I'm in a Glass Case of (Stress) Emotion!

I know that it's been (gasp) almost a whole week since I've updated here. There's a good reason for that, I promise you: I've been sooooo insanely busy with everything in my life that I literally haven't had a half hour to myself that didn't have something to be done in.

I guess I'd better get used to the feeling before next year, right?

Well, aside from being so busy -- or maybe because I've been so busy -- I've been incredibly stressed about the impending move and all of the worries that go along with it. I've been trying to book my flight to Dallas at the end of June to find an apartment, trying to figure out what I'm going to do with my car, what I'm going to do with my furniture, how I'm going to move all of my stuff 1400 miles, how to go about applying for student loans, how I'm going to pay for everything, etc. etc. etc. I've also begun the process of targeting firms for 1L SA positions, getting a mail merge ready (where it's needed) and figuring out cover letters and resumes, since I know I won't have time come November.

My head's going to explode one of these days.

And because I was seriously so stressed about all of the things I just mentioned, plus a couple of things in my personal and work lives that have hit snags, I kiiiiiiiiind of had a mini-meltdown late last week. I cried and vented and pondered aloud, and then when it was done and I had prayed about it, I came away with a much clearer head about the whole thing.

I mean, yeah, I still have a CRAPLOAD of things to figure out, but I just have to take things one at a time, and I trust that everything will work out the way it's supposed to.

So, yeah. That's what I've been doing. I'll get back on the updating train soon, I promise.

Reliable Transportation -- Worth More Debt?

So here's an issue I'm struggling with right now...is taking a loan out for a car right before law school advisable?

Now, before everyone starts shouting, "NOOOOOO," and/or laughing at me uncontrollably, let me explain. Now I know that I'm going to need reliable transportation while I'm in law school, especially since I'm going to school in Dallas. Yes, Dallas has fairly extensive public transport options, and it's not 100% necessary to have a car, but it would make life about a million times easier, so we're calling it a necessity.  I have a car in California, but it's old...it got me faithfully through college, and it certainly wasn't new then, and I feel like it might be on its last legs.

My original plan was to pack my car up and drive it to Dallas, and then drive it until it crapped out. I mean, I paid cash for it, so I don't have any debt on it, it's in good external condition, and while the transmission might be wearing down, I did just have the brakes done, and it could (probably) get through another three years of daily driving.

But, do I want to chance it? I mean, if I do drive it until it literally craps out on me, then what do I do? I'm not going to be working during law school, so I won't have any money to buy a new one, and by then I'll already have the expenses of law school...loans, living, etc. And I won't even be able to sell it and use the little money I could get for it as a down payment or anything. I'd definitely have to ask my parents to help me out, and to be honest, I really don't want to do that unless I have to.

If I go ahead and drive it to Dallas and then sell it there, my only concern would be that the car's transmission might go out on the road from here to Dallas. Then I would be stuck on the side of the freeway in the southwest US in the middle of summer, and I'd have no choice BUT to pay for the repair to the car, so then I'm stuck with it.

If I sell it here in California, then drive around one of my family cars for the rest of the summer, I have to move back to Dallas by packing everything possible into suitcases and flying back there. Then I have two choices: I can either buy a car for the money I have now + whatever I get for my current car, or I can take out a loan and get a new car with a warranty and everything.

I don't need a BMW. I just need something that will get me from point A to point B and hopefully won't cost me a lot (or anything) in maintenance between now and 2014.

I guess I've just got a lot of thinking/number crunching to do. I hate number crunching.

Writing a PS without a Tragic Life

If you frequent the TLS boards, you've no doubt read through threads upon threads of people posting their personal statements as examples or for critiques. When I was going through the process of planning and writing my own PS, I definitely drew a lot of advice and inspiration from reading the personal statements of those who went before me.

Pretty much every single PS I read on TLS dealt with some sort of tragedy in the upbringing of the writer. Whether the death of a parent, the loss of a home, the incarceration of a sibling, the drug abuse of a family member, or a battle through some terrible disease, each of the personal statements I read focused on overcoming the obstacles they've faced in life. I see where they're coming from...from a topic statement, their lives are pure PS gold.

