Emergency mode

I finished the bar exam. It's over. The bar exam is past tense.

The last few days have been pretty rough, I can't lie. The night before the bar exam we decided to go see the new Batman flick, to relax. Unfortunately I didn't realize how dark and disconcerting the movie would be -- it made me really anxious, although it was a great flick. Then on the walk home we were walking by Stuyvesant Square Park, and I saw two men seeming to tussle over a cane or something...it was odd but didn't seem serious. Then I saw a woman on the ground moaning, crying for help and for someone to call 911. Like any concerned New Yorker, I kept walking, but I did call 911, for the first time in my life. The woman on the other line asked me a million questions and made me give my name and number, which I didn't expect. I hung up but my cell phone was in self-proclaimed "Emergency Mode," which meant the ringer was up high and had a different, more urgent tone. The 911 people actually called me back a few moments later to get more information, as the sound of sirens in the distance drew closer. After that experience, I went home and tried to get ready for the first day of the bar exam. Here are notes from the three days:

Day 1: New York Essays. Many, many people here: a lot of girls in workout clothes, and everyone seems to be wearing t-shirts from their law schools, which seems lame in a very basic but profound way. Happy to find that my seat is in the back, near the Men's Room. The essays are hard, but manageable. Several of them have issues or topics that I really sink my teeth into, which is nice. A woman behind me is shaking her box of Tic-Tacs like they're maracas -- give it a rest, Carmen Miranda. One of the essays doesn't really make sense -- I read it over and over to see what I'm missing, but the whole thing just seems askew. Shake it off. I walk home feeling angry and frustrated. Thirty minutes later I arrive home a sweaty wreck, am forced to change clothes immediately.

Day 2: Multistate Multiple Choice. Shit. Hot shit, this is hard. The exam is really tough, nothing like the practice tests. The questions they guaranteed would be on the test are not on the test. There are very few easy questions where I feel totally good. I always boil it down to two choices and then pick one seemingly at random. I feel like I have no knowledge in my head, and instead turn to animal instinct. I go through waves of fatigue and antsiness. In the mens' room there's a guy breathing heavily, because apparently he just vomited. On the plus side, Carmen Miranda is keeping it down today. Afterwards I walk home again filled with despair and self-loathing. Very sweaty at home. Am feeling exhausted, fatigued. My contact lenses have been in for too long, and I feel like I'm two days away from a head cold. Tonight L and I go to New Jersey, to stay at a Holiday Inn before the New Jersey test. This whole Jersey endeavor seems idiotic. When did we ever want to live in New Jersey? We eat dinner at a Chili's restaurant, and consider the path not taken.

Day 3: New Jersey Essays. The theme of the day: "fuck it." But wait a second! The first four essays are almost delightful in their clarity. I feel good moving through them. Lunch at Chipotle, which is $2 cheaper yet a lot saltier. The afternoon essays are a lot harder, and when I tackle the contracts essay I realize that all of the knowledge has leached out of my head. Oh well -- recall the day's theme: fuck it. Indeed. Hitch a ride back to the city with a friend. Go home to find a mass of balloons waiting in the dark kitchen -- my hearts skips two beats out of fear when I open the door. Go to the gym, go to the bar, to celebrate the end of the process. Couldn't really celebrate, but five Yeunglings helped.

I still feel pretty anxious about everything. I try to tell myself it's fine: I worked hard, I should have confidence, I went with my gut, and statistically, I am probably going to pass. But it's hard to let go of the anxiety, even though rationally I know there's nothing more I can do at this point. I just hope all the hard work of this summer was not for naught. The bright spot, though, was all the support I felt from everybody. I really appreciated the emails and comments and prayers and thoughts.

...And coming up on Tuesday: ASIA. What the hell?

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.

New horizons

The view to the north.

And the view to the south.

Another week and a half, and it's over.

Another awesome Manhattan Friday night

You know what's going on right now? L is at a wedding in Long Island without me, because I'm studying for the bar exam.

Today, so far, I've outlined a 2.5-hour lecture, did a 35-question problem set, reviewed 4 essays, and did a 45-minute exercise in craziness. Still on tap for tonight is another 35-question problem set and 2 more essays.

