Putting the Law in Blawg

Even though my past 50 or so posts have been completely baby-focused, I am actually a law student and this blog is supposed to talk about law every now and then. UChicago's fall quarter starts next monday and I'm really looking forward to it. I've always loved the first day of school and law school hasn't beaten that out of me. I like seeing my friends again, getting a seat, hearing the professor talk about the overall view of the class, transferring the syllabus info into my planner, using my new pens (I always treat myself to a new pack of pens for the first day of school), and now, in this era of laptops, starting a new document for my notes. I also make solemn First Day of School Resolutions: I will start outlining a month before finals, I will never wait to do the reading until right before class, I will do a full practice test, I will go to the gym after class, etc. I've never been big on New Year's resolutions- my life has always been so dominated by a school schedule that the first day of school feels more like the start of a new year than January 1st ever has. I've never kept a First Day of School Resolution, but each year I make them just the same.

I've registered for my classes. An advantage of going to a very small law school (less than 200 in each year) is that there's no lottery system for classes- you just sign up and you're in. It hadn't occurred to me that other law schools were different until I started reading blawgs. We do have to lottery into seminars (which have less than 20 students), but I've always gotten my first pick. This year I'm taking corporate finance, public international law, and structuring, negotiating, and concluding complex business transactions. That last one has to be the most obnoxious class name ever, so it shall henceforth be dubbed "structuring transactions". There's a chance that I'll drop international law and take admiralty- it all depends on my impressions of the profs on the first day. I'm secretly excited about corporate finance- I finally have a textbook (not a casebook!) and it has numbers! and problems with actual solutions! I miss math dearly, it was always my favorite class in school. JP was a finance major at UT so I even have a live-in tutor. My schedule is fabulous: Mon, Tues, Wed, and Fri 9:45-12:05. No class on Thursdays and nothing in the afternoon. We're still paying for full-time childcare, so I have the option to stay in the afternoons to eat lunch with friends, get work done, and go to the gym. I'm now only 3 lbs. up from my pre-baby weight, but my body definitely doesn't look or feel the same- probably due more to eating dessert after every meal as a summer associate than having a baby- but whatever the reason, I need to start working out. It will also be nice to have Thursdays as a day that I can stay home with Landon if I want to (like if there was a snow storm the night before) or go to school and be productive. In addition to my fall classes, I have a paper from a seminar last year due in January and I'm taking the MPRE in November, so I'll have plenty on my to-do list!