Equilibrium

We're now at about the 48-hour mark before the bar exam starts, and for the last few days the craziest thing has been happening: I've been feeling pretty happy. There have been moments here and there -- walking to lunch on Friday, at the gym earlier today, hanging out with L in the apartment -- where I feel a sense of contentment and freedom that has been missing from my life for a while now. I think it's the knowledge that this wretched process will end very soon, and all I have to do is make it through the next few days, which will be no longer or shorter than any other.

I have been feeling pangs of confidence, and I think I'm at peace with the knowledge that I have and the knowledge that I lack. In Donald Rumsfeld's parlance, at least I know what I don't know. But I actually do know a lot of stuff, it turns out, and my head is chock full of rules and exceptions and stupid acronyms. I have a pile of flash cards six inches thick that I've run through a few times (not to mention toiled over to create) and I think I'm about where I need to be, hopefully.

I am finding some peace in the fact that life has not stopped for everybody else the way it has for me this summer. Today was the NYC Half Marathon, which I missed for the first time in three years, but a friend of mine ran it and I was excited for her. Elsewhere people are having babies and going on trips and getting married, and the wheel keeps rolling along for all of us. For me, it happened that the first few months of summer 2008 were a tad on the unpleasant side, but I'm only one person, and it's only one summer. In any event, I am happy to be at this point, knowing that at any moment I could explode (emotionally and legal-knowledge-wise) if it turns out that I completely forgot, say, an entire unit on maritime law.

The photo above is from our trip to Hawaii, which is in the Pacific Ocean, and if you majored in geography you'll know that the Pacific Ocean takes you right over to Asia, and that happens to be where L and I are going in nine days.