The result: in a matter of days, I tried to relearn all the principles and such I should have learned over the past two quarters. Hornbooks, supplements, etc. helped me along the way although I’m not really sure how much good it did. I probably studied for over 12 hours a day for the last week or so straight. Then yesterday came the first of our two exams for this quarter: contracts. All I can say is, thank god I read through all that crap, otherwise I would have literally been floundering — drowning in a sea of nearly indecipherable facts that pointed really in no direction. As it was, I was still flailing for answers, which is fine I suppose considering how everyone I’ve talked to mentioned how hard they thought the exam was (from both professors). In any case, finals really really suck. And more often than not, professors do little to help. In fact, they more often than not steer you in a direction throughout the quarter that in no way leads to the end result. Classes are devoted to things that will have: 1) no bearing on your grade (and therefore, career possibilities), and 2) no bearing on working in the legal field at all. I know I’ve mentioned this before, but law school is probably the most unique experience in …. futility? …. I’ve ever witnessed. All the work goes to nowhere and if you happen to understand a concept presented, guess what? You can bet everyone else (who is at least as smart as you, if not 10x smarter) gets it at least as well as you do if not 10x better.

Anyway, maybe I’m just overworked and overstressed at the moment. But only one exam left to go and then Saturday is like the unofficial St. Paddy’s day in Chicago when they dye the river green and such. So basically, my inner-Irishmen in coming out in full force for pretty much the entire weekend (if not all of our two-week break).

The computer labs were packed all day. Printers were in pieces scattered on the floor. Staplers were…well, they’re always broken. But by mid-afternoon I had four printed copies of the brief and dropped them off about an hour and a half before the deadline. And just like that it was out of my life forever! At least until the time comes to start prepping for oral arguments. But I have no plans to even think about that for the next two weeks.

Things are starting to get fun again. I won two free tickets to a new Broadway show that’s opening on Thursday, I’m going to a restaurant opening next Tuesday, and my mom and dad are coming to the city next week. Next week is spring break and I’m staying in the city. The weather has finally started to get spring-like so I’m planning to spend a lot of time outdoors. Many of the restaurants in my area have opened up their sidewalk cafes again and I can’t wait to get sushi in South Street Seaport while sitting outside and sipping peach saketinis. New York is awesome.

Another sign that spring is practically here is the throng of admits milling about the law school. They’re easily recognized by the folders in their hands and name tags clipped to their shirts. We had our first admitted students days last week. I’m not involved in any of the admissions activities so my interactions with admits were limited to the few of them who happened by my table during the PILF auction.

Oh, that reminds me. A brief PSA: To any 0Ls who plan to visit Columbia, this question will not be well received: “I got into Harvard and Yale…so why should I come to Columbia?” Apparently it isn’t common knowledge that that is a really obnoxious question. And any student who represents Columbia in any official capacity will probably not tell you you’re a d-bag for asking. But I don’t represent CLS. If you ask that question, you are a d-bag. And please, for the love of God, DON’T come to CLS.

It’s kind of crazy to think about the next class coming in and being finished with 1L year. I’m looking forward to 2L year but sometimes my Facebook friends who are 2Ls have some scary status messages about 2L year actually being worse than 1L. I had always just assumed 1L year was the hardest and that 2Ls who were overburdened brought it upon themselves by taking too much on. Any 2Ls care to comment??

I attended a speech last week given by one of the preeminent modern economic thinkers in the world. It was well advertised on campus, there were encouragements to attend given in some classes, etc. Despite these efforts, there were less than a dozen people at the speech. It was fucking embarrassing. The speaker was very obviously offended and irritated at the turn out.

A few days later, I attended an event sponsored by one of the big four law school service providers (Lexis, Kaplan, West, Barbri). It was packed; many people had to stand. The presentation was about something relatively trivial, all of the information was regurgitated directly from the company’s promotional material. Why was it so crowded? Free food.

And I have nothing against free food. I was there because an attractive classmate asked if I was going, so obviously I went with her, but I was happy to get a meal out of the deal. My problem is with my classmates and their disgustingly penchant to whore themselves every time a free slice a pizza is waved before their face – all while missing out on the great lectures given on campus.

None of us are starving. Though the economy sucks, everyone at Harvard who looks for a job is going to find one. Spending an hour listening to an uninteresting lecture for $2.50 worth of food is not good time management. Even as 1Ls or 2Ls, our time is worth more than that.

And look, I see why this happens at lesser schools. First, it’s difficult for lesser schools to attract quality speakers – the Lexis rep might be the highlight speaker of the month. And second, nobody at lesser schools is getting work. I have a 2L friend at UCLA who has great grades (or so he says). He’s spending his summer taking classes on campus so that he might be able to graduate a semester early. A free slice of pizza goes a long way for him.

But for us? We can pay for our own food.

The first group are those that are searching for pity. For some reason, these people think they are either the center of the universe or that their life is somehow so much worse than everybody else’s. They then think that everybody else in the world should hear about how much their life sucks. These are the people who frequently post facebook statuses similar to “Been in the library for 12 hours. Wah!” or “Man, outlining for 2 days straight sucks.” Or the people who continually talk about the things they’d rather be doing besides studying (e.g. moving to Panama, finding a young rich man/woman to run away with, opening their own hotdog stand, etc.). These people bug me. We all get it: law school takes lots of time. But please stop announcing to the world how much you hate it or the myriad of things you’d do if not “forced” to be here. Because the fact is, if you were serious, you’d leave without making such a big fuss about it. The only point to all the objection you constantly bring up is so you can get attention — either from your peers, which won’t happen because we’re all in the same boat, or from your friends, who I am sure are just as sick and tired of hearing about your whining as the rest of us.

Another group of people are those who somehow manage to stay above all the stress and competition. If you were to ask these people what they thought about exams, they would say something like: “Hey bro, que sera sera. Can you dig?” or “I’ll try my best and whatever happens happens.” These people bug me too, but for different reasons. Instead of just being annoyed with these people for who they are or what they do, I am more annoyed at myself for not being able to be them. I clearly do not belong to this group, but sometimes wish I could because they just seem so relaxed and worry-free most days. But maybe there’s something to be said for feeling the pressure and having it push you to perform, not that these more-relaxed individuals aren’t pushed to perform.

Anyway, the point is: exams are coming up again, which is different from most other schools out there who only have two rounds of exams (lucky us, right?). This time around we have exams in contracts and criminal — so I’ve been reading the Restatement (2d, of course), the UCC, the MPC, and relevant case law like crazy for the past few days — two more weeks of this slog left to go. Yippee.

On a final note, like Soleil, I have finally secured some summer employment, which is great because I was starting to get a little worried thinking I might end up waiting tables or something. Incidentally, I would have made infinity times more money waiting tables instead of what I’m actually doing: a judicial internship, which is unpaid …. and does not qualify for a public service grant from the Law School. Soooooo, basically, finding money to live on this summer is going to be …. interesting.

Now that the summer job thing is out of the way, I can put all my energies toward keeping up with my reading. Unfortunately, I just discovered this little show called Jersey Shore. Now, part of me feels that I should get up-in-arms about this affront to New Jersey and Italian-Americans just like my fellow Jersey countrymen, but it’s undeniable: Jersey Shore is just good TV. I’m about halfway through season one.

This weekend was supposed to be just like last weekend and I was supposed to be totally dominated by my brief. To a large extent that was true, but I did manage to see Shutter Island with James, my non-law school friend and neighbor. I usually hate movies like that but I thought Shutter Island was pretty well done. Anybody else see it? I think the trick to being cool with handing over $12.50 to see a movie is to lower your expectations to the floor before going in. You’re guaranteed to enjoy it. Unless it’s so bad that no amount of lowered expectations can save it (see: Vanilla Sky, Memento, Clerks II).

Anyway, the second draft of the brief is due tomorrow. I’ve finished the bulk of the changes I needed to make, but I need to edit it down big time. It’s just way too long. I have to cut at least two pages. But I’m so sick of looking at the damn thing.

So I just found out today that there are admitted students events going on at CLS this week? If any admits are reading this and have any questions about the school, feel free to leave them in the comments. I’m probably not the best person to dispense advice since I don’t think I’m having the typical 1L experience…but I also don’t hate law school as much as other 1Ls seem to so maybe I am an appropriate person to deal with the as-yet untainted 0Ls…

