I like law school. I have no regrets about making the decision to change the course of my life and pursue this. I have no regrets about the school I chose. But still.
It's hard, it's stressful, it's challenging in unprecedented ways, it's dysfunctional and frustrating, and it's intense. It swallows up your life and your identity, and just when you think it's sated, it swallows up some more.
So I feel like venting a bit.
I actually like the fact that it consumes my life, though to a point. Unlike a job, which begins and ends and leaves the rest of the day to other activities, law school leaks out all over. Day to day, week to week, my schedule varies completely. Whether it's extracurricular activities or study sessions, mandatory or simply enriching, something is always cropping up. Some days I can get out of school by lunchtime. Others by 7:30pm. That's fine, and I don't mind that who I am and what I do are one and the same because I like what it is and I'm proud of it. Except when there are other demands in life that require attention without there being either enough time or energy to give to them. Family? The quick phone call is fine, but there's no bandwidth to deal with any crises. Friends? I hope you still remember me by the time I graduate... Horrible roommates who still wake you up at 4 in the morning and then yell at you for having too many frozen meals in the freezer because they never clean up after themselves in the kitchen thereby making it too putrid to actually try to cook in? They seem to require attention too.*
And forget about downtime to enjoy yourself. Relax and recharge? Ha.
Scholastically I'm finding that the Great Change I presumed would happen is a reality. The law works in its own idiom and requires thinking about things differently than a lay person would naturally do. I'm enjoying the enlightenment, but sometimes I leave school feeling like I've been hung upside down by the ankles and shaken until all the loose change falls out of my pockets. It's not just adviseable to leave preconceptions at the door, it's demanded. Ultimately my pockets will be restuffed with scholarly knowledge and empowerment (I hope) but for now, even with the best attitude of gratitude for the process, it's still a bit jarring.
The dysfunction is a little harder to abide by. I'm in the thick of looking for a job for the summer and it's incredibly frustrating. Silicon Valley is not without its own dysfunction - hence a lot of the motivation to pursue law - but it functions more like a meritocracy. If you can talk the talk and walk the walk, people will give you things to do. Apparently the law is much less fluid and I find I need to do certain things at certain times, even just to volunteer! The process seems to prevail over the substance. And the fact that I have 7 years of professional experience behind me doesn't seem to amount to much either, not nearly as much as my two grades for last semester. My two piddly little unrepresentative grades that will close more doors to me than anything substantive I have to offer will open.
* In the category of mind-boggling logic, I nominate what she said to me a few weeks ago when I confronted her (again) about her smoking. "I never said I was a non-smoker," she protested. "I said I was a FORMER smoker. Therefore you should have been on guard that I would fall back on my old habits."