My first mid-term out of the way!

Well, I got my first mid-term paper of my graduate school career out of the way tonight. The paper was for my Law class which looks at the First Amendment and its implications on Education.
It was a 2000 word maximum paper and you may be thinking, well Joey, that's not so bad. True 2000 words is not bad at all. The problem was that the paper couldn't exceed 2000 words!! After my first draft, I was over by 200 words and hadn't written my last two sections. This paper was a little harder than I thought given that our professor literally gave us what to say and how to organize our paper. I thought, this is going to be cake. I mean, who holds a review and goes over each section of the exam and tells you what legal issues you need to raise? Well, now I know that the real test of the mid-term was whether you can be concise and to the point in your writing. There was no room for BS in this paper! It was state your claim, analyze it and move on to the next claim.
I'm glad that's out of the way (other than a final edit). The only problem is that I have two more mid-term papers looming for next week.
I have a feeling that from now until the end of the semester I will be living in the library.

On a different note, those of you in the education world, I recommend you picking up and reading a book by Jonathan Kozol named The Shame of a Nation. It is about the restoration of apartheid schooling in America. The first half will make you cringe at what is going on in schools across America, especially in predominantly minority schools. I haven't read the second half, as I was assigned the first five chapters for class. I hope to finish the book in whatever little spare time I have this week. My ethics professor, Thomas Sobol, is quoted in the book a few times. It's not often that you are taught by someone who is highly regarded and respected in the education field. This is where I am truly blessed to be in this program. The people I am learning from are amazingly renowned for their work in education.

Okay, so I need to get some sleep, so I can make my final edit of my mid-term before I turn it in tomorrow.