The Palace Within My Dreams: Friday Five


Currently on my nightstand: Gone Girl and Seriously Delish (which will be put into more use than a picture book next semester for the recipes I'm dog-earring)

The past two weeks have been a busy two weeks. Today is my first final exam of the semester for Evidence (fingers crossed it goes well!). I've basically been living at school ever since I got back from Thanksgiving Break. While applying to law schools, I always thought it was more than a little bit of a cliche that everyone would tell me of their respective schools, "Oh we're not competitive here at all. It's such a great community. This place is really special and different from all those other places..." And so on and so forth. Well, coming here to law school, the full importance of these words resounded time and time again during my 1L year.

Without a doubt I would not have had such a smooth transition had it not been for the congenial and collegial atmosphere that my law school embodies. We're a small group - about 170 people in my graduating class, and while it can seem a little too small at times (helloooo, high school part two!), for the most part it really is great to know everyone's name and face. We didn't all grow up together, like we may have of our high school peers from our hometowns, but we do grow together here. We go to class together, eat together, study together, and go out together, all in the same little bubble of a campus and town. Again, this can be a little close for comfort sometimes, but I really cannot imagine having gone anywhere else.

Christmas decorations bringing some cheer to the law school

I've heard the horror stories of students ripping pages out of casebooks and stealing outlines in the library, and I can absolutely attest that would never happen here. Sure, there is the honor code and the curve (oh the infamous law school curve....), but I have only ever had experiences of my classmates (friends and acquaintances alike) genuinely wanting us to all succeed.

A sparkly ear cuff that I found via Refinery 29 for my friend Caroline’s birthday

I typically study in the library with one of my close friends, Mary, but when it gets closer to finals, we commandeer a classroom and study with a handful of our friends. I never did the whole study group thing here, but I do find a certain comfort and motivation in studying in solidarity. We're often studying for different classes or different professors, but we're all in this together. Our study rooms are really one of the most important things that pushes me through finals. So, in short, that's one huge thing I've had to smile over these past two weeks.