Our kitchen smells weird and I don't know why. I took the garbage out. I sniffed around under the sink. I even applied my secret cleaning trick (squeeze out a healthy amount of dishwasher liquid into the sink, swish it around with some water and let it sit) but it didn't work. Consequently I don't like going into the kitchen.

Today I watched "I Love Money" on VH1 and I hated myself for it.

Of the last four meals I've eaten, Chipotle has been...three of them. Thank God they're closed for breakfast.

Speaking of which, we ran out of Cheerios this morning, so tomorrow's breakfast is looking bleak.

This afternoon my pencil sharpener seems to have broken; it only sharpens them up to this pathetic degree where I'm left with this stubby little nub, so that rather than a nice sharp point I'm dealing with a little plateau of lead. I have been giving myself carpal tunnel trying to twist the shit out of these pencils to get a point. I tried poking into the sharpener with a screwdriver to take it apart but it's impossible for me to do. So I'm left with these crayon-like pencils and a crap sharpener.

Right now in this city people are drinking, looking sharp, dancing, riding in cabs, going places, watching movies, and eating food without black beans in it. Tonight I wish I was one of those people.

The way we live now

After a couple weeks I have stumbled into my new routine for the summer. Here are the bad parts:

I spend three or four hours, starting at 9 a.m., sitting in a classroom at NYU taking notes from a videotaped lecture about some facet of the law I haven't thought about since first year. I am scribbling alongside other people I don't know, so during the ten minute breaks that come every hour I eat my yogurt very pensively, or read a magazine, or just sit and stare. Or think about how beautiful NYU is, how the sweeping staircase and elegant lighting makes me feel like I attended law school in a subway station. Later in the day, after I wrestle with the obligation to do an additional three or five hours of work, I reach a point where I know there's no way I can accomplish everything I've been assigned to do. I try to work hard until L comes home, then I try to be lively and fun, all the while being nagged by guilt about the work and the studying that isn't happening...After dinner and some TV and conversation I do some more work, but it's never enough, the books and outlines are piled around me yet I never feel like I learn anything. A deadening routine that feels completely unproductive. Beneath the monotony and the boredom there lies a genuine fear, which becomes slightly sharper and more clear each day, as I wonder what would happen, and how things would be, if I failed the bar.

Here, then, are the good parts:

This summer I have more freedom than I have had in many years. I don't go to an office, I'm not riding the subway. I put on my shorts and flips and walk ten minutes to the school, and then by lunchtime I'm free again. I walk around Washington Square Park and up to Chipotle, where they say hi to me every day because they know me. On the way up I set my course through the sunshine and listen to my burgeoning soundtrack for the summer, like the insanely enjoyable "Touch My Body" remix, in which a new, chopped-up synthesizer beat swoops into the last minute of the song, followed by some deeper bass lines that give the song this sense of urgency and intensity -- I can never get enough of it, it only lasts a minute and then fades out, but I always want more, so I'm cranking up the volume to hold on for just a few more moments, dancing in my head and enjoying this 60 seconds of pure music bliss as I soak in my newfound freedom for the afternoon. That's what I'm doing as I walk to Chipotle by the park, with the long languorous summer day stretched before me. I've gotten back into road-running, too, doing a couple races already and getting some respectable times, and with the New York Half Marathon to look forward to in July. If I plan my day right I can get out by the river just as the sun begins to falter, taking in the tones of the water and the brick and glass when the colors are at their fullest. That's what the architecture of my day can look like, if it doesn't always live up to that kind of early-June promise. No matter how the day goes, though, it's hard to ignore the knowledge that this summer, for all of its pleasures and all of its anxieties, will never, ever last.

Thoughts on graduating

Today the darnedest thing happened: I graduated from law school. That means I don't go to law school anymore, because I took all the classes and I passed them and now I'm qualified to do new, different things, and those things don't require me to go to law school anymore. See?

I heard that both L and Mom got choked up at graduation, as the procession began and we all marched to our seats in our chunky maroon robes. I was surprised to find myself nonchalant about the whole thing. I did get nervous when we stood to walk across the stage. I didn't want to stumble, or have my scarf thing get twisted, or have some weird hair issues with the silly beret they made us wear. I really enjoyed clapping for people as they received their diplomas: my friends, people who did really well and got honors, people I didn't know but sort of liked anyway, people who made me laugh in class through their humor or pretension or weirdness or utter implacability. I also enjoyed not clapping for the people I didn't like; I felt oddly empowered to be able to deny my applause to those people.

