Friday, July 04, 2003
Well, when you last heard from me, about six weeks ago, I had just arrived in Rancho Bernardo, San Diego, California. Then I disappeared off the face of the blog universe. J I’ve actually just been incredibly busy getting settled in San Diego, and keeping my head above water in my paralegal studies program. Now I’ll try to bring this blog somewhat up to date.
I spent the first three days after arriving out here with my aunt and uncle in their condo in Rancho Bernardo. It was good to spend a few days with my aunt as her health declined.
On Friday May 23 I registered as a student at USD and bought over $500 worth of textbooks, and on Monday, May 26, I moved in to my summer digs—a studio apartment on campus.
USD is a Roman Catholic school, and San Diego was founded by Spanish missionaries, so all the dorms here are named after Spanish saints. I’m in San Antonio de Padua, or “SAP” for short. I’m on the fourth storey, which is the topmost one, and have a very nice furnished studio apartment all to myself. I’m paying a few extra dollars a month to avoid having a roommate, but it’s worth it. It’s ample space for one; it would be cramped for two, considering I haven’t shared my living space in a long while! In addition to the living area, and the kitchen, and walk-in closet, and bathroom, it also has a balcony. If I look the right way through the trees, and have my glasses or contacts in place, I can even see the Pacific Ocean. If you look at my photos page on yahoo:
http://photos.yahoo.com/esoterica1693
and click on the “San Diego” album, you’ll see two pics I snapped from the balcony.
USD is in the Linda Vista section of San Diego. If you look at a map of San Diego, you’ll see there are two bays on the coast. . . the big one, San Diego Bay, behind Coronado/North Island, and then the smaller one further north, Mission Bay. USD is just inland of Mission Bay, on the southeast side. Sea World is just west of us. Every night Sea World has a fireworks display at closing time, which I can hear and see from my apartment. (It begins precisely at 9:51 p.m. and lasts about 7 minutes…ba-boom, boom, crackle, boom)
It took me a week or so to get oriented to the area and figure out where all the necessities, such as grocery stores and such, are located. I’m pretty close to the Friars Rd, Fashion Valley, and Mission Valley shopping areas—everything from Wal-Mart to Saks Fifth Avenue is within 5 miles of my apt. Being within 5 miles of both Nordstrom and Nordstrom Rack means I truly am in paradise!
Classes started at 8 a.m. on Tuesday the 27th—I barely had my basic unpacking done. Ever since, I’ve been trying to just keep my head above water. Our course load is the equivalent of 19 credit hours, plus I’m now doing 8 hrs a week at my internship site.
The student body is divided into two tracks: Generalist and Business/Environmental Law. This term each track seems to have about the same number of students—around 25. I’m in the Business/Environmental track. Both tracks take the same foundation courses: Intro to Law (2.25 hrs/week), Legal Research (2.25 hrs), and Computers in the Law Practice (3.0 hrs). Our tracks diverge for our afternoon specialty classes. We started off with Civil Litigation on Tues/Thursday, for 6.0 hrs/week, and Corporations, also for 6.0 hrs. Now we’ve finished both of those, and we’re taking Real Estate, and Environmental Law, also 6.0 hrs each. And of course each class also requires outside reading, and some small amounts of research and writing. We also started our internships at the end of June, and we have to put in at least 40 hrs on-site by mid-August.
I’ve been very pleasantly surprised at how much I’m enjoying the course work and the field. I really hadn’t done that much research into what being a paralegal entailed before leaping in, considering. But thus far, it seems like a good fit. Lots of research, analysis, and writing. The teaching in the program covers the spectrum from excellent to adequate, but is generally pretty good. The instructors are all practicing attorneys who just teach as a sidelight. One is a practicing paralegal; only one (the Legal Research guy) is a full-time teacher—he teaches at one of the law schools in town. They’re mostly men—only two women.
While none of the material is tremendously difficult in and of itself, it’s taught at a fast pace. And it’s a totally new field to me, with new thought patterns and an entirely new vocabulary. It’s like learning a new language. So I do have to study and work at it. I’m amazed at how much knowledge I’ve assimilated in just six weeks. Now as I read the business section of the newspaper, or the articles about the just-concluded Supreme Court term, I’m understanding stuff I never would have even glanced at before. Legal terms like stare decisis and res judicata just roll off my tongue. :-)
My fellow students seem to come in two demographic bands: young 20-somethings just out of undergraduate programs, looking for a marketable trade, and mid-life career-changers. Those of us in the 30-40 age range have mostly been laid off from other professions; there are a few slightly older folks who are re-entering the workforce after time at home or are starting a new career after retiring from the military. Most of the students are female; in my specialty-track section of 23 there are about 4 guys.
