The Jellied Gasoline Monologue

Jesus, your grace. My, do I have some blogfessions to make. I'm taking a great risk here. But I have to document the truth so I can read my blog years later and remember my initial thoughts upon leaving my first semester of law school finals.

I cannot remember the last time I felt at ease. I feel somewhat at ease now, but just like falling in love, it feels like the first time. It's really only been two to three weeks total that I've been in the 'Nam...I mean, the exam, eh, study mode. But I found that a couple short weeks of daily rigor can change a life...with a surprising degree of permanence.

Don't get me wrong. I'm not scarred for life. However, my once lazy behind now knows the meaning of a hard day's work. And pleasure is that much sweeter tonight because it almost feels earned.

I have to thank my professors. For every time in the past couple weeks that I lay down and could not sleep. The elements of various crimes and tort recovery theories, the various lists of memorized policy factors, the many Latin interpretative methodology nomenclatures, and various minimum contacts standards espoused in personal jurisdiction cases. I dreamed about them. I told my wife about them. Thank you for helping me reach a state of concentration that heretofore had been only an ephemeral possibility.

When I sat down to write my first four-hour exam, my hand was tremulous. I couldn't believe that I was about to be subjectively evaluated on the past 4 months of work. It didn't matter that I studied the law 50-60 hours per week, faithfully without fail. The professor would make the determination of whether this was adequate, based upon the 4 hours that lay ahead of me. One hour per month was all I had. Every hour that passed was a lost chance at explaining a month's worth of material. That exam was Legal Traditions and Systems. I was tested on Roman legal history, Louisiana Civil Code juridical relations, interpretative methodology and a host of other random subjects compressed into one course. I left feeling exhausted but surprisingly positive.

During my next exam, Civil Procedure, I felt myself a little more miserable, but used to it. I left the exam in shambles. I went through a brief period of convincing myself I'd flunked. The more I thought about it, I realized that it was out of my control. It's in Prof. CivPro's hands. And he's in God's hands.

Having vowed at the end of the Civ Pro exam to attack contracts with a vengeance, by the time the third exam started, I had revised my study strategy and like a mad man, taken to not only memorization of theories but also memorization of intended answer structures. I decided to let it all hang out. I left feeling that I punched a hole in the exam.

At the start of my torts exam, seating myself with my Exam4 software open and my emergency power bar on the desk, I felt like I was through. After two weeks of monastic seclusion and emotional drought, I cared more than ever about the result. Three hours later I didn't know what I had done. I had written so much that the software told me I had reached the maximum word limit and needed to open a new file. What ensued was something in between the zenith of pandemonium and childish hilarity as I ran around trying to desperately locate an IT guy to help me start a new exam file. The techie told me that in his years at the law center, he had only had one or two other students write that much. I felt like something between a freak and the kid from The Sword and the Stone.

Entering my criminal law exam, I felt so tired. I almost felt apathetic. But once I read the exam, I came alive and wrote. And wrote and wrote. And actually felt I was having fun. I felt myself running out of issues and enjoyed it so much I dredged the bottom of my mind's ocean, closed my eyes and perused my mental outline again for more information. Leaving the law center this evening, it couldn't have been more anti-climactic. With a slight cough at the thought of having finished, I emptied my locker and drove home.

I hardly know what to do with my time. I'm so happy...I think. I keep trying to imagine tomorrow. A tomorrow in the sunshine. A tomorrow outside of the library? Unthinkable. I try and imagine this brave new world outside of academia and theory. Hopefully I won't be like Dustin Hoffman at the end of Papillon. No, I am better than that. There is a return to the land of the living.

Describe "law school finals" in one word? Marathon.

I don't know if it's possible to ever love law school again, if law school ever was lovable. But the reason I know I'm on the right track is that "standing atop a stack of smoldering finals and papers" (S. Berry), I love the law. It's a beautiful thing. I think it's because I love principles so much. Its harmony. Its internal unity.

And one other thing. I love the smell of napalm in the morning. Smells like...victory.