Law School Exams and I

I think that when it comes to personal blogs, blogs such as mine, there is a stream of evolution. I think when one starts out there is a confession to any possible reader, that you don’t mean for your blog to be read by others, and if it so happens that another reads it, they are welcome to, but that isn’t your intention in writing it. This of course is said, tongue in cheek, because you do want others to read it and talk to you about it and comment on it. That’s why a writer would go through the trouble of editing and inserting well thought out witticisms and banter.

At a certain point, however, I think the curve inverts and the topics become less entertaining and more serious, less meant for entertainment and more meant for introspection. At that point, the writer becomes a little more weary of others reading his or her writing. Life is ironic, and thus this is exactly the point where others actually become interested in reading the entries.

Surely I have reached the point where I find that I turn to my blog more to wonder out loud, and the entries become less structured and more a stream of thought, documented, so that I may look back later on.

I have never been so unsure of things in my entire life. Nothing seems to make sense and I find that I am just waiting to be given my worth and placed in my slot in life. These days I feel as if one wrong move will be a regret for all of eternity. With exams and job applications and interviews coming up, it feels like it is finally time for the powers that be to decide my worth. I am helpless to affect the outcome besides following the golden advice to “do well”

Of course advice to “do well” is at heart of the problem. Because the only way anyone will interpret that is “do well on your exams”, of course by now we can all have a good laugh at that, though we took the advice seriously when we first heard it coming in. As if we had any control on how we do! Where “do well” once meant, “memorize that history” or “know the formulas” or “know what we taught you”. Here it means absolutely nothing. The words “do well” do nothing more than raise an already heightened anxiety level, and leads the student to believe that they ought to get even less sleep, feel even more guilty that they can’t seem to memorize every rule and apply it to every fact pattern off the top of their head, and constantly panic as they were not able to think of the answer to the professor's question as quickly as the person who was on call did. Thanks for the advice. I’ll be sure to “do well” on the exam.

Somehow everything is connected: grades with jobs, jobs with success, and success with happiness. All humans’ one goal is to be happy. So our grades are somehow connected to our life’s mission. When exam time roles around we will all sit in front of our computers and draft a case for why we deserve contentment. Until then, we desperately try to understand how to write that essay. Meanwhile, there is no such thing as confidence. That privilege is saved for those who are to take exams with objective answer and formulas. There can be no such confidence when the topic has no answers and every answer at the same time.

I don’t do poorly because I have learned that exceptional performance is a function of time spent preparing. That’s what got me to law school in the first place. Curiously, that formula has no meaning here either. Good old fashioned hard work will not necessarily pay off and best efforts today can equate to no effort on a piece of paper months later. Life truly is not “fair” in that sense. Those who get “it”, get it, whether with monumental effort or little effort at all, and those who don’t, well, they don’t, notwithstanding sacrificing their health and personal life in pursuit of understanding.

To be sure, no one who gets it knew that they would, and those who didn’t get it feared that they wouldn’t the whole time—again, despite the same amount of effort, or even more than those who did get “it”. Do you see the problem?

Well this is the new problem set that life has presented me with. The scope of the problem is viral to most accurately put it. In other words, the problem is a problem in itself, but it is also a problem that spreads to every other area of one’s life. One’s perception in his own capabilities, one’s perception of how others see him, one’s perception of life’s fairness, ones perception of his future, these are all affected.

I think I’m awesome. There, I said it. But lately I question that. Am I really as intelligent as I thought I was? Am I really as analytical? Creative? Or is it that what I thought was intelligent was nothing special? It’s true that I worked hard in undergrad and did well. But does that mean I’m smart at all? Or does that mean I’m just a good test taker, or that my professors didn’t grade me rigorously. If I were to not get good grades, what does that mean? Am I failure? Am I stupid? Or, am I just the least intelligent among actual intelligent people? Does it mean I didn’t work hard enough? Does it mean I’m not cut out for a career in law?

What would my friends think? What would my family think? Would they think that I didn’t work hard enough, that I wasn’t serious about doing well. Or would they think I tried my best, but alas, I’m not as smart as the caliber of students at these sorts of institutions. Would they think less of me? I’ve always prided myself on how well I do in school, and then to be congratulated and ushered off to the Ivy League only to come back the bottom of my class, does that mean I failed? Will I be a failure?

