Harry, you've got that crazy look in your eye!

Get ready to call me crazy.

For what you're about to read is perhaps the most insane thing I have said all year, and trust me, I have said some pretty insane things during Con Law. Actually, the things I said were more stupid than crazy. But this post, this post is the one that will have the local hospital measuring me for a straitjacket. Are you ready for this?

"I am going to miss being a 1L."

Don't get me wrong, there is not enough money in the world to tempt me to repeat this experience. I realized just how much of a toll this year has taken on me when I looked in the mirror before I went to church yesterday evening (I tiptoed in, eyelids squeezed shut, fingers crossed that I wouldn't be smited...smoted? smitten? smoten?). I was straightening my hair for the third time this entire year, and I thought, "Sweet! My hair is turning super blond in the front!"...Wait for it...Wait for it... "Oh man, those are gray hairs." Gray hairs. At the ripe old age of 23.

Aside from the premature graying, this year has been a rollercoaster. I've alternated between laughing, crying, pulling out my hair, feeling smart 5% of the time, feeling stupid 95% of the time, doubting myself, trusting myself, pulling all-nighters, sleeping through three alarms (seriously, I missed Contracts one day because of that), and finding out that my family and friends will be my legs when I can't physically, mentally, or emotionally support myself anymore. I could not have made it through the year without my family, my pre-law-school friends, and my law school friends. I've had more mental breakdowns than the entire cast did in the movie Girl, Interrupted, and they were all there for me through every single one.

Although there are times when I think I would have rather been in a mental institution, I loved being a 1L. Again, don't misinterpret that. I didn't love the bipolar-ness of the year, but it is a year I will definitely never forget. You learn who you are as a person, as a student, and as a future professional. You learn what you'll tolerate and what you won't. You'll learn where you stand on certain issues that you never even thought about before law school. You'll quote cases in debates with your mother ("US v. Butler, Mom, US v. Butler"). But most importantly, you learn just how much you can take, and you learn what your breaking point is. You learn how strong you are. 

It's been a year of self-discovery and realizing that there are 600 people who are Type A control freaks just like me (I sometimes wish they could all come to my high school reunion so that I can show my old classmates I'm not the only one). Next year will be another year of adjustment. Here's the list of things to get used to for next year:

1) Not being a "stupid 1L" (direct quote).
2) Not running around the library like a chicken with my head cut off because I only have five minutes left on my practical exam, and I still have to get two pinpoint cites from Lexis.
3) Not crying over Legal Writing assignments because I'm one page short of the minimum page length.
4) Adjusting to being the middle child of the law school world.

Of course, if I fail my finals, that list will be scrapped. And just in case that happens, I've got my straitjacket already ordered on Amazon.

The first step in the excommunication process.

Some of you may not know this, but I am Catholic. I was born and raised Catholic, and I attended Catholic school K-12. While my current religious beliefs are based on the movie Dogma and David Bowie's "Starman," I do still consider myself Catholic for the following reasons: I am terrified of religious icons, feel Catholic guilt every day of my life, started drinking wine at age 8, have worked bingo concessions on Tuesday and Friday nights, and even though I haven't attended church in years, can recite the Nicene Creed at the drop of a hat. And part of being a Catholic school alumna is the ability to recite 70% of the Commandments without assistance.

This blog post is inevitably the first step in my excommunication process (hey, Pope Benny, if you're reading this, e-mail is the best way to contact me). While sitting at home (and by home, I mean the library), I realized that I have broken the mother of all commandments. Let me paint you a picture of how this confession would go if I actually attended confession:

Priest: "Go ahead, my child."
Me: (thinking: "Dude, I'm not related to you") (saying) "Forgive me, Father, for I have sinned. It has been oh-Lord-you-don't-want-to-know-how-long since my last confession."
Priest: "That seems to be the average time between confessions for most Catholics aged 18-30. Go ahead."
Me: "Father, I have broken the first commandment. I have worshiped an idol."
Father: "What is this idol, my child?"
Me: (Bro, seriously. I know who my parents are, and you're not one of them). "I have worshiped the god Hewlett Packard."
Father: "The computer?"
Me: "Yeah...the computer."

