Sunday, October 17, 2010

Fall Continuation

Because it's not a break. Nope. No Fall Break. No Thanksgiving Break. No Christmas Break. They told us, and by God they were right.

I put more hours into studying this past week/weekends than I have the whole semester. Usually 10-12 hour days. All to meet the goal of getting outlines established up to our current place in the syllabus. I didn't even bother doing a Torts outline, but I started using the flashcards. Since my teacher does 400 questions in 4 hours all multiple choice and true or false, I've reconsidered my position on this. But I didn't have time. The flashcards helped immensely (to the point that I am now on the ones relevant to the cases we're reading tomorrow) but my prof has a few idiosyncrasies. For example, if he hates/loves a particular judge, he will ask a question like "T/F Learned Hand would agree that there is no such thing as gross negligence, only negligence." So you better be sure that I'll be using my class notes heavily to study. Tricky tricky. I think on the substantive points I'll be golden. My only concern are little nit-picky things like that.

It's especially tricky because there was a judge who thought that, but it wasn't Learned Hand, it was Baron Rolfe. See? Nit-picky.

I'm sort of looking forward to it, in my weird nerdy way. Closed-everything, 400 questions (leaving 36 seconds per question)? Sounds like a challenge!!

I did alright working on my CivPro outline. I'm not fully caught-up, but I got a great jump on it and I know the format I'm going to use.

Contracts was... well awful. I got something made, and when I went to a study group I found it less than helpful. I need to cross-reference things better. But, I do think making it helped and I really liked the supplements I got. I made a flowchart, using a red light/green light sort of format. For example, you first need to establish "Is there a contract?" So that's a green box. Then when you get to the end of that analysis, your conclusion is a red stop sign. Then you move to the next question which relates to the terms of the contract, again a green box. And so on. It helps me visually and I enjoyed making it. It helped me get in the zone of working through all the possible scenarios.

I am concerned about being allowed to use it on the exam. I did use a supplement to make it, often using exact language for the questions. However, I spent hours and hours working on it and trying to make it my own. And, the questions are pretty universal, so I don't see a need to re-word them. I may show it to him and ask if it's okay to use it. He basically said we can use anything we want as long as we don't bring in the supplement or just use someone else's outline from the previous year. I guess we'll see! Either way, I will use it to study with and that helps a lot.

As for Methods, I did preliminary research for my memo. I should have done a lot more than that, but the fact is I just DID NOT WANT TO. I got a good list of cases and I'll make the case plan tomorrow night. It's due Tuesday. I think I know enough about research to not be worried (my TA recommended I not wait until the last minute, but that was so we could call with any questions if we got stuck.) I'm not worried about that so I feel fine procrastinating.

Things are getting crazy.

I went to a few great parties over the break and made some new friends. It was great getting to know classmates who aren't in my section, because we don't really know each other exists. It's like grade school all over again. Next semester they shake things up. Lola and I will only have Methods together, which breaks my heart. But, a few of the new friends I made this weekend will have most classes with me, so I know I have a friend-base there already.

Looking forward to next weekend. Getting back in the habit of waking up is going to be rough.

1 comment:

  1. Oh my gosh. You are a studying machine! My outlines are currently non existent, except for criminal law (and that's just because we had a midterm in that class). Looks like I need to step it up a notch!

    And seriously, plants vs. zombies is the most awesome game. Definitely look into it. ;)

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