There's just one problem: I don't have a tragic past. I'm a white female from a happy and prosperous middle-class family. My parents have been married for 28 years, they're still together, none of my sisters is a raging alcoholic, drug addict, parolee, etc. I've had a normal, healthy, well-adjusted life in a white-bread sort of town. What on earth do I have to write about?! I remember moaning to my parents in my writing haze that my life (at that point) would have been so much easier if one of them had had cancer, or had been in prison.


Don't worry, I didn't actually mean it.


But I did have to think a little harder about what to write. Writing a PS is like toeing a fine, fine line between sincere and genuine or trite and overwrought. Just a little too much emotion or pushing can really make your PS head downhill faster than Heroes after the middle of the second season.

So I have a few tips for those of you planning on writing your PS over the summer in order to get a head start on the cycle (this is a very smart idea, by the way!). Now, bear in mind, these are just my personal thoughts and tips, they definitely aren't the end-all, be-all to PS writing. What do I know? I'm just one applicant.

Here are my thoughts:

• I feel like everyone and their mom writes about the death of their grandparent. Seriously. I must have seen no fewer than 18 PS drafts that mentioned the death of a grandparent and how the writer worked hard in school because they know that's what their grandparent would have wanted for them. If I've seen that many, imagine how many the adcomms have seen.
• Don't try to make a situation sadder or more dramatic than it is. Readers can tell that it's forced. Okay, you broke up with your high school sweetheart, who you thought was "the one." That's terrible, we feel for you, but unless you're somewhat mentally/chemically imbalanced, this should not have been the impetus for your three suicide attempts. If you are feeling clinically depressed or suicidal, please get help. If you're just trying to connect or relate with someone who might know how you're feeling about a break up, don't make it sound worse than it was.
• In general, don't write about a break up. Period.
• It is okay to let your voice come through your PS. You don't need to be 100% formal 100% of the time. If you try to be business like and write formally, you're going to come across as either arrogant, soulless, or like you're trying too hard. My topic was tongue-in-cheek, and I inserted a few silly one-liners in order to show the adcomms that I don't take myself too seriously.
• On the other hand, don't go too far in the other direction. This can't read like the transcript of your stand-up monologue. Don't swear, don't use slang unless you define it, try to include as few contractions as possible, and PROOFREAD PROOFREAD PROOFREAD. People are judging you based on this one two-to-three page essay.

My PS was about clumsiness. Kind of. Basically, I wrote about signing up for an advanced flamenco class when I was in college. I'm not exactly the most coordinated person in the world, and I knew ahead of time that signing up for this class was signing myself up for something where I'd have to work twice as hard to look half as good as my more experience and better coordinated class mates. But I did it anyway, because I wanted to prove to myself that I could, and I enjoy the challenge of pushing myself to get through things at which I am not naturally gifted.

Earth shattering stuff? Nope. But I think it was just light enough to convey my point without bashing the reader over the head with it. It probably made the adcomms smile a time or two. And it accurately reflected my personality, and the approach I'm going to try to take to law school.

Ultimately, you have to write a PS that shows the adcomms who you are while getting the point across that you are a good writer and would be a good addition to their program. You don't need to be Little Orphan Annie in order to write a startlingly poignant PS. My best piece of advice is this: write about what you know, not what you think they want to see. 

You know what bugs me?

It always really bothered me when people said to me, "Oh my gosh, you're going to be such a good lawyer -- you love to argue!" or "I can just imagine you standing up and yelling, 'I Object!'" or "Good, one more to lock up all of the murderers and rapists. You'll do some real good in the world."

Now, I'm not saying that there aren't lawyers that do all of the things listed above -- argue well (and often heatedly), yell "I object" (or the variation: "this whole court room is out of order!!"), or lock up criminals. There are, for sure. And those lawyers are great.

But most lawyers don't do that on a daily basis. In fact, a lot of lawyers never get to do that in their whole careers! Why does everyone not involved in the legal field assume that being a lawyer is a lot like what is depicted on Law & Order?

I really don't get this all that much anymore, since I've been working with actual lawyers and people intimately connected with the legal field for two years, but it used to be said to me on the regular, any time I told someone I was interested in going to law school.

