A word about blogs/journaling: I have never been a good journal-keeper. Even on my mission, with a rigid daily schedule, I only managed to write in my journal maybe a quarter of the time, and the rest of my life it has been much sparser. I think it's a systemic problem I have with motivation to stay on a schedule. Every few months, I set goals. When to wake up, go to bed, do my schoolwork, exercise, etc etc. And within a few days, invariably I begin making exceptions and it falls apart. I have enough internal motivation to get things done and be productive despite this shortcoming, but, apart from maybe my mission, I have never yet had a consistent way of accomplishing tasks in my life and sticking to a goal. I tend to do things in bursts, and often this results in wasting time that I haven't planned carefully. Something I should work on.
And now back to regularly scheduled programming: I love Stanford! I really feel at home here, and my small section is really tight-knit. I'm glad I still have a couple classes with them next quarter. We've had several social functions, and last week we had t-shirts made with all our names on them, which we proudly wore to school on Wednesday. Everyone here is incredibly smart; it's very liberating to be able to talk about anything and know that people will understand and be able to hold an intelligent conversation on the subject.
It is slightly repressive ideologically, but nowhere near as much as I thought it would be. Being more conservative than liberal, I'm probably more conservative than 75% of the law students, but there's generally good discussion and everyone respects the viewpoints of others. My professors are by and large all fairly liberal ("socially progressive"), but they don't generally let that influence the way they teach.
I also love being here because of the incredible natural beauty. I went hiking in Big Basin Redwood State Park on Saturday, and it was lovely, not least because of the sun and warmth at the beginning of November! I'm heading to Utah for Thanksgiving, and while it will be nice to see family and friends, and it will be fun to see real snow for the first time in nearly two years, I won't miss it when I come back. Truly the Bay Area is a little corner of paradise.
I now turn my attention to finals, which end December 14th. A month from today, but it feels so much closer.
And now back to regularly scheduled programming: I love Stanford! I really feel at home here, and my small section is really tight-knit. I'm glad I still have a couple classes with them next quarter. We've had several social functions, and last week we had t-shirts made with all our names on them, which we proudly wore to school on Wednesday. Everyone here is incredibly smart; it's very liberating to be able to talk about anything and know that people will understand and be able to hold an intelligent conversation on the subject.
It is slightly repressive ideologically, but nowhere near as much as I thought it would be. Being more conservative than liberal, I'm probably more conservative than 75% of the law students, but there's generally good discussion and everyone respects the viewpoints of others. My professors are by and large all fairly liberal ("socially progressive"), but they don't generally let that influence the way they teach.
I also love being here because of the incredible natural beauty. I went hiking in Big Basin Redwood State Park on Saturday, and it was lovely, not least because of the sun and warmth at the beginning of November! I'm heading to Utah for Thanksgiving, and while it will be nice to see family and friends, and it will be fun to see real snow for the first time in nearly two years, I won't miss it when I come back. Truly the Bay Area is a little corner of paradise.
I now turn my attention to finals, which end December 14th. A month from today, but it feels so much closer.
