Shmorienshmation

The above should read: "Orientation", but this is the way all words are sounding in my head right now. Orientation at Vermont Law School is an all-day week-long extravaganza. Eight AM to five PM everyday. Most nights there are things going on as well, so things usually start winding down around twelve or thirteen hours after getting started in the morning. JD students, here for three years and becoming a lawyer at the end of it all, have it somewhat rough. They have no say in their classes or schedule for the entire first year, and are pushed away into sections that are basically built-in study groups. MELP students (me) might actually have it rougher. The goal of the professors for this week is to make sure that every MELP student knows as much about the law as one would learn in the whole first year of law school, so that we will be ready to take the classes that the 3L (third years) and LLM (Post JD Master of Laws) students take, starting the first day of school.

This is not an easy task.

I am by far the youngest in this year's admitted class of only twenty-four, and am finding myself to be ridiculously under-qualified. Most of these people have spent years cavorting around the Amazon, working in the Peace Corps, or having whole other lives, like the retired policeman and mother who was an elementary school teacher for fifteen years. I don't know how I got admitted into this remarkably prestigious program. ASU didn't want me, but the number one program in the country did? Yes, I am still bitter about that. Oh well. Since I am moving there in a year, I can wave this Harvard-Yale-Dartmouth caliber diploma in their face and say "neener neener!"

So this week is very tiring, and incredibly informative. I am learning all about the law and will be able to hold my own with any lawyer in a matter of days. That is, if words will stop sounding like gibberish.

On another note--a few things we have learned about the house (if you didn't know, we occupy a very small area of the house, and are oblivious to what goes on in the rest of it):

• it is well over 10,000 square feet.
• it is four stories tall plus a basement.
• the fourth floor is a full-sized BALLROOM.
• Theodore Roosevelt (the former president) stayed here frequently...our bedroom? used to be his.
• after Lincoln was assassinated, his wife and family "fled to Vermont" and lived here.
• the Law School still owns the majority of the building and cooks all of its meals in the industrial kitchen (sometimes we smell things...)
• there is a pub in the basement.
• there are other tenants. they have a dog.

It is really quite remarkable, and the history is very rich indeed. We have mixed reports on its paranormal activity, and some nights, I wouldn't be surprised to believe some of the shadier stories (see Jake's post on the midnight disturbance). All in all, we actually really like it here, and in all honesty, it has to be seen to be believed. 

We may have stumbled onto greatness with this one, folks.

For now, more reading and case briefing and trying to sleep at all at night.

AND ONE MORE THING! Jake got three job offers today. THREE. He took one. I will let him post about it later.