I don't want to go into any facet of criminal law. While I won't back down if someone is getting in my face, and I will always stick up for my convictions, I actually HATE arguing...at least the kind of arguing most of these people reference. I am much more the type of person to say, "look, I can see where you're coming from, I'm not necessarily agreeing with you, but why don't you just open your mind to my ideas, I'll ponder yours, and let's meet back up to rationally discuss this when you're less heated, okay?"

I'm also the type of person to diffuse a meaty fight in a bar parking lot by jumping in the middle and making one or both parties laugh, but that's a different story, and probably not that likely to be relevant in my future career.

But who knows, maybe it will be.

ANYWAY, my point is: a lot of lawyers never even see the inside of a court room. If you have big plans to be in front of a judge every day, grilling the witnesses and charming the jury, I hope you know that there is a lot of seediness to that side of the law, and unless you're good -- and I mean REALLY good -- odds are you won't be making a whole heck of a lot of money.

Be realistic when determining if law school (and then a career in the law) is a path you're really wanting to go down. Know the limitations of the degree, and have a solid expectation of what real life will be like when you come out of school with your J.D.

Writing an Effective Addendum

Law school applications themselves are pretty easy to figure out. Heck, LSAC does half of the work for you! But what should you do when the numbers themselves just don't show the whole picture?

You write an addendum to your application.

There are a lot of reasons to write addendums: a bad semester in particular, low grades overall, multiple LSAT scores (I'm talking over three), a huge disparity between LSAT scores, a really terrible LSAT score, criminal history, etc. But for as many addendums as you can write, they should all follow the same basic parameters.

An addendum is NOT a personal statement, and it's not an essay or persuasive argument. It's not a forum to get the adcomms to come to your same conclusion about a particular issue, or to tell "your side of the story" about your fault. An addendum should be extremely straight-forward, incredibly factual (with little to no "fluff"), and very concise.

Say you had a bad first semester in college. Now you could write a page and a half about the difficulty of moving so far away from home, the steep learning curve, how your newfound independence meant that you didn't spend as much time studying as you did in high school, how having your significant other at another school far away was a real strain on your resources and time, etc., but guess what? Adcomms don't care.


Or say you went to take the LSAT, and the day before your grandfather died, or you got into a car accident on the way there and were understandably shaken by it? Your performance might have been impacted, and you might want to explain why you think you could do better on a retake (make sure you're signed up for a retake) or why your score on one LSAT is 9 points lower than another. Understandable, right? Sure, but only if you don't go on and on about how you'd never been in a car accident before, how bereft you felt by the loss of your family member, or the exact feelings of adrenaline pumping through your body on the test day. Adcomms still don't care.


An addendum should, in an ideal world, be nothing but a paragraph, maybe two, in length. Short paragraphs. And it shouldn't be chock full of excuses. If you have a good reason, then list it. If you had a bad semester all it should say is, "My bad."

Well not really. But it should be straightforward, acknowledge your poor performance, give a legitimate and non-whiny excuse, and then point out the improvements made since then.

Criminal addendums are a slightly different animal, but the same rules apply. Just the facts, and how you've gone about changing your errant ways (even if "it wasn't your fault"). Adcomms don't want to see an essay about the evils of the judicial system. They just want to know what happened and if it will impact you in the future.

Okay, so you got an MIP or got busted with a little weed. Just say, "look, this is what happened. I accepted responsibility then, I accept it now, and since that time in my life I have a) never let it happen again and b) been involved in community service efforts involving alcoholism and/or drug addiction."

I'm verbose, to say the least, and when writing my own addendum I wanted to make sure that the adcomms knew that I wasn't just flighty, or partying too hard, or something of that nature...I was hospitalized and very ill for part of one semester, and it showed in my GPA. But after reading my full-page addendum, it just sounded like a 12-year-old providing excuses for something that they just needed to own up to. 

So I pared and pared and pared it down until I got to a two paragraph, less-than-half-page addendum that didn't try to paint me in the best light possible. It just said, "look, here are the facts, there was a reason for the fault that was outside of my control, but I've moved on and have done significantly better since."

