1st Day Jitters

So I don't typically do this, in fact I really try to avoid at all costs taking pictures of myself, but I figured it might be kind of fun to have a memory of the first day of my legal career (:

So today was officially the first day of law school and I have to say that it was surprisingly pretty painless.  Now granted I only had 1 class- but I was genuinely scared that my first day was going to involve being the first one to get called on, then subsequently being the person who blanked when asked anything and finally getting the reputation as the girl "not to worry about" for the rest of my law school career. 

For those of you unfamiliar with how a law school classroom is typically run, this nightmare that I just described is what is known as "cold-calling" or "the socratic method".  Essentially teachers will randomly choose a student in the class and ask them to recite the relevant information about the case which had been assigned for class that day.

Fortunately for my sanity and reputation, no one was called on in class today and the teacher simply asked for volunteers.  I did work up the courage to make a comment though!  The class I had was Constitutional Law and it actually is going to be a class with only about 30 other students.   Most of my classes are with about 120 other students so it is nice to have an opportunity to know the other students and teacher a little more personally.

I think the one thing that did leave me a little nervous after today was that it is becoming clear that some people are going way above and beyond in how they are preparing for class.  I'm still not sure how to think about their approach.  For example, I was talking with one girl who had looked up all of these laws that had developed out of a case we had read and knew several more modern cases that were related to the precedent developed by the case we are studying.  On one hand that kind of effort makes people like me extremely intimidated and feeling like I am way behind everyone else.  But on the other hand, is all that extra work really worth it?  It is certainly interesting to look more closley at an issue, but with all the work we already have, is it really smart to try and cram your brain with even more information?  I guess time will tell but for right now I'm just trying to stick to, for the most part, only the things our teachers have assigned.



Tomorrow I will have my very first class with all of my fellow section-mates.  Hoping for another great day!  I will check in with everyone soon!

I have such a hard life right now... Getting fed food that is too amazing and yummy.  I almost died when I saw the chocolate scales!

The Show Goes On...

Over the summer, I spent a lot of time thinking/worrying about the many changes that were coming my way at Georgetown law.  I can imagine I went through a similar phase before leaving for Notre Dame, but for some reason law school seemed to consume my thoughts much more- to the point of exhaustion.  I constantly scrutinized how I would measure up against my fellow classmates, worried about how in the world I would ever pay off my astronomically high loans, considered whether I was socially normal enough to make friends, struggled with how I could make my long distance relationship strong and thriving, analyzed how I could maximize my chances at finding a good and paying summer internship for the following year.... the list could seriously go on for pages.  Exhausting right? 

Well I arrived at Georgetown almost a week ago, and while I had some strange notion that the worrying and analyzing would put me one step ahead of the competition, I'm realizing now that it's not going to.   All of my classmates and I are in the same boat.  It seems like everyone is scared about this first year, everyone feels unprepared, and everyone is worried about the future.  This realization has certainly been comforting- it's nice knowing that I'm not the only one feeling nervous and a little intimidated.  But of course being the natural worrier that I am, I am still feeling a little weighed down by the same fears I had all summer...

Well, something that has always helped me feel better either when I'm worrying a lot or going through a difficult time is to talk about those feelings either with myself or a friend.   So I thought to have the best of both worlds I could start a blog- so VOILA!  I'm intending this blog to be a record of my experiences as a 1L at Georgetown so that I can have an outlet to sort through my feelings and experiences, share my adventures with family and friends, and ideally, give advice/information to people interested in law school perhaps in the future.  As many of my friends know, I am also obsessed with reading other people's blogs about cooking/food/traveling/fashion/makeup so there may or may not be a few entries in here regarding those things as well.

I will try to put up lots of pictures (the one included being a view of my new home/school) and write as often as I can but am well aware that I may not be consistent due to our crazy schedules.  Please feel free to pass this blog around to anyone who you think may be interested- actually I encourage people to pass this around, I love getting to share and collaborate with others through this medium!!  If you ever have any questions or comments about this blog please feel free to email me or if you have a blog of your own I would love to read it!  My blog email address is 1LBelle2014@gmail.com.  If you want my personal email address just let me know!  Looking forward to sharing with you all in the future!!!

P.S.- What do you think is the significance of experiencing an earthquake and hurricane all in the first week of law school????