After breakfast and a 15-minute catnap, I biked down to campus (about 3.5 miles–I took the long way to avoid hills but got a bit sweaty anyway). Within the first hour, I saw several familiar faces, which put me at ease. Not so easy: feeling my age. Where are the gray hairs? Everyone looked so young, and with only one exception all the 30+ people I met were childless. Apparently there are other 1Ls with kids, but I didn’t meet them or even develop a hunch as to who they might be.

My first assignments turned up on rather out-of-the-way bulletin board on the fifth floor. Fortunately I now have most of my books, economically purchased online.  I am as ready as I’ll ever be. Day 2 here I come. Hopefully on a few more hours of sleep!

My biggest concerns at this point are getting things organized at home. I am repainting my white kitchen cabinets–a job ten grubby years in the making. It’s not a terribly difficult task, but I am doing it piecemeal, so it’s taking weeks. I removed and painted upper cabinet doors and did several sections. I still have to do the lower cabinets plus window and door trim. Thanks to the demands of my 10-month-old, I only have about 3-4 hours to devote to this project each week. On top of this project, my husband will repaint the dining room while the kids and I are away at the end of July.

For the first semester, my husband (J) will be taking care of the baby pretty much full time. He’s a real estate agent, so his schedule is flexible and he can work from home. I think, though, that he will be shocked to find how difficult it is to get things done. Two weeks into the semester, I suspect he’ll be making a balls-to-wall effort to line up some childcare. We shall see.  We are crossing our fingers and hoping the baby will have a full-time slot at a nearby daycare in time for second semester.

I am also counting on J to do some of the cooking around here. This is what worries me. I don’t think he realizes the amount of time I put into planning menus, creating the shopping list and cooking from scratch. All of this is necessary for economizing, and economizing will be more important than ever with me in school. On Sundays, I’ll be with the kids while J works open houses. Most likely, I’ll have to devote a big chunk of that day to grocery shopping and cooking meals ahead.

Cleaning isn’t my family’s strong suit, but anything beyond the minimum will go right out the window until X-mas break.

In short, our household division of labor is about to get interesting. Hopefully, we’ll make it through this intense year without biting each other’s heads off.

I was accepted to the class of 2011 at my law school of choice back in January 2008. The same week I found out I was pregnant with my second child and due right around orientation week. Knowing both how much depended on a solid 1L performance and that I would likely have another C-section delivery, I recognized that there was no way that I could possible begin law school on schedule. My mom even said, “Are you sure? I could come help for as long as you need.”

That generous offer aside, I knew that I’d be doing myself and my future career prospects a huge disservice by attempting to muscle through my first semester on painkillers and severe sleep deprivation. My Google forays didn’t turn up anyone who had accomplished such a feat. I did find tales of women who had babies midway through 2L or 3L year and women who suffered through morning sickness and other gestational indignancies during 1L year. But no examples mirrored my predicament exactly.

Once I resigned myself to deferring, I set about finding how easy/difficult the task would be. I found a helpful list on Deloggio outlining deferral policies at 142 law schools circa 2003. Apparently, at some schools deferring is not allowed at all–you pretty much have to reapply. (The last thing I wanted to be doing in the months after my baby was born.) Luckily, my school has a “liberal” policy that does allow medical (and other) deferments.

As a courtesy, I set up a meeting with the Dean of Admissions. He granted my request right away and asked only that I send my request to him in writing via e-mail. During the next admission cycle, for the class of 2012, all I had to do was send in a form confirming that I would be enrolling and resubmit my original application cover sheet (basically so that they would know if I had had any run-ins with the law during the intervening year). Simple and stress free.

My only lingering question is: Did deferring affect my application for merit aid? By the time those decisions were made, the university could safely assume that I was committed to attending and not entertaining offers from other schools. Consequently, they knew they would not have to woo me. No leverage. My numbers were probably not strong enough to win merit aid anyway, but perhaps my deferral situation also factored into the committee’s decision. I also wonder if taking the LSAT again during my deferral year and increasing my score would have resulted in merit aid. Probably wouldn’t have made much of a difference. My school is notorious stingy with most merit aid (but admirably generous with minority students, making for a more diverse student body than other schools have).

Now that the economy has tanked and law firms are revising their recruitment practices, I am grateful to be part of the class of 2012, not 2011. Hopefully, with the extra year, things will be a bit more stable, although I don’t expect the legal job market to return to previous notions of normal.