The speakers were uniformly good, and intelligent, and concise. They emphasized the relationships and family dynamics that characterized the law school, and talked about the importance of public service and time with your loved ones amid the hectic practice of law. They seemed actually human, in a profession that can seem bureaucratic and petty beyond belief. It made me hopeful, and it reminded my that my future is a completely blank canvas. There is some fear in that, I guess, but I feel like I have an education and some knowledge and, more importantly, some people I love who are the bedrock of anything I could hope to do with this degree of mine.

I don't know how I feel about graduating. It feels like I outlasted something tenacious and difficult and angry, but somehow I'm the one left standing. I had to be reminded that this graduation is the beginning of something -- if I was on the street tomorrow, and someone asked me what I do, first I would avoid eye contact and try to move away, but if they persisted, I wouldn't know what to say: I'm a law school graduate? I'm going to be a lawyer in a few months? My occupation is studying for the bar?

One thing I really struggled with in law school was the fact that I felt like I was doing worse, and was thus perhaps stupider, than a lot of my classmates. After first year, my grades put me solidly in the middle of the pack, and I was told that firms "would not be fighting over themselves to get to me," which was a grim moment. After spending two years under this cloud, thinking I was worse than everybody else and was missing some element of lawyering that all these other ridiculous people seemed to have, I felt like a puppy that got kicked too much, just cowering and cringing in the corner when other people started talking about legal theory. My summer work showed me that I did indeed have skills that were valuable in the work place and important in real life (social skills, good humor, etc), but that law school didn't seem to acknowledge. I felt like an outlier.

But then, this year, my grades have been pretty darn good. Maybe the professors were being generous, but I worked hard and I was really proud. Perhaps I figured out the system just in time to leave it, which is appropriate -- after all, if you've stopped learning then it's time to move along. At graduation I didn't feel bitter about the people winning Latin honors, which I secretly hoped for but knew were unlikely for me; I knew I finished strong and that I was just as smart and capable as anyone else there. I'm glad I didn't end law school feeling the way I felt for so much of it: stupid, unqualified, unequipped. Looking ahead I don't think I would ever spend three years in a place that made me feel that way. And I don't think I would let something as stupid as grades have so much power over me. Hopefully I am too smart a dude for that.

*****

We have had a very busy weekend. On Saturday, as the day-long block party bustled on the street outside, my grandparents and parents drove in from Virginia and my sister flew in from South Carolina. Before meeting everyone in the morning I ran a 10K, my first run in Central Park since the marathon. Once my family arrived we met them at their hotel near the Flatiron Building, then came down to see the apartment and wander around the kiosks of the fair. L got a necklace with a small gold circle, in which is imprinted a simple "L," and I love it -- it's perfect. We had an early dinner at Stand, and then once my grandparents were safely ensconced in a cab the five of us wandered up through Union Square to Shake Shack, enjoying the early summer air below the cheerful light bulbs in Madison Square Park.

This afternoon after graduation we proceeded directly to a Chipotle in midtown, then returned to the hotel in the rain and made it back down to the apartment. We ate at Fig & Olive in the Meatpacking District and explored the streets for a little while, watching the sky turn pink as the sun sank into the Hudson and the city evening descended before us. Then everyone returned to the hotel, and L and Kels and I came back home.



It has been a great, and exhausting, weekend. I have so much to be thankful for. And I have a lot of things to consider.

And then we came to the end

Yesterday I spent the whole day working on my last paper for my last class of law school. After a tiresome weekend gathering notes and rereading sources, I spent Monday sitting at the desk in the study stringing my quotations together and trying to sound coherent. When I really get into the writing process, I find that words come into my head whose meaning or spelling is unclear to me, words like compunctious or inexorable, and I have to look them up to make sure I'm using them in the right way; thankfully I was able to find this groove for much of the day.

