Monday, November 27, 2006

The Stress is On...

Well, you can see it, you can feel it, and you can sense it permeating every corner and every part of the school at the moment. Nervous looks, short tempers, nervous habits, and everything else stress-related is at a high point on campus. This was evidenced this morning in class when I made a comment that normally would not have offended anyone, but happened to offend a student to whom the comment was not even truly made.

We were in Civil Procedure discussing interlocutory vs. final judgment appeals and what it meant for a judgment to be final. One of the students was advancing a theory that was discussed in the case, and he asked the professor if that theory was workable. The professor, being a law professor after all, responded with something akin to saying, "what do you think?" At this point the student responded, "I was asking you," and the class started laughing mildly, during which I commented, albeit in a very soft voice, "Never ask a law professor a question unless you want an overly cryptic response." I think he must have misheard me because he turned to me with a very offended look on his face and asked me, "What did you say?" At which point I said I was just joking around and didn't mean anything by it. After class I explained that I meant no disrespect toward him, nor was the comment directed at him. Rather, it was a playful cut at the professor. He seemed ok with this explanation.

Still, in the classroom, you can feel the stress among everyone present. It radiates like energy from a heating system, and feeds off the anxieties of everyone in the room. We no longer have the lighter, but awkward atmosphere we had in the beginning and middle of the semester. Now we have the dark, serious, but less awkward atmosphere that encompasses exam time. Exams are partly a blessing because they signal the end of a long semester of hard work and pain. They are a curse however, because they create anxiety, frustration, worry, fear, panic, and sometimes anger. I have not escaped this vortex of stress either. I have since started taking
Valium at double the frequency I had been at the beginning of the semester. Instead of taking it once every 3-4 days, I'm now taking it once every 1.5-2 days. This is still well within the prescription (every 12 hours as needed), but more than I had been previously. For those of you who don't know, I have generalized anxiety disorder, which gets worse under stressful conditions like exam time, and for that condition I was prescribed Valium because it seems to do the job and isn't half as expensive as drugs like Paxil, or Effexor XR, which worked really well, but I can no longer afford.

In closing, my comments are these, and I will try to take them more to heart as well. Remember, law school exams are difficult, but they have been difficult for every class before yours and they have been graded the same way in every class before yours (at least in recent times). The percentage of students that fail law school altogether is unbelievably low (something like 2-3%), and you have spent all this time preparing for these exams. Whoever you are, you will do fine. Maybe you or I won't be at the top 10% of our class or the top 25%. I've resigned myself to this idea that I may not be the best, whereas in undergrad I pretty much was. I've come to accept that there's always someone out there that can write a better exam, or paper, or project than me, and that's normal and natural. Try your best and do everything you possibly can, but accept the results for what they are, your best effort. We are almost all perfectionists by nature. We are very meticulous in what we do and are very detail oriented. We don't like being wrong, and some of us (especially me) feel like we need to do perfect in order to excel.

Only recently have I realized that this is not only untrue, but also ungrounded and unfounded. Even if I don't do well on an exam, I won't take it that I don't know the law, or cannot apply the law. The nature of curved grading encourages this totally incorrect idea, but the truth is that with curved grading, you can have a good understanding of how the law works and still have a test score that isn't an A or even a B. There are plenty of successful 'C' attorneys out there, and the beauty of a law degree is that you can always hang out your own shingle and run a successful firm, if you have connections and networking skills. None of this is to say that I'm giving up or shooting for a 'C'. No way would I ever do that. It is only to say that whatever happens in spite of my best possible effort, I will not be daunted and will not allow myself to become depressed, angry, or fearful. I will continue as I always have, to do the best I can, and that for me will be good enough.

Monday, November 20, 2006

Going Hunting this Week...

Well, I'm going to take a day off and get away from law school entirely on Wednesday and do some deer hunting. Instead of sleeping in, relaxing, and having some quality WoW time, I'm going to wake up at 3:30AM, get dressed in layers of wool, fleece, and camo, put some hand warmers in my boots and my fur muff (not THAT kind!), and head up to Minden City to sit around for 8-10 hours hoping a deer comes by that I can take. I'll enjoy it anyway. It allows me to get away from all the hectic crap that's going on in my life for a day and spend some time in the middle of nature (even if it is a forest that borders on a swamp). I've never actually shot anything before, but maybe I'll get lucky and take a buck this year. I don't even care what size it is. As long as it will put some meat in the freezer for some time, that would be great. Then after that, it will be back to work on Thursday, Friday, Saturday, and Sunday doing outlining till I die.