Saturday, October 13, 2007

Thank you for your message but I don't understand

I had this initial thought that I would write blogs a couple of times a weeks about all the trials and tribulations of law school but as I've actually gotten caught up with the trials and tribulations of law school, I haven't had much time to write about it.

All the things they warned me about are turning out to me true. Even as I write this, I am acutely aware of the fact that the possibility of each of the 59 other people in my section will read it and know of my growing anxiety about all that is law school. I didn't used to care so much what other people thought of me. I think I'll stick with that theory as long as I can keep it in my grasp.

What's interesting is that I actually really like it. Like, a lot. I like reading the cases. It's like getting to read little stories all day long about how some policy or law came to be. For a political science nerd, it's like a little tiny slice of heaven. But the pressure that surrounds every single little thing, the awareness that fucking up at any moment could be the end of your academic life, is a little more than I had bargained for.

Also, people take themselves WAY too seriously in law school. Like, I'm all about being respectful and being a tactful and classy person (what am I if not classy?) but I am not a serious person. You know this. I'm not a jerk off, but I just don't think that the way to win friends and influence people is to act like you're smarter than them all the time and that you have nothing at all to learn. I feel like I have so much to learn that its obscene. Every day I go to class, I go away learning only that I have so much more to learn. It's a really weird cycle.

Mostly it's the scholarship pressure that's getting to me. Grades = scholarship. Scholarship = continuing law school. I don't know if other people in class are in quite the same situation as I am. It's not like I can just whip up $20,000 from nowhere if I lose my scholarship because I can't get good enough grades. And it's not like getting these grades is just a walk in the park. I've done the math. It's about the top 30%. The amount that I think about this fact is ridiculous.

I have to say, though, that having men in class is way less weird than I thought it would be. One of the closest friends I've met is a guy, which is actually really refreshing. It's weird to have gone from tons of guy friends in high school to a virtually man-free existence in college. I thought it was going to be a much stranger transition but in the end they're just regular old people.

Who knew?

The lack of time is pretty strange. When I'm not doing stuff for school, I'd rather just be doing nothing at all because I'm tired of thinking and interacting and answering and questioning. This is hard to explain to friends, especially when I really want to hang out I just have no energy to do so.

In the end, I know I'll figure it out. What's the alternative, right? That's what I always say to everyone else. Either do it or don't. It's a means to an end. For tonight, I'll just read some more Contracts and sleep past 7 for the first time in too long.

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