I was about halfway finished at ten p.m., when the muscles in my neck and shoulders were tense and knotted, so I decided to stop for the night and settle in with L to watch "The Hills." But as we enjoyed the antics of those golden-haired morons, I felt uneasy. I was unsettled, my mind was racing, and I kept asking myself questions. "Why is Lo being such a bitch to Audrina?" was one question. "What am I going to do about this paper?" was another.

After the show ended I had an epiphany: I had to finish that paper. Tonight. Right now. As L went to bed, I kept pecking away at my computer in the dark study, listening to Coldplay on my headphones, and finished my paper around one in the morning.

Five hours later we were awake to go to the gym, and my mind was immediately alert and engaged, thinking about the paper and the slight changes I wanted to make. It was odd to be awake so early and yet feel so attentive -- like a fighter pilot or something. After the gym I read the paper one more time and was pleased with myself; it's definitely not the worst 31 pages I've ever written (sadly, that title probably goes to the short story I wrote about Star Trek: The Next Generation in eighth grade).

Then I went up to school, printed it out, and submitted it. I sold back three of the novels we had read for the class for a grand total of ten dollars. I cleaned out my locker. I bought a diploma frame. Then I came home and went to Chipotle and bought myself lunch with the ten-dollar bill I had received for my books.

And now here I am, finished with law school coursework, sitting in my sunny apartment as the sun shines and the birds chirp nearby. There may be a nap in my future, maybe some reading for pleasure. Right now I'm not thinking long-term.

Three for three

Today I finished my third and final law school exam! Then I came home and discovered that L had all these balloons waiting for me in the kitchen! After my heart started beating again, and my brain realized that it wasn't an intruder waiting to bludgeon me in my own home, but in fact a festive display of congratulatory balloons, I was really happy!

Thank you, L. One more paper and law school is a wrap, and then I can focus on what really matters: preparing for the bar, and getting over my new balloon terror.

One down...

Two to go. I just finished my first exam and have two more, tomorrow and the next day. Today I had New York Practice, and it was fine. Whenever I take exams my brain always puts on music in the background, so as I'm flipping through my outlines or trying to make an argument there's a part of my brain listening to Danity Kane singing about taking me to ecstasy. Today I found myself going back to Mariah's new album ("Touch My Body", "O.O.C.", "Migrate"). I was trying really hard to find my notes on the relation-back doctrine and the difference between impleader and interpleader, but the only thing I could think about was:

If there's a camera up in here it's gonna leave with me when I doooo!
If there's a camera up in here I best not catch this flick on You-TUUUUBE!

The oddest part, though, was when my brain started singing "Fields of Gold," by Sting. Where did that come from? I don't have or know that song; I can't remember when I last heard it. But I definitely took time out of my exam to think about the fact that my brain was singing it, while I'm trying to graduate law school.

Now I am back home, about to go eat lunch with my best friend and confidante, The New Yorker, before the studying continues. Wish me luck. Touch My BODY!

Last day of class

Today was my last day of law school class, ever. I knew it would be a good day when the guy sitting next to me on the subway this morning took out a sheaf of clean white papers and started sketching a guy standing nearby. He used a Sharpie, drafting quick dark lines as his eyes darted back and forth from the guy to his papers. I had been slogging through a dullish New Yorker article but quickly dropped any pretense of reading and just watched him sketch. When he decided he was finished, with a drawing of this random guy covering two sheets of paper, he turned to me to see what I thought, and I nodded appreciatively. Then he reshuffled his papers and started sketching the disheveled old man sitting across the way. "The mustache," he said loudly as he drew the man's mustache, causing him to look up from his newspaper at his portraitist. I wished him a good day and went to school.

In my first class, the professor had lunch for us and we talked about the class. It was her first semester teaching here, and she told us we were a great introduction to the school -- we were smart, energetic, and fun. No gunners among us. She sounded genuinely appreciative of being able to teach us (obviously this was a completely new idea to us), and at the end we all clapped and smiled warmly at ourselves. I thanked her for a great semester as I left, and although we shook hands, I swear that I think she almost went in for the hug. Almost.

