Why be anxious about another semester?
“Now dammit, look here, all of you, we all must admit that everything is fine and there’s no need in the world to worry, and in fact we should realize what it would mean to us to understand that we’re not really worried about anything. Am I right?” - from On the Road
Let’s do this thing.
Well, the fastest semester of my life is over. Oh sure, there’s the small matter of final exams, but classes are finished as of today. My first exam, in Property, is in a week. I’ve been doing the quasi-mandatory “outlining” by looking over my notes and the extremely-helpful Gilbert book. My other two finals are spaced out reasonably well, so I’m hoping that I can keep my focus on one exam at a time. Although I think that Contracts probably will take twice as much work, at least in terms of the raw amount of material to cover.
The main challenge at this point is figuring out the best way to use my time. One gets the feeling that some people are studying 16-20 hours a day. Honestly, I can’t see myself doing that. Maybe I have the willpower, but I know from experience that my mind works best when it’s well-rested. So if I could do maybe 10 “one hour on, fifteen minutes off” study sessions a day, I’d probably get more benefit than I would if all I did was sleep and study. Maybe I’m setting myself up for disaster, but I think I’ve got to rely on my self-awareness.
I’m trying to keep some balance and perspective on this thing.
When considered literally, facts invoking the eggshell skull rule are a little disturbing.
Today has been a joyous mixture of pre-ordering a Wii, reading, working on the graded memo, and updating this site. I’ve got a contract due on Wednesday and I’m trying to work on outlines, starting with Crim.
In other news, it’s a sad day for Philly sports. Donovan is out for the season (again) and it looks like the Phils won’t be picking up Soriano. The Sixers and Flyers continue to remain bad. Sometimes the consistency is all you need.
Sorry, sometimes it’s difficult to come up with a creative post title.
Today I’m working on my memo for Lawyering Skills and getting ready for the midterm in Property. It’s all good.
I also posted two new papers on my Research page. The common operational picture paper was presented at HFES 2006 in San Francisco last week. The PARAgrab image search paper was presented at VLDB 2006 in Seoul last month.
I also tidied up the format of the research page a little bit so it’s easier to find things.
On the day that Becky and I arrived in LA, Penn State President Graham Spanier gave a rousing commencement speech to the Schreyer Honors College graduating class. I wish I could have been there, because unbeknownst to me, I was in for some anonymous props:
There are a number of teaching and research assistants with us, as well as students who served in valuable internships with companies such as Merrill Lynch, and Standard & Poor’s. We also have a scholar who interned with L’Oreal, the developer of cosmetics and fragrances. But our scholar wasn’t just another pretty face there. He was their information technology guru.
The really scary part about this is I’m not sure I ever even told anyone there about this.
And he’s right, I was a really, really ridiculously good looking face.
We’ve been in LA for over a week now, and things have been great. Aside from completely pimping out our apartment, we’ve found time for a Dodgers game, a few beach trips, and a comedy show last night. Becky found a job and I had UCLAw orientation. Class starts tomorrow.
Orientation was incredibly helpful in making me feel prepared for school. It made the law school real, instead of some building and a bunch of people 3000 miles away. I think the students in my section have already started building camaraderie, and everyone seems to have the right attitude about this shared endeavor; I’m actually playing racquetball with one of my classmates before our first class tomorrow morning.
Today I’ve got to put the finishing touches on my first set of briefs.
Zip it up and zip it out!
I successfully defended my thesis today. A weight that has been hanging over my head for around two years has been lifted. This is an amazing feeling.
Of course I’ll post the thesis and my presentation later, after making a few final edits.
Lots of fun stuff last weekend. Friday morning brought a screening of the new Superman movie (it was good; I would recommend it to a friend), and Friday night brought shabbat services (C+) and my last hurrah at Goodnoe’s (A-). Saturday morning was Evan’s bar mitzvah service (A), and Saturday evening was the party (A+). On Sunday my dad gave me a bunch of old home movies to convert to DVD, and it’s been a blast to look through all that stuff. The damndest thing is that I get cuter over time.
I’m submitting a draft of my thesis by Friday, hopefully. Defending on the Tuesday after I return from vacation, turning it in for good two Fridays after that, leaving PSU as a student for good.
These are interesting times. I’m done with all my classwork, and I have only one final: a 24-hour take-home essay assignment for my user interface design and development class. So by Tuesday at 9:05am, I’ll have completed all of my undergraduate and graduate work… except for that rascally thesis. I just scheduled the defense for that on July 11th at 8am, so my life is pretty much focused on that day and time right now.
IST is letting me walk in the May 13th graduation ceremony, which is nice because all my family can come out for it. I do feel a little bad about not actually having graduated at that point, but I figure the Masters degree was above and beyond the call of duty, anyway. I won’t be going home after graduation. Instead, I’ll be going right back to work on the thesis and my RA duties, which I’ll be doing for nine weeks this summer before going down to NC and then over to LA.