For those of you who aren't Catholic, the First Commandment goes something like this: "I am the Lord your God who brought you out of slavery. Worship no gods but Me." If you learned the Commandments from a Charlton Heston movie, sorry if that's not how you remember it.

In the library this evening, my computer wouldn't start. In between the tears, wanting to throw it out the window, and screaming to myself, "NO! MY OUTLINES AND MEDIATION STATEMENT ARE ON THERE!," I realized that my computer has become an object of worship for me. I praise it when it turns on, plead with it when it makes funny noises, and curse it when it does something I don't want it to do. This is how the majority of the Catholics I have met treat God. Praise Him/Her when things are going good, beg Him/Her when things are uncertain, and take His/Her name in vain when you-know-what is hitting the fan.

As a law student, our laptops become part of us. They are extensions of our fingers, and without my laptop in front of me, life just seems bare. Every law student has heard the story of what other law students have done to protect their laptops. If you haven't heard, let me fill you in. A robber broke into a law student's apartment with a baseball bat. The student woke up, realized what was happening, and said something to the effect of, "Take what you want." (I mean come on, the guy's got a baseball bat, and your worst weapon is your Con Law book. It doesn't take Einstein to figure out who's going to win that one). The robber begins taking things, and then goes for the student's laptop. The student says, "Please don't take my laptop. My case outlines are on there." The robber, doing what robbers do best and stealing something you don't want them to steal (otherwise they wouldn't be called robbers, just crazy people who break in and look at your stuff), takes the laptop anyway. The student attacks the robber, gets the baseball bat from him, and proceeds to beat the robber with the weapon the robber brought to beat him (I love good irony).

While those of you who aren't law students may be thinking, "Wow, that's crazy!," those of us who are law students are saying "BINGO." That's exactly how it's going to go down if you try to take our laptops. The $5,000 student loan check on my desk? Yours. My grandmother's antique, one-of-a-kind ring? It'll look great on you. My laptop? I'm going Tonya Harding on your ass.

And that's why I'm most likely going to be excommunicated. Because if The Almighty comes down to earth and gives me a choice between my laptop and eternal life, my answer is inevitably going to be:

"Can I take a minute to think about this one?"

Maybe because she knows you're going to jail.

My heart pounds. I walk down the hallway to my doom. People give me sad, sympathetic smiles as I pass; they know that every step I take is one step closer to the end. There is a weight in my stomach, and something is pressing down on my chest, making it almost impossible to breathe. I reach the room and open the door. It is time.

It's amazing how the walk to a law school final sounds a lot like a death row inmate's march to the execution chamber. When you think about it, there's not much difference. Well, except that law students are still alive after their final...for the most part.

We have begun the last mile of the marathon. I go back and forth between wanting to sprint it and wanting to crawl it. The weight of what I still don't understand in my classes crashes down on me every minute of every day, and we've still got four weeks until finals. That feeling makes me want to crawl it. Knowing that I can have a drink after it's all over makes me want to sprint it.

For me, this is where the doubt comes storming in like the Kool-Aid man through a wall. Did they make a mistake when they admitted me to law school? Did I miss something important my professor said? I bet when I was writing down that definition that won't even be on the final, the professors unleashed the secret of how to get an A on the exam.

There's an interesting mood in the law school right before finals. The mood goes from stressful to something they haven't even come up with a word for. In the library, don't talk. At all. Learn sign language; it's extremely useful. And for your own safety, put a silencer on your backpack zipper. Learn how to chew silently. Learn how to write silently. Learn how to make every single breath you take, every single move you make, and every single step you take silent (couldn't pass that reference up). Because if an overworked, sleep-deprived, day-before-the-final law student attacks you because you had the audacity to breathe through your mouth, I can't think of one judge or jury out there who would convict.

There is a light, I think. It's hard to tell. My Con Law final is blocking it.

Someone check my pulse after finals are done. Make sure it's still there.