My second class of the day -- my last class, ever -- was as mind-numbing as it's been all semester. Yet when the professor began wishing us well, and told us how he'd try to get us special treatment at the courthouse when they swear us in as attorneys in a few months, the class melted. It was like everyone sighed, and clucked, and were filled with a bizarre kind of warm, lawyerly love. Then, when he put a pile of his business cards on the table and invited us to stay in touch and let him know if we ever needed anything -- it happened again! The sighing, the clucking, the surging of good will. At the end of class, there was thunderous applause. I was amazed. This class was horrible! I wanted to yell. What are you people doing? "Loved you, hated your class," seemed to be the message.

I came home to find a jubilant L waiting on the steps to welcome me home after three long years of law school coursework. We went for a walk. I got myself a cupcake. I went for a really glorious run by the river. And now L's coming home, and we're going out to dinner with some new friends in a few minutes.

Classes are over, and although I have some finals to knock out, now I'm on my own time. I wore my Fordham Law t-shirt today, even though it fits weird (too short, sleeves too high, neck too wide) because I felt a surprising wave of nostalgia this morning. And it seemed like a number of people were rocking their Fordham gear today, which was nice to see. As the day progressed, as we all said our goodbyes and thank yous and looked back on one last semester of reading and lectures and talking and boredom and learning -- I began to feel happiness, and even some pride, after this seemingly endless sojourn up at Fordham.

It's coming

I picked up my cap and gown today. Three more days of class. Three exams. One paper. Then, freedom.

("Freedom," of course, means eleven weeks of intensive bar exam preparation, propelled by the butt-clenching fear of failure and the prospect of professional humiliation. But then after the bar we're going to Asia for a month, so I'm not complaining.)

Wednesday night

A really good night -- I'm tired of complaining about law school, so I want to note some good things that just happened tonight.

I went to an event sponsored by Fordham called "The Law Reporters: America's Next Top American Legal Journalists" or something like that. I don't know, I'm not a details person. But at this event were: Adam Liptak of the New York Times, Jan Crawford Greenburg of ABC News, the peppy and wonderfully named Dahlia Lithwick of Slate, and Jack Ford of what used to be Court TV. They all talked about being lawyers and journalists, and writing about the law, and helping people understand what the law means. This was the first time in a little while that I was happy to be entering (this phrase sounds incredibly lame, but it's how I feel, and feelings can't be wrong) the community of lawyers. I'm excited to have this body of knowledge and experience, to know these things and to be able to share it. Since the idea of writing about the law for a more general audience is definitely one of my secret career plans, I thought this event was very encouraging. And it was at a swanky lounge at Time Warner, which I studied intensely as I sipped white wine at the pre-event cocktail party and talked to no one, since everyone was about forty years older than me.

Then I came home to discover that L made brownies from scratch. They were fantastic.

And John and Anna came over and we watched a wonderful episode of "Top Chef," and in the last five minutes about eight contestants got into a big argument, and they were cussing and stalking around and kicking over chairs, and because it was edited in that bizarre reality TV style, where people's statements seem to be taken out of context and strung together in a life-like but not quite realistic way, it was all a hilarious disaster, and that's what I look for in television shows.

And now we're on the brink of Thursday, the best day of the week. I have to get up at 6:15 to get to the gym and I could not be happier about it. Goodnight.

Always on a Sunday

Tonight we ate lavishly -- L made fettucine alfredo with some spinach pasta we bought at the farmers' market yesterday, and she made the cream sauce herself, from scratch. She made a salad with thick carrots and cucumbers and yellow bell peppers (all from the farmers' market) and that bitter kind of lettuce, the purple kind. She steamed up some beets, too, which we picked at with forks while their dark purple juices stained the bowl.

I have been feeling full and distended all night after this meal -- maybe it was my inability to not eat all the pasta in front of me, or the excessive amounts of dairy I consumed (you don't really need milk to complement your alfredo sauce, I've learned). We just came in from a stroll around the neighborhood and I felt unusually jumpy and anxious -- every passerby was a threat, every dark storefront a sight to be avoided. Usually I'm not like this, usually I embrace the nighttime and the natural rhythms of the city, taking note of the restaurants winding down and the busboys taking out the trash and the drinkers stumbling into cabs, but not tonight.

