Day 675: Survival

Of the smartest. Bite me, Darwin. In law school, the smartest survive. Be it by being smart or by working smart, the smartest survive. And that's that.

I survived. I got the first draft of my appellate brief done. It's shorter than some papers I wrote as an English major, but by the time I got around to writing those, I'd been refining my writing for three years, and I knew precisely what I had to do. That didn't mean I could always execute it, but I knew the method and the expected outcome. In law school, I write blind. Yes I did well in legal writing last year. That doesn't mean I know how to write under the legal standards. It means I screwed up, got told off, tried again, and got lucky. I'm writing bigger and even more blind this year with a new teacher to conform to, and it's hard. I can't write like an English major anymore, but I can't write like a lawyer either. I dislike this school-induced limbo. Also, when I was an English major, I wasn't at school for upwards of ten hours a day. Which I am, most days at law school.

Yesterday was all right. Foggy in the morning, so it ticked me off when some crazy bum thought it would be all right to jaywalk. Foggy days in Omaha are the stupidest days on which to jaywalk because driver's really can't see. When I made it to the parking lot, Ryan was there too, so he was nice and walked me in. Since visibility was low and I was, let's admit it, jumpy. And unarmed. Although my campus has a no weapons policy, so I'm basically a walking target every time I wander around in the dark or in the fog. I was standing in front of the elevator yesterday and staring at my reflection, which in the uneven black surface, was somewhat distorted, giving me only the vaguest impression of a human figure. That looked like it did, in fact, belong to a small child. Yay.

I had lunch with Kim (the super Mormon mom who was in my section last year) over in the Java Jay. It was funny - we got the same salad, the same drink, and then when we sat down we pulled lactose pills out of our bags at the same time. I like Kim. She's funny and smart and down-to-earth, and we can have good conversations.

Last night I watched three hours of TV - Bones, Criminal Minds, CSI:NY - and the presidential address, while making armor. Tonight when I got home I was tempted to run up to Best Buy, pick up a copy of the director's cut of Kingdom of Heaven, and make armor all night to the sounds of the Crusades. To put it in Pack terms, pull a Weber. Because it's what Weber would do.

But today was long. And totally all right. I got to school, read my Book of Mormon (which I try to do every morning and it freaks out some of my friends) and did my briefing for crim pro (which class was hilarious today) and then cracked in on redoing that brief. It's not great, but it's not terrible. And I'm okay with that. It's turned in, and tonight is mine, clear and free of guilt.

I survived. Sure, others have done it before me, and others will do it after me, but being in the middle of my 2L year - I understand why, when I was a 1L, many 2Ls had little sympathy for me and why the 3Ls laugh at me. A lot. Because they made it past and they're on the home stretch.

So tonight I'm going to kick back, make armor, and enjoy my minor victory in the struggle against 2L.



Note: there is also no crying in law school.