A Typical Day in Law School

I once had a friend ask me what a typical day in law school is like. Here’s a quick overview of one of my typical days (I picked a Wednesday), back when I was writing a column and juggling law school. The times may vary a bit but more or less this is how it went during the early parts of this semester.

Please note though that I am not the kind of person one would call studious. And I am no genius (oh how I wish I was!),but I do get by in school.

Wednesday
6:30 am — Wake up, get ready to head to school. Grab a quick bite if there is anything in the fridge.

7:30 am — Drive to law school.

8:30 am – Arrive at law school and find a spot to study (usually at the second floor of the Ateneo Professional Schools building).

11:00 am – Lunch with some of my studymates. If it’s a really heavy day I just grab a quick burger and coke and keep studying at my desk and wolf down the food.

11:30 am – back to studying.

1:45 pm – 15 minutes before class starts. This is around the time my classmates and I start panicking. Some of us start praying. Others just say “what will be, will be” and stop studying.

2:00 pm – Class time (Commercial Law Review). 2 hours of demanding recitations and inquisitions from our professor who was a former Bar Examiner.

4:00 pm – Class ends. One hour break before my next class. Sometimes I have meetings for group projects. Other times I have to meet a professor or research something in the library. This one hour can go really fast with all the stuff that has to be done.

5:00 pm – Civil Law Review Class. One hour of fast-paced recitations under a Professor considered an expert on the Civil Code. (He wrote 2 books: one on the Family Code and another on the Law on Obligations and Contracts).

6:00 pm – Class ends. Finally manage to breathe (Presuming I didn’t get called for recitation in any of my subjects.) Start heading home.

7:00 pm- Arrive home. Eat dinner and rest up.

8:00 pm – Reviewing for the next day’s class (Remedial Law).

9:30 pm – Call dreamgirl or receive a call from my dreamgirl. Catch up with each other. Can be anywhere from 30 minute chat to an hour long conversation. 30 minutes is the average.

10:00—11:00 pm – Start researching and looking through the news for a topic to write on for the weekly opinion column (for the Sunstar Davao).

11:00 pm – Write the column. Takes about an hour or so.

Midnight – Email column to Sunstar Davao editors.

Anywhere from 12:30 am to 1 am – Get ready to sleep. Read book, write in journal, or blog. Sometimes I watch tv and just veg out.

Asleep by 1 a.m. or so.

Note: Usually if something else comes up, I skip reviewing for the night or skip writing the column. Nothing fancy. On other days if I don’t wake up on time, I review in the house instead and just get to school right before classes start.

And yes this is a relatively light day. Some of my classmates have much heavier schedules because they have work or kids or are in dozens of clubs or something like that. Others just study all the time, every spare moment.

Each person’s schedule is different, but more or less one thing is the same for all of us. We all study.

Yes I know. Law students live pathetic lives.

Addendum: Blogger Michael Henreckson brought up the fact that I didn’t mention coffee in this post. He has a good point.

I forgot to mention coffee since it seemed like such a normal part of my day already. Nearly all my classmates have a cup a day as well. But yeah, Michael is right, coffee and caffeine is key to getting through a typical law school day.

The Bizness Blawg Banner

The folks at the Brazen Careerist were kind enough to make this Banner for this blog. They plan on using it on the Brazen Careerist site.

Cool huh? If you want to link to this blog using the banner, let me know. I would be more than happy to reciprocate. Happy Holy Week friends!

Successful People Make Time For Love

Many driven careerists work hard all year long in order to achieve and become a success at work. That success in today’s hectic working world often means sacrifice

What is usually sacrificed in order to succeed in one’s career is one’s personal life. Family, friends and most of all significant others must make way for the career. Time for love must give way to time for work. Or at least, that’s the conventional thinking.

The unconventional reality however, is surprising. Many successful people actually made time for love.

In Peter Han’s book, Nobodies to Somebodies: How 100 Leaders in Business, Politics, Arts, Science and Nonprofits Got Started, he wrote that “Leaders made time for love. A strikingly high number of my male interviewees, at least, mentioned their spouses in glowing terms, pointed to them as bedrocks of stability, and generally showed a heavy reliance on them.”

In fact, a lot of success stories seemed to involve successful love stories as well. The author Peter Han goes on to write in his book that “a surprisingly high percentage [of leaders] – certainly higher than the general population – had remained with their original partners, or at least had been in marriages stretching multiple decades.”

