And now, a rant

Law school saps my will to live. That is the title of my new favorite ipod playlist. It's loaded with screaming standards by Linkin Park, a little rueful humor by the Offspring, and a dash of morose melancholy courtesy of the Goo Goo Dolls, because really, what is the point of all this screaming? No one's listening anyway. I will be taking exam 2 of 4 in a little less than an hour. I've been gorging myself on Trusts and Estates law since Monday evening, and at this point, my eyes are simply refusing to focus on my notes for another second. Refusing!!! It's not for lack of trying either, but every time I try to look at the statutes governing intestate succession, my eyes dart away from my computer screen in an action vaguely resembling an involuntary twitch. I hate my life, I hate my life, I hate my life... this thought runs through my head on a constant loop. I would just like to take this opportunity to express my annoyance at the widespread belief that the first year of law school is the worst, and that it only gets easier from there. NO! It does not get easier. You just get more and more bored with it, so you pay less attention to how awful it is. But then finals come, and the moment of reckoning rains down all its fury on you as you realize you spent the entire semester so focused on just surviving each day that you somehow neglected to learn a single solitary thing. Or maybe you learned a lot, but over the course of the semester your brain has simply reached critical mass and can no longer readily recall the volumes of knowledge locked away in the cavernous reaches of your mind. And yet, in the most antithetical approach to learning ever, the way they gauge your intelligence around here is to subject you to two weeks of final exams; 4 exams, three hours a piece, to test you on what you learned or should have learned over the course of 4 months. And that's it. Nothing else counts. Not your attendance, not the hours spent reading cases, not the public humiliation in class. Nothing. Just this one exam. Trusts and Estates alone is a four credit class, meaning I spent 4 hours a week in class, and at least three times that amount out of class doing reading assignments for this class alone (I had 5 classes, by the way), and now you want me to summon all that information to the fore and do what with it? Kneel over my laptop and violently expel the contents of my brain in the eagerly awaiting exam software? Oh yes, that's exactly what I'm supposed to do. The only problem with this mental bulimia is that I can't exactly control what comes up in this torrential sickness. It might be a little something on revocable living trusts, blended in with Article 9, or miscellaneous itemized deductions, or right of redemption. How does one compartmentalize word vomit??? I'm so sick of people telling me that I'm almost done. As if I could be oblivious of that fact. But almost only counts when throwing hand grenades. In law school, almost equals 4 more miserable months. I'm so tired of being reminded that this was my dream and for better or worse, I brought this on myself. It's a fine line between dreams and nightmares, you know. I'm weary of this place. It's a sad, sad day when you wake up reciting the rules for introducing extrinsic evidence in a will contest. That day was today. My brain has suffered what will likely prove irreparable damage along with the rest of my rapidly deteriorating self. My muscles are surely atrophying away as I spend 8 hours a day in bed with my laptop, frantically trying to relearn everything I've been subjected to this semester. And I'm pretty sure I'm developing a bald spot in my favorite hair twisting spot. I hate this! I hate this. And now that I have that out of my system, I'm off to tackle my exam. And after that, with trembling hands I will shove a pair of headphones into my ears, crank up my new favorite playlist as loud as I can tolerate, and let the music clean the slate so I can start preparing for my next exam.