Lawyered!: The Law-down

Since I've been blogging--here and in my Multiply account--for about four years now, I guess it's time for me to bring structure to what I love doing. Yes, some may say structuring will make it boring but I promise to make it less so. Why structure? Because it's better and easier for the readers to look at entries in a perspective, in a sequence or in a category. My first experiment with structure in my blog was introducing the "Saturday Soliloquy" series, which was fun and informative but since I have Saturday classes and have reading a lot lately, I thought of introducing a new one.

Marshall + law school = Eagerness

Since I'm law school, for four months already--and possibly a lot more years to come, if I manage, hehe--I realize it is best to combine the things I love doing and will be doing... just because.

I named this series "Lawyered!" after my-favorite-lawyer-on-TV Marshall Eriksen's famous catchphrase in the show How I Met Your Mother. It's his version of Barney's "Legen-wait for it-dary!" This series will cover topics involving the law, law school and everything in between told from the perspective of a frightened, enlightened, irritated, and engaged law student. :)

So to start... let me answer the frequently asked question: Kamusta naman ang UP Law? (How is UP Law?)

My answer would simply be, UP Law is EPIC.

Extremely frightening. People weren't joking nor exaggerating when they said/warned me (and the two thousand-plus applicants to the 2009 LAE) that UP Law is out of the ordinary. It is home to the country's best lawyers, law students, and of course, the best professors. A "perfect" set-up for learning what is the law etc. Of course there is a catch. These professors, albeit being really good, pushes their students to learn more, and give better effort to become better lawyers, in a different way. Recitation, or recit as we fondly/dreadfully call it, never sounded this dreadful to me. Four months in, and I still hold my breath while the professor shuffles the recitation cards, picks out a card, and calls out the name of the "lucky" one, who will stand for recit for at least 10 or fifteen minutes. Usually, we stand to recite for a lot longer than that. But as early as now, I can say this, I learn better with fear. ;)

Profoundly enlightening. After all the shock and appall, and after one has gotten used to all that fear and dread, comes the better part--the learning. Being in the receiving end of the best law professors' lectures and discussions, I'm fortunate to be learning these things regarding the law and how to be better at it. Truly, my undergrad professor was right when he said, "other law schools teach you to pass the bar; UP Law teaches you how to become a lawyer."

Irritating. No matter how much I loved reading, and how better I am at speed reading, I've never read this much before. And sometimes, it is irritating. It is irritating/frustrating when you get called for recit and failed to answer your prof's questions despite reading the case/s inside out. It is irritating when you called to recite for that one case you failed to read. It is irritating when you've read everything but your prof, after answering his/her question, would accuse you of reading off/getting answers from someone else's digest. Whenever I'm irritated by law school's nuances and hang-ups, I think about the positives, and then I forget temporarily--but just enough time for me to disregard of the thought of leaving.

Completely engaging. Law and law school engages me in all aspects. It brings out my happiest, saddest, crappiest, and angriest emotions. It brings out the best, the worst and the mediocre in me. It brings out who I really am, what I want in/from life, what I value the most/the least, where I want to be at a certain time, what my goals are and how I plan to meet these goals.

Lawyered!



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