A New and Personal Hell (That Too Many Understand)

Yes, finals are tough. Especially for you, high school senior with an acceptance letter to your chosen collegiate institution. And you, undergrad student (at places not CalTech, MIT and other elite institutions) with your notes glued to the keg upon which you are "standing." Finals, represent the culmination of hours of preparation (procrastination), studying (surfing the net) and reading (requesting more time). And, subjectively, the finals are difficult.

Except that they aren't. Not in reality.

With an objective mindset as my saber of sarcastic anger, follow along as I cut down these "difficult" times!

High school student. . . your workload only gets harder. Take the pre-collegiate time to enjoy your lack of responsibility. You have been accepted to a college, and will be far away within five months. If community college lies in your future, which I wish I had intelligently chosen for my path, prepare for a continuation of your high school naiveté.

Undergraduate, your are on a "real life" stall. I miss college. Not the "drinking until [you] can't feel feelings," but for the lack of actual responsibility. Fine, I miss the drinking. But more importantly, I miss the life that was dedicated to ensuring that tomorrow you would wake up and have nothing too weighty to consider. Those graduating, welcome to the world. Now, quickly, before your institution of higher learning closes the door, turn around and demand that the university rescind your degree. Nothing beneficial shall come from the real world. Possibly money, but only through hard work, an enigma you have yet to face.

And, finally, law school. I don't know many people in other grad schools, but I would imagine the feelings occupy a similar sort of space. I write this having just left the library, a dark and drafty place, after hours of studying. I believe (read: am convinced) that at this early pre-finals moment, most of my classmates (a) are going to be wearing a new white jacket with oddly long arms soon, (b) hate any and all associated with the law personally, (c) think that the legal education process was designed to destroy the average human being's spirit, (d) all of the above, or (the secret answer your overly arrogant/paid professor "accidentally" failed to mention) (e) has a duffle bag loaded and ready to play out their latest masterpiece, "Law School Musical: The Reckoning". Undoubtedly, they all think the same of me.

On top of this, I (and my classmates) have four exams coming up (in the next two and a half weeks) that require the memorization of enough information to fit into a few thousand pages. Per class. In three days.

To fill our post-finals time (what many call and enjoy as "summer"), each of us has obtained a position where we personally will be responsible for the legal futures of many an individual. "Fortunately" for us, we have just begun to warm up. For, oh dear reader, after law school, no supervisor who ultimately takes the blame will intervene to prevent our mislabeling of a "Capitol Offense" case, and dropping it into the "To the Capital" folder (I have nightmares). No ability to say "I don't want to do this anymore." Each of us, ultimately, will maintain a professional lifestyle with stresses greater than we now feel.

Our sanity is questionable, that much we know. Fortunately, we undergo this process to fulfill a dream.

That fact horrifies me, though. This nightmare is our dream...