• Lockers. In high school they were a necessity. Mine was a veritable jungle of loose papers, pens, Post-Its, hair ties, spare gym clothes, and other crap. My locker today is bare except for a pen and a flyer for some event by the Center for Chinese Legal Studies. Theoretically, it’s a very handy thing, my locker. But since I prefer to leave the law school building the second class ends, I really have no use for it. I can count the number of times I spent any significant amount of time at the law school outside of class hours on one hand.
• Crowded hallways. My junior year, a wing of the high school had to be shut down while they cleaned out the asbestos in the walls. (Yeah, Jersey public schools!) As a result, they put us on a split schedule with the upperclassmen arriving at 6AM (as opposed to our normal 7:15AM) and checking out at 12PM. Then the underclassmen came in and had their classes till 6PM. This lasted about a month. Our high school was so overpopulated that the infrastructure couldn’t handle us. Similarly, in law school, practically everyone is on the same schedule and all the classes are held in this one building. When class ends and people pour into the hallways it’s always impossible to move for a minute or two while people mill about.
• Gossip. I guess gossip will exist whenever people are thrown together in any context, be it school or work or whatever. I’m not really plugged into the whole law school gossip scene; I never know what’s going on. Occasionally I’ll hear interesting things, but on the whole, law school gossip is a whole lot nerdier than high school gossip: who’s working where, who got what grades, who’s stalking what professor’s reading groups…that kind of thing.
• Back pain. One year the problem got so widespread at my high school that the administration sent a note home with “helpful tips” on how to reduce back pain. Their favorite suggestion was the rolly backpack. And just like in high school, wheeling one of those things around the law school is not an option. So on Wednesdays, the day I have four classes, I trot back and forth the ten blocks to my apartment to switch out books thus ensuring that I am as inefficient with my time as humanly possible.
• Pizza. Maybe your high school wasn’t like this, but mine always smelled like pizza, whether they were serving it that day or not. The smell just always kind of hung in the air. Similarly, Columbia reeks of pizza all the damn time. You walk in the front doors and you’re immediately assaulted by the thick cheesy aroma because this or that organization is hosting a lunch and no one goes to anything during their lunch hour unless there is free food (this aspect is a lot more like college than high school). Crafty organizations advertise their events with the alluring “non-pizza lunch” descriptor. It doesn’t matter what it is, but if it isn’t pizza, it’s sure to draw a crowd.

In other news, by this time Friday I’ll know what I’m doing this summer. Actually, I already know what I’m doing in terms of the work, but location is still sort of up for grabs. Well, not really. I’ll be in New York of course. But Friday I have a deadline to accept an offer. The only reason I’m waiting is that I still haven’t heard from another organization that I would also really like to work for. The jobs are the same so it doesn’t really make a difference though. But it’s exactly the kind of work I came to law school to do so I’m pretty excited about that. I can’t wait to be working again.

Anyway, the day after the Hump Party was Friday, which means Wine Mess Day. But this was an extra special wine mess. Almost immediately after “the mess” (held an hour later this week) was the Law School Musical, which was hilarious. For those who are unfamiliar with what a Law School Musical consists of, basically, its a chance when students get to make fun of, and other students get to laugh at, all the things we deal with on a daily basis. The jokes this year included putting a giant Chinese dragon-like elephant on stage when discussing OCI and the economy …. the economy thereby being likened to “the elephant in the room.” So clever. Other jokes were just unabashed attacks on the idiosyncrasies and quirks of most of our professors, equally clever and hilarious. And literally nothing was sacred — attacks on the way they dress, their national origin, their senses of humor (or lack thereof), their age, and weight were all fair game. One might think that professors get pretty upset with all this laughter at their expense (indeed, I have since learned that many professors forego attending for this very reason), but given the level of humiliation they put all of us through 5 days a week, I really don’t care that much. Plus, one of the cardinal rules of having a decent sense of humor, I think, is being able to laugh at yourself.

Anyway, after those fun events, and after recovering from a splitting hangover headache, it was time to focus back on school. Yes, exams are coming, and this quarter they cover twice as much material as last quarter. So I’m back to being the library on a consistent (and perhaps constant) basis — outlining, reviewing notes, reading supplements, etc. in an effort to try to make this quarter’s grades just a bit better than the last. So goodbye for now, fun. Hope to see you again possibly in March?

Law school has ripped out my soul. I can’t pick out a single moment during law school when I was truly happy. I don’t like my classmates, I don’t like the work, I don’t care about any of it. In this moment, I realize that I would be a much better and happier person if I quit. Accept that it isn’t the job for me and find something I actually want to do. I could be a police man, a teacher, a car salesman, a corporate drone – anything would be better than spending a lifetime toiling away at something I hate. And for what? Five-to-ten million extra dollars over my lifetime?

Oh right. I went into this for the money and it’s the money that keeps me here. I will make more money my first year out of law school than I could in the three I miss, combined. Despite hating every part of this miserable, vapid profession, I want the money. And at this point, it’s the only reason I’m here.

The people who bother to make friends on campus are the same people I hate. I can’t sustain any decent hobbies because I spend all of my time either dealing with law school or coping with the depression it causes. I get up and watch TV, I go to school and hate my life, I come home and watch TV. It’s a terrible cycle. Occasionally, just as cobwebs form between my thighs and my shriveling manhood, I go to a bar and pick up a girl I would have spoken to as an undergrad. I thought about hiring a hooker the other day, I even browsed some local ads. I’m in a terrible place.

