Homemade Valentine's Day Cards

This year I have been busy and didn't really think about Valentine's Day coming up. Lately I feel as though I keep saying, "I'm so self-focused," or "It's all about me." So I wasn't really thinking about how close Valentine's Day was until my daughter asked about her Valentine's Day cards for her class.

Almost every year in the past I have helped our kids make their Valentine's cards. Because I have been so busy, Bruce suggested that maybe our daughter should just hand out bought cards. I asked her what she wanted.

Doing homemade cards is a lot of work, but in the end is worth the effort to see them all. We usually start well, but after about 2 or 3 cards, my daughter feels as though it is too much work and then it is a matter of pressing her to get them all done. This becomes a multi-day process with only a few cards getting done each day; therefore, I usually give myself a week or so to get them all done. This year we would only have the weekend to get it all done. So I was going to be okay if she wanted to hand out bought cards, but I wanted her to have the option, still.

Yes, she would like to make the cards. Okay. I will help. (Dad will not!) We will start on Saturday by printing our hearts from our Word Valentine hearts page on coloured paper and then cutting them out. About two hundred hearts later (I can't move my fingers!) we have a pile of hearts, the construction paper, glue and stickers ready to make the masterpieces. The sheet looks like the picture at the side and the link above should take you to a download of the Word document I made if you want to use it.

We worked on the cards Saturday and Sunday. Sunday was hard for me as I had been up late the night before helping with the Legal Follies ALSA After Party and didn't get home until 3 a.m. After church my daughter and I worked on the cards again. Actually, .... she worked on the cards and I sat in the chair at the table considering the inside of my eyelids most of the time. Every once in a while I would encourage her to keep going. She did great and finished them all. She even wrote a message on the backs of all of the cards.

Once again the end result is great. I hope these are memories my daughter will carry with her. I know I will.

Daddy's Pictures

Our daughter is an artist. She always has been. When she was very little, we had to teach her an important lesson. If you draw on your stuff, it's called art. If you draw on other people's stuff, it's called vandalism.

To celebrate finishing my moot, Bruce surprised me by booking us supper at The Real Greek Restaurant. He planned that the kids might get a little bored as we ordered the Yianni Meze (a twelve course meal). Therefore, he brought some paper and pencils so the kids could draw or write if they wanted.

Between the appetizers and the main course Shaeleigh started drawing but Brendan didn't want to, so I started drawing, too. I am not an artist. I'm a wannabe. The kids really get a kick out of seeing their parents draw, though, so they started begging to see their dad draw something, too. "I don't draw," he says. "Yes, you do, daddy! We want one of your pictures!" Because he loves his kids, he starts to draw.

I take a guess, "Is it a mutant poodle?" Yes, yes it is.
"Daddy, you draw really good pictures that are really weird."
He continues to unleash his inner geek.

The Best Husband

I am preparing for my moot and the house is chilly. So I grabbed an afghan and am sitting at the kitchen table working. Bruce sees me and without saying anything turns up the heat and starts the kettle. Before he takes the kids with him to church (he is teaching the bible study after Vespers), he makes me a pot of tea and brings to me the pot, a cup, a spoon and the honey. I didn’t say anything, and he totally met my needs.

I really am truly blessed and haven’t done anything to deserve the love he gives me. But I love him so much for it. Thank you, God, for giving me the best husband in the world.

Law School - Pre-Moot Jitters

My moot is tomorrow.* I am feeling nervous, anxious, excited, worried, and a whole bunch of other things all mixed in there. I have been dreaming about it, and talking about it, and worrying about it. I try to remind myself that I will most likely be able to walk out of the room of my own volition, so I shouldn’t stress too much. But I can’t help it. I feel so unprepared. Or like I should be more prepared. Or something.

A part of me thinks I will be fine because I think I know what I am going to say. But there have been times in the past when I have had to speak in front of people and it hasn’t gone as well as I would have liked. I feel fine before I have to speak but once I am standing in front of those people, I get all shaky and breathy and nervous and don’t think as well as I normally do.