In short, the most important things to remember when writing your addendum: brevity, straightforwardness, and acceptance of responsibility will win the day. Don't make excuses, keep it short, and just give the facts, not your opinion.

Good luck with the addendums!

But What I Really Wanted to Be...

Yes, I'm going to law school. But what I really wanted to be was:

A chic and fun interior decorator!

SMU Dedman School of Law - Photo Update

So, a really common request I've had has been to update my blog/facebook/TLS with pictures from my visit to Dallas and SMU at the beginning of April for the ASD. Unfortunately, the camera I took with me to Dallas happened to be the camera that I had lost my cable for, so I was unable to do anything with the pictures once I took them but look at them on the tiny little camera screen.

But, by the miracle of eBay, I was able to find my camera cable for $2.98 (shipped), and it arrived yesterday! Which means...

PHOTO DUMP!

I've added a new photo album to my FB with all of my photos from the trip, but I'll share a couple of the favorites with you here. You can also check out my Flickr set to see the whole SMU trip. Without further ado...my photos!

I just had to snap it as I was driving past. DDD Represent!

The walk from the Law Student parking garage onto the law quad

Still set up from Hamburger Man, the first view of the quad and rotunda. 

Another of the rotunda

This is the building where we sat in on classes

A small class room

A larger classroom (from the back)

Same classroom, from the front

Another shot from the front

View from Florence Hall to the Law Library

Lawyers Inn

Focal point of undergrad campus

Back entrance to the school

0L Preparation: Updating Your Résumé

So, you all know how I read Law School: Confidential (LSC) a few weeks back...I wrote a 0L prep blog about it! Well, in LSC, the author argues that the best time to start targeting firms for mailings regarding a 1L summer associate (SA) position is well before you even get to law school.

Here's why: as 1Ls apparently we won't even be able to meet with Career Services until November, after the 2Ls go through their OCI and everything. It's against the rules. And as such, we will be gearing up for finals when the proverbial poop hits the fan. I don't know about you, but I'd personally rather worry about getting good grades than figuring out what firms will have SA positions open for 1Ls...you can't get an SA position anywhere if you bomb all your exams!

But, if you don't worry about firms and résumés and all the good stuff then, you'll be seriously behind the curve, and probably won't be able to get any interest from potential employers. No bueno. It's a real Catch-22.

...Unless...You get a head start during the summer leading into 1L!

Sure you don't know your GPA, or class standing, but you won't know that in November and December, when you should start sending out your letters and résumés, anyway. You can still learn about the different firms that  you might be interested in targeting, look at geographic areas where you'd be likely to find a job or where you'd be interested in living, determine judges that might take you on as an intern or clerk, etc. That's all stuff you can do poolside with a little internet searching and a margarita in hand...and will be a future 0L Prep post on the blog.

Another thing that's super important to do is to reformat and update your résumé. It's not enough just to add your summer employment onto the bottom, or change your degree from "expected" to official (no matter how satisfying that may be). Legal résumés are a very different, very specific animal, and you will most likely have to completely overhaul your current résumé.

The best way to get a jump start on this is to just generally reformat. The Career Services office at your school will help you with the particulars, but it will be easier to do that if you at least have the correct bare-bones there to work with. I've found two or three guidelines particularly helpful when it comes to drafting a legal résumé:

• The Sandra Day O'Connor College of Law at Arizona State University has prepared this little write up all about what a legal résumé is, should do, and should look like. It doesn't have any samples or examples, but is still good.
• Syracuse University College of Law has done something similar, if a little more exhaustive. They have a good list of action verbs that may be helpful, especially to people who haven't ever really prepared a résumé before. They also have a couple of different sample résumés at the end, which is both helpful and entertaining (the student is named Elle Woods Secondyear. It made me giggle).
• The George Washington University Law School Career Development Office has a power point presentation that they gave all about the legal résumé. It's helpful to take a look at, even though it does repeat a lot of the same information.

Overall, it seems to me that a lot of the fluff from normal undergrad résumés needs to be cut out. Legal résumés tend to be much more conservative than résumés in other fields, and as such need to strictly follow the conventional and accepted guidelines. 

