Today I forgot the power cord for my laptop, which I managed to coax through my two morning classes, but I knew wouldn't make it through the end of my afternoon class. So I handwrote my Crim Law notes today (I wasn't sitting near anyone with a Mac from whom I could siphon juice).
Me at the start of class: Hey, this is kind of fun! I get to use my nice pen! I can write in the margins and draw arrows and link things up and everything! Maybe I should take all my notes by hand!
Me at the end of class: [surveying unbroken blocks of scrawled text] Wait, WHAT the hell does that say?????
My laptop's status as the most important technology in my life remains firmly cemented.
I'm starting to get that ...
Posted by: Another Damned Medievalist | Tuesday, April 07, 2009 at 06:07 AM
I used to have a class in which I wrote notes by hand. After working all day long and then going to class at night, I found that my notes by the end of class were hard to decipher and spiraled into a long scrawl of nothingness.
While I tend to hand write my book briefs which helps me remember the case better, I tend to type my class notes because it keeps me awake in class.
Posted by: Law Ingenue | Tuesday, April 07, 2009 at 06:19 AM
For me the bigger worry would be hand cramps.
Posted by: arbitrista | Tuesday, April 07, 2009 at 09:26 AM
Turning off the wi-fi makes the battery last longer. Sigh.
Posted by: Rudbeckia Hirta | Tuesday, April 07, 2009 at 05:16 PM
I've always taken pretty good notes, and I have decent penmanship. I still have some of my undergrad and grad school notes, and they are (surprisingly) comprehensible.
When I started seminary (2002) I didn't have a laptop so I took notes by hand as I'd always done. Then at the end of the 1st semester I got my laptop. Wow. What a difference. The first time I found myself in your situation, I couldn't believe how hard it was to revert to longhand.
Sometimes there is no going back.
Posted by: Rev Dr Mom | Wednesday, April 08, 2009 at 09:41 PM
I didn't really take notes, or go to class in Undergrad. I just blate intelligence. To be hones Law School does take a bit more work, granted I'm at a shit school in the forties. But still It really doesn't take that much work all the time. Just learn the law and how to apply it. Buy a bunch of supplements to a bunch of hypos its that simple. And always make sure to work hard and play harder, much harder.
Basically I just glance over the cases in depth, to some degree, understand the rules and how to apply them.
Posted by: rick bateman connor | Wednesday, April 22, 2009 at 04:30 AM