News: Holy crap, I'm ditching law school!

That's right, gentle readers, I've changed my mind and am not going to be returning to law school. There were a number of factors taken into account when making this decision but mainly it just didn't feel right. Henry's been going to daycare for almost a month and the drop off in the morning has become more heart wrenching instead of less. Add that with the fact that I don't want to be close to $100,000 in debt nearing 40 and hitting the job market at a time when there are a gazillion people looking for jobs and, well, it seemed like a very wise decision. Will my brilliant legal mind be missed? Probably. So I'm going to see if I can put it to good use as a paralegal. Those programs cost a lot less and will be much more flexible when it comes to having a normal non-lawyer life.

What's best about this change in plans. There are no regrets and everything I feel tells me I made the right decision.

Leave of absence

Unfortunately, Henry's latest blood work shows his numbers have not improved. We have decided I should take a leave of absence from school for the time being. We expect to know more next week when the results of this current round of tests come back.

There is a slight chance I may be able to drop to part-time status. Slight. WUCL doesn't currently have a part-time program. The circumstances are such that they are trying to accommodate my wishes. And because it is a small enough program, they just might be able to do so. That being said, in the event I can't or decide not to go part-time, I have been invited to come back next year and I do not have to reapply. Also, I'll get my same professors, so books already purchased will most likely be ones I can use next year.

Difficult decision

We very much think Henry is on the road to good health, but he isn't there yet. A blood draw on Friday showed his neutrophil count had only gone up a tiny bit, from 116 when he was discharged from the hospital to 194. He's still 306 away from the critical mark and well below the normal range. Doctors hope this number will continue to increase during the next month. We hope so too. This low number means Henry cannot return to daycare. There is a significant part of me that feels compelled to forgo law school for now so that I may be here to take care of Henry. I mean, I got in once, right? I can conceivably get in again. And maybe then it'll be at a time when there isn't so much stress at home. If you thought criminal law was confusing before, wait till you try to learn it when your baby is being transferred to the oncology ward. Even though we are home now, it is nearly impossible to shut out thoughts of Henry and concentrate on the reading, of which there is a large quantity. While I got through the majority of it this week, I'm not sure how much of it I retained. The other part of me, though, is thinking that when Henry is better in a month and returns to daycare I will have essentially given up law school to provide one month of care to Henry. What would you do?

On a side note...Holy schnikes, it is nearly 10:30pm and I have yet to get a picture of Henry today. I must go snag one before the day is over.

Update: Thanks for all of the responses. I'm no closer to a decision but it's still nice to hear your thoughts. Yes, we have absolutely considered a nanny. I am having zero luck locating one, though. If anyone has any suggestions, please advise. (To date I've searched and responded to several ads on craigslist, I've posted a job on sittercity.com, and we've posted a notice in our building.) It would certainly be easier to snag someone if we knew for sure if this was going to be just one month or for the whole school year.) I don't think it's really feasible to have Darren work from home as Henry requires too much attention and he wouldn't have enough time to get his work done. (He's a computer programmer.)

Turning Latinese, I think I'm turning Latinese, I really think so

My first legal Latin*...

expressio unius (a.k.a. expressio unius est exclusio alterius) - to express one thing, at least in a statute, is to exclude other things that have not been mentioned

ejusdem generis - of the same genus or class, applies to catch-all words after an enumerated list


*In the future vocab words and all things legal may be mentioned here but will link to my law blog to keep this blog from becoming a boring recounting of my life as a law student.

What's in store

It is Monday morning, and when I walk into the central building, I can feel my stomach clench. For the next five days I will assume that I am somewhat less intelligent than anyone around me. At most moments I'll suspect that the privilege I enjoy was conferred as some kind of peculiar hoax. I will be certain that no matter what I do, I will not do it well enough; and when I fail, I know that I will burn with shame. By Friday my nerves will be so brittle from sleeplessness and pressure and intellectual fatigue that I will not be certain I can make it through the day...Lately, I seem to be drinking a little every night. I do not have the time to read a novel or a magazine, and I am so far removed from the news of world events that I often feel as if I've fallen off the dark side of the planet. I am distracted at most times and have difficulty keeping up a conversation...At random instants, I am likely to be stricken with acute feelings of panic, depression, indefinite need, and the pep talks and irony I practice on myself only seem to make it worse.

I am a law student in my first year at the law, and there are many moments when I am simply a mess.
--Scott Turow, One L

Project Urban Babies and and what's with the quotes, folks?

Miss Avery and Megan were kind enough to meet Henry and I in the Pearl to begin what promises to be a very cute baby project. Miss Avery is a few months behind Henry but growing like a weed and is so frickin' adorable you can't hardly stand it. Per usual, the babies got along splendidly, even during simultaneous diaper changes in the sun and a rather vigorous photo shoot around the area. Here's a pic of the two yutes together. Yes, Henry's shirt does say "Mmmm...boobies..."
Typing about words with quotes around them, this book I'm reading to prep for school is crazy with the quotation marks. Observe...

Judicial decisions sometimes will refer to a single statute, for example, the Occupational Safety and Health Act, as "the Act." A comprehensive statute on a single broad subject may be called a "code."
...
Appellate courts also exercise some review over the judgments that trial courts make about "facts," that is, determinations about what "happened" or "occurred" that serve as the basis for the application of the legal rules we call the "law."
...
These decisions are called "mandatory" or "binding" precedents. "Precedents" means the prior case law and "mandatory" and "binding" mean that the court must follow these decisions.

Seriously? I believe these quotation marks to be "superfluous" and "unnecessary" to the study and practice of "the law."

Law blog up and running

Who knows how long this will last once school begins, eh?

Reading lists

Primary reading list:

1. Law School Without Fear
2. One L: The Turbulent True Story of a First Year at Harvard Law School
3. A Civil Action
4. A Time to Kill
5. Verdict
6. High Albania: A Victorian Traveller's Balkan Odyssey
7. Law 101: Everything You Need to Know About the American Legal System
8. An Introduction to Legal Reasoning

Secondary reading list (not including recommended books on Supreme Court Justices (of which there are nine), fiction, and the intro to the study of law):

1. American Law in the 20th Century
2. The Spirit of American Law
3. The Life of the Law: Readings on the Growth of Legal Institutions
4. American Lawyers
5. Stewards of Democracy: Law as a Public Profession
6. Legal Culture and the Legal Profession
7. A Nation Under Lawyers: How the Crisis in the Legal Profession is TransformingAmerican Society
8. Lawyers' Ideals/Lawyers' Practices: Transformations in the American Legal Profession
9. In the Interests of Justice: Reforming the Legal Profession
10. Cause Lawyers and Social Movements
11. Introduction to the Law of the United States
12. An Introduction to Law and Legal Reasoning
13. The Nature of the Judicial Process
14. An Introduction to Legal Reasoning
15. Thinking Like a Lawyer: An Introduction to Legal Reasoning
16. An Introduction to the Legal System of the United States
17. American Law: An Introduction

Entertainment reading list (to be finished by Monday when the first shipment of law books arrive):
The Assault on Reason
God it Not Great
The Audacity of Hope
Raising Cain
The Discipline Book
Cell