Goodness Sakes! and Tummy Aches

It's been a little while since my last post. As you probably have guessed, I've been pretty busy. School got a little more hectic and I've been putting in about 60+ hours per week trying to keep up. I don't get home until after 7:00 now. I'm still keeping up with my school work, so that's good.

I have a Contracts test coming up in the next couple weeks and I have a feeling that it is going to be brutal. It all makes sense in theory, but when you get under a time constraint and you have to put the application into words, it gets a little tricky.

The home life has been good, although I feel like I'm getting less and less time with my family. Poor little Trey Bug has had the stomach flu for the past few days. We gave him a blessing and I think he's pretty much over it now. We only had to wash our love seat three times, our carpet and Trey's crib twice, and our kitchen floor once. Where does all that puke come from? Poor kid. But he's back to being his happy-go-lucky self now.

The social life is still alive and well. It seems like Heidi is meeting new people all the time. A really nice girl in my class, Brittany, came over and talked to her for a while the other day at a school chili cookoff. They really hit it off and Brittany has reminded me every day that she wants to get together with Heidi. So that should be a good way for Heidi to be able to get out of the house.

As for me, I've made a new buddy, Jared. I sit by him in all my classes. We get along great and our personalities really mesh. We're constantly exchanging cynical remarks. He's been good to study with and get input from.

This past Saturday he convinced me to get up early on Saturday and go running with him up in the mountains. I'm not a distance runner so I was hesitant, but I eventually conceded. Big mistake. I haven't worked out, played basketball, or done any serious bodily movement (except turn pages of books) in about two months. Yet, for some reason I agreed to go on a four mile run, UP the mountain, at 8,200 feet elevation. What was I thinking? I kept up for the most part, but I was dead by the time we were heading back and ended up walking most of it. Right now my quads, calfs, feet, hips, and lower back are all VERY sore. It makes me walk a little funny (of course, everyone in Wyoming has a funny, cowboy walk. So maybe I just blend in now). It was nice to have the conversation with Jared, but maybe next time we can leave the running out!

Other than that, not much else is going on. We're just trying to make the best of our time here in Laramie and looking forward to Heidi's family coming to visit us this weekend! I'll have more to update at that time!

Oh, I know people have had a problem posting comments. I've been trying to get that all sorted out, but I don't know if I have yet. Please do me a favor and try to post something. If it doesn't work, send me an e-mail and let me know what is going on. Thanks!

Check, Please!

So to start off, I've got some good news from school. I have a Contracts class that is VERY intense. My professor demands a lot from us with our reading, in-class answers, and homework. Her teaching method must be pretty effective though, because everyone in the class puts in extra time just to make sure they can keep up with her standard. I'm sure it's going to pay off in the end because I'm definately learning what I'm supposed to!

Anyway, the other day we had to turn in our case briefs for her to check. She handed them back to us along with the grade breakdown. Basically there were four possible grades. An "X" which meant that either you didn't turn it in or your brief was atrocious. A "Check Minus" which meant that you got credit for turning in your brief, but it wasn't very good and lacked a lot of the reasoning necessary. Next, is a plain ol' "Check." This meant that you did an average job for a first year law student. You met her expectations, but still lacked quite a bit. And last was a "Check Plus" which meant: "Exceeded expectations for beginning law student." I'm sure you know what I'm about to say. Yup. Yours truly got a check plus! There's 83 students in my class and only 16 got a check plus. 33 got a check. 25 got a check minus. 6 got an X. So that's a good start.

Anyway, it's amazing that it has been four weeks of school already! I guess a few weeks passed me by while my nose was buried in law books. It's been a far different experience thus far than I thought it would be. I was warned that law school would be extremely stressful, difficult, and I would never see my family. But, that's not how I would describe my experience so far.

My stress level has been relatively low (after all, I don't know what there is to stress about).

Law school hasn't been especially difficult either. Granted, I haven't had any tests yet. But the material we've covered seems pretty straight forward and I understand what's being taught (at least as far as I know!).

And finally, I actually see my family more now then I did before. I get to come home for lunch every day, I have Saturday and Sunday to spend the entire day with them, and I get home from school about six or seven every night. That's more time then when I was working full time!

So far, so good. I've had no problem getting motivated to read and study for hours on end because I'm really enthralled with the subject matter. So, hopefully I can keep it up. If there's any changes, I'll let you know. Stay tuned.