hard work

Hard work pays off. I just have to keep telling myself that. That if I really do work hard and study, I will probably do ok.

Sometimes I'm in class and I think, "How did he know that?" "Did she read the same case I did? Why didn't I see that?"

I'm used to being the one who sees more than other people, who catches on more quickly and has to wait for the rest of the class to catch up. I'm not accustomed to being the baffled one.

But, as my writing instructor pointed out, if I apply the same level of work to this memo assignment (worth 40% of my grade) as I did to the last one (15% of my grade), I will do very well.

And just now, as I'm up at 6:30 on a Saturday morning typing up class notes and thinking through what we've learned, I'm realizing it's not a crap shoot, and I'm still in the running in all my classes. If stop blogging and keep studying, I might still do ok. It's not over yet. I'm behind many of the other people in terms of studying and preparing for finals, but I still have a couple weeks to get caught up, and once finals come I will only be working one job so I can study even more then. And I bowed out of study groups I was asked to join because of lack of time, but I've never found them to be helpful honestly.

But I do need to study more, and I do need to make my flashcards of the Model Penal Code to memorize all that, and Torts, and Restatement (Second) of Contracts, and all those pesky federal rules for Civil Procedures.

If I were here when I was 22, this would be no problem - my brain was more agile then. But I realize, my brain is less agile now because I have more synapses and more context. I can't remember random facts like I could then, but I can remember big picture and my analysis skills are considerably more developed.

So, I'm still hoping to be in the top third of the class. But it's more than hope, as this pep talk to myself shows. It's smart work. So, back to it.