Furthermore, what does it mean for my future? What will my employers think when they see my record? Will they think that I’m unintelligent? If I’m not capable of doing well here, am I capable of doing well on the job? Will I find myself in a position where I’m working hard, I want to do well, and yet, like here, I’m still not exactly sure what I’m doing?

I’m not saying I will not do well. Like I said, there is no way of knowing. And my chances of doing well are my chances of not doing well at all, which are also my chances of falling in the middle. But I have not met one person in this school that isn’t working as hard as possible to do well, and we’re graded on a curve so, like musical chairs, someone will end up with out a seat at the table. Someone must be at the bottom. It will never be fair.

And so I come to this question. How do I react to this problem? I think the logical thing would be to do my best and leave it at that. Of course the term “best” can mean a range of things, but I’ll assume that it is what I deem a fair amount of work for someone who is trying to do well in their discipline, and is only responsible for learning at this time of their life.

Now in the case that my best gets me good grades, that is great. But what if I were to do my best and nevertheless fall short? I will be at a disadvantage at getting a job, I will feel inferior to all of my classmates, and I will feel like a failure in something I decided to do. Those are all realities that I will face.

I’ve given this a good deal of thought. And no matter how I look at it, the answer remains the same.

It doesn’t matter.

That’s it. Do well, it doesn’t matter. Do terrible, it doesn’t matter. Like I said, to not do well doesn’t just have to do with job prospects, but also on how you see yourself, and how you feel others will see you. In fact, the whole job thing is the least that someone is worried about when it comes to not doing well.

Between networking, personality, and being realistic, even someone who graduates at the bottom of their class has a more than substantial opportunity of getting a job they will be happy with. Seriously. The real sting lies within how personally we take our performance.

With absolutely no feedback in law school besides an exposing and awkward cold calling session, no one knows how well they are doing. To then, go four months with no idea how you are doing in classes, let alone, how you will do as a lawyer and then get back poor results on your exams is mortifying. It will always be a surprise, whether you do well or not. And if you don’t, then these letters are all you have to justify the past half year of your life and for a lot of people, the past 4 or 5 years as they worked hard to get here.

Well isn’t that an adorable position to be in life. One can never feel more alive. If you find out you didn’t do well, it is almost more than devastating. Screw jobs, and law review, and honor roll—no, you have to answer to something much more terrifying—yourself. You, yourself, has let yourself down. You blew it. Because you, more than anyone, will know that you put your all into doing well. You did everything you knew to do to do well, and you still couldn’t do it. And you have 2 and half more years of this left with crushing debt as a result. Besides creditors camped outside of the auditorium on graduation day, there are other problems. Like, what are you if you can’t even do well at something that you have been putting all of yourself into for four months?

And that’s precisely why these grades don't matter. Because it simply isn’t fair, "prima facie". There is nothing equitable or fair about them. And if ever someone built up the courage to question someone in charge as to why we're graded this way, they will be met with every response but a good one. Everyone deserves an A. Everyone deserves the honor roll, and everyone deserves a job offer. They, for whatever reason, have set up this arbitrary system to grade us. But those grades don’t mean anything. What matters is how hard we tried. What matters is that we know that at the end of the day we understood a good amount of what they attempted to teach us. What matters is that no matter what grade we received we didn’t give up and we continued to give it our best as if we got perfect marks.

It surely is a lesson many will be forced to learn if they want to see it through to the end. And since I'm a sucker for a "man's romance" I can't helped to be allured to thetheme myself. To continue to honestly try your best despite negative feedback and the odds building up against you, it's inspiring. Much easier to say of course. And one would much rather not be in that position. But if one is forced into that position, there is no use looking back.

It would be best for one to find something solid to anchor their confidence in now so that no matter what happens they can say, "I'm doing wonderful.", "It may not look like it here, but I know that I've been really learning". It isn't just saying it to feel better or to lie to oneself, but to remind oneself of the truth.

When it is all said and done, I would rather be a person with that attitude and character at the bottom of the class, than someone who stressed out, and clings to their grades at the top of the class.

