Part of me not feeling well was because I put off going to the gym for awhile. I’ve found that if I don’t run for at least 30 minutes a day, I’m too tired and worthless to do anything during the day. The good news is that attitude and mental toughness has resulted in me coming within 5 pounds of hitting a BMI of under 25. I’ll probably try and cut down 10 more pounds before I get back to lifting.

A bigger part of of the sickness is that I just miss my non-college life. I miss being able to go to my favorite college town restaurant with my close buddies and just relaxing, talking and being social. Forget about how law school “consumes you” and sucks you away from family, it’s just hard to keep up with people who you are a good couple hundred if not 1,000 miles away from. PERIOD. Whenever it’s convenient for one of us to catch up and talk, it’s inconvenient for the other one.

And unfortunately, I can’t say that I’ve replaced those old relationships (or found new ones) at law school. My issue is that whenever I’m talking with people, I have a textbook in front of me, it’s about law school, or it’s going out to a bar and drinking one night on the weekend. The problem is that all these people feel like good acquaintances, not friends. I have people from my fellowship that I like, people from other sections that are cool and people within my section that are cool. And despite knowing a lot of cool people and thinking that at least some of them think I’m cool, I have this gnawing feeling that I’m being left behind, out of the social loop. Or perhaps this is just nostalgia from my college life?

1. Know how to brief cases – I tend to brief every case and not book brief because I can’t skim and scan when I’m called on in class and find each relevant section. The good news about my briefs is that they are normally half a page long if not shorter. The only time they’ll be longer is when the substantive or procedural issue is very technical and thus has a lot of determinative facts. But lots of people brief cases spend time rewriting large chunks of the decision that are good to know, but irrelevant for your brief. You should only write down the determinative facts and then have marks in the book that reference background facts that the prof would focus on.

I also don’t write down the analysis section of briefs in complete sentences. Instead I just write bullet point fragments that sum up each argument. I’m able to do this because these fragments combined with a concise statement of the determinative facts is all I need to explain the decision. Keeping your briefs, brief cuts down on time a lot and will help prevent those long nights at the lib.

2. Don’t worry about class performance – Other people I’ve noticed tend to stress out in class because they are worried about “sounding smart” or “getting the right answer” in response to the Socratic Method.The point of the Socratic Method is to correct inefficiencies or small errors in your thought process or the way you articulate yourself.

For instance, if you say in Crimlaw that the  22 year old defendant was reckless when he was having sex with a 17 year-old because he should have known the other could have been underage, you are technically not talking about recklessness. “Should have known” always means that someone was acting negligently. Rather, recklessness involves knowing of a substantial (but not pratical certain) unjustifiable risk and acting regardless. Thus, you wanted to state that the adult was having sex with a minor was reckless you would say that the defendant knew of that having sex with someone they didn’t know carried the risk that the person was a minor. The mistake is easy to make and important to correct because otherwise you risk getting the MPC’s criteria for recklessness and negligence confused.

Often your “automatic answerer” (you know the guy who raises his hand to answer every question) can get the question right (or wrong) and thus appear to be smart or stupid depending on the circumstances. Both are bad inferences. The person who gives stupid answers could simply have poor oral communication skills. Often times when people are confused during the socratic method, it has to do with understanding the question not whether or not they know the answer. But simply because someone is a poor oral communicator doesn’t mean they aren’t smart. It also doesn’t mean they’ll do poorly on the written final exam. But more importantly

As for the guy who is answering all the questions correctly, first ask yourself if he is answering all the easy questions, whether they are volunteering at the beginning of a case or whether they wait until someone falters and fills in. If it’s the former, then you should know that answering easy questions isn’t that much to brag about. Nor is answering questions after a professor has started to grill someone on the Socratic method. If your AA cleans up up after someone else’s hard work, then the person didn’t necessarily get to their conclusion on their own. Rather they could have been guided there by someone else’s thought and mistakes. But the real biggie is pay attention to when your AA isn’t raising his or her hand. Why? Because people who love to answer every question only do so when they know the answer. If they don’t know they answer then they are just as scared as you are. The number of correct answers offered is less impressive if the attempts to give an answer are few in number. Because professors typically like to spread out who contributes to discussion, your AA can hide his/her lack of knowledge by taking a breather on questions they don’t know.