Although one usually hears about the many unsuccessful marriages among successful people, the reverse is also true. There are a number of successful marriages among successful people as well. Bill and Melinda Gates stand out as one example.

Bill Gates is arguably one of the richest people in the world, which to some, is an excuse to have a revolving love life (see Donald Trump as an example). But Gates married Melinda French (later Gates) in 1994 and has stayed true all these years, despite a very heavy work schedule as Founder of Microsoft.

They have since founded the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, which works to enhance healthcare and reduce poverty. It is interesting that the Foundation was named after them both. Bill Gates could have named it after himself. Instead, he chose to name the largest charitable organization in the world after himself and his wife.

It’s a clear sign that Bill Gates considers his wife as his equal partner in life. And there is no denying he is a success, and that his marriage is one too, because he made time for love.

Now why is a lovelife, or a significant other, or even a wife, seemingly so important for one’s success? For some, the significant other provides significant support in their work as well.

Anna C. Sobrepena, the wife of Chito Sobrepena, who is Executive Vice President of Metrobank, one of the largest banks in Southeast Asia, is a good example.

In a recent Inquirer article, Anna wrote about how she would “sit in conferences he participated in, attend workshops and meetings when it was allowable, and get a feel of the milieu he was immersed in most of the week.”

She would also make an effort to cultivate conversations and good company during the required dinner events every big corporation would have. This, no doubt, helped Chito do well in his occupation and his climb up the corporate ladder, and most probably encouraged him to make time for the love of his life, who always supported him.

The support of a loving wife or spouse can make all the difference even in politics. Both Bill Clinton and George W. Bush have one thing in common, for example. They have very successful marriages, even though one of these Presidents has been in some crazy controversies that should have sunk any normal relationship.

Nevertheless, no one would deny that their respective wives have been a great help and support during their years in politics. They all stayed in love, despite the heavy pressures and demands of work. And they stayed together, even despite controversies that plagued them to no end. They all made time for love, otherwise, it is possible that politics could have consumed them all.

So the clear and obvious message is this: being successful doesn’t necessarily mean sacrificing your love life. Making time for love may actually be what drives you to succeed instead.

Make Time For Love.

An Example of How The Youth CAN Run a Country

Age should no longer be a factor in one’s career. Proof positive of this is the country of Georgia, where age didn’t matter when officials were chosen to fill its cabinet.

According to Monocle magazine (the June 2007 issue), Georgia’s Minister of Defense, Davit Kezerashvili is only 29 years old. Its Minister of Finance, Alekshi Aleksishvili is 33. The Minister of the economy, Giorgi Arveladze, is 29. He started working as a government leader (he was then head of the Georgian government’s penitentiary reform program) when he was 22.

There are countless other ministers, deputy ministers and parliamentary leaders in their twenties and early thirties in Georgia. At an age when most “youngsters” would be just thinking of settling down or finally deciding on a career path, this generation of young Georgians are, literally, running the country.

You would think Georgia would be in trouble because of all these young and supposedly inexperienced people running things, but that isn’t the case. According to Monocle, Georgia is ranked as the world’s leading reformer in a 2007 World Bank study. It has also gained much financial and non-financial support from the rest of Europe and the U.S. (Although it must be noted there has been some political turmoil such as mass protests in Georgia in late 2007 due to demands that Georgian President Mikhail Saakashvili resign ).

It seems experience may possibly be overrated not only for start-ups, but even for government work and leadership. No matter how young you are, one can still make a difference. This is true even in government work, where seniority and tradition usually means everything.

For those who are twenty-somethings or in their early thirties, it looks like youth is no longer an excuse. So what are you waiting for? It’s time to try and make a difference, maybe even run a country.

The Youth CAN run a country. So let’s get to it.

I’m a Brazen Careerist Blogger!

I just wanted to announce that I am a proud member of the Brazen Careerist network of Bloggers. You can check out my page here.   It is such a thrill to be included in a network which has some of the top career bloggers on the web.  I am an avid reader  and fan of  both Penelope Trunk’s blog and the Employee Evolution blog of Ryan Paugh and Ryan Healy, so to be working with and blogging alongside them (in a sense) is a heady feeling.

But anyway, enough with the gushing. Do check out the Brazen Careerist and the many great bloggers there. There are tons of great posts on various issues (career and non career related). Definitely worth a look and I promise that there are great reads all over the network. That’s how brazen we are.