Saturday, December 09, 2006

milestones

On Tuesday, I attended my last class ever of law school. Monday night at work I noticed an inexplicable feeling of euphoria bubbling up from within me and it actually took me awhile to realize it might just be connected with the reality that I was reading my last homework assignment ever. I spent about two hours giddy with glee and anticipation of the freedom and joy that would soon be mine.

Class Tuesday was great. It was my comparative criminal law seminar with Eagle Eye Goldberg (the cleverly disguised name of my very awesome professor). Goldberg has managed to slide in under the wire as my all time biggest law-school smart-professor crush. So sharp, so incisive, so good at facilitating class discussion. She was my best professor (with the obvious exception of Jack Bog who was certainly the most entertaining) and there's something heartwrenching about having my last class with her.

Instead of leaving class Tuesday skipping and singing, I walked down the path to my car for the last time sinking like a stone. Will I actually miss this place, I wondered? Will I miss this walk up and down the lovely path from the car park to the back end of Wood Hall? Will I miss the coffee cart in the LRC? Will I miss the forty-pound casebooks and the socratic method? YES! I WILL MISS THEM!

And even as I sit here at my desk with a pile of Civil Rights Litigation papers in front of me, knee-deep in exam preparation, I feel for the first time that I have *finally* learned how to be a really good law student. I have finally learned how to really understand it all, to see the big picture, to think in terms of black letter law, policy, doctrines, cannons of construction, federalism, and politics all at once. I'm afraid my brain will atrophy once I'm out of this environment. I'm not just afraid, I'm terrified! My brain turned into a big bowl of moldy jello this summer and I was miserable until the first day of classes at the end of August. Then I sprang back to life like a dried out houseplant someone finally remembered to water.

What will I do??? For now, I suppose I will go study for my exams and actually, for the first and last time, enjoy it. After that... I don't know.

1 Comments:

Anonymous Anonymous said...

Congrats on finishing law classes!! Bittersweet though it may be, it must be a delightful feeling of accomplishment. As for what comes after exams, I'm sure you'll find something to stimulate your giant brain! A word of unasked-for advice - my ex-roommate finished law school and then decided to be nanny for her sister's three kids for three years in a small town. Uh . . . don't do that and you should be FINE.

2:10 PM  

Post a Comment

<< Home