I know I’ll be fine. I know I’ll do fine. I am looking forward to tomorrow. But I will also be glad once it is done.

*A moot is a fake court session. Our moot is an appeal of a criminal judgement where the trial judge acquitted a woman of aggravated assault after stabbing a man. The issues are about battered woman syndrome and self-defence and whether or not they are applicable to the facts of the case. As with all appeals, the argument isn't about the facts that were found at the trial level, but rather the way the law was applied. This is a made up case and is not real. The point of this exercise is for us to be advocates in front of a panel of judges.

Law School - Using (or Abusing) Time

Lately I have been fretting about time. There is so much to do and not enough time to do it all. Or lamenting the fact that when I am stressed, I begin procrastinating and time-wasting. I become overwhelmed with everything that needs to be done and instead of making a list or prioritizing, I end up doing a lot of nothing.

Yesterday I looked at a my friend Naomi's blog. She is a writer and she posted about Timely Intentions versus time management. The idea is that time management is a myth. We all have the same amount of time and what we do with it is up to us. We make choices about what we are going to do with our time, and that in order to maximize our time, we should be intentional about how we spend it. Lately I have not been intentional. I have been more reactionary.

I was speaking with another law student this morning about how when I am stressed I tend to procrastinate instead of doing the things I am supposed to do. I did the same thing years ago and I still do it now. I commented to her that I wonder when I will ever grow out of it, and she said it is not about maturity. It is about being aware of what we do and choosing not to do it. From there I made the leap that it is not just about not doing it, because I have tried that and then fall back into the same bad habits, but rather to replace it with something better.

So, I am going to replace my procrastinating with lists. I am a list person. At work my “list” is the way I organize the files on my desk. I have them in an order so I can take the next thing and work on it, and can see what I have left to do at any given time. Some of my co-workers have wondered how I can work at my desk, seeing as it is often piled with files. But those piles are my lists. Being in school, I don’t have a desk to work at all the time, so I will have to resort to a traditional list. I have my diary for dates, so I will begin using that. I figure then I will also have something concrete to realize that I am getting work accomplished.

If lists don’t work, I will have to come up with something else to fill my stress gap. I am open to ideas.

Law School - My Son’s Perspective

I had heard that law school can be tough on a marriage. I may talk about that another day. What I hadn’t heard was how it would affect my kids.

When I shared with others about being accepted into law school, a comment I received (more than once) was what an inspiration my going back to school would be for my kids. I’m thinking that maybe that inspiration will be coming at a later date, because they certainly aren’t inspired now. Especially my son.

My son is 11 and my daughter is 8. Most of their lives, their mom has been the working parent. I stayed home until my daughter was about 2. At that time Bruce became the stay-at-home parent and I worked full time. First at McDonalds, then in an office and eventually back into a law firm. I have been a real estate legal assistant for six years now. I was doing the majority of the real estate in the firm by myself. This was difficult at times and especially when there was the big housing boom in the city. There were many days in the summer when I would be at work late in order to get everything done. I would even go in on the weekends, sometimes.

My son seems to have forgotten that. I don’t think I can count the number of times this school year he has said he wishes that I wasn’t going to school. He wishes he would be able to see me more. Even when we have pointed out to him that sometimes he has seen me more now that I am in school than he did when I was working full time, he still seems to think he saw me more back then. I don’t really understand why he thinks this. I have seen him more during the week than I used to. Or at least, I am home more. I do homework at home. So while I am working as much (or more) than I did when I went into the office, I am at home more.

I wonder if it is because I am not a scheduled as I used to be. I worked Monday to Friday. And when I was home, I was always doing home stuff and not work or school stuff. Now, to him, I work all the time. I either go to work, go to school, or do homework. There is not really a ‘time’ he knows I won’t be working. He doesn’t like change very much. (I have heard he comes by that honestly.)

