Looking Ahead

As a 3L, sometimes I try to remember what it was like to be a 1L. The overwhelming workload, actually attempting to do all the reading for every class, taking classes with completely prepared peers, surviving on 3-4 hours of sleep a night and the pressures and uncertainties that come with being in your first year of law school.

It's funny though - I was a lot less intense than a lot of my classmates. I watched a lot of TV, hours and hours. I had a schedule set up for finals study days where I had a TV show for every hour of the day. I started studying at the very last minute. Half the people I knew were doing final reviews and practice tests before exams but I had just started outlining. Yet, even though I felt like I took things more in stride (I mean, who really cares about getting an A?), first year was still full of plenty of stress.

Things feel different now. I care, but I don't. Mostly what I feel is just like I'm waiting for something big to happen, I'm waiting for it all to be over. A year from now, will I miss it? I don't know. The free time, maybe, but not the daily homework-hanging-over-your-head feeling. I don't think I'll miss that at all. I can't wait for the days when I can really go home feeling like I've left work at the office and I'm really going home. Right now, there's just a whole lot of burnout.

What brought this on? I was watching some of the first-years doing homework in the lounge. I was talking on the phone with my mom about Project Runway (the show has sort of become an obsession), eating candy and now, blogging. They were highlighting. But the highlighters never stopped moving. I started wondering if they were highlighting the whole page. Made me wonder if I read that closely and thoroughly when I was a first year. Brought on all this wondering.

Winter exams will be over and spring break will start as of March 14th. Then it's time for the home stretch - this will really be the last semester ever that I'm in school. It's so... momentous. Yet also just more of the same.