What is a blog without pictures?

I don't think they allowed cameras on the first day of class. No one had them, anyway.

When people talk about leaping out of bed, I've always assumed they meant that figuratively. In reality, all they've really done is hurry out of bed, which I've done before. But when my alarm sounded at 5:30 a.m. Thursday morning, I honestly leapt out of bed. I arrived across the room with my hand on my cell phone without any clear idea of how I'd gotten there. It took about one stride. Such a thing could only be accomplished in a leap.

Joey and I went on a solid hour-long walk, my compensation to him for leaving him alone in the house until mid afternoon. It was still dark out, so we stuck to the better-lit streets, including a sleepy version of the Mass street to which I'm accustomed. It was very quiet, but there were several runners who apparently shared my logic about the safest places to wander pre-dawn.

Feeling refreshed and more relaxed, I got back and went about the business of deciding what to wear, organizing and reorganizing the enormous red bag I bought at Target, and finally heading out at 8:00 a.m. for a fifteen minute drive to a place I wasn't supposed to be until 9:00. Needless to say, parking was not a problem and I waited in the car for about forty minutes.

I wish I could remember individual people. I tried to mingle as much as possible and shake a lot of hands, but all that left me was overwhelmed by introductions. In general, everyone seemed nice, a little nervous, and most were my age and from Kansas, even though they announced that there are eleven citizens of other nations, several of whom speak English as a second language, and that we represent twenty-three states in the U.S.

Easily the quote of the morning: "The obsessed law student is the dullest of God's creatures."

This accompanied the Dean's advice not to totally let ourselves become immersed in our studies. We need to remember to schedule leisure time and pursue our other interests. She gave a nice introductory speech that struck the right bargain between exciting and humorous. Law school will be hard. Law school will be fun. Law school has its rewards. This is like a chant that everyone is saying in this place, but they all phrase it differently.

Orientation is orientation, no matter what program you're beginning, it seems. You go over grading criteria, where the bathrooms and fire exits are, and you awkwardly fish out an "interesting fact" about yourself to say after your name when it's your turn. We had a nice boxed lunch with our small group sessions, though. My small section has 19 students. We will take our lawyering class as a small group, and we will have the same schedule for our larger lectures. IN the bigger lecture classes, other small groups will be in the room, too. But we will probably bond.

My first day of law school was August 20th, and that means that one year ago to that day I was sobbing and tearing myself away from my mother in order to board the plane to Cork. Now here I am, with Big Life Step Number 2, and it serendipitously got started on the same date. I felt almost as emotional as I got out of the car and started across the parking lot toward Green Hall this morning as I did boarding my plane a year ago. There is something terrifying about excitement.

Then I got to see my AP! I took her on what was probably an obnoxiously thorough tour of my little apartment, we walked Joey and drove out to Clinton Lake, and then had a delicious dinner of hummus, soup and salad at Free State. She was wearing a necklace a lot like the one a woman tried to buy from around my neck the other night. Maybe there are glass jewelry business opportunities in Lawrence??

We had 1L "boot camp" Friday, the first of what will apparently be a three day whirlwind introduction to the legal system, literally starting with the origin of British Common Law in 1066. Oddly, it all fascinates me. Maybe it's just my heightened, beginning-of-the-semester state, but I even happily completed my reading as soon as I got home.

P.S., Lawrence is amazing. Joey is also amazing. And while I don't have pictures of myself during my first day of law school, here are some pictures to make the blog visually complete. I'm catsitting Jennifer's kitten "Scrambles" while she is in Indiana with her boyfriend. He looks like this:

And he makes Joey feel like this: