Is that your final answer?

There are times that I worry about losing my skills as a writer. At no time is this fear more pronounced than during finals. During my 4 year stint as an undergrad, I wrote just shy of a bazillion research papers. Seriously, a bazillion. And my dirty little secret is that I liked it...scratch that, I loved it. Oh sure, I was sure to complain about the long hours in the library and the late nights combing a thesaurus in hopes of never having to use the same adjective twice, but when I had a finished paper, smooth and eloquent with just the right touch of sarcastic wit, I relished putting my name on it and handing it in. In my vast experience as a law student, I have written an appellate brief and a legal memo. That's it. And let me tell you, there is no joy in writing a legal memo, especially when the bulk of it is consumed by case citations and repetition repetition repetition of the same contentions and evidence. When finals roll around, I almost get excited about the opportunity to do a little writing...almost. Law school exams are most succinctly described as mental bulimia. Word vomit at its finest. I just took exam 4 of 5 this morning and if actual bulimia trashes your esophagus, it probably safe to say that mental bulimia is doing the same to my brain. I can actually feel the synapses melting into one big short-circuiting mass. Which brings me back to my original fear of becoming a mediocre academic writer for lack of practice and mental reconditioning. This morning as I was frantically heaving the contents of my brain onto paper, racing against the clock to answer four hypotheticals in two hours, I took a moment to go back and reread my answers for coherence and concluded that a reasonably intelligent fourth grader, armed with the Model Code of Professional Responsibility could have written what I did, and probably with fewer spelling errors as well. Issue, Rule, Application, Conclusion, Issue, Rule, Application, Conclusion, Issue, Rule, Application, Conclusion and so on and so forth forever and ever amen. No style, no flair, no spark of imagination needed here. I've been told legal writing is highly technical and concise. I think that's code for boring, simple, and repetitive. I think if the powers that be want to mold "better" attorneys, whatever that is, a college degree should not be a prerequisite to law school admission. After all, they spend the first semester teaching you to forget everything you ever learned up until that point anyway. And now this is really just turning into a rant, so I suppose I'll give it a rest and start studying for my constitutional law exam. After all, I'm just dying to see how many different ways there are to say the exact same thing over and over again.

Raise your hand if...

The semester is drawing rapidly to a close, but evidently that's no reason to think I would possibly be off the hook in class. It's hard to differentiate among 5 classes that I hate and pick the one that annoys me the most, but today the winner is Business Organizations. I've never been called on in that class. There are about 80 students in there, which is assurance enough, but even better is the fact the professor seems to enjoy hearing his own voice rather than the insights of students, which I suppose is probably wisdom on his part. If we knew what he knows about corporations, he'd be out of a job, which means what we do know about corporations is limited, speculative, and often nonsensical, and honestly, who want to subject themselves to that? Since this particular professor favors the lecture method to the Socratic, I find myself, on a regular basis, struggling to pay attention in class, secure in the knowledge that I've done the reading, but he'll never call on me. My attention span has fallen sharply in the past few weeks, probably because of the inordinate amount of time I find myself spending on campus as finals approach. The topic for the day was shareholder derivative actions and evidently the professor was feeling adventurous enough to toss a question into the crowd in hopes of eliciting the awkward dialogue that is the substance of a law school class. The query bounced around the room like a beachball at a concert as people ducked the question either because they were unprepared or too smart to be sucked into the trap. Then I heard it. The sound that still makes my skin crawl. The sound of my own name...being butchered as usual. The case we were reading happened to be taken from a supplement to our casebook which can be found on the internet. Ahh, the internet, great facilitator of learning and repository of casebook supplements. Surely, since I was on the internet, I had the supplement open, right? I looked to my computer screen hoping to find something, anything useful to blurt out as I briefly entertained the idea of copping out as well. My screen was crowded with three open chat windows, the front page of the Times online, an email conversation with fellow classmate, and a solitaire game in progress, but of course the casebook supplement was nowhere to be found. I suppose you can say I've raised boredom to an art form, which did nothing for me on this particular occasion. I pulled up a sadly incomplete case brief I had written the day before when I actually did the reading, and start throwing answers at the wall, hoping to see some of them stick. When I ran out of semi-intelligent things to say, another question came, as they always do, and this time I reverted to my personal favorite: the pensive and silent stare. I really was trying to come up with a good answer, but I knew that if I thought quietly enough, some other attention-craving opportunist would start waving his or her hand frantically, just dying for the chance to dazzle the professor with an answer that would probably be long, verbose, and completely tangential, forcing the professor to spend several minutes getting the class back on task and causing him to forget entirely who he was initially talking to. This technique is tried and true, and worked for me today as it always does. Should I care that I'm not the one eagerly flailing my hand and jumping at the opportunity to contribute to class discussion? Probably. But why should I care when I'm content to coast? Coast on, my friends, coast on.

