Legally Blonde

"Do you think she just woke up and said 'I think I'll go to law school today?'"

Sometimes I think that this is what my husband feels. After 5 years of watching me pursue and Electrical Engineering degree he watched me turn to him one day and say "I don't think I want to be an engineer. I think I could work with engineers though. I'll be an intellectual property lawyer. Yeah...that's what I want to do..."

The similarity ends with the law school ambition and hair color, I have a slightly less effervescent personality. Yeah, I doubt Elle Woods would get along with many engineers. Well, she might win us over.

Stuff, stuff, too much STUFF

I may have no control over where I get accepted to law school at this point. But one thing I can do while I'm waiting for the ax to either fall or be lifted off of my neck is to prepare myself for the eventuality of moving. I want at least half of this stuff gone before we pack ANYTHING, and I mean it! Thankfully as I didn't buy any of it, I'm not attached to it.

I left home with exactly one trash bag worth of stuff, mostly clothes and a desktop computer. The desktop computer was quickly replaced with a much more portable laptop and I've never gone back to the burdens of monitors and permanent desk space. However, my one bag worth of stuff has now turned into a household. How? Looking back I realize it was a process of accumulation and a tendency to fill whatever space I occupy.

My first space of my own was a single dorm room. By the end of summer sessions I needed to upgrade to a super single to accommodate all of the items so generously donated by others who were sorry for me having no stuff and were only too willing to donate items from their garage/basement/attic that they were no longer using. But rather than acknowledging that I had no use for these items and politely declining, I ended up taking them. After all...I did have space for them.

The super single dorm room turned into a single bedroom apartment, which turned into a two bedroom apartment (+husbands stuff), and finally we are now in a three bedroom house. Now I can't say that I feel too much guilt for having so much stuff, after all I can only recall a few items that I actually bought myself. My bed, hubby's desk, kitchen table, an elliptical trainer, and lots of bookshelves. Everything else was kindly given to us poor college students and never subsequently upgraded. The three bedroom house we are currently living in was once my husband's Grandmother's and when she passed away we had all of her stuff and everything from our apartment days.

As hubby put it last night when I contemplated the trouble of moving said stuff to wherever law school takes us, "We've never really had to move before. It was always like, ah, 'It's only another carload.'" This is so true, we've basically been moving around different parts of the same town for the last 6 years, never actually having to go through anything.

Latin

So I've decided to take Latin this semester. Who knows it might come in handy in law school. When Russian writers want to sound smart they use French, when English writers want to sound smart they use Latin. So I've got the Russian and English part down, now I just need to work on the Latin and French. Hmmm... maybe it's time to dig out those French in 10 days cds again. In the mean time its back to another 100 level language class and my husband having to listen to me mumble as I learn the new vocab.

Long Car Ride

Greetings Sagittarius,
CLEAR OUT THE OLD
You’ll discover that you can sit down with your partner and make some profound long term plans around now. This is a great day for assessments, for clearing the air and understanding how to develop and transform a relationship so it becomes powerful and profound for you. By the evening the moon shifts over into Cancer, inspiring you to enjoy a quite moment of contemplation, this is a good time to clear out old feelings and develop new strengths.

Hubby had to listen to me for 12 hours with nothing but law school, and where should we move talk on my brain while we drove to a friend's wedding this weekend. Not only should he be nominated for saint-hood, but my horoscope seems to be fulfilled.

Other Law School Hopeful Blogs

I have had some down time lately and rather than getting ahead on my correspondence Latin course, I've been trolling the web, looking for other people who have gone through the same pre-law school experience as me.

Yesterday I read through Amanda Beard's online journal "One Hell" about her experiences at Catholic University Law School and it was almost enough to make me give up. Then I realized that a lot of her issues with law school came from two factors, she felt that she wasn't very good at reading, and she was returning to school after 20 years of mommyhood and was dealing with being among peers who she didn't really mesh with. As a result, she did not have a support system of fellow student. But, once Amanda realized how her needs weren't being met and transfered to another school, she apparently had a succesful law school experience and went on to graduate just fine. There is hope.

Today's blog trolling has been much more encouraging. I visited JCA's http://www.suasponte.org/ blog and found out we had a lot in common. Young marrieds, not really sure whether law school was for us, but for some reason see the experience as a personal experiment which we cannot help but undergoing.

While JCA was faced with the situation of transfering, I am faced with the decision of possibly going to a lesser school, and trying to stand out my first year in order to transfer to school's where I don't expect to get in this year. I don't want to uproot my poor husband twice by transfering between coasts. He's already sad enough that I will have to leave AK if I want to pursue law shcool. So if I decide to go this root, I will probably try to get into a school nearby a school that I ultimately want to go to.

Trip

Looks like I'm going to be able to combine a business trip with visiting schools which is really exciting. The trip is in march so I should be getting decisions by then. It will be nice to know exactly what I'm committing to when I'm making decisions.

One in a, well...100,000

I am not unique in the fact that I am applying to law school. In fact 100,000 students do it every year. What I hope is that I'm not among the 40,000 each year who are rejected to every school that they apply to.

I actually came to apply for law school by a round-about route. Had I planned for this since freshman year I would have stuck with my perfect 4.0 GPA Russian Studies BA degree, rather than concurrently pursuing a BS in Electrical Engineering. Now I'm stuck with a cumulative mesh 3.15 GPA applying to law school, which is mostly a numbers game.

I usually get one of two responses to people when I tell them I am applying to law school. They either are really excited for me and respond "Wow, we need more engineers as lawyers." or they are like "Man, you sold out, now there are even less female engineers."

At this point, after finally getting in all of my applications, I'm just happy to be done with that part of things. The waiting game has just begun for me. For most people its already late in the admissions cycle and they have many decisions back. Oh well, I'll wait and see. Hopefully I won't be forced between retaking the LSATs and applying again next year, or going to a tier 2 or tier 3 school, trying for perfect grades and then trying to transfer. I really just want to get in somewhere that's right for me, the first time around.