On the plus side, I never used to be able to get a kiss from my son. Now he gives me kisses all the time. And “huggies!” He is a gentle soul who cares very deeply. Hopefully when he is older he will not resent me for this time I have spent at school instead of with him. I know this time with my kids at home is so short. Before I know it, they will be grown up and out of the house. God grant me the wisdom to carve out the time my son needs.

On the other hand, I’m not sure my daughter even notices the difference. Of course, she just may not be as vocal about it.

Oh, and when asked, neither kid wants to become a lawyer. It’s too much work.

Law School - Factum

Life became too busy to get stuck on how I had not achieved what I had hoped in my exams and my memo. Our moots are coming up. We are told we will be writing a factum as the Appellants or Respondents and then doing the moot in front of a panel of “judges.” We are also told who our partner is and opposing counsel. They give us the trial decision, and what the appeal is going to be about. Self-defence. I had done my memo on the mens rea of the crime. Now I had to learn the law for self-defence before writing the factum. The professor seems to have a lot of faith in us saying that we have been thinking about the law since November. Well, I am not a very good law student, then, because I did my memo and then moved on to the other work I needed to do for classes. I didn’t try to figure out the law of self-defence back then.

At this point I think I have learned a lot, and there is a lot more I know now than I knew six months ago. But I definitely don’t feel as though I have mastered what the law is. It feels more like I have a basic understanding of it.

So, I have read the cases and think I have a fairly good grasp of them. I wrote my section of the memo, spent time with my partner doing some of the writing together, and managed to get the factum handed in. Although, I wish we had more time - like an extra day or two. Looking over it later I saw that it really could have used some more proofreading and editing. I made some really stupid errors. *sigh* Oh, well. Can’t change it now. Let’s hope that doesn’t happen to me when I have to hand in an actual factum to the court.

So now I am focusing on the oral argument. It is with some fear and trepidation that I approach Thursday, which is when my team moots.

On a side note, this semester I have been very grateful that I am not feeling so alone in this journey. Opportunities to talk with classmates and have discussions has really helped. I am not alone and am glad to know that.

Law School - January Blues

I get my exam handed back to me and look at the mark. Then I hide it. Deep breath. I thought I did better than that. Where did I go wrong?

When we go through the exams, I see at the end the prof made a positive comment about my being able to spot all the issues. It is application I am having trouble with. Darn it! That was the same problem I had with my open memo. What am I doing wrong? Why can’t I seem to get application?

Unfortunately this took me into the depths of despair (well more like a mud puddle of sadness) for the first few weeks of January. In that time we had Dispute Resolution Week, which was good, for someone suffering from lack of self-confidence. It was good to see that law has the opportunity for negotiation and the possibility of having win-win situations instead of there being a winner and loser all the time. There was one disappointment for me, though. We saw a film about the slimy practice of some lawyers. It was about being ethical in your practice. However, as I was waiting for something bad to happen or a negative result for these lawyers, it ended with them coming out good in the long run. I was disappointed to think that it is really true that lawyers can push the line on what is fair and right and get a better result than someone who is maintains their integrity. It made me realize that I will probably not be a financially successful lawyer. I intend to keep living and working the way I try to now - openly and honestly.

In this quagmire of emotions, I have a discussion with my profs. They are still really encouraging. They really do want us all to succeed, and I even think some of them believe I will do well. Maybe my struggle is because I already work in a law firm. I see the law from the assistant view and the outcome. But what we are learning is not about the outcome. It is about how we get to the outcome.

I used an analogy to one of my profs about my struggle to understand application. For years I couldn’t see the old woman in the picture which has both the old woman and the young woman in it, depending on how you look at the picture. No matter how many times my mom tried to show me the old woman, I just didn’t get it. Then one day years later I looked at the picture and thought, “OH! There she is!” My prof said that is a good way to put it. I am still waiting to see the old woman in the picture of law school.