I know I shouldn’t enter the profession, this obviously isn’t for me, but I’m not a quitter and I want to live the life of a six-figure earner. I’ve lost fifteen pounds since starting HLS. I eat shit fast food all the time and I never workout. I have no motivation, no drive. Law school is crushing me.

And it’s not hard. Anyone could comprehend the material. It’s just that nobody wants to. Lawyers leach from the successful businesses and people of our country. We are the middle-men in a useless system that we created. We get to bill $300 an hour because nobody else wants to deal with the bullshit that lawyers encounter every day. There are no happy lawyers, only oblivious nincompoops. I can’t believe I’ve done this to myself.

But what am I complaining about? Nobody likes their job. At least, if I have to miserable, I’ll make a good amount of money. And besides, I can skip class tomorrow and it won’t even matter. I should call up Christina, she seemed pretty cool. Maybe we can go get some food and drinks. Yeah, I would like that.

Sunday, Valentine’s Day, was largely a rerun of Saturday except for two hours spent at Jorge’s (far superior) studio apartment hammering out the facts section for the brief. Well, two hours is probably an exaggeration. We probably spent most of the time ordering lunch, eating it, and gossiping about our classmates and maybe only 20 minutes really working on the facts.

I returned home and spent the next seven hours completing the brief. By 10PM I had an adequate first draft and the satisfaction of clicking Send to turn it in was mitigated by the fact that I still hadn’t started any of the reading for my three classes the next day. I thought about just not doing it. But last week I resolved that this week would be the beginning of a new leaf for me. A leaf in which I actually did all the reading for all my classes and actually showed up to all my classes. So far it’s been going really well. Although (as of this writing) it is only Tuesday. Baby steps, people.

Even though the hallowed day of love was ruined by the wretched brief, I reaped some karmic benefits in class today with a little post-Valentine’s Day romance. I had a premonition Monday night that I’d be called on in class the next day so I read the cases very thoroughly. Sure enough, out of an on-call panel of at least 50, she called out my name. But I was ready. I explained the case and the issues (and did an awesome job of it), but then she asked a technical question. A simple question with a simple answer that eluded me since it had been a whole three days since we’d discussed the topic. It was there — buried somewhere in depths of my brain, covered by more recently-learned information. (You know what I’m talking about. The shelf life of case information in your brain is pathetically short. We read it a week ago? Well that’s the equivalent of ten years in Law School Time. I have a better chance of remembering how to balance a chemical equation, a feat I only half-mastered back in the 11th grade. You know, back when Savage Garden still had a career.) ANYWAY. So I blanked on the answer and emitted the requisite “Ummmmm,” in a desperate attempt to stall for time as I scanned the now-jumbled text on the page of my casebook. Right as I flirted with the edge of the line between acceptably long pause and embarrassingly long pause, the guy who sits next to me leaned over slightly and whispered the two-word answer which I quickly repeated to the professor. I continued adeptly handling the remainder of her questions until she set her sights on someone else.

I turned to my hero, smiled widely and whispered, “THANK YOU!” He returned the smile and replied, “No problem.”

Way in Which Law School Differs from the Real World #427: Forget flowers and candy and candle-lit dinners. A Socratic life raft is pretty much the most romantic thing ever.

After coming here and experiencing life as a 1L for almost two quarters, I can say that this first impression was pretty correct. Every week at Coffee Mess (free bagels, donuts, fruit, yogurt, and coffee) on Wednesday mornings, you can frequently and often see several deans and professors sitting down with students to chat about really anything. Yes, sometimes it’s kind of annoying in that your group might be talking about something incredibly inappropriate and then be quickly stifled by an oncoming sexagenarian … no pun intended, get it? Yeah, that was a lame joke. Anyway, it can sometimes be annoying, but most of the time it’s pretty cool. As another example, we recently turned in our winter memo (the open one that had me doing crazy amounts of research and what not). Just next to the “turn-in boxes” the Wine Mess Committee or something (wine mess = crazy cheap drinks and free food every friday afternoon at The Law School) provided free mimosas and several of our 1L professors cooked the lowly and depressed first-years some delicious pancakes for breakfast.

Point in brief: where else can you get that? Maybe other law schools have similar professor-student relations and maybe I’m wrong. But anyway, I just thought it was cool.

Sorry if this post was pretty lame and there is less complaining about how lame law school life is. The truth is, after a certain amount of weeks of the same grinding routine, you get kind of used to it. Now that the memo is done, it’s time to get to outlining … which, by the way, is the most boring and trivial (and yet necessary) activity created by man … besides maybe ice dancing, although this last activity is by no means necessary.

Lastly, maybe things aren’t looking so gloomy anymore for me partly because I’ve recently been pursuing a new special someone and I seem to have somehow managed to get her to like me. So that’s nice.