No silly "skills" section (I would say only language fluency or something that will really catch the eye of an interviewer without casting aspersions on your commitment to education/legal work). No crazy fonts -- no matter how pretty (sad face). Don't put any sort of high school education or achievements on there. And definitely DON'T go over two pages -- in fact, try your very hardest to get it down to one page. 

You only get a first impression on a résumé, and that first impression only lasts about twenty seconds, so you really need to make sure that your legal résumé is easy to read and aesthetically pleasing. Getting it down to a good format and decent length now will make your life so much easier come November, when your Career Services will sit down and go over it with you. 

UGH, Blogger

Sorry to everyone trying to access/read this blog over the past few days. Blogger has been experiencing some technical difficulties, and while now I can post again, some over my previous posts from earlier in the week, as well as posts I had scheduled for today and over the weekend, have disappeared.

Hang in there, we should be back up and running shortly!

Keeping Your Records -- You'll Be Glad You Did

So, I'm a little bit OCD. I fully admit it. And I like to keep papers, especially important papers, in a somewhat organized and easy-to-access method. When I was applying to law schools, I set up a system for recording and keeping track of my applications that worked really wonderfully for me, so I figured I'd share.

I bought a package of those green, legal-sized file folders with fasteners on each side, as well as a set of the number tabs from Office Depot. I whipped out my handy-dandy label maker and labeled the right side for applications and the left side for receipts. Since pretty much everything can be handled on LSAC, it really does make the process easier, so if you're a less anal person than I you might not even need to print anything out, just save it to your LSAC profile or computer. I personally need the papers to flip through, so I do what works for me.

I print out a copy of the entire application once it's confirmed as transmitted to a school (after it's in your "Submitted Apps" section of your LSAC profile you can download a pdf copy of the exact application you sent to each school), and place it on the right side of my folder, in the lowest available number. Then I update my table of contents accordingly. Every time I get an email or snail mail communication from that school, I print it out, hole punch it and stick it in that tab, so you have everything in one handy place, and can flip to any school easily.

On the left hand side of the folder, I keep receipts for all of my LSAC purchases and copies of any receipts or checks I have to send the schools individually. These are in chronological order. I decided to do it this way because a lot of times I would submit three or four applications at a single time, and that way I didn't have to make 8 copies of the same receipt, or go hunting for it when I needed it.

Unless I was sent a legit viewbook, I even put the admissions mailings in the same tab in these folders. I think I ended up filling two and a half folders.

From there, I set up an excel sheet with the name, USNWR ranking, location, application fee (and fee waiver, if applicable) and total tuition costs of each school. Personally, I organized these chronologically by the date of my application, so I could easily add schools at the bottom, but I thought about organizing them based on USNWR rankings, too. I updated each entry with the date I submitted, the date my app was received, the date my app went complete, the date it went into review, and the date a decision was made as the occasion occurred. I kept a "notes" field as well, so I could jot down things that were important.

Now, pay attention, this is important: I also would periodically go through and rank the schools personally, noting the date of the ranking...I probably did this once every three weeks or so. This was the most interesting to me, because it helped me see the change of opinion in a very mathematical way, so I could tell what factors were influencing my decision.

I would recommend everyone keep a journal or excel sheet or something just jotting down your ranking of each school you applied to. That way, toward the end of the process you can objectively look over the data and figure out what is the most important factor to you in this decision. A lot of times you can get caught up in the enormity of making the decision and forget all about the process you went through to arrive at that decision.

So, yeah, I know this is kind of boring, and half of the people who read this blog have already decided on which schools to attend (or are at least significantly farther along in the process than when this information would prove helpful), but hopefully those of you who haven't gone through the application cycle yet will be able to look at my (crazy) way of operating and find a method that works for you.

I'm definitely going to employ a similar method when I start sending out letters and resumes for 1L SA positions.

It's Almost Summer!

I know that this has nothing to do with law school. But...

Another silver lining of my vacation plans falling through? I got so much done last week that my work schedule is pretty light this week. As a result, I get to actually hang out with my friend when he gets into town for a short trip! Yay.

This time around I made some very special cupcakes...ROOT BEER FLOAT! Not so much for my friend, since he actually doesn't like root beer floats (what a communist...), but for his family and my sister, whose birthday was last weekend. She specifically requested them.

