Only 1 semester left to go! 115 days of law school remaining. But who’s counting?
mom's law blog
Managing motherhood and life after law school, one day at a time
Monthly Archives: August 2014
Tuesday’s Tangent
I have a Facebook page and that’s it. I don’t Tweet. I don’t post to Instagram. I have no clue how Snap Chat works. I don’t have much time to waste on these “time sucks” or I would probably check them all out to see what they are about. I get the pressure from my friends to sign up for Instagram or Twitter so I can follow them and keep up with what they are doing and so they can keep up with what I am doing. To that I ask “why don’t you call me or text me or stop by and actually see me?” Oh, because that would require the face-to-face human interaction that we are slowly losing as a result of all of these social media pressures we are bombarded with everyday. I was surprised at the increased amount of pressure to post pictures of Little Bit on Facebook. Except for her picture from the day she was born while we were still in the hospital, I will not post her picture to my Facebook page. People ask why we don’t post her picture? This is why.
I don’t want to see 642 pictures of your kid, why would I subject you to look at mine? Don’t get me wrong, Little Bit is freakin’ adorable! I may be biased, but she is pretty stinkin’ cute. So cute I can’t help but wonder what person wouldn’t want to see a picture of her gorgeous face? Friends and family know they are more than welcome to stop by and see her any time they want. We live so close to family that all of her grandparents, aunts, uncles, and cousins get to see her often. For the family who live out state, they just call or shoot over a quick text and check on Little Bit and ask for an updated photo. I am more than happy to oblige and send the cutest picture I have on my camera phone at that moment. I don’t barrage Facebook with a multiple pictures on a daily basis of the “cute” things Little Bit is doing at that moment. Although I may have captured her silly antics for my and my husband’s own enjoyment, I don’t need to post Little Bit’s first food, her first spit up, her cute toes, her cute toes from a different angle, or her toes from the angle that includes her little hands too. It’s just not necessary. For those of our friends and family who want to see her, they need only ask. For the sake of my “friends” newsfeeds, I will spare the overkill of baby photos.
To that end, who wants strangers looking at their child? Once you post your child’s photo to a social media site it’s like releasing a helium balloon into the air. You keep it in your line of site for a little while, but eventually is escapes you and you have no idea where it ends up. Although I have my Facebook page set to the highest privacy settings and my “friends” are people I know, I can’t tell what those “friends” do with my photos. I have also noticed that when one of my Facebook “friends” “likes” a post of one of their friends who I have no association with, I can then see their post. I don’t think it is too far fetched to think of a glitch occurring that may allow this to occur with my private photo settings. People share way too much on social media these days such as addresses, when they are going out of town, how they just bought a new expensive gift. I hate to be cynical, but all of this information is ripe for the taking for any criminal who cares to “research” on Facebook. For my own sanity and safety, I will not put my daughter’s picture on Facebook.
Lastly, what if Little Bit wants to be a C.I.A. agent or an undercover agent of some sorts and because her parents decided to post 642 pictures a year during her childhood, that option is no longer an option? I know, I know, it’s far-fetched, but you get the idea. Just as people say “you can’t pick your parents” kids also can’t choose their parent’s choices. The things we as parents choose to do and not do on behalf of our children could have repercussions into their adult life. As parents we like to think we would bring no harm to our child, but sometimes we don’t realize we are harming them. For the future of my daughter, I won’t post her photo to any social media site (including this one) unless and until she is old enough to make the decision on her own to be a part of it.
A Part-Time Schedule With a Full Time Gig
As I mentioned before, I decided to attend a law school that, in addition to the traditional schedule, offered a non-traditional schedule for those students who wanted to continue to work during the semester or who had other obligations during the day that prevented them from attending classes full-time during the day. ABA rules require that a student attending law school on a full-time basis work no more than 20 hours per week during the semester. However, on a part-time schedule that ABA rule does not apply. At my school, full time is considered 13 credit hours and above (4-6 classes) and part-time was considered between 9-12 credit hours; the equivalent of 3-4 classes.
If you take the traditional route you are slated to graduate in 3 years. The non-traditional flex schedule extends the graduation date by a year (4 years total). With that extra year comes the added expense of an additional year of living expenses, book costs, school fees, and tuition. Although tuition is slightly cheaper on the part-time schedule, it still adds on an additional few thousands of dollars a year for those who choose to attend part-time.
I decided to take the part-time route for many reasons. Money was a big concern and I also carried the health insurance for my husband and I. However, one of the most appealing aspects to keeping my job and going to school was that the school I wanted to attend had a campus a block away from my work. This afforded me the added opportunity of attending student functions during the day, an easier way of meeting on campus with professors and employers, and if there was ever anything I needed to get done during the day I could just walk across the street on my lunch hour. Win-win!
