…and went for a job with a law firm, or otherwise went for a position as some kinda practicing lawyer kinda thing…today would have been the end of my first day taking the bar exam.
Instead, today was just another wacky and wonderful day in my charmed life! Yay for quitting law school!
I’m glad I discovered them before they expired…
I really think I’m doing the right thing now.
In winter/spring ‘03 I lost my nerve. I was worried that I couldn’t make ends meet. The war also had a real effect: I was anxious and angry all the time and I felt it physically. I was making almost enough money to get by, and if I had just raised my income a little bit and reduced my expenses a lot I could have stayed with it. I succumbed to the temptation of going back to school where I had always had an easy time of things before. And thanks to generous family support, my financial worries went up in smoke.
I hope it will turn out that my going to law school was a good thing, but if so it will be merely an accident. I went for the wrong reasons and with the wrong attitude.
Doubly true for my dalliance with the College of Education. I had nothing but contempt for that institution from day one. I was going for an easy degree leading to an easy paycheck. It turned out not to be so easy.
Though it was never intellectually taxing in the least, my emotions went through the ringer virtually every day. My fellow suckers and I were insulted and demeaned at every turn. We were burdened, Harrison Bergeron-style, with ridiculous tasks and expectations to assure that we really were all “finally equal…every which way” and that “nobody was smarter than anybody else”. You can’t really expect individuals to maintain their unique qualities and talents and still justify a system where the new physics teacher makes as much as the new phys ed teacher, and both of them make half as much as the kid-hating stiff who’s been taking up space in a classroom for thirty years and thus has become entitled to $60-70K a year, plus two-thirds of that for the rest of his life upon retirement.
Do I sound bitter? Yes, I’m f’n bitter. This pathology of an education system hurts kids every day. Maybe I was arrogant enough to believe that I could single-handedly flog this decaying corpse back to life.
So, uh…what was my point? This will work out. I’ll tutor, I’ll teach (or instruct or coach if you prefer), I’ll write. I’ll live simply and cheaply and learn to be comfortable with less. Then, as long as I can keep my head above water financially, I have the whole rest of my life to figure out who I am and what it’s all about. Not a quarter, not a semester, not a weekend, but as many years and as many experiences as it takes to find my place.
It’s been pointed out to me that maybe I could finish my J.D. in Capital’s part-time evening program, taking one course per semester for, like, forever. Heck, why not? That is, besides the money, the time, and having to study law again…yeah, other than that, why not?
AAARRRGH! Now you know how I felt at the U. of Chicago. At least I was half right about O’Connor (as far as I can tell).
My cousins (visiting town for yesterday’s USA-Mexico soccer match, for which we had front row seats) claim that Bush will try to make Roberts Chief Justice. I think that would be an awfully hard sell. I’ve heard that Bush would try to bring in Samuel Alito from the 3rd Circuit as Chief. The more I think about it, though, maybe they’re right since Roberts is young and doesn’t have a controversial record. Maybe I just want them to be wrong about something for once.
At a time like this it would be unseemly to mourn a single sick, old, wealthy man.
Here’s my prediction, though: under the circumstances (and considering the wording of her letter of resignation), O’Connor will agree to stay on for a time and will likely be elevated to Chief Justice for several months while a replacement is selected and confirmed.
This is the first first day of law school in three years when I’m not a student there…it’s hard to believe I was starting my second year a year ago. If you’re a new 1L and you’re reading this and you’re wondering why I’m not in law school anymore, you can read my old law school blog.
Can you find the link from this article on NFL.com to my law school notes? I think that’s pretty cool.
You can read the speech that Chief Justice Rehnquist gave last year at the dedication of the new Ohio Supreme Court building here. The speech is interesting and very funny.
I was there, although I only got to watch via closed-circuit TV and never saw the man himself in person. However, I did catch a glimpse of Governor Taft and former Columbus Mayor Greg Lashutka (AKA The World’s Biggest Mayor).
By the way, with a 19% approval rating, I daresay Bob Taft must be doing something right.
I apologize, and also apologize in advance, for writing a flurry of e-mails to my former law school classmates while they’re in the middle of their finals. I miss a lot of them all of the sudden.
If you believe that a woman can miraculously live without a cerebral cortex, why don’t you believe she can miraculously live without food and water?
This whole business just goes to show that the concept of “rights” is preposterous. I think Ward Churchill ought to be able to say what he wants. So should you. But the Constitution isn’t going to stop someone from putting a bullet in his brain. Or yours. Or mine.
The truth is that no matter what you say or do there are always risks and consequences. Government intervention will never completely eliminate these risks and consequences. And on the other hand, even the severest penalties won’t keep some people from saying and doing what they wanted to do anyway.
As for me, I don’t even like to say things that I think someone will find annoying, let alone make them want to hurt me. I think I’ll leave the whole “speaking truth to power” thing up to someone a little braver than I.
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