Thanksgiving "Break"

Elisha Deen

The nine days of Thanksgiving Break never actually felt like a break at all.  My "plan" had been to begin preparing for finals on Friday afternoon and go home for Thanksgiving on Wednesday night.  However, putting the finishing touches on my open memo Friday afternoon ruined that plan.  So, for the first time ever, I walked into a library on a Saturday morning to begin finals preparation.  By approximately 10:00 a.m., I realized just how much of a break I was not going to have.  By lunch time, I was already tired of outlining and ready to go home.  However, I kept going and by the end of the first day, I had finished my Property outline.  Then came Torts (what a way to start a Sunday morning).  As I went through all of my class notes, case briefs, and margin notes in the book, I thought I'd never finish that outline.  Thirty-two pages later, I proved myself wrong.  I tried not to think about the upcoming task of memorizing nearly three dozen pages of intentional torts and negligence (verbatim, of course).  By this point, it was Monday afternoon and I was "burned-out" on studying.  Never in my life had I spent that many hours in a library, and on a weekend at that! 

My original plan had been to study day and night with breaks only for lunch and dinner, but after being stuck in a library for eight hours a day, it was seemingly impossible for me to look at another word once I made it to the dinner break.  I spent my first four nights of Thanksgiving break with my fellow classmate.  We talked about what each of us had accomplished that day and planned the next day's agenda.  When 9:00 a.m. on Tuesday rolled around, it was back to the library to finish outlining for Contracts.  I'd be lying if I said I didn't experience a few epiphanies while reading my notes and going through the book.  Apparently manifestation of mutual assent just means offer and acceptance.  Who knew such an elusive term could have such a simple explanation?  Once I figured out how all of the topics fit together, an outline was born.

As for the actual "break" portion of Thanksgiving Break, it technically started on Tuesday night.  I went to my brother's first high school basketball game.  They lost.  What a great start.  It had been a while since I attended an event at my old high school, so of course, everyone wanted to know what I had been doing with my life.  Did I finish college?  Yes.  Am I married.  No!  Do I have any kids?  Certainly not.  From those people who had actually kept up with my life (through my parents, I'm assuming), I was asked what I think of law school.  I mostly gave the short answer, "It's stressful, but I like it."  And, of course, people made comments like "Oh, I'll probably need a good lawyer" and "can I get a discount since we're friends?"  Lovely.  All I could think about during my "break" was how I needed to be studying instead of eating turkey and pumpkin pie.  My mother just didn't understand why I'd rather listen to online lectures than sit outside and talk to my family.  After spending a few days at home thinking about what I needed to do for finals, I came back early on Saturday morning and started in again.  Monday morning came way too soon!