Sunday, May 13, 2007

Herding Ducks

I had been asked to help out at graduation and pass out programs or something, but when I got there they asked me to herd the bagpipers and drummers. I had to give them cues and stuff. It was fun. One of the pipers said the job I was doing was "like herding ducks, difficult, but not as bad as herding cats."

As I was talking with one of the pipers before the ceremony, he made the observation that there must be a lot more women graduating than in the past. The reason he made that statement was because everytime there was a crying baby and he looked at it, the baby was being carried by a man. However, during the ceremony I only saw women holding the fussy babies, so I don't know if that is a good indicator to say that there are more women graduating from law school than in prior years.

This was the first graduation that I've been to where the graduates haven't been forced to walk in alphabetical order. Instead each of the graduates filled out a card with his or her name and gave it to the Dean while going up the stairs and then the name on the card was read as the graduate was being hooded. It was really cool because the graduates were able to group up according to their friendships and relationships. There were several married couples where the spouses had different last names, but were able to walk together and receive their hoods and diplomas one after another.

Friday, May 11, 2007

1/3 of the way to the bar

So it's official-- I have completed one year of law school. It flew by and yet was so long. Today was my last final of my first year. I have absolutely no clue how I did on any of my exams and I don't believe I'm going to find out until the end of June. Well except for the one old-fashioned professor who still posts his grades by exam number in the library, and his exam was multiple choice so I would hope that is a quick turn-around on the grades.

This semester's exams went better because I didn't stress out to the point of being physically ill on any of them; however, I definitely felt that all of my preparation was not 100% sufficient. I'm hoping that's a good place to be.

Anyhow, it's been an amazing year and a fabulous semester, but I just don't know what to do with myself since I don't have an official assignment until August. I'll probably be a nerd and read some law review articles for fun. Hopefully, I'll have performed well enough this semester that I receive an invitation to attempt to write on to the law review, but if not, there is nothing that prevents me from attempting to write a law review note (aka student comment) to publish elsewhere.

I'm trying to convince my school to add a course in Animal Law (not Animal Rights, but Animal Law, i.e. the intersection of Animals with all the various existing substantive topics in law). It would probably be beneficial to be able to approach the administration and demonstrate that this is an existing, current and growing field of law that is not necessarily filled with a bunch of nut-jobs. I have a meeting with the Associate Dean of Academic Affairs tomorrow, whoops make that today, to make the initial pitch and find out all the lovely dirty specifics for making the Animal Law course a reality.

For the summer I've arranged to visit friends in Chicago over Memorial Day weekend and then I'll be working for the Doctor's office for June and July, except for a couple of weekends where I need to do things in OKC. I'm also going to see if there are any legal profession related volunteering opportunities available in Georgetown.

I'll head back to OKC in August because I am one of the admissions ambassadors. I'm really excited about that because I'll get to be one of the "sage and experienced" 2Ls who helps hold the incoming class members' hands as they try to adjust to the craziness that is law school. However, if I can get a head start on my reading that would be fabulous because I'll be taking Constitutional Law, Evidence, Legal Profession, Criminal Law, & Information Privacy Law next semester. All of which promise to be heavy reading courses and all of which have exams. Yikes!

One year down and two to go!