I am back

I have disappeared from this blog for the whole summer. wow... that was a long time. The thing is that it was not laziness or just a bad memory, because I kept writing another blog I have but which is not dedicated to the law school as much as this one. But I sensed that this phenomena was not nothing more than a longing to forget a law school for whole summer. When I opened this blog, my purpose was to reflect my life as an immigrant but not as a law student. After I began my 1L it turned out to be stories about my studying and not much else. May I say that I disgraced my blog by diverging from its original purpose? Partialll yes. But I will not continue on this theme, as I am back, and I have a feeling that this blog will continue to be the blog of a law student - 2L at this point.

About my summer. It was SUPER great!!! I visited my parents for a month, met my friends, relatives. I went to Mediterranean for 10 days. Then I spent a couple of days on Hawaii (I love you Hawaii, it is the paradise), and just recently I came back from Ft. Lauderdale, Florida. Actually I took one summer class - Evidence. It was not so bad. Professor was very funny, and it gave some color to a boredom of the class.

I must confess my GPA got worse than it was after 1st semester. I do not cry, I am tough now to the bad grades. But I want (dream, plan, long to) get better. For some reason 1L passed by like a horrible dream with my laziness and denial to do a homework. I noticed same thing in my previous studyings, but this year was the absolute pick. What was wrong? Do not ask me. I can only guess, and one of my guesses is that I just got scared of being a loser, I got scared of horror stories about 1L and its competitiveness. I was an IDIOT to follow all that crap. I had just study and think about my knowledge and nothing more else, and to kill all the doubts in my own capabilities. Anyway, I do not want to write more about my damn bad experiences in 1L, at least in this post. I would better get clip and paste some advice about how to succeed in law school which I, unfortunately, did not follow at all, and I think that was another reason why I did not succeed - I did nothing during my weekends but watching stupid TV shows and surfing Web. If you are 1L - read and do not do what I did.

One of my favorite clients from this year who is packing up to attend George Mason School of Law sent me this e-mail yesterday:
"about what kind of time commitment *is* law school, in practice, to succeed (by my definition, "succeed" meaning be in the top 15 or 10% of the class)?"

My answer was: Take off Friday afternoons and evenings to see a movie and relax. At all other times when not in class, eating, or sleeping, then study. I also gave him the secret to my own success in law school (top 8% of my class, magna cum laude, Order of the Coif, blah, blah, blah) - spend every weekend reviewing and outlining your class notes from the week before. That way, your outlines are done and you can just study them while everyone else is scrambling to outline tons of material. This means, of course, keeping up with your class reading during the week.And it does get easier as a 2L and 3L - the work is harder but you know what you're doing by then and get a system down.

Taken from How to Succeed in Law School