Preparing for law school

I'm sorry if you came here looking for the answer to "how do I prepare for law school?" I don't have it. Yet. (Please check back around November-ish. I'll do my best you help you guys out. Or look here)(Update: check out the books I read in the summer before law school.)
I just googled "preparing for law school" myself and didn't find a whole lot of advice. So here's what I'm planning to do:

1. Stop reading about how attending a tier 4 law school is going to ruin me as a lawyer. I'm still attending the school. I turned down two decent tier 1s because my tier 4 offered a full-tuition scholarship. Obsessing about this choice won't get me very far now. (Note: reading about my abysmal chances of obtaining the job I want after tier-4 law school HAS opened my eyes to the fact that I'm going to work very, very hard for the next three years. It seems that that is the best, and perhaps only, way to mitigate the seemingly miserable reactions I'll earn by listing the school on my resume.)
2. Read. I've resumed daily reading of the New York Times. I have The Jurist bookmarked on both my work and home computers. I'm reading A Civil Action and plan to move next to a survey book on American History. (I fear that my undergraduate art degree didn't provide me with a background sufficient for law school.) If I see the phrase"The Supreme Court" anywhere, in anything, in any context, I read as much of the surrounding text as I have time for. I'm reading law reviews that I often barely understand as practice for, well, reading things I barely understand.
3. Write. I'm tweeting and blogging and keeping a private journal. This is more writing than I've done since I worked as a freelance art critic three years ago and is intended to sharpen my writing skills and vocabulary.
4. Turn off the television. I just this morning read an article in The Times that quoted William James: “My experience is what I agree to attend to.” I don't want to remember this summer by the episodes of NCIS I hardly watched. It's better, I think, to prepare my mind for focusing on one difficult task than it is to use a t.v. for passing time. I pass enough time at work.

I don't know whether any of this can really prepare me for what I know will be an excruciatingly difficult first year and two rigorous years after that. I do know that busying myself with law school preparation keeps me from reading those nasty discussion posts about my tier 4 decision.



Footnote: After careful consideration I settled on this history book: Howard Zinn's A People's History of the United States. I'll keep you informed.

Setting the bar

I'm rereading old posts (you know, from a few days ago) and recognizing that my writing skills are, well, a bit rusty. I console myself with the knowledge that I'm the only person who reads my blog and so don't have a responsibility to perform for anybody at all.

It's just that I referred to the U.S. Bill of Rights as 'those amazing amendments' (insert frown emoticon here).

Where are the fancy words; the complex sentences; the zeugmas and dancing bears? I blame Facebook and Twitter. I've read too much Harry Potter! Blame television (omg I love NCIS). Perhaps I grow old! At any rate it's clear that I've developed a mental potbelly. Oh, the shame.

I'm as undergraduate-institution-educated as the next guy and I owe my reader more than this. I hereby vow to expand my vocabulary--to stretch words and my typing fingers. *Immediately stumbles.* How have I become so clumsy? I hereby begin the search for my brain.

Brb; updating status message.