(She also wanted them to have PopRocks on top, but they don't make root beer pop rocks, and I wasn't about to clash flavors, so she's going to have to deal with the chocolate sprinkles I ended up using.)

I think that there is nothing more quintessentially representative of an all-American Summer than Root Beer Floats. They are just soooo good! And even though the amount of actual carbonated root beer that I used in these cupcakes was minimal (I mostly stuck with Root Beer Concentrate), I would swear that biting into these you could taste the fizziness in the cake and foaminess of the frosting. It was strangely AMAZING.

Anyway, these were made up of root beer cupcakes, cored and filled with root beer frosting, and topped with a light vanilla frosting. I cut bendy straws and used them to decorate to cupcake for a play on the "root beer float" concept. They were darling.

And delicious.

To Have a Roommate, or Not To Have A Roommate...

That is the question.

When I was in high school, I obviously lived with my parents. When I was in college, my school was 100% residential, which meant that everyone lived in the on-campus dorms...you didn't have a choice. After I graduated, I moved back in with my parents. Sure, I could have moved somewhere by myself, but why on earth would I pay rent when I didn't have to? I knew it was a temporary situation.

If you don't count that short stint I pulled in Santa Barbara where I lived in my family's beach condo, this will be the first time I'm going to be living completely on my own, in a place that's all my own.

Yay!

But here's the thing: do I want my first "alone" living to be done with a roommate?

There's some debate about this issue. In college I had roommates for two years and lived in singles for two years, and in Santa Barbara I lived on my own for 6 months and with roommates for 4 months, so I've pretty much experienced the options, and have formed my own opinions.

There are a ton of positives about having roommates: safety in numbers, someone to split the rent with, social interaction, someone to help keep you accountable with studying/cleaning/etc. Unfortunately, there can also be a ton of negatives. Some are shallow, some are not, but even the small things that bug you can turn into major issues when compounded over time.

For example...when I lived in Santa Barbara, I had a roommate who liked to cook. Awesome, I love to cook! Right? WRONG. She cooked these weird meals that, while they may have been delicious, absolutely STUNK. And I'm not normally sensitive to smells. Whatever she was making would literally smell so strongly that it would make me nauseous and give me a splitting headache.

I didn't ever complain about it, because, hey, maybe it was cultural, maybe she had a special diet, I didn't want to be insensitive or whiny, whatever. And really, if it was just every now and then I could have handled it. But eventually I noticed that she was cooking with these ingredients more and more frequently, giving our house this permanent odor of death. And while this may seem like such an insignificant issue, when you're looking for reasons NOT to go home because you get a headache every time you darken your own doorway, that's not good.

Especially if you're in law school and need a safe haven into which you can escape to relax or do work or whatever.

Or take the situation with my Twenty-Something Nursing Student friend. She moved to a big city where rent was pretty high and she wanted to save a little cash. Perfectly acceptable. She found another student that was starting her program and they hit it off, so they got an apartment together. The way my friend tells it, everything was just peachy at first -- they got along well, had the same circle of friends, were able to relate to each other about school and stress and life -- but then, out of the blue, my friend went home for the weekend and came back to find her apartment emptied of all her roommate's (and their communal) things, with a post-it on the fridge saying, "It's not working, I'm sorry. I don't want to talk about it."

Sounds like an episode of Sex and the City, right?

Anyway, my friend was then stuck paying the lease termination fee ($900), forfeiting her deposit ($400) and moving into a new, more expensive, 1 bedroom apartment. Moral of the story? You never ever ever know how a roommate will work out. Liking someone is one thing, but living together? That can completely change a relationship.

There are some areas of the country where it might be impossible for you to live alone because of cost. Try to make sure that you like your roommate, but aren't BFFs. And make sure that you have similar sleep schedules and noise level expectations. If you're a light sleeper, make sure they don't blare the TV at 11:30 pm, or if you study with background noise make sure that they either won't be there or don't have a problem with it. Also make sure that you have had frank discussions about the possibility/probability/expectations involved in bringing someone of the opposite sex home with you. I know it sounds silly, but it's an important thing to be clear on...you really don't want to listen to someone getting it on (loudly) in the next room while you're boning up on subject matter jurisdiction, do you?

