Monday Monday

That's right. Here it is, Monday morning, barely 7 am and I'm up and at 'em.

There are several reasons one might be up at this hour:

a) one must be at work in the relatively near future

b) one must try to get something (usually homework) done before heading off to where ever one needs to be

c) traveling

d) one must register for classes, which opens at 7 am sharp

e) insomnia

f) one has not yet been to bed

Care to guess which one applies today?

*ding*ding*ding*ding* Today the winner is registration day. (you probably guessed right! Way to go!)

So here I am, up by 6:45, so I can be logged in and make sure nothing will stand in my way of getting the classes I want. That's right, I sat and watched the digital number change on the clock on my computer from 6:59 to 7:00. After all the stress and preparation for registration, which includes the following: determining which classes will fit together, which classes are required, what the final schedule is, and when it comes down to optional classes which ones you WANT to take, the list is made.

The list is the schedule written out with dates and times of classes, and exam times - again double checking for any thing overlapping that would be problematic.

Once that list is made, the secondary list must be compiled, which includes the course registration numbers, so they're all in easy reach, ordered by which class will likely fill up first.

Now the above mentioned process, choosing classes and making lists, took me about an hour yesterday. Weeding out classes I wanted to take based on final times (the tax class I wanted to take has a final the same day as the one class I MUST take - and if you've never taken a law school exam, trust me on this, you do NOT want to take two finals on the same day. YOWZA). Taking classes by professors I love. And determining helpful subject matter. A fun way to spend an hour (NOT REALLY).

Anyhow - one of the classes I want to take has a cap of 22. So out of all of the potential students registering for classes (about 325 between both classes) only 22 people can take this class. Now granted my class (of about 170) gets first crack at registering, but still 22 spaces and 170 people could be problematic even. So I have to feel the stress of making sure I'm up and ready to register at 7:00 sharp.

Registration timing was a thing I learned early on. End of 1L year - first crack at registering, I made my husband wake me up at 6:50 so I could get up and register then go back to bed (it was between semesters, and I had no reason to get up early). I got up, I registered at 7 am sharp, I got all my classes and my professors. A few days later I was having lunch with a couple other people from my class - one of the girls was just like me, on time to a fault, and the other two waiting until mid afternoon, because that was when they thought about it finally. Neither of the other two got all the classes and professors they wanted because a lot of the smaller classes were full already. In the middle of 2L year we had to register for spring semester (just like today) and we had to take a class with a partner for a writing project. My partner, being just like me in some ways, was up and ready to register right on time too, but I got into the class (with the professor we wanted) and she didn't. We registered at the same time and the class filled up that fast. She had to be put on the waiting list and eventually got into the class - it all worked out in the end - but man was it stressful for a little bit.

So this morning, being the first group of registrants, I probably had nothing to worry about - out of the 5 classes I'm taking two have 40 seats, one has 65, and one has 100. The only problematic one was the 22 - and I just did what I've done in the past, register for that class first, separately (don't want to waste time typing in all those other codes), then go on and register for the rest. Worked like a charm.

So after all this stress and preparation - any guess on how long registration actually took me? LESS THAN ONE MINUTE. All that work and planning for less than a minute. Talk about anti-climactic.

Only now - that I have all of the classes I wanted for my final semester of school, am I annoyed that I'm up way before I need to be. Oh well, if nothing else it gave me time to update my blog.