Still Busy :)

Memo 1 has been turned in, but I’m still crazy busy.  To rewind the last several days.  After class on Friday, I took care of my Contracts reading.  Once I got home, I took care of some housekeeping things, mostly laundry.  I did my whites 🙂  (Of course, they’re still waiting to be folded and put away!). I was going to do some writing for my memo, but never got around to it.  Saturday there was a home football game.  Given that I knew I had to get some work done, I got some provisions and headed down to the student center for the day. The student center has some booths that have electrical outlets, so it’s a nice place to sit awhile if you can get one of them.  So I spent the day there working on my paper.  I didn’t get it all the way done. I had planned to come home and take care of the dishes that had piled up, in addition to the rest of my laundry.  However I didn’t get around to it.  By the time I went to bed on Saturday night, I had just a few more paragraphs to do.  I didn’t sleep so well Saturday night, but I got up anyway on Sunday and took care of a few things prior to church.  Church was good 🙂  I had some interesting thoughts during church on Sunday, which I’ll get into in a minute.  After church, I came home, unloaded and reloaded the dishwasher. Then I took my dark clothes (two loads again – the washers are fairly small) over to the laundry 🙂  I made my usual Sunday phone call home, and worked on my paper.  I finished the actual writing of the memo about 9pm – ish. However, we had a firm page limit for the memo – 6 pages (plus the cover page).  We could go over onto the 7th page by a line or two but that was it.  For whatever reason, Word uses a different font/font size in addition to 1.5 spacing.  I still haven’t figured out how to change the default settings and get them to stick. So when I fixed the settings, my paper was 7 1/2 pages.  Which meant I had to cut a page and a half of material.  The biggest problem with the paper was that one of the factors we had to analyze had 7 parts. So first we had to articulate the 7 part rule, and then analyze each of the seven factors.  Definitely not small paragraphs. But it’s done.

Yesterday, we got the initial information for our next memo, due November 15th.  This one we will be doing all of our own research on, unlike the first memo (where we were given three cases to rely on).  On November 1st, we have to give our professor a list of cases we’re going to rely on (but that list isn’t set in stone. If we get to writing and find we need more cases, or that one doesn’t quite fit after all, it’s not a problem). But that means getting most of the research done by the 1st.  However, thankfully, our first three assignments for Basic Legal Research have purposely been on the topic for Memo 2.  So we really have a head start on the research already.  While I’m home, I’m going to go over the fact pattern given, in addition to our previous research assignments, and come up with a research plan.  Realistically, I can expect to look at 30-40 cases in order to pick 8-10 that I’m actually going to use.  While we don’t have any of the technical requirements yet, my writing professor said we can expect it to be 10-12 pages.  It looks like OneNote will again be very useful to me, as I keep a research trail and keep track of what cases I’ve looked at (ones that worked and ones that didn’t), in addition to keeping full text of the cases I am going to use.  The more I use OneNote, the more I like it.

In other good news, our BLR quiz that needed to be taken by Wednesday afternoon now has a deadline of Friday afternoon.  I’ll likely still take it in the next day or so but it’s nice to have to freak out about it.  Also, my Crim Law professor changed our readings for this week, and told us specifically that one topic will not be on the mid-term next week.  It’s mostly because he’s not sure just how far we’ll cover.

It looks like I’ll be able to take care of my Contracts reading for next Monday tonight. My goal was to avoid taking my Contracts casebook home with me over the weekend, which meant finding the time this week to do the reading. I might still bring home my smaller PCL book and take care of that reading for next Wednesday.  But the biggest reason I can take care of the Contracts reading tonight is that I don’t have my writing workshop this afternoon.  That’s in addition to an already light reading schedule on Tuesday nights.  After class, I’m going to take care of both Contracts and Civil Procedure.  For Contracts, to take care of Wednesday’s and Monday’s reading, I need to read and brief pgs 305-322 in the casebook, skim 323-328 in the casebook, and read pgs 106-119 in PCL (Perspectives on Contract Law). For Civil Procedure, I have to read and brief pgs 175-186 in the casebook. I’ll also take home my Crim Law casebook and start reading for Thursday’s assignment in addition to working on the outline and studying for the mid-term next week.  I might actually have time to watch an episode of White Collar tonight 🙂 I’ve still got the last two eps to watch.  Looking at Hulu, apparently the second to last episode is going to expire soon, so I definitely need to watch it tonight.

