idk

[Please see my original post here]

It turns out that Professor McClurg was right. I had no idea how hard law school would be.

I understood that the time commitment would be enormous. I got that. And the time commitment is huge, but I was completely prepared for the time suck.

The thing I didn't know--the thing that should make law school daunting--is how intensely hard law school is.

Things would be crazy enough just with the fundamental problems of beginning a legal education. Understanding law requires learning: a new vocabulary (including tons of Latin); lots of statutes; common law rules; the structure of courts and jurisdictions; zillions of legal-system basics; the ABCs of briefing cases; and writing with CREAC and IRAC (more on that later). But after the first few days of school I started to realize that the true difficulty comes in synthesizing all of it and seeing these things as part of the larger picture of Law. Which is hard for lots of reasons, not least of which is the fact that I don't know what the larger picture looks like. As Professor Glannon (yes, that Glannon) said to me, "when you start law school you know NOTHING." I might add that some of my professors sometimes forget that about me, and the plethora of poli-sci majors in the lecture hall doesn't help matters.

The hardest part of school isn't the memorization; it isn't the workload or the reading; it isn't even the speaking up in class or the scary professors. (Professor Wittenberg, when you're not crushing me in Contracts you're making me prepare and read and memorize. I'll thank you later.)

The hardest part is the thinking and analyzing and hypothesizing and knowing what questions to ask (myself and the professors).

Thus: my body is rejecting law school even while my mind wants to forge ahead. Hives, rashes, hair loss, lack of appetite, poor sleep--these are all symptoms that my body wants to return to the nine-to-five, Monday-to-Friday routine. I'm turning pasty-white from living inside the law building and my apartment during sunlight (and even moonlight) hours. My circadian rhythm is messed up. If you are following me on Twitter, you'll know that I was awake at 2:50 am today working on a Contracts brief.

But I guess it's all good. I signed up for this and for now I'm not planning on going anywhere. Bring it.

jk