I think that, especially in your 1L, it might behoove you to consider living alone (if at all possible). There is such a crazy learning curve that you don't want to handicap yourself by setting yourself up to deal with a bad living situation and the stress that accompanies it.

But What I Really Wanted to Be...

Yes, I'm going to law school. But what I really wanted to be was...

A judge on a reality TV show! I'd like to think I'd definitely be Paula, but something tells me I'd be running an inner-monologue that was alllllll Simon.

The Best Laid Plans of Mice and Men...OR Happy Mother's Day!

Life is what happens when you're making plans.

Well, you know how much I love my clichés. My friend and I were busy making plans for the upcoming week of our vacation together, and unfortunately...life happened. She had a family emergency in Phoenix (she's from New York and lives in Boston, so out of her family members she was the closest to the action) and I had to take her to a bus depot in El Monte (ewwww to both the bus depot and El Monte) last night, 4 days into our vacation, for a 6 hour road trip to Phoenix.

I'm bummed.

Silver lining: my paycheck for next week will be bigger. And I get to update here more, right? PLUS I'm in town for Mother's Day!

So happy Mother's Day to all you mothers out there, and to my very own mother especially, who is, in my unbiased opinion, the very best mommy in the world.

The women of my family...my dad sure is lucky!
In other news, how stylin' was my dress?

0L Preparation: VACATION!

There are lots of types of 0L Prep that people can do in order to get a leg up on the competition before entering the hallowed halls of whatever law school you'll be going to. You can go to classes, start studying cases (which I don't advocate), watch a few documentaries or movies, and read a slew of books -- some are good, some are awful.

But one thing that is important and that everyone, be you straight from undergrad or a working professional, should do: RELAX!

Law school is going to be stressful, and 1L is going to be insane, especially around exam time. Why would you want to compound the stress you're going to be feeling in six months with the stress you're going to acquire over the summer if you study about law school every day? That's silly, and I doubt it's good for you. So, if you are at all able to, take some time off to focus on you. Get a massage, a mani/pedi, go to the driving range or the batting cages.

Better than those suggestions: take a trip somewhere fun. It doesn't have to be far away, but it should take you away from the stressors of your daily life. Personally, I think camping outdoors is more stressful than relaxing, but if that's your cup of tea, go for it! If you have the money to go backpacking through Europe, for the love of God do it!!! Such a great experience. I'm more of a beach girl, myself, when planning a quick getaway.

I will (probably) be taking a few vacations this summer, in order to make up for probably not being able to take a good vacation any time in the next three years. And guess what? My first one starts today! I won't be updating at all (I don't think) for the next week and half because one of my dear, dear friends from college (a Twenty-Something Nursing Student) is going to be flying from Boston to California to spend some time with me!

I want to relax while she's here (she's in dire need of some relaxation after a solid year of nursing school), so we're going to be spending most of our time at my family's beach condo, just laying out and relaxing.

Our plans include: going to the Getty, lunch in Santa Barbara (maybe I'll take her to my old work place to meet some of my friends), shopping at the outlets, SERIOUS beach time, maybe a side trip to Hearst Castle, wine tasting in Paso Robles (it's no Napa, but I'm not driving the 6.5 hours up there for just one day), and then relaxing pool side at my house without going in to work. We'll probably squeeze in a day for Disneyland (she's never been!) and dinner at Medieval Times somewhere in those 10 days, too.

I think anyone who is planning on going to law school would be foolish not to take some time to decompress over the summer -- however you do that. After this trip I'll probably work for a few more months before my last "hurrah" vacation -- hopefully a trip to Cabo, where my family has a home and my grandmother lives. That way I'll be able to move to Dallas calm, cool, collected, and VERY tan! Sure, I'll be stressed within a month of starting school, but why be more stressed than I need to?

So, what are your vacation plans this summer?

When to Get Your Applications Out

One thing that always astounds me is when I see people on TLS or when I talk to people in real life that say that since the application deadline is April 1, they've got some time to decide on where they should apply.