Going back to Sunday, I learned some new information and had a couple of insights that I know are a result of the Spirit.  First, I now know why the ward was split a year or so ago (prior to then, the Dekalb and Sycamore wards were one ward).  Apparently it was seen that the area would grow significantly in the next few years and that that was the time to split the ward.  I don’t remember the exact wording, but several people mentioned believing in the promise that the area would see significant growth in the next few years.  I started thinking that perhaps that’s part of why the Lord wants me here.  Of course, that got me thinking that if I’m going to help with the Lord’s work, of if perhaps the man I’ll marry is part of that growth, then I need to get my life in order.  Really, regardless of the reason I need to get my life in order.  Later in Relief Society, that idea came to me again.  The lesson was on Faith in the Lord Jesus Christ.  One question in the lesson was “What relationships do you see between our faith and our actions?”  It made me think of school, and in particular law school (and having gotten cold-called earlier in the week).  I mentioned this as well as a comment.  Doing the things we have to do to increase our faith (reading our scriptures, prayer, fasting, etc) is a lot like preparing for class and school in general.  Just like if we’re not prepared for class, if we aren’t doing what we should be, we won&rsqu

o;t increase our faith.  If we’re not prepared for class, then we don’t really get anything out of it – the same is true with faith. Going beyond regular classes, it’s even more like law school.  In law school, professors cold call on people, so you have to be prepared and mostly it’s more about being prepared than always having the exact right answer. The same is true in our own lives.  The Lord cold calls on all of us – they’re called trials and tribulations.  The Lord doesn’t ask for volunteers for trials (and I doubt anyone would), He just cold calls people.  Just like in class, if we’re prepared we’ll get through it and it’s not about having the exact right answer.  It made me realize that while I’m preparing for my law school classes, I’m not preparing like I should for life.  If the Lord were to call on me, I don’t think I’m prepared.  It’s time to start changing that.  I can’t change that all at once, but I can make progress and do my best there.

Finally, I’m REALLY looking forward to going home this weekend.  It looks now like there won’t be any wrenches in the works either.  Thursday night I’ll sync my OneNote notebooks, and then take my netbook with me to class on Friday and then home with me.  Friday morning I’ll also pack my suitcase for the weekend (which reminds me, I should make a list at some point of everything I need to take home with me).  I’ll stick my suitcase in my trunk Friday morning and then pay the five bucks to park in visitor parking.  Civil Procedure gets out at 1:50, at which point I’ll head to my locker to exchange Civil Procedure books for whatever I’m taking home with me. Before I leave Dekalb, I need to get gas and I’ll also get a drink and a snack for the two hour drive home.  Initially, the plan had been to meet my parents at my grandparents’ first for a visit, but apparently my grandmother is starting chemo again on Friday.  I’d forgotten that she’s been off for several months now.  So I’ll drive straight home and get in between 4 and 4:30.  It’s not too bad a drive, all things being equal.  Friday night I’ll likely play a game or two of aggravation with my parents and play with the dogs.  Don’t know yet if I’ll be sleeping in my old room or in Jason’s room.  My parents have repainted my old room, torn out the carpet, and put in wood flooring.  To my knowledge, they haven’t yet gotten a bed for it (something they’ll have to do before Christmas comes around).  Most of Saturday will be devoted to school work, but Saturday night I’ll be watching the Ohio State-Wisconsin game with my dad on ESPN.  Sunday is Ward Conference, something I’m excited about.  It means the Nelsons will definitely be in the ward so I’ll get to see them.  Given that it’s Ward Conference, it’ll only be about 2 hours, but there’s also a Linger Longer afterwards, so I’ll get to talk to lots of people 🙂  Given that church is two hours and not three, I’ll have time to stay at the Linger Longer a little while and still get on the road back to school by between 2:30 and 3.  It’ll be a busy weekend, but I’m really looking forward to it.

"Life is measured not by the number of breaths we take, but by the moments that take our breath away."