The reason why, besides the pasta and the milk sloshing around my belly, is because it's Sunday and we're on the brink of another week. I'm really struggling to get through these last few weeks of law school, and I don't want to go to class. I try to come up with reasons to skip class, but it's never worth it, so I end up going and I hate it. I want to remember what this feels like, this feeling of hating what you do during the day, so I can never get stuck with a job that feels like this again. Although "dread" feels like it shouldn't be the right word, I guess it is -- that sense of knowing you have to do something very unpleasant, and although you know you're going to do it, you still fight it tooth and nail, in your utterly useless state of petulance and stubbornness. I'm trying to maintain a positive attitude, and really soak in these last hours of academic learning, but it's not working very well. This is no way to get a graduate degree.

Too early

Today I got to my class fifteen minutes early, which meant the lecture hall was deserted except for me and the professor. He is unflaggingly friendly, so by sheer force of will he managed to extract some small talk out of me, when my actual impulse was to sprint out of the room and return when everybody else was there. After some extremely forced banter, people started trickling in, and soon all 80 or 100 seats were filled and class was underway.

Midway through, of course, he picked me to demonstrate the day's topic: how to serve someone with papers when they're sued. "Now if I want to serve Mr. Dunn," he bellowed, in his distinctive Long Island twang. My blood rushed in disparate directions as I looked up to see him bounding towards me, holding out a fake summons. He repeated the process several times (what if I rejected it? What if I said nothing? What if I put it in my pocket?) all the while repeating my name, rolling it around his thick accent. Instead of its usual, neutral mid-Atlantic pronunciation, it was like the D of my name was followed by a 'th' sound, and he seemed to separate the two N's so that they each vibrated in the air, painfully, like a bad hit with an aluminum bat.

I can never move to Long Island, I thought. And stop getting to class so early.

Finals postcard

Where things stand:

I turned in a 32 page paper yesterday. It was good, but it could have been stronger. I'm at that point where I'm hoping that maybe it's just gone stale before my eyes, and it's actually quite crisp and insightful and clever to somebody else. This seems unlikely though.

On Monday I have an exam in Evidence, which promises to be grim. On the last day of class the professor noted that this is a hard class, and seemed taken aback that the exam would be on Monday, the first possible day to take the test. You and me both, pal.

On Wednesday I have my Family Law exam, which should be under control except for the fact that I've got Evidence snapping its teeth at me. Remember that clip from one of the Alien movies, when the alien was right behind Sigourney Weaver, breathing heavy and bristling and oozing tendrils of snot at her back? That's my relationship with Evidence right now. But once that's over on Monday, I'm hoping a solid 24 hours is enough to prepare for the exam.

Then I have to teach myself Trademark law to prepare for the exam the following Tuesday. At that point things should be easy, although the last exam of the semester always gets a little short-changed because of the sheer exhaustion and tedium of the process.

The undercurrent of all this, though, is the joyous fact that classes are over for the semester, and I am almost 5/6 finished with law school. I am quite glad that classes are done. I had high expectations for the semester, I was really excited about my coursework, and those expectations were not met. Let's see, a sports analogy: like if you're driving in the team bus to go play in the Superbowl, right, and then the bus gets a flat tire. And then the bus pulls over to the side of the road, and when you get out of the bus to check out the tire, a bird poops on you. And then, when you are recoiling in disgust, you get hit by a car. And then the bus bursts into flames and the entire team is charred to a crisp. That's what the semester was like.

If law school was my job, I would be sending resumes out and looking for a new one; if I was dating law school, I would break up with it. I am ready for a change. The great news is, a change is coming, and it's a good one, and it will be here eventually; I just need to grit my teeth and endure until then. And remember that next semester, like every day, is another chance.

Languishing in the library

I've been here a while now, eight, nine hours, maybe more. Same carrel for the last three days. Extremely little progress on the paper -- now I'm just summarizing all these cases so I can hopefully arrange them in an interesting and enlightening way later on. I hope this is helpful and not stupid. Sometimes it seems like a fine line, much finer than it ought to be, but these are the lines we draw when we do things with reluctance. And resentment, maybe.

