Thursday, September 6, 2007

Two weeks in the books

My housemate is cleaning the wax off his surfboard outside. Did I mention I'm from Iowa? I can't help but notice the strangeness of living in a place where people go surfing on the weekends. I haven't made it to Virginia Beach yet, but I hear that's where it happens.

This week wasn't a great week for my leg. It wasn't particularly bad, it's just that last week was so good that I couldn't make a whole lot of progress this week. A week ago my physical therapist, Joe, could safely bend my leg to a 120-degree angle. We were hoping it would go to 130 degrees today but it stopped at 120. All the people at the clinic say that I'm moving as fast as anyone they've seen, and that I'll be back on my feet before I know it. Still, it seems hard for me to believe because I'm just as unable to walk as I was a month ago. Joe said today that it typically takes about six weeks after surgery for the bone to heal enough that a person can walk on it. So, I'm just past the halfway mark. I return to the doctor on Tuesday for the first time since the surgery. He'll take some X-rays to check my progress. I just hope that somehow I didn't re-break it! Joe reassured me that as the bone finishes healing in the next three weeks, the swelling will go down in my foot and around my knee, the two places it's most noticeable. I look forward to that — and to walking again. I've developed so much appreciation for people who go through life with physical injuries or disabilities of any sort.

As for classes, this week has really helped me get into a routine. Many of my friends and I agreed that we're starting to understand what we're in for, and that it's not so bad. Civil Procedure doesn't seem so daunting anymore. If I had to say, I think Legal Skills is probably my least favorite class at the moment. It's a little intimidating, in my first two weeks of law school, to think about things like attorney-client privilege, malpractice lawsuits and what can get a lawyer disbarred. Yikes. Otherwise, though, it's a little sick how much I like going to school.

I finally got called on! Yesterday in Criminal Law, Prof. Marcus said, "Mr.  ... Poggenklass? Am I saying that right?" 

"Yes, you are."

"Which crime would you like to talk about, arson or larceny?"

"I'll take arson."

I then made an attempt at answering what kind of defense a person could raise if he burned down a bunch of old sheds that he thought were his own, but which were actually someone else's. I made a few missteps, but generally I got it right. The whole thing definitely got my heart beating. At 75 people, the classes here are three times as big as any I had at Cornell — that's a lot of eyes and ears. Glad to have that first time out of the way.

In addition to getting the hang of our classes, we've all been introduced to the dozens of activities and opportunities. In addition to my fellowship, I've become a News Editor at the Advocate, the law school's newspaper. There's also an Election Law Society that I'm interested in. Others are getting involved in the Public Service Fund, a great group that puts on a series of fund-raisers throughout the year to raise money for W&M law students who work at unpaid internships or unpaid jobs during the summer. Last year PSF raised more than $42,000 which it then paid to the students who qualified for the money. Pretty great, if you ask me! The Institute of Bill of Rights Law, which will get 8-10 hours of my week for the next three years, also has a volunteer student division. In addition to the Supreme Court Preview, the IBRL puts on the Hampton Roads Project — an effort to teach local middle school students about the U.S. Constitution. There will be a group training seminar, then in February, a bunch of us law students will talk to 6th-8th graders. I think it'll be a lot of fun.

Other than a ton of homework, my big adventure this weekend will be to find a new backpack. I'm a little sad because I got mine as a high school graduation present more than eight years ago. After three weeks of toting gigantic law books and a laptop, however, I've lost the tabs to both zippers and the covers of both straps are coming apart completely. Perhaps that means I'm carrying too big a weight on my shoulders, or that this law school thing is pretty heavy. Or maybe I just need a new backpack. That's probably all it is.

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