People, that's the LAST possible date you should apply! Please please PLEASE don't wait until that date. You won't get in anywhere (unless you've got a 3.8+, 174+) and you certainly won't get any money anywhere.

I am a firm believer in "the earlier, the better" mentality when it comes to submitting applications for admission. Most schools start accepting applications mid-September or October, so ideally you'll have everything ready and uploaded into your LSAC account by the first day applications are available for your dream school. I know, I know, this sounds like particularly gunnerish behavior, but I swear, it will pay off.

You see, the way I look at it, when AdComms first start accepting and  reviewing applications, they're looking for a reason that you should fill one of their x number of seats. As time goes on, their mentality shifts to looking for a reason that you shouldn't fill one of their x number of seats. They're much more likely to find a flaw in your application the longer you wait, because now they're comparing you to so many other students applying at the same time. Plus, earlier in the cycle they've got more empty seats, so they're going to be more forgiving if you have one number that isn't up to par. It is so much harder to get in to a school if you wait a while to apply.

Not to mention, schools are more likely to take your application seriously the earlier you apply. It shows schools that you're genuinely interested in their institution, not just applying as an afterthought.

Here's my take on the timeline: If you apply by mid-October, you're way ahead of the game (in a good way). If you apply by Thanksgiving, you're applying in a timely manner. If you apply by Christmas you're cutting it close. Any time after January, you're really pretty late. And after February 15? Forget it. This is especially true if you're a splitter.

PLUS, the earlier you apply the more quickly you will hear back (in most cases). I personally heard back from over 70% of the schools that I applied to by the end of January, when a lot of students were just getting out their applications!

So, do yourselves a favor. Spend the summer getting everything (and I do mean everything) ready to apply on Day 1. You'll be so grateful that you did. You'll get more acceptances and more money than if you want until later in the cycle, I guarantee it.

Getting a Jump Start on Packing

I've moved far away for school a time or two in my life, and one thing that always gets me is the sheer amount of packing that it takes to fit my life (or at least my room) into few enough boxes that I'm able to fit them all in my Explorer for a cross-country road trip.

So, I'm trying to get a head start. 

I am a very neat person when it comes to common areas in my house. My bathroom is spotless, my kitchen disgusts me if I have dishes in the sink for more than 18 hours, and I try to keep my living room pretty tidy -- a chore when you have three dogs spending most of their time indoors because it's getting so hot. And I tend to swiffer/sweep/vacuum/dust fairly regularly. I'm asthmatic, and don't like dust.

But my room is a different story.

To clarify: I keep my room "clean." I don't eat food in my room, the only drink I take in there is water, which I remove every morning, and I don't leave junk on my floor or shelves. I don't ever have any bugs or anything gross in my room, and I do swiffer and mop and clean my mirrors regularly. But my room is definitely not "neat." 

It looks like a library exploded in my room, I have so many books. They're perched at precarious angles on a multitude of surfaces. I also have no dressers, theoretically because I keep all of my clothes in my closet. In actuality, you can't see my chaise because it's buried in a mound of fashion choice discards from the last three weeks. My dirty laundry hamper is always full.

So in the past week I've pulled everything out of my closet and off of my bookshelves, organized it all, given away three giant garbage bags full of clothes and several grocery bags worth of books, and started to put everything back. And then I realized, wow, I'm just going to have to do this all again in a few months when I leave for Dallas.

It's always such a chore to pack everything up neat and tidy and in an efficient manner, and I always underestimate the time it will take me, so I tend to stay up for at least 48 hours before a move just getting it done. I don't want to do that this time around, so I'm starting now. I have boxed up most of my winter clothing -- jackets, sweaters, sweats, scarves, etc. -- and stacked them in our guest bedroom for now. I'll be going through and picking over more of my clothing and accessories in the next few days, trying to whittle down as much as possible.

Take my advice: don't get started too late on packing and organizing for a big move. It's always more work than you think it will be.

PS - For those who may be wondering, I both watch movies I've already seen a million times (High Society and Harry Potter 1) and listen to music while I pack. My packing jam of choice is "Heart Attack" by Raphael Saadiq. So so good. That whole album (Stone Rollin) just has this great old school vibe. Lovelovelove.