I'm Baaaack!

I'm back! Just wanted to say thanks to everyone for being so supportive! I've taken everyone's advice and have just been relaxing and recovering for the past few weeks while getting back up to speed.

Spicy foods and too much fat tend to make my life miserable so far, so I'm still eating a reduced fat diet. I tried eating pizza the other day and it came back to bite me, so no pizza for a while yet. The doctor told me this is normal though since my body is adjusting to life without the gall bladder. But on the plus side, I've lost 15 pounds. So I think I'm going to stick with this reduced fat diet for a while longer.

School has been fine so far. I'm really enjoying my classes (ADR, juvenile law, and evidence).

I like alternative dispute resolution because it teaches some important concepts on how to work with clients and opposing parties. I find a lot of the methods for ADR are ones I learned when I worked at the domestic violence shelter, such as empathetic listening and looping.

The only thing I don't like is that half the class consider it a blow-off and like to text on their phones, use facebook or shop for shoes online (this is no exaggeration). I mean, come on, if you're going to do something else in class, at least TRY to be discrete about it? I actually heard during the professor's lecture one student four seats down from me ask another if she wanted to get "trashed" over the weekend and what party they wanted to go to. Gawd, it sounded like undergrad. I just wish they'd all sit on one side of the room so I could pay attention in class and not get distracted by the computer in front of me flashing celebrity news.

Yes, in most classes now I actually make an effort to sit near the front of the class so I don't have to be caught in the mix, but sometimes that doesn't work, like in my ADR class where we sit in a giant U. On the plus side, it's only half the class. The other half are either more mature or at least thing it's important to pay attention.

My evidence professor is awesome. I have to confess I actually waited to take his class instead of taking another professor because I had heard how good he is. He's a county judge and always tells us how the concepts work in real life court cases. He explains how and when to use objections, what to say to the judge to preserve the objection for appeal, what to do when the court reporter has to mark evidence, whether or not the jury will actually disregard evidence when told to do so, etc. He tells us how not to act as an attorney because it will tick off the judge, court reporter, or the jury. He tells us stories of actual court cases he presided over to drive home the point of how evidence works. Love it!!!

The same can be said of my juvenile law professor. He's also a county judge and explains how the juvenile system in this county works, including real examples of cases he presided over even just last week. I enjoy attending this class and look forward to it each week.

I often beef-off about how law school is lacking in real life examples. But I think I really lucked out this term. The real life examples help me remember the concepts even better. And it definitely makes the concepts seem less abstract for me.

As for the fourth class I dropped, I don't miss it a bit. And to be able to go home on Friday evenings after work and see my husband makes it all worth while, even if all we do sometimes is sit around watching tv. At least we're together.

Now that I'm feeling better, my husband has come down with the flu - no swine flu here though. So it's his turn to be babied, except he's a terrible patient because he doesn't like to rest and feels he should be doing about 10,000 other things except take care of himself.

Because he was sick this weekend, we didn't go anywhere so he could rest. But instead of resting, he planted the garden, fertilized the garden, set up his parents' porch screen room, bought supplies to install our rain barrels, and repaired a broken water pipe - all while coughing, wheezing, and having his nose run constantly. I helped, of course, but there's no stopping him sometimes. I talked him out of mowing the lawn though. Hopefully he'll get better before I have to strap him down to the bed to get him to rest. Like I said, he's a terrible patient.

So aside from an ill husband, life is getting back to normal around here.