Law School - Christmas Exams

Christmas exams were stressful, but not as bad as they could have been. This year the faculty decided not to have Christmas exams count unless they will help our grade at the end of the year. There was some debate about doing things this way. Typically first year law students don’t do well on their Christmas exams but do much better in April. But the fear is that if the exams didn’t count, students wouldn’t take them seriously. Are you kidding me? They hand-picked a group of over-achieving perfectionists and they think we won’t work hard for our exams? They did say we were intelligent. We can all figure out that this is a great opportunity to give it our best shot and see how we are really doing. Besides, we are paying big bucks for this kind of feedback. I was taking it seriously. And I seriously realized how much I am not thinking like a lawyer.

I went into the exams feeling fairly confident about my knowledge of the law, but a little shaky on my expression of it. I walked away from the exams thinking I hadn’t done a bad job. Not a great job. But not a bad one, either. I did have my open memo mark back, and that was disappointing. But there was nothing I could do to change that mark now.

Christmas was busy with work and Christmas. Not much of a break for me, but the paycheques were nice. I am looking forward to getting back my exams to see how I really did.

Law School - Think Like a Lawyer

So the first semester was teaching us that the way we have learned in the past is not the way we will be learning now. It’s not about learning all the laws and spewing out results. It is about changing the way you think. “We are training you to think like a lawyer.” How do lawyers think differently from everyone else? Don’t know. But that is what is going to happen to us. Apparently.

Read a case. Learn how to brief a case. Learn the terminology. Analyze the decision. Spot the issues. What is the rule or holding? Don’t count obiter as law. Apply the law to your facts. Tell me the conclusion. Discuss in class. Realize that what you thought the judge said and what the judge really said are not the same thing. Do it again.

We also need to learn how to write. So we write some exercises. Then we write a closed memo. Then an open memo. Oh, the open memo.

If you thought writing about your facts was hard with a limited number of cases, try having the whole country of cases for decades available to try to figure out what the law is and then apply it. There really is a black hole of research. I got stuck in it and didn’t even come out with the right cases. But the biggest problem I have is that I lack application. Sucks to be me.

But I do my reading - not necessarily all my briefs. Okay, if I were completely honest I didn’t do more than a handful or two of briefs. But I used my colour markers! Blue is facts. Green is issue. Pink is law. Yellow is application. Orange is conclusion. And I attend all my classes. I even participate in discussion. It’s really not because I am a keener or know anything. It is because I don’t know and am a talker. I learn from conversation.

On a side note - first semester was hard. Not just because of the work, but because I was part time and felt like I didn’t really get to know anyone. It felt kind of lonely. And I felt like even as we came up to exams at Christmas, I was still floundering looking for that land. Oh, I was pretty good at treading water. I didn’t feel like I was sinking anymore. But I am certainly not a mountain goat.

Law School - The Beginning

The first week was unbelievable. I had (mistakenly) hoped to get a jump start on some of my reading. I figured the first week is orientation and since I didn’t have to work I could be a keener and get ahead. Orientation for law school is nothing like orientation for first year university. The first time we met our profs, they said, “the reading for the first class is pages blah to blah. The syllabus will be on PAWS, and I would suggest you make sure you get your text books soon if you haven’t got them already. Oh, and here are a few extra books you might want to read if you get a chance that would be really helpful. They aren’t required reading, but you may find them interesting. It was nice to meet you all. See you soon.”

Wha? Homework before we even start class? Oh, my. Toto, I don’t think we are in Kansas anymore. But this isn’t a dream. It’s the beginning of a nightmare!

Throughout the whole process every prof was extra nice and encouraging and tried to point out that we were all smart and had already successfully navigated the hardest part of law school - getting in. And what they all knew is that really I am sitting there like a deer caught in some headlights waiting to be run over.

One of the ways I described the beginning of my law school career - it felt like being thrown in the middle of the ocean and told, “Don’t worry. We all know you can swim and you will find land eventually. We are pretty sure you won’t drown,” while all I can see is a vast expanse of water and no land in sight.

Another analogy a prof gave was a series of picture. They were great. They began with seeing a mountain in the distance and thinking, “I am going to climb that mountain!” While you are driving up to it, it looks so beautiful and it is kind of amazing that you are really going to do this.

