divine angst

So, OK, Law School sent me some paperwork to fill out and return (loan stuff, ugh) and they were kind enough to provide a self-addressed envelope in which to return these papers.

Except that only in some weird universe where paper stretches would I be able to fit all the stuff I have to send them into this envelope. I think I’d be hard-pressed to get a single piece of paper to fit in this envelope. As it is, I have six sheets of paper—not onion skin paper, either!—and I can barely get them IN the envelope. Once they are in, though, the flap won’t close. I mean, unless I want to glue the flap to the papers and not to the envelope.

Plus, the papers I was trying to shove into the envelope gave me a wicked paper cut. Those papers suck, and not just because they’re loan papers!

Sigh. How hard is it to order the regular, #10 size envelopes instead of the smaller, business-reply mail size?

A super quick request:

When does one italicize legal terms? For instance, would one write, “writ of certiorari” but also write, “the case was granted cert”?

CMS has proven moderately unhelpful (i.e., it is VAGUE) and Garner’s Modern Legal Usage doesn’t help here, either, since I want a general rule and don’t want to look up every term individually.

So, a few days ago, LQ posted about a bad cheap haircut.

Now, this isn’t going to be a post about the bad cheap haircuts I’ve had in my life. (But goodness, you’d think that straight-all-one-length hair could NOT be that hard to TRIM, as in take-off-half-an-inch-ONLY, though that’s not really the point of this post. You’d also think someone’s grandfather would know better than to let a woman named Mary, who had a moustache, cut his granddaughter’s hair while he was getting a clipper cut and shave. Still not really the point of this post, but man, I always think of that haircut with serious disbelief. Some people really CAN’T cut in a straight line.)

OK, so the point of this post is that LQ reminded me of how difficult the hair thing is for me, and now I am actually nervous about haircuts in Our New City. Currently, I don’t always go to the same stylist because sometimes I want something a little different. But I always know that, if my experimentation doesn’t go well, I can get it fixed very quickly because I know at least five stylists here in My Fair City who always do a good job on my hair. (Good, not great. I’m always searching for a great stylist and I very rarely find one. Or, if I find one, s/he does a great job for a few months and then, when I want to start trying something different, s/he keeps doing the same old thing and taking more off than I asked for, like that one girl did while I was trying to grow my hair out for my wedding. But, again, not the point of this post.)

So, OK, we’re moving 1200 miles away to a city where I know (in “real life,” that is) exactly ONE person. And he’s a guy and, while I am sure he could tell me the name of a great salon, I can’t really trust that he knows if their girl haircuts are any good, and I am also not sure he could recommend a place I could afford, you know? Also, most of the people I’m pretty sure I’ll meet upon moving to Our New City will also be recent transplants. How on earth am I going to find a good stylist? Or know which reasonably-priced-but-not-exorbitant salons to go to? I’m going to have to start stalking the staff at Law School, looking for Cute Haircuts and Tasteful Color Jobs.

Sigh. Just one more thing I have to think about. I guess it’s a good thing I only get my hair cut every six to nine months.

CM has been talking about her goals and hopes for law school. And in another, different, post responding to CM’s post, I mentioned that one of my goals was to make sure I got to spend quality time in My New City.

And that made me start to think about TIME.

From what I hear, 1L is a huge time suck. Lots of reading, lots of time-consuming reading, a fair amount of writing in Legal Writing, and then, of course, finals.

The schoolgirl inside me says I will have to spend a lot of time doing all the right things for class if I want to do well. This is the voice I normally ALWAYS listen to—the one who says, “You can’t call in sick! You have a big project to finish!” or “Skipping class is BAD!” or “I know they don’t pay you enough, but you should still think about your job at home and on the weekends!”

Lately, though, another voice has been speaking to me. She seems more reasonable, too.

I have made no secret of my eventual goal after law school. I want to teach. Whether I go into full legal scholarship or teach legal writing as an adjunct (or teach legal writing full-time), that is my eventual goal. Right now. So the schoolgirl inside is someone I’m going to have to listen to a fair amount, because she’s the one who will prod me into doing my best work (and hopefully into my best grades).

But the other, reasonable, voice is one to take note of, also. She reminds me of the horror stories of the arbitrary nature of law school grades, about how law school grades aren’t necessarily the best indicators of, um, intelligence. See, I know that, just because I work hard, I won’t necessarily get the grades I think I deserve. Or, maybe I’ll just fall at the bottom of the curve. I don’t know. I know that I’m not used to being at the bottom of the curve, so the prospect of that makes me nervous. But I also know that my grades, while important, aren’t going to keep me from getting a job. Really.

So I guess what I’m trying to figure out right now (and it’s a foolish thing, since I haven’t started school yet and don’t know how it’s going to be) is how to balance my schoolgirl desire for good grades—which will push me into working like a madwoman—with my pragmatism and the understanding that, no matter how hard I work, I can’t do better than I’m going to do, and I should try and enjoy life some.

I want to explore My New City and I want to spend time with my husband. I also want to work hard for my classes because I find the subject matter interesting, not because I’m afraid of having to realign my ambitions with my grades.

So I guess those are some of my main goals for law school. To work as hard as I can for the right reasons. Working hard because I’m afraid of failure….that’s not a good motive, I think. Working hard because I want to do well—sure, that’s a good thing. Working hard because I WANT to understand? Also a good thing. Working so hard that I never look around and see the city, see my husband, talk to my friends, go to the gym, try a new restaurant? Bad.