Scattered

This week I discovered a new joy: running through falling leaves. A long road lined with tall trees (in kaleidoscopic colors) mixed with a little wind makes for an almost magical atmosphere.

I also made the happy discovery that music helps me focus on homework. This was a surprise because in the past I always found music to be a distraction – or at least I convinced myself it would be a distraction and never listened to any while doing homework. But that is not the case with law. When I’m having a hard time concentrating, I turn on some tunes and somehow that works better than silence.

Food also helps.

Cold weather in Williamsburg seems to take a wade-slowly-into-the-pool rather than a jump-in-the-deep-end approach. The temperature has gotten down below 35 degrees once or twice, but then it slides right back up above 60. So maybe it’s more of a dip-a-toe-in-the-water-and-decide-it’s-too-cold-and-come-back-later approach.

My car in the morning. It looks like more leaves in real life.

School news: I forgot to go to class one day. I left Torts with my mind on other things, went to the lobby, and sat down to eat my apple. A bit later it dawned on me that I should have been in Legal Practice for the last fifteen minutes. That was a first for me; I’ve come close to sleeping through a class once or twice, but I haven’t forgotten about class before.

In my defense, the Legal Practice class schedule is constantly changing. Our regular Tuesday and Thursday classes are often cancelled for Library lectures, labs, or individual conferences. And our adjunct class is often cancelled for individual mock client counseling, client interviews, or oral reports.

(No worries: I did make it to the last forty minutes of class, and no problems ensued.)

One of my major homework activities this week was highlighting portions of the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure, including rules for summons, personal jurisdiction, subject matter jurisdiction, venue, joinder, impleading… I could keep going. Civil Pro is a somewhat tangled topic.

Scattered leaves, scattered focus, scattered weather, scattered class schedule, scattered homework.

Good thing there's music. And food.