One thing that I would like to stress about taking the part-time route is that IT IS NOT THE EASY ROUTE! Professor do not “take it easier on you,” you aren’t assigned less readings, and you don’t have more time to do the work since you are taking less classes. On the contrary, you are stretched thin trying to juggle work and law school; the readings, assignments, networking, student functions, to say the least, are all inevitable in law school. Try getting all that done after work and on weekends and tell me that it’s easier than solely focusing on all those aspects of law school. IT’S NOT EASY! It damn near killed me a few times. But, the more work I put into it going in, the easier it got. So, although it was hell in the beginning, it gets easier. I think this is true regardless of whether you attend full-time or part-time.
My first year schedule looked a little something like this:
6:00 a.m.- Wake up and get ready
6:30 a.m. – Head out the door and off to work
6:45 a.m. – Pick up coffee and a bagel on the way because I most likely failed to pack my breakfast and lunch the night before
7:00 a.m.- Arrive at work and get crackin’ on emails and voicemails that I missed the day before and make a to-do list (have I mentioned that I love lists?!)
11:00 a.m.- Call in a lunch order because I failed to seize the opportunity to wake up early enough to pack a lunch and I need to save as much of my lunch hour to review my notes for that night’s class
(Note: This is a good tip! Spend at least 10 minute before each class reviewing the notes you have made regarding the readings assigned for that class.)
11:15- 12:15- Lunch and studying
5:00 p.m.- Clock out and head over to school
5:10 p.m.- Grab a coffee and finish reviewing notes or get a head start on another class’s readings
6:00 p.m.- 7:30 p.m. – Class #1 and then grab a quick snack from the vending machine (ugh,the evil vending machines of law school!)
7:45-9:15 p.m.- Class #2
9:20 p.m. – Whenever I have to start re-reading what I have just read in order to retain the information- head home and get to bed. Sometimes this is 10:30 p.m. and other times I last until as late as midnight.
Wake-up and do it all over again….at least until Friday when I didn’t have classes. Friday night was a date night with my husband and the weekends were spent tucked away completing the readings for the following week. I, personally, felt more prepared having all of the readings done for the week finished on the weekends. It allowed me to feel more prepared for class discussions, to clean up my case briefs, and to fill out my outline where I felt I needed clarification on some issues. However, I had friends who would read the cases right before class and not make any notes and they were just as successful. Sometimes I made my weekend readings a little more interesting…to each their own.
Tuesday’s Tangent
Being as polite as I am (I am rolling my eyes), I hold my tongue more often then not. However, here are the things the mice in my head were spinning their wheels on which I wish I would have said this week:
To the girl raising her hand in class- Saying “I have a question,” after being called upon by the professor in response to his question “are there any questions”, is not necessary. It was very clear by the fact that your hand was raised that you had a question of some sort. Captain Obvious, ladies and gentlemen.
To the girl who lacked sufficient funds at the vending machine- Hey, I’ve been there too. Starving at 8:00 p.m. in the evening and all you have is a crumpled dollar bill that the tease of a vending machine keeps rejecting. I was happy to buy you that Snicker’s bar that you felt would satiate you for the next hour and ten minutes. But the LEAST you could do was say thank you. Instead you just snatched it out of the machine and booked it out of there. Next time I will buy my stack and enjoy it in front of you while you struggle to cram your crumpled ass bill into the machine. Jerk!
To the asshole who threw eggs at my car in the middle of the night- I know you are a punk high schooler because all of these shenanigans tend to occur towards the end of the summer when you are getting restless and have run out of ideas and your parent’s money to occupy your time. Security cameras are a bitch… I will find you! And if I don’t, karma will.
To the people who resist inevitable change- It’s. Going. To. Happen. Deal with it! Quit whining every time you find something that “doesn’t work like it use to,” or because “that’s not the way we use to do it.” NEWS FLASH: the way you use to do it has CHANGED. Accept it. Embrace it. Move on!
To the girl who was put in her place by the professor- Boom! Sit down! You tried to mouth off to another student on a topic you had elementary knowledge on and the professor made you look like a petty child who was arguing over who took the toy she wasn’t even playing with. Respect others!
To the guy who was trying to hide study aids in the library- Not cool. Not cool. We are all just trying to get through this. Don’t be that guy who is making it even more difficult. Because you lack confidence in yourself, don’t sabotage other’s efforts to actually study and prepare for finals. If you want to slack off don’t bring us down with you. P.S. I gave the hidden treasure back to the circulation desk. Win!
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