10.25.2010

Nemesis

Clock Caucas' via Flickr
Time has become my enemy.  The enmity between us developed slowly.  While we weren't friends First Year, there were no hard feelings.  Admittedly, we pulled some nasty pranks on each other during Second Year:  she snuck up on me before brief and memo due dates, I kept her guessing by refusing to sleep, etc.  This year, we are engaged in all-out war.

I provoked the conflict by belligerently occupying every
                  interesting-look ing leadership position I could get my hands on.  I
                                      have about 110 hours worth of work any given week, and if you do the math you can see that it's not a healthy habit.  I've been under siege for two months and peace talks are not going well.  And because I wasn't built with an unstoppable military-industrial complex under my skin, the home front is feeling the strain.  There will undoubtedly be more on the home front in other posts.
I can't surrender; fulfilling my obligations gives me pride and pride is precious these days.  But even I recognize that this is an unwinnable war.
Abandonment              Rickydavid via Flickr
My only option is to find some kind of peace-with-honor.  I need to be content with doing the best that I can with the time that I have.  I need to minimize the time I spend alone, which usually only leads to sleep or television.  I need to manage expectations of the time I spend with others; group study time must be spent studying, and social time must be spent replenishing my overextended resources.  I need to focus on the tasks at hand until that task is over.  These are goals I have for the next few weeks.  

Time will always run out on me, but I can stop running out on myself.
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10.24.2010

Introduction


So I'm LuckyLegis, and this is my story of redemption. 

Cheat sheet in a juice boxvia Wikipedia
I didn't cheat on my exams, either.
Ok ok, so maybe it's not as dramatic as all that . . . .  I didn't murder anyone, I didn't cheat on my husband, I didn't dent someone's car without leaving a note. But that's not the point.  

I came to law school with extremely high standards for myself.  Almost three years later, I have nigh unreachable standards for everyone.  Those standards have activated some rather unpleasant aspects of my personality: condescension, impatience, jealousy, insecurity (just to name a few).

We joked about the 3L bitches when we got here.  Now I am one.  Many people who know me will say I'm exaggerating, but then again I don't say everything in my head out loud.  I'm afraid only my closest friend (my husband) knows the half of it, and that's why I've started this blog.

FortalezaImage by 丹涅拉 - Dani Gama via Flickr
You can see I'm kind of a hippie.
You can't fix the problem if you're focused on hiding it, and I'm going to air out my hideous little problems here.  On my best day, I'm still the person I was three years ago and I know I can get back to being that person all the time.  This blog is part of that journey.

As I acknowledge in this blog's description, I'm usually not going to talk about the professional aspects of law school.  I love the work that I'm doing; the work was never the problem.  The incidental influences of the work are what I'm worried about, and those are what I'll focus on.  I invite you to share your own law school experiences in the comments!  I've enable anonymous posting for just that reason, but you can of course disclose your own identity if you like.  I'd rather you not disclose anyone else's- this blog isn't supposed to be a video camera; it's supposed to be a reflection pool.
Thanks for reading! 
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