Orientation week is kind of like getting to base camp. The reality of how big the mountain really is looms in front of you. There are tons of people you don’t really know. And it is COLD! What have I gotten myself into? But it’s going to be great, right? There is still some of that excitement.

Then you begin climbing. At some points on your way to the top of the mountain, all you see around you - ahead, behind, and both sides - is a huge wall of ice to climb. Ice, ice and more ice. Does this ever end? Oh, but sometimes you may look to the side and see a mountain goat climbing as though this is the easiest thing in the world to do. (Those mountain goats should be glad we didn’t get any guns when we started this climb!)

But eventually we will reach the top and feel the exhilaration of having accomplished something. And the scenery will be beautiful and the trip totally worth the work. Until we have to come down the mountain when we are exhausted.

That was supposed to take us to Christmas. I am still waiting to see the top of the mountain.

Law School - Acceptance

Fortunately, I didn’t have to wait until the end of June. In April I received my letter of offer, and I promptly accepted. At the time I had no idea that even before my law school education began, I was already doing something that I was going to learn about. Contracts. It wasn’t an acceptance letter. It was a letter of offer. And my giving them money was the acceptance. Consideration was my deposit and their promise to let me go to school there. And apparently, even though I didn’t know it at the time, I had intentions to create legal relations with the school. Oh, and just to complete the equation - there is no defence.

So, I had a binding contract, whether I knew it or not. And let me tell you, there was no way I was going to breach that contract. I was vibrating with excitement. I was going to law school! Me! I am going to be a lawyer! Oh. My. Goodness. Someone pinch me. This is really happening?!?!

I wanted to tell the whole world. I can’t remember who I talked to that night, but I was on the phone all evening. I was bouncing the next day. I was floating for weeks. And it was going to be great. I would be going to school part time and working part time. What could be better?

Well, that same articling student tried to warn me that part time in law school was not going to be like part time in an undergrad degree. Boy, was she right. They send me the schedule and tell me to pick my classes. Make sure you pick this or this, and then you can’t pick this or this. Maximum credits allowed. Minimum credits allowed. What section for each class. Huh? What do you mean if I take these classes that last all year, they will be at such-and-such a time first semester, but such-and-such another time next semester? Don’t you people realize that I am trying to plan the rest of my life around these things? Are you kidding me?

Nope. Not kidding. Okay then. Well, still going to go. Now that I am in, no one is going to say I can’t go. I’ll make this work somehow. I don’t know how, but it will.

Law School - Before The Beginning

In hindsight I am wondering if I should have been keeping track of my law school journey right from the beginning. Okay, well, I couldn’t really start at the beginning. That would have taken me back to the mid ‘90s when I was sitting in a law firm waiting to speak with the lawyer about my grandmother’s will. I looked around and thought, “This is what I want to do!” And thus began my journey to where I am today.

Today I am a law student. Sometimes it still seems unbelievable. Sometimes it is very obvious. But let me go back to before my first year of law began.

After submitting my application and writing the LSAT, I waited anxiously for any news about whether or not I had been accepted. I kept apologizing to Bruce for wasting the money applying. I wanted to get in so badly and was so afraid that I wasn’t good enough. After all, everyone knows the competition to get into law school is tough. I was also trying to prepare myself in case there was disappointment. I wasn’t sure that I would be able to go through the process of applying again.

My application had to be in by the end of January, and I wrote the LSAT at the beginning of February. Our marks came out at the end of February. When I talked with the admissions secretary at the college, she let me know that offers would be sent out anytime to the end of June. By the end of June, everyone should receive notification of whether they were accepted to the school or not.

June felt like forever to wait, so I mentally prepared myself for the wait. Then the articling student at our office said that really the school could offer people a place in the college anytime up to the beginning of the year. Oh my! I didn’t want to have to wait that long to find out. I wanted to be able to plan and give notice of my plans to my boss.