I've rediscovered YouTube as my own personal jukebox. One of the first bands I really was into was called The Party, and they sprang fully-formed, like Athena out of the head of Zeus, from the Mickey Mouse Club on the Disney Channel, which could very well be the pinnacle of all television for a lot of reasons. Anyways, The Party was this ethnically-diverse, totally rocking pop band from about 1990-92 that came out with some really kicky songs. Needless to say I bought their first tape immediately and my entire family was really into their music. And who wasn't? "That's Why," "Coulda Shoulda Woulda," "Summer Vacation," "I Found Love"... The list goes on. Honestly, can you even imagine 1991 without "Coulda Shoulda Woulda"? Unrecognizable!

So I've been rocking out to The Party on YouTube, wondering why they aren't on iTunes, noting with dismay that their cds are bizarrely expensive on Amazon. Some of the clips on YouTube are from a concert special they had on the Disney Channel, and I laughed when I saw the screaming fans. Not out of callousness or mockery of their early 1990s style; no, I laughed because I immediately recognized my long-dormant envy of those lucky 13-year olds who actually got to go, since at that point I would have gladly sold myself into white slavery to make their concert, and was stuck instead banging on the tv screen with my hammy youthful fists and dry-heaving a little bit, and yet now I can't even find their music. I'm pretty sure I tossed out their tape a few years ago.

Man, why can't I write a 25-page paper about The Party? I definitely have a lot more to say.

A great moment

This afternoon I stopped in the men's room after a particularly dispiriting day at law school. I had decided to leave my backpack in my locker overnight, since I'll be back first thing in the morning, so I was ready to go: I had the New Yorker rolled in my pocket and my ipod in my ears. So I walk into the men's room and there are a typical number of other people in there -- three, maybe four. So be it.

So I sidle up to the urinal and proceed to begin going about my business, when I quickly realize two facts: 1) through some horrible confluence of timing and circumstance, it is completely and utterly silent in the men's room, and 2) I am listening to the new Britney Spears song on my ipod, and it might be loud enough for other people to hear.

Gimme gimme MORE, gimme MORE, Gimme gimme MORE!

I can't very well try to change my ipod now, when I am fully engaged with the urinal process. I can't be that guy with one hand on his junk and the other spinning around the ipod wheel until you hit that perfect song to pee along with.

But wait a second -- what the hell are these other guys doing that it's so quiet in here? Mooning at their reflections in the mirror, staring at the paper towel dispenser, contemplating the urinal cakes? It's like a still life or something. Britney is still yammering away as I start to think, Make some noise, please someone make some noise. I will take whatever excruciatingly audible bodily function anybody wants to engage in, just somebody please wash out this constant and growing threat of

Gimme gimme MORE, gimme MORE, Gimme gimme MORE!

Ultimately, of course, I have to accept my situation and realize that I am the guy listening to Britney Spears as I pee. Maybe these other dudes will pass judgment on me, but my question to them is: what are you doing in the bathroom that makes no noise at all? Are you a ninja? Because if you're not, you should be making some noise by doing your business, running the faucets to wash your hands, slamming the crap out of the soap dispenser to get some soap, or pumping the paper towel box to finish up and get on out of there. Enough with the mime act, fellas -- either make some noise to bury my embarrassing musical selection, or leave so I can enjoy it in peace, and fleetingly wonder if my support of Britney Spears' musical career is contributing to her very downfall. See? Everyone's a winner.

First day back

Today was the first day of my last year of law school. Thank God. Entering the building today, with a laptop in my backpack and a $150 textbook in my hands, I felt a wave of such familiar ... boredom. The change was almost tangible as I left the bright summer morning to walk the same old hallways and stairways, from locker to class to library and back again. The rhythms of law school feel so familiar and so uninteresting right now. The same vaguely familiar people drifting through the building. The same long-winded lectures and long minutes eyeing the clock. The same boring litany of websites I read to entertain myself, the same minutia I use as a distraction. It seems especially painful after a summer of working, when I'm chomping at the bit to do real tasks and look things up and learn things the hard way.

Compared to actual working, and actual adulthood, I appreciate the leisurely pace of law school. But something just feels so uninspired about this round of classes. Maybe it's the fact that this is my fifth time at bat here, I have secure employment lined up and my academic performance seems immovable. Hopefully the rest of my classes will perk me up, once we get past the clutter about grades and exams and attendance policies. Why do all professors beat us over the head with that stuff? We're expected to read hundreds of pages of parched case law and gassy academic treatises each semester, but they don't think we can read a four-page syllabus. Maybe they're right, and then maybe that's the problem. I don't know.

