Law school is a volatile place, don't get mixed up in the combustible reaction

This sounds more like my Ordinary Girl tip but I think it maybe quite the OG scope. On my Facebook status tonight, I wrote the following status: 

‎"Write the bad things that are done to you in sand, but write the good things that happen to you on a piece of marble. " It's days like today that this proverb really speaks to me." 

I have to say after today, it got me wondering that everything is truly temporary, it all goes away eventually. What I found in law school is that there are a lot of volatile personalities. People want to do things they way they want to do it and it most definitely turns into the "it's my way or the highway" perspective. It's a very narrow way of looking at things and it tends to cause a lot of problems. I guess you can say I have had my fair share of being wronged.  A lot of times I keep it close to my heart because I don't have time to recharge my batteries I have to come and see those people every single day. Then something happened tonight where I realized something important that will not only get me through law school but life: Just let it go.

I admit, I have a lot pride. I have high expectations of myself and of others. While it is disappointing that many people you come across in your life do not meet your expectations, I have come to realize that holding on that disappointment doesn't really give you the chance to live. It fact you actually stop living because of it. I was in a meeting and I took myself out of the situation and watched like a spectator and I wondered to myself is this a big deal? Why does this keep happening? Must can be done to stop this so we can live life? I don't have the answer but I know everyone has to kind of reach the same conclusion before they can move forward.

I learned that I let a lot bring me down but always managed to get myself back up. However, I learned that I shouldn't have to always do that, but rather not let it get to me. I think living on my own in another state gives me a crash course in understanding this concept.

I think to those that only see the world in a certain well that's unfortunate you'll never have the chance to live life, ever and always playing catch up to live a full and engaging life. On a Kairos retreat I went on, we had an exercise where we had a list of values and we had rank the ones that were most important to us at the time of ranking. After Kairos, I continued to do that every year on my birthday to see what I really wanted out of myself and from life. I stopped doing it when I started law school. That's unfortunate because I really started to find that the little things got to me, lost focus and really didn't know what was going on. However, I remember the value I always ranked consistently high was "Having an exciting life." I think the only way for that to happy is to actually live. I learned finally that you can never change people. You either take them or leave them as they are. You just cannot live life through others because then you will never live.

I guess from this day forward, I will how my new approach works out, I am hoping that life will be exciting for  more good reasons than bad

Ordinary Girl Tip: Always look behind you and watch your back

If you ever watched "Legally Blonde" you get a bird's eye view to how people are in law school. Many of them are overly pretentious, fake and very cutthroat. Of course in the movies they take these stereotypes to the extreme. However, you must remember stereotypes do have an element of truth, the stereotype just simply exaggerates it. When I first moved to Michigan in 2009, I came in only knowing 2 people (both of them were not going to the same school as me.) Essentially, I was coming in alone. I did not know a living soul and walking through the hallway for the first time, I got a pit in my stomach everyone was pretty much like all the pretentious douchebags that were depicted in Legally Blonde.

Law School Resolutions Harder to break than New Year's Resolutions

Happy new year! 

It's that time again to come up with those new year's resolutions. I am not one who comes up with resolutions because they are for the most part going to be broken or not entirely followed thru. However, after much reflection, I decided to make some resolution pertaining to my law school career. It's definitely appropriate since I am half way done, so it's good to reflect and gear up for the second half which happens to coincide with the new year

Ordinary Girl Tip: Don't be so pretentious!

When I had a personal blog back in the day, I had this ongoing set of posts called "Ordinary Girl Tip:" Basically, each post was an observation I noticed and in my way of doing things I offered a quick and dry response to the observation. Often the "tip" was what I hoped the reader would take away after reading the post. In the law school setting, it's more than appropriate to bring this back. I'll start down a trip down memory lane from something I noticed this past semester.

What should you be doing this Winter Break?

Every law school staff member and administrator has put in their two cents on what you should be doing during these next couple of weeks before the Spring semester starts up again. Granted, everyone’s situation is different so these administrators’ words and advice may definitely go on deaf ears. Well I don’t know what you should be doing this time per se other than catch a breath, nap a lot and enjoy the time where your law school can be temporarily out the door. I figure by saying that this post would be completely useless if it ended there. If you’re not like me and slaving away at an entertainment law term paper that is perpetually extended until the end of time, here are maybe a few productive things you can do this winter break or really things I hope to do this break. Find out what they are after the jump....

Why write now?

Reaching the halfway mark of law school is a huge accomplishment. No matter how rough you had it, getting to the halfway point is a testament that you can handle your masochistic tendencies quite well from the average person. I decided to create a blog now because the second half of law school definitely gets interesting. I think writing from the prospective of a 1L might have been a bit ridiculous. I knew nothing and too much was going on with me to get a good handle on to make a coherent response to. In essence, I was still feeling things out and no one cares about that to be frank. Now 1.5 years somewhat wiser (or more cynical), I definitely am taking a more proactive approach to my law school career and my future career as an attorney. That is not to say I failed to before this point but rather I had a lot extenuating circumstances to deal with that I simply was just going through the motions to survive 1L. The next year and a half is so important for me that if I haven’t stepped my game up, I definitely should because my time is running out.

I definitely think that my second half of my law school career is definitely going to be interesting. At this point in my career, I will be taking on larger course load and move on to practical applications of everything I have learned in law school so far, i.e. a clinic and a law firm program. Aside from the academics, everything else that comes along with law school make it all the more interesting from social life to student government to externship placement and really just going to school in Michigan with our Canadian to the South - yes that’s right to the South; Detroit is the only city that is north of the Canadian border to the city of Windsor - should make it all the more interesting. On occasion, I will discuss sports because things outside of legal field to help maintain my sanity.

Have a comment, observations and or want to engage in the occasional verbal sparring? I am open to it all and look forward to hearing from you (the reader!)