3. Don’t Worry About Grades – I don’t know if anyone would believe me if I said I wasn’t worried about grades. And don’t get the wrong idea, I’m not worried about grades because I think I’m a “hot-shot.” Rather I’m not worried about grades because my grade is literally out of my control. Sure I can influence my grade by trying hard to study. But the curve is relative. And unless you are going to screw people over, you can’t control their performance. So you might as well just focus on trying your best and hoping for the best because that’s all you can do. But if you try to focus on making sure you are at the top of your class and worry about slipping, then you will dig yourself into a mental hole. You will constantly try to figure out how to control a situation you have no control over. And you will drive yourself crazy. I suppose the hard thing to do is internalize the message not to care about grades. It’s easy to say it and not believe.

4. Be Considerate – It’s almost embarrassing that this has to be said. But the people who my friends and I have noticed that have had a hard time in law school have tended to be the people who are not considerate of other people. But this sort of emotional intelligence takes place in many ways. Sure, you don’t want to give someone a nickname that they tell you they hate and still call them by that nickname anyways. But that’s obvious stuff. A not so obvious way of being inconsiderate is complaining about how someone is dressed “unprofessionally” for class. That person might disagree, dress like that person occasionally or just simply disagree with you and view you as a judgmental ****. With diversity, you are bound to get some people you don’t mesh with and you shouldn’t change who you are to be popular. But operating on the take me or leave me mindset will likely make you pretty lonely and increasing stress.

There may be more ways how I keep myself calm. But I’m curious how others successfully deal with law school stress or if there are other stresses that I haven’t covered. I think those are the big one though.

My problem is that I don’t think I have anything new to add to the discussion. Almost all types of law school blogs have been done. I suppose my fellowship adds a different wrinkle than most other blogs. But I can’t talk about that at all. And because I want to protect my and others’ anonymity, I can’t talk about a lot of things. So I have maybe five or six entries just sitting in my draft folder that are the most generic boring posts you could imagine. Posts that have been written and covered a million times before.

The more I think about it, the less I’m sure this protected anonymous blog is worth even writing.

But I do disagree with her about politics, or at least the rationale for not blogging about politics. The reasons are that your political views likely won’t help you get a job, but if your employer takes a look at your political views and thinks “wtf?!” that will hurt you in your job.

If you have extreme political views (such as believing that Barack Obama is a terrorist) it’s best to keep those on the down-low if you want a job. But there is some benefit to sharing your political views online. By having to write out your defense of a position, you realize the gaps in your logic and that better helps articulate your position. Most people don’t talk about politics in person because of the social pressure of not offending someone. The internet is a great way to overcome that real face social pressure. You’ll also get honest criticism over the internet, even if it is a little misguided.

Is your need to self-expression really work risking a job though? I’m undecided. To what extent do you hold your political passions slave to your career objectives. Do you keep your politics on the down-low because you never know when a client will turn away from you because of a political stance? Ted Sorenson, JFK’s speechwriter and trusted adviser, had this to say to a person who wrote to him with fears that his conscientious objector status would hurt his political future:

This decision may hazard your career in public service, but it is only the first of many acts of courage which you may risk, if you are to be loyal to your conscious on matters of principle..

Unlike talk of cheap gossip, refraining from stating your political views for fear of employment blacklisting does have real consequences on how your relate to your identity. Such ‘blacklistphobia’ probably extends to clothing, particularly women who must decide whether to wear a wedding ring, all the way to decide if you should take the burqa (though with minority programs, the latter is probably an advantange) off for Interview Week. True, the latter examples are instances where someone has to change their normal conduct for ‘a special occasion’ whereas discussing politics online is seen as “proactively” going out of your way to ruin your career. But perhaps this schism already reflects societal-disciplining of “not to rock the boat” and make sure you don’t offend anyone with your views.

Although I don’t think it’s right to judge someone to be silent, it is very unfortunate that people who are going into a profession that makes them most likely to understand the law and its effects on people also have to, at least in the beginning of their career, be some of the most silent on how to fix the problems in society. And the risk is that such silence will discipline many lawyers not to speak up ever for fear of wrecking that “next step.”

One of my friends who goes to another law school (a 2L) says I should get over it and embrace my distinction. According to them, displaying your fellowship with the right amount of humbleness peacocks you as “one of the smart kids” and makes you an attractive person to get know (or gun down I suppose). They may be right, it’s too early to tell. But readers of this blog I’m sure can tell, I’m not a big boaster. I’m much more of a quiet worker who just wants to get in, get out and move onto the next thing with no circus in between.

But overall, I’m very happy with the fellowship. The amount of responsibility and credit I’ll be getting for the work I’ll be doing vastly exceeded my expectations. The projects are very interesting. It also doesn’t hurt to be told not worry about getting an internship for the summer.

