Prolonged

Why is it that every other law school seems to be done, and we have another week of finals to go?

I hope we get an extra week of summer or something to make up for it.

I took the Civil Procedure final this morning, which was a hard test. The final was worth 80-90% of the grade for the year, depending on how the midterm went. 30 multiple choice questions. Straight scale, no curve. Very long tricky problems with many things going on at once. His midterm questions were like that, too, so I was rather apprehensive. Stayed up most of last night, and only got a few hours of sleep before coming to school this morning. I wish now I'd gotten those details down earlier, and slept more.

I've tried to make it my prayer that I will be glad in Him at the end, when all the results come. If I do well, let me give credit where it is due, and celebrate His goodness. If I don't do well, let me still be thankful for what He has given. Sort of a desire to be like Job: "The Lord gives and the Lord takes away--and the Lord sometimes gives not as much as I wanted--Blessed be the name of the Lord."

But the more common prayer yesterday and today was "Help!"

3 down, 2 to go. Contracts and Constitutional Law went ok. I typed those exams, but I know I didn't type nearly as much as the people sitting around me. I was spending too much time thinking, and organizing, and finding it hard to put sentences together. Talking with people afterward, they saw a bunch of things I didn't see. It'd be rather worrisome if I were to let myself think about it.

After the Civil Procedure test this morning, there was a Torts review this afternoon. And to decompress a bit, I've been on the web, where I found this great article about spiritual life. A quote, to whet your appetite:

"I found myself envying my hostess, a 70-year-old, extremely poor,
Christian woman named Jacqueline. I envied her for her joy, her
overflowing love, and for the way her eyes lit up or filled up when
talking about God. She didn’t simply regurgitate biblical stories, facts
and Christian lingo. She knew Him."

Will I become that kind of person? The kind of person who knows Him, and inspires others to know Him? Maybe you can't exactly inspire someone to know God, but it seems to me that you can inspire someone to want to know Him.

So, for all my southern CA friends, it looks like I'll be down from June 4 to June 11 or 12. Don't know how fried my brain will be, but I hope not too much to enjoy the brief vacation, before coming back here to work.

For now, on to Torts and Property. . .

Long day

Today was a long day.

I had a Civil Procedure review that started at 9 am this morning. The professor had never done a review for this class before (though he's taught it for many years), and it ended up finishing at 1:30 pm.

Thankfully, he took 10 minute breaks every hour or so.

Then a Constitutional Law review that started at 2 pm (in the same room) that went until 6:15 pm.

Then I heard the beginning of a talk from 7-8. Went home, grabbed a pair of binoculars and a snack to eat, and drive to school, to hear another talk given by E.O. Wilson, the Harvard biologist.

That went until about 9:30. Went to the computer lab, checked my email for the first time today, tried to set up my newly bought laptop for Internet access, but didn't figure it out.

(Yes, I bought another laptop this past weekend. The 133 MHz Pentium I laptop that I bought on eBay a while ago was too slow to run the exam software that is optional for 2 of my finals. Though it wasn't necessary for me to use a laptop, I type far faster than I write, and I thought it was about time anyway. And my sister let me know about the deals at BestBuy recently.)

Was at school until about 10 pm. While there, I had a microwave teriyaki chicken/vegetables rice bowl (thanks, Kev, for letting me know about those. I've probably had an average of 1-2 a week since coming to law school.) Drove to church, went to the Monday night prayer meeting.

I've been to the Monday night prayer meeting a handful of times this past year. It's mostly made up of college folk, but there's no active exclusion of anyone. It's fairly simple: some praise songs (sometimes led with a guitar, sometimes acapella), a short devotional led by one of the college folk or college staff (these are recent college grads), and then the lights are turned off, and some people kneel or are prostrate on the ground while others stay in their chairs, and everyone prays. Many of them out loud. Some pray silently. Some pray in whispers. Some do a mix. As individuals finish their prayers, they quietly leave the room, taking care not to disturb those remaining.

With few variations, this is what prayer meetings are like at many Korean American churches. For some, sitting in a room with other people praying out loud (loud enough for you to hear them) can be distracting. And occasionally it distracts me, too. But you also learn to verbalize your prayers, order your thoughts into words, say them aloud.

I'm really glad that my church here holds these.

And now I'm back at school, again trying to get the laptop to connect, and also hopefully getting some real stuff done.

My schedule:
This week: Contracts exam on Fri
Next week: Constitutional Law on Tues, Civil Procedure on Fri
Week after that: Torts on Tues, Property on Fri

Friday 5/23 is my last final. Then I fly to Texas to visit my sister, and go to OneDay, and work on the law review competition.