Start of Week 6

Tomorrow is the start of week 6.  There are 15 weeks in the semester, not including finals.  I'm 1/3 of the way done.  Unfortunately, this is sort of like running a marathon (in a lot of ways.)  At the halfway point of a marathon, you aren't really halfway done.  Pretty much 20% of your effort in a marathon gets you to around mile 18.  The other 80% is what you need to get you the last 8 miles.

Same with law school.  Since almost all the grade is based on finals and nothing more, you can coast along for a while, oblivious to the iceberg about to sink your ship.  The real work will come in the month or so before finals as the outlines are finalized and the studying for the final exams begins.

I went into this thinking I could manage law school in the unproductive slack time of my life.  That, I was pretty much right about.  I had enough slack time to do law school.

What I didn't count on were the following:

1.  I really, really enjoyed the unproductive slack time in my life.  Not just for myself, but in terms of being able to do activities with my son.

2.  Law school has some aspects where the schedule isn't flexible.  You do it when you have to do it, not when you would have otherwise had slack time.  This has put a strain on a few things.  Nothing too bad, but it's noticeable.

3.  I have no doubt I have enough time to finish law school.  Do I have enough time to get great grades?  Right now, I feel like I don't, but who knows.  I feel like I need to do more. I'm current with all my reading and assignments.  I just wish I had more time to work on my outlines and some other stuff.

One way or another, I intend to finish 1L as a full-time student.  After 1L?  Not sure at that point.  I could continue as a full-timer or drop back to part-time.  A little of it depends on whether I keep my scholarship.

I need something like a 3.3 to keep my scholarship, but as law students know, that's not easy in law school.  The curve is pretty daunting.  It basically equates to being in the top third or quarter of your class.  However, "your class" consists of some pretty smart people.

If I lose my scholarship, I may just decide to go part-time.  That would be easier on my schedule.  It would also mean dragging this out for another year.

The other thing, which is how I'm leaning at the moment, is to try and do whatever I can to schedule all my classes just two days a week.  Yes, that would equate to one murderous schedule that basically lasts from 8 to 8, but it also means I would have 5 days off per week.  (Yeah, granted, 5 days off when you're in law school means 5 days of studying.)

It's not the work I can do at home that makes this tough.  It's attending all the classes.  The more I can compact my schedule, the better.

In the mean time, so far, so good.  I'm still current with everything.  Of course, my personal opinion is that staying current with everything is usually just good enough to get you a C.  I need to work on my outlines and start exam-prepping.  Still haven't quite found time for that.

I'm a little ahead in LR&W, and we're getting to where we're doing actual writing.  So, it's slowly getting to where it isn't quite the total bane of my existence anymore.  I don't mind it so much.  We submit our first memo next week.  It isn't graded, but I'll be interested in the feedback.

In the mean time, just keep swimming, just keep swimming...