Homestretch

For a distance runner, reaching the homestretch is always a relief. That’s how I feel about this semester: relief that it is the last one.

And I feel like I’m actually going to make it now. I’ve always more or less known that I’d get through law school, but it’s nice to feel like it’s actually going to happen. There have been times when I wondered if I could actually finish. And there have been times when I really, really wanted to quit. So it’s nice to see the finish line, so to speak.

It’s also nice to know I passed my classes last semester with adequate grades. I was worried about one of them; my brain kept reviewing scenarios of what to do if I ended up needing to tack on three more credits this semester. But I passed the class. (Cue sigh of combined gratitude and relief.)

Last semester, my History of the Common Law
class visited Special Collections at W&M's
Swem Library. We saw lots of old notebooks
(written longhand, the same way I take my
notes), law books (including a replication of
the famous Domesday Book and a corresponding
map), and a display of Chief Justice Warren
Burger's office (apparently, he used to hand out
pocket Constitutions for Halloween).

St. George Tucker, a W&M professor, often wrote
his signature in his books, along with the price he
paid for them. Swem also has (in what I'm pretty
sure is a nod to DoG Street) the second largest
U.S. collection of books about dogs.

So, this semester I don’t have any extra credits. I have exactly the 12 remaining credits I need to graduate. (It took me all of 10 seconds to register for my classes at the end of last semester, by the way. All those years ago when I was learning 10-key, I had no idea how handy it would be.) Twelve credits breaks down to four classes:

• Family Law = the law of adoption, marriage, divorce, etc.
• Administrative Law = the law governing administrative agencies (FDA, SSA, IRS, etc.)
• Privacy Law = essentially invented by two authors of a 1890 law review article and gaining traction in the legal realm ever since
• Philosophy of Law = as my professor put it, not a law class, but a philosophy class (what is law, is there a moral obligation to obey the law, etc.)

So far, I’m most intrigued by Philosophy of Law. The others will present a decent mix of legal notions with which to finish my schooling.

Fireworks around the Capitol during the
Grand Illumination right before Christmas.

In other news, I’ve decided I don’t want to actually practice law when I get done with school, so the practice certificate I received in the mail last summer is quite possibly the closest I’ll ever be to becoming an actual lawyer. My post-graduation future is a big blank space waiting to be filled.

My new little lighthouse model.
Very fun to put together.
Needle-nose pliers are highly recommended.

There’s another sense of “homestretch” that has been a relief lately. I spent almost three weeks at home over the holidays. I got to play in the snow with my nieces and nephews, spend time with my parents, enjoy a Christmas snowstorm (and family pictures in the snow the next day), visit my grandparents, go climbing, play Sjoelbak, run with my sister, have a good one-on-one talk with almost every member of my family, visit with friends, go to the temple, catch up on some good movies, go to a trampoline/obstacle course warehouse (where I was getting very good at the slackline) . . . I could go on and on. Being at home made a world of difference.

And I did not get stuck in an airport overnight on my way back to Virginia this year. I take that as a good omen.

Dear Virginia, This is what winter is supposed to look like. Please oblige. Many thanks.