I took my last law school final today!  I have to finish a take home final and a paper, and then?  I am done!  DONE!!   I have no idea what I'll do with myself for that entire week that I have off before the studying begins.  I think it'll involve lots of baseball, reading comic books, and catching up on TV.  And SLEEP.   (Oh, how I've missed you!)

I went for three days with no sleep last week (brutal), including the requisite all-nighter at Perkin's.  I've finally perfected the best all-night-at-Perkin's study method in my last semester of law school.  It took me a while to figure out how to get the wait staff to stop ignoring me once 2 a.m. hit.  (The answer?  Be aggressive and insistent that they pay attention to you.  I feel silly now.)  I've discovered that I actually really dislike Perkins and have no intention of going back there once I graduate.  I mean, I don't even like the food...AND they serve Coke products and my school has brainwashed shown me the merits of Pepsi products. 

What?  That stuff matters to me.  Apparently.

Perkins was quite the popular place during my 1L year.  It's relatively close to the law school, it stays open all night, and it has free wi-fi.  IHOP can't compete (despite having Pepsi products) because of the lack of wi-fi.  Village Inn doesn't stay open all night, so Perkin's wins by default.

Whenever I have back-to-back finals I end up staying up all night for final #2.  I'm impressed at how I've adapted to staying awake for days on end.  It's funny how it became part of my normal study habits.  All night studying?  That's the Standard.

During my first year I was very mechanical about studying.  There was a certain time and place that I studied for finals at, and I could only study with certain people, otherwise I'd be completely thrown off.  I would also have to eat at the East Campus cafeteria (even though I didn't live on-campus) with the law students who lived on campus.  I can't say that it was more effective that way, but it was certainly structured.

What the hell, here's a few memories:

• Favorite study room:  Judge's Chambers -- This is easily the nicest room in the whole building (and well-lit).  It's off the side of the courtroom, so very few students study there.  There's a large table, a private bathroom, and a cupboard with a mannequin in it.
  

• Least favorite study room:  Any room on the first floor of the library.  They are tiny and annoying.  I'm sorry, but it's true.  I also get distracted whenever I see students walk by (this follows a bout of paranoia).

• Favorite classroom:  Room 113 -- This is also called "the hanging room" because, well, it hangs from the ceiling.  Just take my word for it.  It's large with stadium style seating and new technology (ooh, shiny).  It was remodeled right before my first year, so the outlets on the desktop would spark when you plugged things in.  That was exciting.

• Least Favorite classroom:  Any portion of the Pie Room -- There's a large auditorium that's shaped like half a circle when all the 'walls' are down.  It gets split into three TERRIBLE classrooms most of the time.  There was an attempt at updating the technology, but it was never quite finished.  The biggest problem is that there are practically no power outlets in the room unless you sit in the front or the back.  Then, the students in the middle rows would try to plug in to a power strip into an extension cord into an outlet, and it was battle to get to class earliest to fight your neighbor for the outlet.  If you didn't know about the outlet problem on the first day, you were screwed.  Law school is funny in a totally immature way in that we have ASSIGNED SEATING.

• Favorite Subject (General):  Native American Law -- The professor retired right before my 1L year, so I didn't have him for Legal Process or whatever class it was. But, he still comes back to teach Native American Law in the Fall semester each year.  He is this old hippie who wears his hair in a ponytail and rides a motorcycle.  He swears a lot and is known as an easy grader.  In short, he is awesome.  Aside from which, I'm planning on going into Federal Indian law, you know, for my career if I can get a job.

• Favorite Subject: (1L):  Property -- I have no good explanation for this one.  It was one subject that just clicked for me.

• Least Favorite Subject (General):  Family Law -- I made the terrible mistake of sitting in the back of the classroom.  The professor doesn't speak loudly or clearly enough for the person in the second row to hear, let alone row 7 (or is it 8?).  He would also talk with his eyes shut the entire time.  Most of my row simply gave up and spent their time doing crossword puzzles. 
  

• Least Favorite Subject (1L):  Criminal Law -- The prof has a teaching style that just isn't suited to large groups.  He wants to have a conversation, but he won't get into the Socratic method.  Instead, he'll just wait for someone to speak up...in awkward silence.  It didn't help that he told us that he doesn't call on people -- this took away 90% of the class's motivation for reading.  Whenever I came in late to class and sat in the back,  98% of the laptops were playing some Internet game  (Bejeweled was pretty popular).  It wasn't until I picked up the "Understanding Criminal Law" supplement that I realized that we were learning two different methods (Common Law and Model Penal Code). 
  

• What My Classmates Will Remember Me For: That Girl Who Didn't Talk -- When you get called on in class, you answer, whether you know it or not.  That's just part of the method.  On more than one occasion in my first and second years I would sit in silence.  Now, this wasn't always on purpose.  There were times when I just didn't realize that I was being called on.  Then, there were times when I was trying to comprehend the question before answering it (sometimes, I simply could not understand what the actual question was).  And, of course, there were the times when I too scared to speak up (I have a fear of public speaking and extreme shyness).   Unfortunately, all of these happened to occur over the course of two classes:  Torts (1L year) and Constitutional Law (2L year).  These were the big required classes where at least half of my classmates were in the class with me in one and the other half in with me in the other.  So, there's this belief that I just didn't talk as a way of not answering the questions and getting the professors to move on.  Of course, nobody thinks about all those other classes I took throughout law school and when I answered when called on.  Nope.  It's those times when I was silent and the professor got annoyed and moved on to the next unsuspecting student.  One of my classmates dubbed it, "The Jennifer Method."

Time to get back to work.  I hope to get this paper and final done tonight even though I have until Wednesday.