off of my parent's dime isn't really roughing it at all, but it is a challenge to me. Lucky enough, I like challenges. For the first time, I'm not a quick drive home to have my parents do things for me. Can't have them get my furniture, fix my bed, or give me food. Trying to be an adult now...even if I'll run like a scared little girl when I see a bug and have to get my roommate to kill the moth in my room.

First Impressions In My Backyard

I got a first dose of what law school would be like today; not so much the work, but rather the people. It was IMBY day, which is an optional event that stands for "Not in my backyard." Being the antithesis of the common political acronym NIMBY, IMBY day tries to promote AU Law kids to get out into the city and stress the importance of public service. The location that they sent me was a The Women's Collective, a non-profit that was founded by a woman with HIV to provide counseling, support groups, medical advice, and even fun events for women with AIDS, HIV, or women who are at high risk. It's a really great group and I'll probably write about it more later. Some of the other sites included a transitional center for homeless and a food distribution center that teaches homeless people job skills.

While there is a definite leaning towards work for nonprofits, public interest, and human rights kinds of law at AU, the most important thing that they want us to learn is that no matter what field of law we chose, we still have the ability to be the good guys and fight for what is just, even in corporate law.

While American admittedly was not my first choice in law school, I'm very very happy with my decision. Law school will be tough anywhere but I can definitely appreciate a school that focuses so much effort on restoring the nobility of the legal profession and making us see that the world is much larger than ourselves. The fact that this was the first big event of our law school careers really set the tone of what they expect out of us and I really like these expectations. While it is hard for me to compare it to other schools because I obviously don't go to them, this was the only school that sent me packets and packets of information about how they try to encourage their students to go out in the city and go out and help people. Although people can choose to take this route or not, it's good to see a school so supportive of this kind of mentality. It's perhaps what I need to match my values with my priorities since I always loved community service but did very little of it in college, especially in comparison to how much I did it in high school.

It was also incredible to see probably around 150, about half of our law school class out at this service day. That was good to see out of my class as a whole and my first impressions of individuals were also really good. Whether it was kids straight out of college like me or people who are married and have kids themselves, almost everyone I met was down to earth and really friendly. Perhaps this is a skewed sampling considering that these are the kids that actually woke up for 8am service day, but since it was half the class, I expect good things. Some 2L student did even mention that AU is kind of known as being a "kumbaya" law school since everyone gets along. There apparently isn't as much sabatoge or cold people as there are at other places.

So all in all, I've had a really good impression of my school and its people. While first impressions aren't everything, I certainly think that they're important.

Survivor: DC Edition

While I'm not out in the jungle spearing fish for dinner or building a hut out of trees, I'm doing my own survival training for a big city. Going across the country with 2 suitcases and a duffle bag certainly doesn't make for many belongings here, especially furniture. But my roommate and I are figuring things out.

To the left, you can see the nice little package that our first guests, the IKEA deliverers, brought. Tapping into all those episodes of Trading Spaces/Extreme Home Makeover along with my experiences growing up around engineers and being on the robotics team, I set out to build my bed. And voila, the finished project! Though harder than I thought it would be, I finished it in less than 24 hours. I'll admit that I was a little scared to sit on it at first but it seems sturdy and I'm pretty sure that I did everything correctly.

It's also been an interesting time trying to navigate the city without a car. Although you don't need one 98% of the time, that 2% is reserved when you need to buy large items. However, my roommate and I managed to navigate ourselves to Maryland both yesterday and today for different things. Among my favorite purchases are a cute little tool kit (that I've already put to good use with the bed), our colorful dinnerware set, and this mini shopping cart thing that East Coasters have to transport their groceries to their apartments.

Even though this is only my 3rd day here, I feel like it's been a lot longer since we've been so productive in our apartment. Time flies by fast and I can't believe that school starts in exactly a week. Have to finish with all the major things for the apartment before then!

Home Sweet Home

So as many people have pointed out, I usually luck out with my housing situations and end up in really nice places. The Consulate is really no exception, as you can probably guess from it's name. The management and staff are so incredibly nice and as soon as I met my manager, he said, "Welcome Home."

It has really helped my adjustment and I'm starting to feel at home even though my apartment doesn't really look like a home at all right now. The only furniture we have in the entire apartment right now is my bed in an IKEA box.

And of course, living with someone I know has really eased my move as well. I'm living with Chandana, someone who went to UCLA, I've known for two years, and is going to the same law school. We went out to dinner our first night here, bought some girly Smirnoff Ice drinks, and sat in our empty apartment last night to talk about everything until 2:30am.

And here are some pictures of my apartment: 1. First is my living room. It's hard to tell here but it's really spacious and has a cool octagonal shape because it's the corner apartment. There are steps down to the living room and the bar/cupboard area separates it from our dining room. 2. Next is my own bedroom. It was hard to take a picture of the whole thing but it's a nice size and all mine! 3. Our quaint and newly refurbished kitchen. 4. The pretty view from our really long patio since we're on the 9th out of 9 floors. We look out onto Rock Creek Park (kind of like DC's Central Park). 5. Alex sent me these pretty flowers, which really brightened up our barren and white apartment.



Hopefully soon we'll have some "after" pictures of a furnished apartment. Then it will really feel like home.