Moving Day

I just moved into my new apartment today! I'll only be here for a couple of weeks until I head to DC, but I'm looking forward to spending next winter/spring/summer in my beautiful new place right by campus. I just finished unpacking (minus my desk and books, but I'll pretend I'm done) and am loving the place so far. My housemates are really nice, even if it'll be a bit strange since the girl I'm sharing a room with is also named Christine...

Work and LSAT studying have been keeping me busy; so has preparing for DC! I'm going shopping for work clothes this weekend to take advantage of the Labor Day sales, since nice blazers/skirts are crazy expensive. Still, I want people to take me seriously at my internship and while I'm networking - that won't exactly happen if I'm wearing a low-quality pantsuit from JCPenney or a Forever21 blazer.

The last thing I've been up to - reading! I finally finished the Inheritance Cycle (since I hadn't read Eragon/Eldest/Brisingr in years and wanted to re-read them before I tackled Inheritance). I've read about eight books other than those this month, including Dearly, Departed by Lia Habel (zombie steampunk), The Gathering Storm by Robin Bridges (Russian necromancers), The Selection by Kiera Cass (Esther from the Bible meets Princess Academy), and Dreamless by Josephine Angelini (modern day Greek mythology). Mostly light YA stuff, but I can save my heavy reading for the school year!

Law School Spaz Attack!

I'm currently relaxing on a couch in the ARC, enjoying the campus WiFi. My summer apartment no longer has Internet (the product of a shady housemate discontinuing it and returning our modem after she moved out for the year... without notifying those of us who still live there), so I'm glad that I live close enough to campus that I can just walk over and pick a spot to sit back, relax, and study/check my email/update Facebook/BLOG. It's a lovely 101 degrees outside right now, so free Internet and air conditioning with a Starbucks 20 feet away from me is a highlight for the day.

I've been keeping busy the past week and a half. Lots of time working, of course, but I've also been studying Arabic, working on IRB renewals for the Psych lab I'm managing, reading, and hanging out with friends (a couple of my high school friends came up to Davis yesterday, which was nice). And of course I'm studying for the LSAT too! After spending the first month and a half of my summer intending to study for the LSAT yet barely even cracking open a prep book - despite having two checked out from the local library - I finally buckled down and set up a study plan for myself. I'll be doing one practice test per week up until I take the test in February, except for doing a test every other week while I'm in D.C. unless I find myself with more time on my hands. In theory I'll also be doing practice sections during the week and honing Logical Reasoning, which is currently my worst section. My first full-length practice test of the year (taken last Saturday, the first day of my new study routine) was a 169... a full 7 points higher than my first practice test back in spring of my freshman year. Considering this is only the second full practice test I've done, I am ecstatic about this and am confident that I can break a 174 in February... provided I stick with my study schedule, of course! I wouldn't say no to a perfect 180, but realistically I'll be in the mid-170s. Still 99th percentile, and definitely good enough to get me into a top law school (maybe even HYS)!

As you can see, law school is definitely on the mind right now. A lot of my free time at work is spent stalking the websites of T-14 law schools and poring over their viewbooks. I've plugged potential scores into Law School Predictor at least a dozen times this summer, if not in August alone. At this rate, I'm pretty much determined to plan my way into a top law school. Being an obsessive planner has never led me wrong so far and I doubt it will now! I spend so much time talking about the LSAT and law school that I think half of my Facebook friends are probably convinced that I'm graduating a year early and applying for law school this fall. What can I say? I'm just excited for the future and determined to be on top of applications!

Don't You Love Bureaucracy?

Happy August! Only a month and a half before I leave for D.C. and I'm practically counting down the days. I have a separate D.C. blog set up (Christine in Washington) to talk about my experiences there, although of course I'll still be updating D&A.

Some good news - my double major paperwork finally went through and I am officially declared International Relations and Psychology! My Facebook friends might know that I originally filed for my double major back in mid-June, but the dean's office lost my paperwork so I had to re-file last week. I just got the approved form in the mail and I am good to go!

Some amusing and slightly bad news - the dean's office also mailed me a degree check and is trying to tell me that my upper division writing requirement wasn't fulfilled. I took Legal Writing back in winter, which fulfilled the requirement, but supposedly I hadn't completed 84 units at the time (a condition for taking the class) and the dean's office is telling me the class no longer counts towards the writing requirement. They forgot to factor in my 20 units of AP credit, which put me at 94 units (while they think I had 74). FAIL. At least it should be an easy fix, assuming I can get an appointment with the dean's office anytime soon - unlikely, since they prioritize students with real problems instead of students who aren't graduating for two more years that fell victim to clerical errors. As they should.

On another note, I've been doing a lot of law school research lately. Pretty much any school in the top 20 is on my radar, if not on my potential application list. I'll take some law school tours when I'm on the East Coast for the fall - made easier by the fact that I'm spending Thanksgiving break with my cousins in New England - although technically I won't narrow my list down until I take the LSAT in February and know which schools I should be targeting. I have an idea of what my GPA will be like after next year and it's pretty heartening, especially since any A+ I get counts as a 4.33 for law school so all the A-minuses I've been getting aren't hurting me as badly as they could.

It's strange to think I'll be applying in law school in just a little over a year from now. I've practically been preparing since high school, but it just seems so soon. I know everything will work out in the end, though!