But in all seriousness, I haven’t bought into the anxiety hype over law school. When I got called on for the first time via Socratic Method, I didn’t stumble, cry, have my mind go blank or whatever. I just answered the questions. When my answer wasn’t specific enough the prof prodded for more. Really the most annoying part of the Socratic Method was that I couldn’t take notes on what I was saying (b/c some of my answers I didn’t have in my notes). Other people have freaked out about the Socratic Method. I don’t get it. You’ve been called on before haven’t you? Answer the question, it’s not so bad. If you don’t know, you don’t know.

Really, the only anxiety so far is whether I’m “winning” the “law school mental game” or if I’m so lost, I don’t even know how ****** I am.

I’ve been surprised with the strength of the gunner-hunting mania that’s been surrounding some people at this school and with my friends at other schools. First, I don’t think anyone has a good definition of a gunner. The most basic definition is someone who is so cutthroat competitive that they’ll do anything to get an A and will not hesitate to show off how “awesome” they are. But I also hear people complaining about people asking pointless questions, making “stupid remarks,” making an incoherent argument, the infamous long hypothetical with no tangential relationship to the topic at hand, and basically any other annoying or pointless characteristic as also being a ‘gunner.’

Someone who is annoying and stupid is just bad in their own right; you don’t need a special category for them. I remember lots of annoying and stupid people in college classes. It’s nothing new. What is new are the new social etiquette: Don’t volunteer to talk in class even if your answer is short and to the point. If you say something, it has to be “right.” I was even semi-jokingly chastised for going to the professor’s office hours to ask a question about a case. (I intentionally didn’t ask it in class because the question would require a long answer). Yep, that too makes me a gunner (even though the other person wanted to know what my question was. And FYI, prof said it was a very good question).

There’s not being annoying and depriving yourself of your education. Most people who are annoying ask questions that involved changing non-determinative facts in their case-based hypo or using the professor’s unfortunate excitement that someone has volunteered to answer a question only to share a personal story that has nothing tangentially related to the topic at hand. If you don’t know what the determinative facts are in the case, that’s a big problem. If you have a personal story to share, save it for after class.  The classroom is not your personal therapy session to figure out if you could have sucessfully sued someone for something.

On the other hand If you have a question, and it’s short and you think it’s a good substantive question, then ask it. If you think you know the answer and the prof is looking for a volunteer, just say it. If you have a question that will take awhile, save it for after class. It seems rather silly to avoid doing any of these thing because people will think you’re a gunner. If anything, your classmates insecurities in “not getting it” shouldn’t (but probably will) hurt you in your attempt to get it.

Let’s run some of the numbers on this. There are 525,600 minutes in a year (Rent anyone?). This means that there are 8,760 hours in a year (525,600 divided by 60). If you multiple 8,760 minutes by 5 that equals 43,800.

Now here’s where stuff gets depressing. 20,000 divided by 43,800 is 45.7% (rounded to the nearest tenth decimal point). That’s right folks, 45% of this guy’s life was spent playing a video game for five years. However, let’s further assume that he spent 4.5 hours of those days within those five years to sleep. I don’t think anyone can function that long on 4.5 hours of sleep for five years, but hey, I didn’t play a video game for 45% of my life the past five years. Let’s also assume that you cannot play the game while you are asleep. If you take the percentage of “awakeable hours,” it gets sadder. 4.5 multiplied by 365 equals 1642.5. Multiplied that number by 5 equals 8212.5. Subtract that number from 43,800 and you get 35,587.5. Divide 20,000 by that number and you get 56.2% of his time spent awake was spent playing his video game.

If we assume he got six hours a sleep a night the percentage rises to 60.8%. Some I’m sure are thinking that the 20,000 figure cannot be accurate. As a casual gamer though, I can attest that most games keep track of total playtime. If there’s any claim that’s true in this lawsuit, it’s that this guy played this game for 20,000 hours

Orientation has been going mostly good but could be better. Most of the friends I made before we got our sections all ended up being put together in another section. A slight disappointment, but I figured this would expand my social circle. The problem I’m discovering is that it’s hard to schedule plans with people I’ve met in my section and my friends in other sections. They both want to do two different things at different times and neither group has the incentive to meet people outside of their section. And even if I do get a couple people from my section to go along on night on the town, they’ll end up being the person who doesn’t know anyone while everyone else knows each other. And if you have all the sections go out together, that’s way too big of a group. This is why everyone said at the beginning of orientation, “If you are sitting next to someone not in your section, say goodbye because you won’t see them again.” Some friends I’ll see because we live very close to one another and we’ve already established close relationships. Others I’m sure will fade.

I do need to put these out-of-section relationships a tad on the back burner and get to know people in my section though. Resistance seems futile.