I’ve already made the decision, that I don’t see these grades as any indicator of how well I have done here so far, and how well I will do in the future. And no matter what, I will end up right where I want to be. So allow me to just put my name on the exam “as a mere formality”.

Montage

Dear Future me,

I spend my days bouncing between apathy and enthusiasm. It would seem like my terrible 22’s have boiled over a year, as I’m often grumpy, moody, and demanding my own way in life. I try to order around my books and papers to work themselves out as I just want to be left to my own devices. When I leave them, expecting that when I return I would find the paper to have written itself and the notes to be neatly compiled on my desk, I’m grimly disappointed to find everything right where I left it with the deadline hours away.

I throw a tantrum.

Maybe I was born a diva. Even I’m startled by these passionate fits of frustration and disappointment. I thought I wanted to grow, I thought I wanted to become stronger, but when it comes time learn my mind violently rebels, proclaiming to anyone who would listen that it would rather be anywhere but here, doing anything but this. I’ve lost all control.

I try to be mentally healthy by telling myself that this is a sign that I’m close to the next stage of personal growth, that my inner child is making one last stand in the name of selfishness and hedonism, fighting with all its got. Then I’m strong.

Of course my cute little war is coming at a terrible time as I’m supposed to be Mr. Ultra-focused-on-his-goals-getting-A’s-and-taking-names. Instead I lie in bed in the morning searching with everything in me for one incentive to get up and start “studying”. The best I can usually come up with is the sooner I get out of bed, the sooner I can get back in when the day is over.

I don’t want to hear anything about “I thought you wanted to go to law school”, “It will all pay off”, “Just focus, that’s what you’re there for” No—it’s real. The hours and hours and hours of “learning”, of reading, of lecture—it’s numbing, it’s cold.

Where is a montage when you need one?

Let me make this perfectly clear to my future self. Here lies the most boring, monotonous, tedious time in your life thus far. No love, no inspiration, no stimulation, no wonder, no awe—nothing. Just reading, just deadlines.

I know, I know, you’re probably like, “that’s right let it all out.” Well, I’m not complaining, this is just how it is. And I say it unapologetically. I’m not in love with “law”, hanging off of every word my professors say, dreamily envisioning my closing arguments during my first case. No, I have no passion for “due process” or the constitution. I don’t want go to a public interest luncheon or a governmental policies seminar. All I want is a hug and time to myself.

Joy

It couldn’t be helped, I would have to warm up more sake. It’s a laborious process, it involves boiling water and slowly instilling heat into the porcelain container until just a hint of steam can be spied rising from the surface of the liquid. It can’t be microwaved, that sort of method will scare away the spirit of the alcohol, leaving it stale.

I returned to my room, anxious for a refill. That's when I first began to feel it.

Smooth indie music seeped into the room like an aroma from all 5 speakers—we were surrounded, but at a volume that could only be described as flirtatious. I tried my best to not be seduced, but the better part of me kept saying, “just let it happen.”

I had company, as rare as that is. She was the centerpiece, though I never knew my room to be missing something. Somehow it seemed as if there was never a rush, and there never would be again. I felt sane in believing that I had casually stepped outside of the continual flow of time. I stepped out of time and the only thing I brought with me was alcohol. Good alcohol, I had to use my card. I couldn’t allow myself to become too relaxed as it would interfere with the conversation. But she was beautiful and my eyes couldn't look away. Of course, I was going to lose this battle; all of my senses were engaged. I cooly accepted that fact. The fresh spring breeze, still chilled, liberally helped itself into my room. The stage was set. How is it that everything seemed so perfect?

I couldn’t waste anymore time. I would have to burn this moment into my memory. I had to remember what this felt like. When it was over, I would have to be able to find my way back. I’m so happy. I’m so happy, I’ve never felt like this. I didn’t know that I could feel like this.

When a person attains this level of contentment, something strange happens. All of nature is reversed. A once realistic, mildly pessimistic attitude becomes a sort of gracious optimism. Fatigue turns to a passionate energy. A bland pointless existence becomes so meaningful that tears begin to well up in the eyes, ready to fall like impatient children pushing each other down the slide at a park. And nothing is dramatic, no amount of praise or animated description can be construed as too much, at most merely adequate.