Well, that’s about all I have time and energy to write at present. Over the course of this holiday weekend I’ll try to add a few more posts—describing my impressions of San Diego itself, etc..
I spent the first three days after arriving out here with my aunt and uncle in their condo in Rancho Bernardo. It was good to spend a few days with my aunt as her health declined.
On Friday May 23 I registered as a student at USD and bought over $500 worth of textbooks, and on Monday, May 26, I moved in to my summer digs—a studio apartment on campus.
USD is a Roman Catholic school, and San Diego was founded by Spanish missionaries, so all the dorms here are named after Spanish saints. I’m in San Antonio de Padua, or “SAP” for short. I’m on the fourth storey, which is the topmost one, and have a very nice furnished studio apartment all to myself. I’m paying a few extra dollars a month to avoid having a roommate, but it’s worth it. It’s ample space for one; it would be cramped for two, considering I haven’t shared my living space in a long while! In addition to the living area, and the kitchen, and walk-in closet, and bathroom, it also has a balcony. If I look the right way through the trees, and have my glasses or contacts in place, I can even see the Pacific Ocean. If you look at my photos page on yahoo:
http://photos.yahoo.com/esoterica1693
and click on the “San Diego” album, you’ll see two pics I snapped from the balcony.
USD is in the Linda Vista section of San Diego. If you look at a map of San Diego, you’ll see there are two bays on the coast. . . the big one, San Diego Bay, behind Coronado/North Island, and then the smaller one further north, Mission Bay. USD is just inland of Mission Bay, on the southeast side. Sea World is just west of us. Every night Sea World has a fireworks display at closing time, which I can hear and see from my apartment. (It begins precisely at 9:51 p.m. and lasts about 7 minutes…ba-boom, boom, crackle, boom)
It took me a week or so to get oriented to the area and figure out where all the necessities, such as grocery stores and such, are located. I’m pretty close to the Friars Rd, Fashion Valley, and Mission Valley shopping areas—everything from Wal-Mart to Saks Fifth Avenue is within 5 miles of my apt. Being within 5 miles of both Nordstrom and Nordstrom Rack means I truly am in paradise!
Classes started at 8 a.m. on Tuesday the 27th—I barely had my basic unpacking done. Ever since, I’ve been trying to just keep my head above water. Our course load is the equivalent of 19 credit hours, plus I’m now doing 8 hrs a week at my internship site.
The student body is divided into two tracks: Generalist and Business/Environmental Law. This term each track seems to have about the same number of students—around 25. I’m in the Business/Environmental track. Both tracks take the same foundation courses: Intro to Law (2.25 hrs/week), Legal Research (2.25 hrs), and Computers in the Law Practice (3.0 hrs). Our tracks diverge for our afternoon specialty classes. We started off with Civil Litigation on Tues/Thursday, for 6.0 hrs/week, and Corporations, also for 6.0 hrs. Now we’ve finished both of those, and we’re taking Real Estate, and Environmental Law, also 6.0 hrs each. And of course each class also requires outside reading, and some small amounts of research and writing. We also started our internships at the end of June, and we have to put in at least 40 hrs on-site by mid-August.
I’ve been very pleasantly surprised at how much I’m enjoying the course work and the field. I really hadn’t done that much research into what being a paralegal entailed before leaping in, considering. But thus far, it seems like a good fit. Lots of research, analysis, and writing. The teaching in the program covers the spectrum from excellent to adequate, but is generally pretty good. The instructors are all practicing attorneys who just teach as a sidelight. One is a practicing paralegal; only one (the Legal Research guy) is a full-time teacher—he teaches at one of the law schools in town. They’re mostly men—only two women.
While none of the material is tremendously difficult in and of itself, it’s taught at a fast pace. And it’s a totally new field to me, with new thought patterns and an entirely new vocabulary. It’s like learning a new language. So I do have to study and work at it. I’m amazed at how much knowledge I’ve assimilated in just six weeks. Now as I read the business section of the newspaper, or the articles about the just-concluded Supreme Court term, I’m understanding stuff I never would have even glanced at before. Legal terms like stare decisis and res judicata just roll off my tongue. :-)
My fellow students seem to come in two demographic bands: young 20-somethings just out of undergraduate programs, looking for a marketable trade, and mid-life career-changers. Those of us in the 30-40 age range have mostly been laid off from other professions; there are a few slightly older folks who are re-entering the workforce after time at home or are starting a new career after retiring from the military. Most of the students are female; in my specialty-track section of 23 there are about 4 guys.
Well, that’s about all I have time and energy to write at present. Over the course of this holiday weekend I’ll try to add a few more posts—describing my impressions of San Diego itself, etc..
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