Work Hard to Play Hard to Work Hard some more!

Due to prior complained about exam schedules, I had a very, very busy day! When I woke up this morning, left on my exam plate were:

1. Writing a 12 page take home

2. Preparing for a 3 hour in class exam

3. Taking an accounting take home

 

Also on the schedule for tonight was a birthday party (for me, so I definitely could not skip!).  When we planned said party, we had originally planned it for Friday night, and then found out that over half of our invitees were not available due to incredibly unimportant things like office parties and going home for the holiday break… come on guys.. my birthday… way more important! Just kidding 😉 But anyway, we scheduled it for Thursday, and when we scheduled it, I had a solid plan for being completely done by then… hah!

Anyway, knowing I had to take a 9 am in school exam (last chance to take it!) tomorrow morning, I knew I had to finish my 12 page take home (due at 8 am tomorrow morning) before my party. I did a pretty good job. I worked all day long, only taking a 30 minute break in the afternoon. I pounded out 10 pages before my party.

The party was great! It was a movie themed party, and so Jonathan had planned a veritable smorgasbord of delicious movie-themed treats! We had three types of popcorn (regular, italian, and cajun), nachos and queso, homemade pretzels with raspberry mustard sauce and butter salt sauce, zucchini pizza bites, lime sherbet punch, M&Ms, seasoned roasted chick peas, and a Dr. Pepper Cherry Vanilla cake which was surprisingly more amazing than I had anticipated!

About 16 of my friends here were able to make it, and it was a really great time! I received a few very thoughtful gifts and was really touched by how many people came by!   The party adjorned around 10:15 and by 11:15 I had finished my paper! So I can go to bed at a somewhat reasonable time, and still have time to get up early, organize my notes, and get to my exam.

Very productive day!

Tomorrows schedule looks something like this:

9 am – 1 pm exam

1-1:30 run around campus returning books and collecting accounting homework.

1:30 lunch

3:00 personal training

nebulously in the afternoon/evening: pack, do accounting final, get last christmas presents, take bunny to be boarded, finish financial aid paperwork so I can afford classes next semester, etc etc etc.  It may be an all nighter tomorrow night to get that accounting final in, but I can see the light at the end of the tunnel!

 

‘Tis Exam Season

Let me tell you a little bit about the typical law school course.

You do insane amounts of reading stuff that seems pretty pointless everyday all semester.

In class, your classmates posit strange theories and opinions which may or may not be accurate or relevant and the professor does a poor job of highlighting actual information/laws/relevant items.

At the end of the semester, you have two weeks to take your exams, and exams are self-scheduled. Except certain days/times (always the ones that are most convenient to me) are blacked out for some reason.

Your entire grade is based on a 3-4 hour exam where an insane hypothetical is described and you try to find and assess all the issues, and write it better than all of your peers.

Then you get a grade, and usually little to no feedback on why you got the grade you got.

 

That’s the typical structure of law school. It’s stressful by design, and intended more to weed out the faint of heart than to actually assess skills (in my opinion).

 

This semester, I had a few MBA courses, which somewhat alleviates the stress of exam season… oh.. except for my PMBA accounting class in which in the last two weeks we have had a group presentation, a group paper, and a take home exam. Thanks a lot.

To top that off, I had a 90-question multiple choice exam (3 hour in school) in which I was missing question 90 and student services hasn’t gotten back to me on what they decided to do about that, a typical law school exam as described above (3-hour in school), and a 12-page take home. So not your typical law school exam season.

I usually have four in-school exams. I usually take them W, F of week 1 and T, Th of week two. I have a neat system to survive.

This season the types and schedules of my exams have thrown me off completely and I have completely mismanaged my time.  It is Wednesday of week two. I still have the three hour essay-style exam (last chance to take it is 9 am on Friday), the 12-page take home (Due by 8 am on Friday), and the accounting take home (due by midnight sunday, but we leave town Sat morning, so I’ll just say I have to be done with it by then.

So what the heck have I done with my time??? Floundered. There is no other explanation.

 

And what am I doing now? Blogging instead of studying.

 

Oh. and I tried to study hard this morning. I really did. But while watching the video of the review ( which I missed while taking the CFA in Chicago),  I fell asleep at my desk!!!  I woke up curled up comfortably under my desk, and, having dreamt that I studied really hard, I woke up pumped to ace my exam!  Only to realize that two hours had just been wasted and that I was actually more tired than when I had started studying.

 

life of a grad student, wtf.