Stream of consciousness

I live in the library. It's true. I don't even know why I bother having an apartment, but I guess I need a place to store my non-essentials (ie: anything other than my laptop and books). I've been reading cases for the last 5 hours and I can tell that it's time to take a breather because my eyeballs are shaking, I have a headache, and my typing accuracy is hovering around 2%. I suppose blogging counts as that breather. It's been a pretty crazy semester, although I can't believe that finals are only two short weeks away. If you've been wondering what it's like, here's the elevator version...
I came to the conclusion that, having successfully survived the first year of law school without getting kicked out, having to repeat any classes, and basically alive and intact, I needed more of a challenge. I stacked my plate with 5 bar classes, held on to my job, and joined the Moot Court board. I knew after the very first day of school that I was so painfully audacious that it hurts me to even reflect on it. I think the only reason I'm still paddling away on this sinking ship is because I don't think about it. Classes have been insane. Anyone who tells you second year is better is lying through their teeth. It's not better, it's worse. Much much worse. Why is that? One word. Evidence. I thought my dignity had been effectively stripped last year, but I was wrong. Every day in Evidence is an exercise in looking moronic. My favorite line in that class has become "I'm sorry, I didn't hear the question." Maybe I really don't. The other dark abyss of my waking nightmare would be Business Organizations. Not only is the class positively soul sapping, but I sit next to a girl who is infected with tuberculosis and takes every opportunity she gets to cough right on me. Assigned seating: I can't knock it because it's how I met my spouse, but being next to Typhoid Mary has got to be a valid reason for a seat change, right? Sadly no. I find it somewhat disconcerting that I am counting down the days until the end of the semester, but at the same time, I have panic attacks while doing so. I think the only faint glimmer of hope is the fact that I'm halfway finished with law school. Halfway there. Try not to think about the bar.
Work has been an interesting addition to my madness this year, although if nothing else, I must say it has made me much more efficient with my time (right now doesn't count) because I know that if I don't get my reading done during the day, I can forget about having time to do it later because I'll be slaving away at my desk, doing my best to give other bloggers reasons to complain...http://www.oregoncatalyst.com/index.php?/archives/967-Help-Baby-Gabriel.html And moot court. Ahhh moot court. For some odd reason the executive board decided to put me in charge of organizing the first competition of the semester, nevermind the fact that I had absolutely no experience with such competitions and didn't know what the heck I was doing. Someone really dropped the ball there. It sucked up pretty much all of my September, I got to deal with lots of fun hate mail over my obvious inexperince in "running things" and all I can say is I'm glad that's over. Now I just have to worry about actually competing...yeah, I'll put that off until next semester....kind of like I've been putting off my reading about freedom of association...but now it's off to the last class of the day before my last day at work before the great and final push towards my two weeks of weeping, wailing, and gnashing of brain cells. 12-08-07...please come soon!!!

They just keep coming...

School starts on Monday and I couldn't be more ambivalent about that. I went to campus today to pick up some papers. 1L orientation was wrapping up and there were bright eyed, eager ambulance-chasers-in-in-training milling about, anxiously awaiting their descent into the seventh circle of hell...er, I mean law school. I felt a strange compulsion to grab them, one by one and tell them to run. Run away and never look back. Do your sanity and your bank account a favor, forego the three years of intentional infliction of emotional distress and go put that B.A. in history to good use. Go change the world without crossing over to the dark side. I wanted to ask them if they realize that every semester they will see classmates and friends fail to make the cut and subsequently be shown the door. I wanted to tell them that the mandatory curve means mediocrity is going to become a reality for most of them, and probably for the first time in their lives. I know that was my experience. Yes, these are the thoughts I had. And I remember people telling me the same things I would like to tell the new 1L's. I remember thinking it couldn't be as bad as all that. It couldn't, right? After all, I was capable, ambitious, and law school had been my dream since elementary school. Surely I would love it! Not so. I didn't listen to the warnings of those who knew, and I'm pretty sure no one would change their life plans because of my slightly jaded opinions. And in a way, I realize it's not such a bad thing, because while I would love to warn the new 1l's away, I'm also excited for them. I'm excited for them to "join the club" if you will. Not many people can appreciate what it is like to be in law school. Okay, no one who hasn't been there "gets it." But soon this new group of students will. The late nights of agonizing over finals, surviving on (as one classmate put it) Red Bull and gummy bears, hoping that your best will be enough and knowing that it probably won't be. The sinking feeling that comes when a professor slowly, deliberately peruses a seating chart before asking you a question to which you have no coherent answer. The strange feeling of relief that comes with swapping horror stories laced with self-deprecating humor with people "who know." That's what they're in for. In a way, that's what we're all in for. I'm sure there will probably be a few in the new class that think better of their decision and will skip the "whole post-traumatic stress disorder" experience entirely. At times I do envy them. Two more years often seems like a lifetime. But then I remember that I made it through that all-important 1L year. I made it through first round of weeding out, the shell shock, the buyer's remorse, the bait and switch, the quarterlife crisis, and even being "Runkeled" on various occasions. That alone entitles me to wear my psychosis with pride. Maybe I'm tougher than I thought. I'm still fairly certain I hate law school though. I don't see that changing, no matter how tough I get as a result of repeatedly being subjected to public humiliation.