Spear Shakin'

Today we celebrate Shakespeare's birthday. Just now while I was trying not to pay attention in Property I amused myself by attempting to list Shakespeare's plays. And I listed only a dozen!!! What!

I feel strange. In fact I would say that for the last few weeks I have felt more unsettled than I have in a while. Maybe years! But in the last day or so I have figured it out. (I think.) It is a law school thing, but maybe not what you think.

It's as if there's this law school Linda who has taken over the English major Linda. In a Jekyll-and-Hyde-ian sort of way, I can't seem to even get back poet Linda by night anymore. (Or, well, wait. Mr. Hyde was at night, right? And he was the evil one? But my classes are during the day, so my evil one has to be during the day, OK?)

I am more interested in Shakespeare, and his birthday, than the following: Contracts. Property. Transnational. Civ Pro. Appellate. Frankly, final exams. Law firms. The Buffalo Creek Disaster. Just to name a few. Which is not to say I am not interested in those things at all. Take The Buffalo Creek Disaster. I'm reading that book for Civil Procedure class but have found myself totally interested in reading it, like, the whole thing (it's short) and not just the required to get by as I do with most of my law school reading this semester. But while I am engrossed in the story of this lawyer who helped the victims of the 1972 Buffalo Creek coal mining valley disaster in West Virginia, the book is simultaneously convincing me beyond a shadow of a doubt that I do not want to be a lawyer.

What's that you say? We already knew that? Well, exactly! But somewhere along the way I apparently forgot!

For the last month to six weeks I have found myself caught up in the maelstrom in which all of my classmates are currently swirling: looking for a summer job. And as people have found summer jobs I have been elated for them, or sometimes even a bit jealous maybe ("Wow! That really great firm? Fifteen dollars an hour? Good for you!" etc.) The handful of remaining classmates who, like me, have not secured their summer gig are stressing. And that stress, that palpable law school stress that emanates off of people and that I ignored so well for so long here, has really found its way into me lately. Shudder.

Not to mention registration. Provided this law school is ever going to sort out all of the issues with which its online registration system is currently plagued, we are registering any day now. Which leads to conversations like this.

Me: "What are you taking?"
Them: "Business Organizations."
Me: "Ewww."
Them: "But I heard it's really helpful for the Bar."

Me: "I so have no interest in taking Wills, Trusts, and Estates."
Them: "But it's really helpful for the Bar."

Them: "Well, we have to take Ethics. And Evidence..."
Me: "We don't have to take Evidence! That's not required?"
Them: "But it's on the Bar."

I even told two of my friends one day I was going to start counting the number of times I heard people say that. I've been making little tic marks in my notebook. I only wish I had started counting months ago, when I also started counting the number of times my Civil Procedure professors say, "In any event..."

Here's what I don't get about the Bar thing. While it's all very practical of course for people who want to be lawyers and take the bar exam to take courses to prepare for it, and while I realize I'm one of only a few people here with no desire to be a lawyer (but there are others! oh yes, there SO are others! I've found them! I've spoken with some of them!), the thing is that after slogging through the three years of law school, everyone takes a massive, lengthy, expensive, intense, time-consuming, mind-numbing bar review course ANYWAY. Without which, apparently, no one would ever pass the bar. (She said with requisite skepticism.) So if you're going to spend oodles of time and money learning Evidence and all that other crap immediately upon graduation anyway, what ever is the point of enduring it now when you don't want to?

Another typical conversation:

Them: "Why are you taking Bioethics and the Law?"
Me: "Because I want to. I'm interested in it."
Them: "Why are you taking Sports Law?"
Me: "Because I want to. I'm interested in it."
repeat ad infinitum

I have more to say about this, but I am not going to say it all now. Stay tuned for the continuing unfolding of one of the bigger realizations I've had in a while.

And, by the way, here are some of the ones I couldn't remember while I was in class: The Merry Wives of Windsor. Two Gentlemen of Verona. Cymbeline. All the Henry VIs. And, perhaps most tellingly, As You Like It, Much Ado About Nothing, and All's Well That Ends Well.


Happy biiiirrrrrrth-daaaaay deeearrrrrrr Wi-illllllll....!