Done. Forever. No more law school.

It happened this weekend. I turned in my project and finished law review stuff, and then I sat at my little desk for a few minutes and enjoyed the numbness, the doneness. I grabbed my favorite slippers that I had left in my office last year (always bloody cold) and my favorite lotion and left. I'll do the official cleaning out later, but I took what was important to me. And then I got into my car and headed toward my favorite "I've worked the whole ruddy weekend away take out place". And I had a huge smile on my face as I went up the stairs and towards my car.

And then something kind of odd happened on the drive... I started crying. I do NOT cry. And it came bubbling out of me. I frantically wiped at the tears as I drove and tried to figure out if I was having a break down. My conclusion was that they were tears of relief and disbelief. Disbelief because it felt like so many times along the way, i wouldn't make it. The extra emotional energy and time I had to find to deal with my nearly always sick child. The trauma of a marriage in flux. My own mid-life crisis. And then, well, law school is just damn hard.

And now it's done. Nothing left but to walk across the stage without tripping.

Last night, I watched a movie without feeling the guilt of knowing I was procrastinating on something for school. And I loved every minute of it.

The fat lady is singing. I'm done.

Law Review Shall Haunt Me No More!

I just completed my last ever Law Review edit. And it couldn't have come at a nicer time--oh wait, yes it could have, months ago! Law Review, how I have hated thee! Let me count the ways:

• Editing articles that I KNOW no one will ever read because I can tell that EVEN the author was bored writing it
• Editing writing by professors that is akin to the level my first year undergrad writing
• Attending endless "executive board meetings" with our fearless (spineless) leader who only ever gave feedback couched in such general terms that no one knew to whom or of what he spoke
• Cursing at the copyworkers/citecheckers every week as I went through my edits and wondered if they had ever been introduced to a bloody blue book!
• Yelling (um, forcefully educating??) at the copyworkers/citecheckers in our weekly staff meeting for the same.
• Meeting an impossible schedule because spineless leader would not enforce deadlines first semester.
• Having an office in the law review quad (although it was nice to have an office) where I had the privilege of listening to my favorite editor (I call her F.B.--can you guess what that's short for?) bitch and brag alternatively about jobs, clerkships, the size of her paycheck, her grades and any other sort of topic you can think of that ordinarily is either 1) not spoken of or 2) spoken of only with great tact
• Slogging through mostly meaningless academic work.

I would like to thank Law Review for helping me get a schmancy job in the field that I wanted with the type of firm that I wanted. I would also like to thank last year's board for sniffing glue before note selection and therefore selecting my note for publication. And finally, for helping squelch any thoughts I had to becoming a professor down the road. I hate academia. I knew that before I started this process but clearly had forgotten. Thanks for the refresher!

Fare thee well. And good riddance!

Can someone please explain why it is that:

• I had to pay almost $100 for a cap and gown set and the gown is essentially a miniskirt? Made of material that I'm not certain will make it through a ceremony?
  
  
• I had to argue with the administration to put a lousy initial into my full name for my diploma... an initial that I included on my initial application to this fine institution; other folks around here have initials... just not me. Weird. Mostly a PITA
  
  
• I am expected to send out announcements? I mean, really, isn't that just politely begging for money? If you're important to me, you're invited to the ceremony. If I didn't call you, well, read into that what you will
  
  
• Barbri thinks it's cute to send books so that they arrive the last day of classes... so totally a downer
  
  
• My local bar hasn't acknowledged even receipt of my application? My only indication that they are working on it is that my check was cashed.

I will never again attend another law school class (at least not one that counts toward my JD)

So I'm a little late on this... it was last Wednesday--my last class of law school ever. And we convinced the prof to let us do just the project instead of a project and a final. So Sometime last semester was my last law school final ever. Whew.

It's kind of weird. Very exciting. Very rewarding/fulfilling/satisfying, but still weird. Up until the beginning of March or so, I still LOVED law school. And I mean LOVED it. There was the usual crap one bitches about that make you crazy, but overall. I loved learning the law. Finding out the land mines in each area I studied, discovering that the UCC is a work of art :), challenging my own way of thinking about many areas of my life. It was a great run. And that part I think that I will miss.

But I won't miss the bureaucracy. The ridiculous steps to get things accomplished that are so pervasive in academia. The dickering over the stuff that doesn't matter. The half-hearted, half-assed decisions made about things that do matter.

It's time for it to be over. Now all I have to do (although from where I am sitting with the sun warming my face on am incredibly gorgeous spring day--it's a herculean task) is do my project. And do it well. My goal is to buckle down and get it down by Friday. Sleep on it over the weekend. Check it on Sunday and email it away.

Then get ready for my bar trip :) Find your fork, it's about time to stick it in--'cause I'm almost done.