“Harvest Storm,” Altan
“Rehab,” Amy Winehouse
“Wake Up,”    The Arcade Fire
“Intervention,” The Arcade Fire
“No Cars Go,” The Arcade Fire
“Telegram Sam,” Bauhaus
“St. Vitus Dance,” Bauhaus
“Devil’s Haircut,” Beck
“Good Time,” Brazilian Girls
“Border Ska,” Camper Van Beethoven
“Spanish Bombs,” The Clash
“Lost in the Supermarket,” The Clash
“Clampdown,” The Clash
“Talk,” Coldplay
“Boys Don’t Cry,” The Cure
“Hot Hot Hot!!!,” The Cure
“The Love Cats,” The Cure
“Queen Bitch,” David Bowie
“Hang Onto Yourself,” David Bowie
“Oliver’s Army,” Elvis Costello & The Attractions
“A Little Less Conversation,” Elvis Presley (JXL Remix)
“Mirror In The Bathroom,” The English Beat
“Save It For Later,” The English Beat
“Jacqueline,” Franz Ferdinand
“Take Me Out,” Franz Ferdinand
“Michael,” Franz Ferdinand
“LDN,” Lily Allen
“Everything’s Just Wonderful,” Lily Allen
“Smile (Version Revisited),” Lily Allen
“Bucky Done Gun,” M.I.A.
“Fire, Fire,” M.I.A.
“Boyz,” M.I.A.
“Paper Planes,” M.I.A.
“Bodyrock,” Moby
“Run On,” Moby
“Go,” Moby
“Roadrunner,” The Modern Lovers
“Float On,” Modest Mouse
“Smells Like Teen Spirit,” Nirvana
“For Our Elegant Caste,” Of Montreal
“An Eluardian Instance,” Of Montreal
“Triphallus, To Punctuate!,” Of Montreal
“Here Comes Your Man,” Pixies
“Where Is My Mind???,” Pixies
“Disco 2000,” Pulp
“Orange Crush,” R.E.M.
“Idioteque,” Radiohead
“I Wanna Be Sedated,” The Ramones
“Phantom Limb,” The Shins
“The Comeback,” Shout Out Louds
“Please Please Please,” Shout Out Louds
“Hurry Up Let’s Go,” Shout Out Louds
“One More Hour,” Sleater-Kinney
“Dance Song ’97,” Sleater-Kinney
“This Charming Man,” The Smiths
“Soma,” The Strokes
“12:51,” The Strokes
“Black Steel,” Tricky
“Where The Streets Have No Name,” U2
“I Will Follow,” U2
“Vertigo,” U2
“My Doorbell,” The White Stripes
“Shine A Light,” Wolf Parade
“Tick,” Yeah Yeah Yeahs
“Y Control,” Yeah Yeah Yeahs
“Honeybear,” Yeah Yeah Yeahs

Today I completed my first half marathon–before this, I’ve never run more than 10 miles at once. It felt great: the sun shone, the lakes sparkled, the breeze dried the sweat on my brow before it could drip into my eyes, and the twinge in my calf didn’t stop me from cruising (um . . . lumbering?) all the way to the finish line. My time: 2:29. Pace: 11:27 min/miles.

To prepare for the race, I followed Hal Higdon’s half marathon training guide, 12 Weeks to a 13.1 Mile Race. I gave myself 16 weeks, so that I would have a cushion in case something came up that might prevent me from completing a longer run each weekend. That decision worked well. Last Sunday, I hit the 10 mile long run, and felt pretty confident that I had a half marathon in me.

At the time I began training, I could run 3 miles without stopping. I began working up to that point during the late fall/winter by following the run/walk combos in the “From 0 to 30 minutes in 10 Easy Weeks” plan in The Complete Book of Running for Women by Claire Kowalchik. Keep in mind, I had a C-section in late August 2008, so I was starting from almost nothing ab-wise. I hewed closely to my running plans–some days felt sluggish, some felt OK, but I almost always finished my planned run, even if I had to slow the pace way down to muscle it out.

Initially, most of my workouts were on the treadmill, but in the last month or two, I’ve run outdoors when possible. Sometimes, despite fine weather, it’s still easier to run on the treadmill, as I can take advantage of childcare at the gym.

On another training note, listening to music is a big help in keeping me moving and motivated. At first, I listened to the dance/electronica or hitlist music channel at the gym, but a month ago I picked up an iPod shuffle on Craigslist and created a playlist of running tunes. (More on that in a future post.) When I am feeling lazy, I treadmill-jog 5 miles and zone out to an episode of Top Chef or What Not to Wear on cable. The more I run, however, the more I need music.

Around December 08, I added some strength training, in the form of “Body Sculpt” classes involving hand weights, resistance bands, body bars, stability balls, etc. The teachers constantly mix things up to keep the workouts interesting and effective. Hello, triceps! Now, I go to 2-3 classes a week in addition to running 3-4 days a week and attending a Pilates or yoga class 1-2 days a week. The result: feeling stronger and healthier than ever before. Oh, and I fit into most of my pre-pregnancy clothes by the time the baby was 6 months old! Trust me, that was not the case after my near-50-lb. weight gain prior to my older daughter’s birth 6 years ago.

I am amazed to find that 5 miles seems like a no-sweat run today, when 10 years ago 3 miles was a Herculean feat.

It’ll be half marathons for me, for the foreseeable future, probably twice a year. 13 miles is a good length: not painful, not boring. Hot bath, all better. I don’t see the need to slog through 26.2 miles in 5-6 hours just to add another notch to my belt. However, I have been following the new marathon training blog at The New York Times. If you are tempted to embark on a marathon adventure of your own, take a look! Perusing the comment threads where naysayers and cheerleaders duke it out is even more interesting than reading the blog posts themselves.