There was one bright spot, though. Especially after trudging through the soupy atmosphere of law school all morning, I was shocked by the little bolt of happiness I felt when I saw a bunch of my old friends gathering for lunch. There was the usual core of my good friends from law school, the ones I've known since my very first day at ol' FU, along with a bunch of others whose company I have come to appreciate. It felt great to reconnect after a long summer. Everyone looked fresh and tanned and more freckled than usual, people had sharp haircuts, and for a good hour we shared the buzz of of melancholic 3L excitement and nostalgia for our summer incomes. It was reassuring to see that I do have friends here, that there are other souls in the boat along with me. A few bright lights along these dusty old hallways.

Professional class

I have had a really busy few weeks, but I have been conspicuously quiet about everything, blog-wise. I started working at the big ol' law firm, and the corridors of the professional world are lined with too many pikes decorated with the heads of loose-lipped bloggers for me to even think about sharing my work escapades here. But it's hard to not say anything -- my life this summer is remarkably different than it has ever been, really. I've joined the mobs of sharply-dressed twenty-something guys. Waiting for the subway today I counted ten other young men, about my age, wearing similar khaki pants and the same business-casual shirts, sans ties. We all carried umbrellas, ipods. Some had bags, I had a book. It's strange to join this throng of commuters, and I wonder if it's an avoidable part of adulthood -- I think it is a part of New York adulthood, if you've been in school for many years and are aiming for the professional class, rather than a hipsterish plastic-black-frames lifestyle, which just looks silly as people get farther from thirty. I'm taking the professional route.

Anyways, all this to say that work is going well. I feel challenged, and I'm striving to be smart, and I'm also turning on the charm and professionalism and collegiality as much as I can. Every sentence is punctuated by numerous thank yous, even when the other person and I both know that I have nothing to thank them for -- it's just good business. It's worked for me so far, at least. I've even started going to the gym early, at 6:45 am, to make up for some of the classes I'm missing, now that my workdays bleed into the evening. But usually I have time to go for a run by the river as the sun sets, or at least have a nice meal or a stroll around the block with L. It's a very different summer than I'm used to, but it is undeniably summer.

On Thursday this law firm is sending me to Los Angeles, California for a couple weeks -- I'll be back June 23rd. Wish me luck.

Sweet surrender

So, I guess this is summer. Exams are over, feet are bare, shorts are worn on the street. It was such a relief yesterday to take my last exam and walk away from school, knowing I don't have to go back there for several months. Here's the final wrap-up:

Professional Responsibility: Harder than I thought it would be. Am I an unethical person, after all? The essay turned weirdly personal: "Well, if I was in that situation I guess I would just follow my heart, you know? Like Jiminy Cricket? Always let your conscience by your guide, unless prohibited by statute?"

Income Tax: An utter fiasco. Apparently some people were in tears as they left the exam; at least I kept it all in. I guessed on the multiple choice section. On the essay I tried to spit out whatever statements of fact I could cobble together, hoping something would be mildly relevant. Discouraging.

Entertainment Law: I actually felt all right during this one, although I basically finished the three-hour exam in an hour and a half. Everyone was clattering on the keyboards furiously as I squirmed in my seat and tried to wring some additional knowledge from my brain. I made myself sit for an additional hour, occasionally tinkering with a sentence or adding another clause here or there, but I knew I was finished. Moseyed to the bathroom, came back. Anything else to say? No? Ok, I guess we're done then.

And that's how the semester ended - prematurely. I went to the bookstore and got $40 back for two textbooks that cost about $100 apiece, then I used my hard-won earnings to buy a school t-shirt (my first one ever -- the school's weird purple-burgundy color, with "Fordham Law" in white -- I guess I'm ready to publicly acknowledge my attendance, now that I'm 2/3 finished) and lunch. I now have a few days of relaxation before a quick trip to Charlottesville, then Montana, then back here again for work, my first regular income source since 2005.

So this is summer. What a relief! I'm glad the school year is over. By the time I have to go back I'll be ready to return for another round, but for now I surrender myself to some days of indolence. "The life I Ieft behind me is a cold room."