hitting the wall and also the fan, or why it is perfectly resonable to be drinking wine at 3pm

Y'all. I know that you are ready to stop hearing about spiders. I know that you are thinking "grow the fuck up." I know. And so I'm sorry, but I got all heebyjeeeby just now and had to go kill a very creepy looking spider on the outside of the patio window. Yes, the outside, because our damn patio door doesn't seal and I just knew it would creep in here and crawl on my neck just as I settled down to watch Law & Order and then I would maybe pee in my pants.

And I thought for once I will google these little bastards and find out what the fuck they are. No luck so far, and I now think that was a bad idea, since I just about jumped out of my skin when on of these ones wiggled. Fuck you, whoever animated that, fuck you.

Also, my shirt popped open twice on the train ride home today. In front of strangers. It was a day where the top button was doing more than its fair share in keeping my bobs* in captivity, and as much as I love public transportation, I do not feel like rewarding it with a free show. Or two. Between my catch and release bobs and another motherfucking spider, I decided that this is A Great Time to Drink Wine.

Plus, this post is mostly going to be about acklawschoolargghwtffffff and I thought maybe some wine would help me to type words and not just sounds. Sangiovese = yumyumyumyum.

So, last week I sorta hit the wall. We had a fairly serious midterm in one of my classes and although I wasn't super stressed about it I did suffer from anxiety-by-proxy thanks to some of my Extreme Freakout Law School Edition friends. I thought that the test went marginally ok (not great), but afterwards what I mostly felt was "meh." As in: reading? meh. briefing cases? meh. cleaning apartment? meh. law school? meh. showering? meh. reading other people's blogs and lamenting the fact that I chose this route instead of becoming a writer? yes, lots and lots of that. wishing I had a job to pay off some of this copious debt? I could probably sign up for that.

It was uncomfortable, it was boring, and it made me re-evaluate what I am doing and why I am doing it. I thought about all the reasons I came to law school, about how much I like law school, and about the fact that law school is just one of those things that I have to do to get what I want. I decided that I'm in it for the long haul.

Then the midterm grades came out, and lo, the shit did hiteth the fan-eth**. I did really well, and I was so happy and proud of myself. Twinkly, my law school bestie, also did really well and I'm so happy for her too. I planned on not telling any other law schoolies my grade, and things were great for about 5 minutes. Then, I sort of got caught off guard and engaged in some remarkably poor decision-making and told another friend of ours (when she asked!) what my grade was. She was pretty much asking everybody, and not reacting super well when people were unwilling to share. Twinkly and I both did better than she did, and she did not react well to this news. There also may or may not have been some sharing of our grades with others, without permission (uh, very un-dude).

It all reminded me of why I sort of hit the wall last week, and of why this competition thing makes me hate law school. I do my best to consider the competition in the abstract, and to not apply it to my peers, because even when they are batshit-crazy-stressed out they're still great people who I love having in my classes.

And? It is ok for me to be happy about the grade I got. I walked out of that test expecting to get a C or maybe a B-, and I was emotionally prepared for that possibility. I worked hard and I earned a good grade. I've certainly learned the lesson of Not Sharing My Grade For the Love of God, but others would do well to learn that If You Ask You Should Be Ready to Accept the Answer. It wouldn't be ok for me to mistreat my classmates just because they did worse than I, so its not ok to mistreat classmates who do better.

If any of us are going to make it through law school, we all have to learn that basing our self-worth on our grades is a colossally bad idea. Sure, I feel great about my grade, but it doesn't make me think that I am any smarter than I thought I was before. It doesn't make me feel like I'm any smarter than my classmates, because I know that people have awful bad days, and people get sick, and people get test anxiety, and people get writer's block, and people get bad grades and then work really hard and get great grades. I am just me. You are just you. We are smart people. So can we please now get over it?






*I am using bobs to keep down the p*rn searches and also because that is what I say in real life. Try it. It sounds funny.
**10 imaginary bonus points if you can name the movie reference, for it is one of my all-time favorite movies.