Clarity, most of all there is clarity. One can finally see how everything fits together to make a perfect life. A perfect life that seems so fantastical on an ordinary day. But nevertheless, right now, there it is, almost in arms reach. What were once ideals become a simple to-do list. Yes, one can see how they can have it all. There, that’s where belief in God goes, and here, here--true love. There, a family and friends. Oh, and success, there is still room for success, and there--health, and right here, hobbies and all the while personal growth intertwines between them all. Yet one can still see some cracks. They are to be filled with music and cooking and art and reading and culture and nature and laughter. I don’t know why, but at this moment it all feels possible. No, it doesn’t just feel possible—it feels like the only way. Why else would this moment feel so right if it weren’t attainable? Why else would it exist if it could not be enjoyed again?

I’m no longer so naïve as to say that I was falling in love. No, this was bigger than that. It was more than just her, it was the moment. It came all at once like an epiphany, as if it were programmed that on that day at that time, I would experience contentment in its purest form. Of course I still had responsibilities, and worries, and deadlines, but I couldn't remember or else they didn't matter. I couldn't feel anxious if I wanted to. Everything would be alright. Everything was taken care of. All that was required of me was to take it all in. And everything seemed crushing, powerful, like being alive.

I didn’t want to think anymore. My senses were overwhelmed; the music’s toxins had finally penetrated my ears, I could hear nothing, only sound. Sake entered my mouth, cold, but only because it didn’t know me yet, it warmed up to me once I swallowed and marched cheerfully into my stomach with purpose. I took a full breath, filled with perfume and cologne and cold air. It was all too much, and I became drunk with the feeling. At one time I could see all of her, now I was so close I could only see into her eyes. I closed mine, and fell forward.

I haven’t felt that way since.

Towards my final days in college I still had no idea what to expect from life, from the "rest of my life". What would I fill it with? I had some ideas, but they were less than ideals they were pure fantasy and they consisted of a conclusion-- me with it all. Upon entering "the real world" the state it's in is worse than I had feared. And now that I'm an adult I don't have the privilege of blindly believing in the wisdom and honesty of my elders. Now I am horrified to see that no one knows what they're doing. Everyone is always in a panic; there is always a crisis. And there is a certain order to things that, if one is not vigilant in resisting, will suck every last hope and dream out of him and leave him cynical and jaded with the only things on his mind being basic survival for most and money and reputation for the selected few. So this is what they call the real world.

All of the depression, disappointment, and monotony of life slowly eat away at my spirit. The news, the celebrity gossip, politics, and the trivial things that are made into a huge deal—they desensitize me. I don’t feel like I have any part in any of it. It’s more that I don’t care. Day in and day out spending precious moments of life just working, working at something that has nothing to do with you as a person, to the extent that you wonder if there is no purpose. Is it just work, survive as long as you can, and die? All the while, mocked by sayings that go “enjoy the little things” and “find beauty in life.”-- sayings that don’t take into account that there is little time for such pleasantries.

Every so often I feel like giving up. Letting the world take my mind and personality and becoming part of “society”, allowing myself to come second to the demands of the external world and being grateful for the fleeting moments where I feel like my needs are ushered to the front because I have been momentarily overlooked by everything that has a demand of me: Quickly! take a nap, read a book, look at a sunset, now back to your clients. To get a job and have some money, it seems like that's as good as it gets.

But what about that night? I know it was real. That moment in which time stopped and I was allowed to feel like I was being taken care of, that period of time in which I felt I could finally lay down my concerns, rest, and just be a human-- no demands, no responsibilities, no worries, just alive.

Before that night, up until that point, I always had a feeling of mild dissatisfaction. Never truly fulfilled, though I tried to be. And I had no reason not to be. But I was always longing for something more. Now I know that it was that feeling that I was longing for. Since then, I go through the days doing my best to simulate that feeling, laughing, joking, drinking, eating my favorite foods, watching my favorite shows-- anything that will make me feel glad to be alive, but none of it comes close. I'm still left longing for that distinct feeling again, a feeling that was more than happy, more than glad.

A feeling I've only experienced once.