O.M.G.

I was getting ready to write about some crazy, shocking, heart-breaking immigration stories today but this report from the Washington Post on the administration of anti-psychotic drugs to detainees is more shocking than anything I was going to post.

More on the engaged couple who the U.S. Consulate in Ciudad Juarez decided is actually married and therefore denied the wife’s visa later. Oh, and the couple who went through the entire foreign-filed waiver process (same as Fermin and I, just a few months later), including a 9- month separation, only to have their marriage questioned during adjustment of status. And the family who is facing a 10-year bar because the husband was actually deported from the country when he tried to cross the border years ago, and not “caught and released,” like most of us thought.

better luck next time

No free trip to Mexico for me. I did get an honorable mention though. Considering the other postings, I’m guessing it was between her and I, but that cheese-headed cat took the prize. Oh well!

random updates

So, last week I wrote several short entries for OnMilwaukee.com’s travel blog contest. They are nothing earth shattering, and most of these stories have previously been documented somewhere in my archives, but if you are interested, here are the links to: Christmas in a small, Mexican town; Hiking el rancho; Cooking adventures; and Looking ahead in West Texas. I could say that is why I didn’t blog here, but I’m not really sure if that is true. I’ve been busy. I am working on a project, working on my garden, planning a little work on my house and reading in preparation for law school.

It was fun to write some random travel posts though. I will find out tomorrow if I actually won an ironic 3-night trip to a swanky all-inclusive resort resort near Cancun.

Since I wrote this post about my summer reading list, I have returned Torts and Legal Research In a Nutshell as well as Scott Turow’s memoir One L. I read about half of One L, Turow’s account of being a first-year Harvard law student in the 70s, and while it’s a decent read, I don’t think it’s super representative of what I will experience as a woman at the University of Wisconsin in 2008, and the book wasn’t holding my attention enough to justify the time needed to finish it. I have been advised to buy a different set of summary-type books which I will use next year in place of the nutshell guides. I ordered those on half.com for far less than half their retail prices.

I have gotten a some hits from other law-school bloggers, and have linked a few interesting blogs in my sidebar. I also ended up in an e-study group with Terra Nullius and A Woman in Law School. We will start working through the exercises of another recommended pre-law school book, Legal Writing in Plain English, as soon as I get the book. I am currently reading, Getting to Maybe: How to Excel on Law School Exams. I don’t really plan (or expect maybe) to excel on law school exams, but I wouldn’t mind if I did. I don’t need to be a top student to be an immigration lawyer, and frankly, most of the stuff I have to excel in to take these exams is fairly irrelevant to the eventual practice of immigration law.

However, my goal in preparing this summer is to alleviate the stress that I know is coming once school starts. The better equipped I am to deal with the mental challenges of law school, the less stressed I will be with studying, classes, etc, I hope. I am a married woman and will live in two cities starting in August. I will be returning to academia after six years of working. I am looking forward to the change, but not really to the  additional stress.

shameless plug

I am participating in a blogging contest on OnMilwaukee to try and win a trip to, of all places, Mexico. I know I have been to Mexico a lot, but I would otherwise never go to a resort like the one they are promoting, and maybe a good pre-law school activity would be spending three nights near Cancun? In any case, I am going to blog 5-7 times this week, and I think it would be cool if some of you would check out my posts and maybe comment or rate them? Pretty please.

Muchas gracias!

summer reading

Besides figuring out how, and from whom, to borrow a lot of money and planning a partial move to Madison, I realized last week that I had better to do some light reading this summer.

I haven’t really immersed myself in any law school forums or excessive pre-law preparation, but considering the tiny amount of knowledge about the law that I currently have, it’s probably important that I arrive in Madison in September somewhat prepared. So I’ll be wading through any number of “nutshell” guides, looking up many words in my pocket Black’s Law Dictionary, and relaxing by reading Scott Turow’s 1970s experience as a Harvard first-year law student, also know as a “1L.”

Hmmm… super fun.