I’ll attempt another half marathon in August, right around the time law school starts. It will be oppressively hot and muggy, no doubt, but I’d like to shave about 10 minutes from my time. I’ve got all summer to make it happen . . .

Getting to Maybe: How to Excel on Law School Exams
by Richard Michael Fischl and Jeremy Paul.

Perhaps the mostly highly recommended book I’ve found for 0Ls/1Ls, Getting to Maybe stresses the importance of making ambiguity your friend when tackling law school exams. The authors warn that the standard IRAC  (Issue, Rule, Application, Conclusion) answer format is both overly wordy and woefully inadequate for almost all questions except certain straightforward issue spotters. Instead, they advise law students to move past the desire to get the “right” answer and develop their ability to identify and analyze “forks in the law” or “forks in the facts.” They explain how to take a clear position on which party will prevail while thoroughly exploring the likely arguments of both sides. The book includes many brief examples and longer model exam answers. I’ll be rereading parts of it once I am actually in school. As clear and insightful as Getting to Maybe is, it probably shouldn’t be first book a 0L picks up.

Still, I was disappointed in my score because it was about 4 points lower than the average of my last 12 practice tests. LSAT forum browsing at Top-Law-Schools, Law School Discussion and NonTradLaw reveals that this is a very common complaint. I can’t figure it out–I took oodles of practice tests (as recent as possible: recent ones are apparently harder) and timed them strictly.

In the end, I got pretty good at Critical Reasoning and Reading Comprehension. But, like many other test-takers, I choked on the Logic Games. Time was the biggest factor. I knew going into it that I could only complete 3 out of 4 games, but I hoped to get those answers right at least. On test day, I confronted the games section first–not an ideal beginning. I think I only made it through 2 of them. That inauspicious beginning knocked me off my game for the rest of the test. When I left the test center I felt relieved to be done but not euphoric about my overall performance.

In future posts, I’ll go into LSAT prep in more detail–including my last-ditch foray into a weekend PowerScore course.

Nevertheless, articles like “Graduating UW-Madison law students forced to seek volunteer jobs” don’t exactly make my day. The new trend of Big Law firms offering incoming associates stipends in exchange for accepting a delayed start date and securing a public interest position for the interim is likely have wide-ranging effects on the legal job market.* What will happen to the people who always intended to seek public interest jobs now they are competing with firm-funded candidates? What will happen if the big firms ultimately rescind their job offers even after the deferral year? What will happens when rising 1L and 2L law students can’t gain experience via summer jobs?

Predictably, this Wisconsin State Journal article spawned a number of anti-lawyer comments, along the lines of “Boohoo for the overpaid bloodsuckers.” My personal favorite came from “packer by birth” who wrote with a certain amount of color and verve:

Perhaps these new lawyers should volunteer for medical experiments. They should be very easy to operate on because they are heartless, gutless and spineless and their heads and butts are interchangeable. Personally, I would like some free help from a lawyer, even a green one, to make up for all the money I’ve been forced to waste over the years because of these reptiles. I hope some of these young people make a career change and choose a profession that contributes to society instead of sucking the life out of it.

So there’s my answer: If the legal job market doesn’t shape up in the next three years, I can always look forward to doing time as a medical guinea pig or, perhaps, metamorphosing into a reptile. In either case, I will continue have plenty of good material for my blog!

* See Above the Law for all the gory details.

Once I started seeing results from the gym–a little more muscle, a little less on the scale–I began snapping out of the funky moods that could descend and derail my intentions of getting things done on a given day. We’re talking simple little productive things like doing laundry, returning library books or even sending an invoice to a client right away. Suddenly, returning to school seemed do-able, not daunting.

I kept up those workouts all through a busy summer and made time to study for the LSAT. Kept going through a fall of putting my application together. One week in early January 2008, I found out that I had been accepted to my law school of choice and–surprise–that I was pregnant with my second child. Yep, due the week of orientation. Luckily, my school let me defer enrollment until 2009.

Achieving my goal of going to law school temporarily receded from view, replaced by a more pressing (on my ribcage and bladder) concern, but it helped knowing that I had somewhere to be in 20 months. So, I plugged away at the gym. Slowing down, of course, but still showing up. I even hauled my gargantuan self in there the day before my daughter was born. I had a C-section, as I had with my older daughter, but this time, instead of babying myself, I got up and moving within hours of the birth, went for daily walks at home and returned to the gym on the very day my six weeks of rest were up.

For now, making exercise an essential part of my life, week in and week out, is perhaps the most important thing I am doing to prepare for law school. It’s a rewarding way to prove that I can accomplish something when I put my mind to it. Also, unless working out is absolutely routine now, I’d be crazy to think that I’d start hitting the gym as a harried law student (and parent). Finally, and vainly, I don’t want to be a decrepit 30-something specimen amid a sea of sleek 20-somethings. They are, after all, the competition.