but one hell of a contract law final standing in my way. Thankfully, it’s my last of four, and I’m almost looking forward to it.

Not to eulogize prematurely, but being back in school has certainly been a shock to my system … in a good way. I feel like I’m making up for time I wasted and lost when I was in college, and actually applying myself toward school is providing a catharsis that I’m only experiencing for the first time.  My expectations of performance, while still high, are tempered somewhat by my full-time day job – a dubious responsibility that I share with less than a third of my 1L part-time class.  Most of the rest are kids just out of undergraduate who either didn’t want a full load to start their law school career, or were originally seeking the full-time program and got shuffled into the part-time program by admissions.  Among the older people looking for a wholesale career change, around half quit their job prior to matriculating.  As such, the competitive landscape is unusual, to say the least, and the forced grading curve is really screwing with my usually accurate spidey sense of how I actually did.

I did how I did (and will do as I will do), and think that my efforts were close to my maximum capability with what resources and intellect I can muster.  I have a lot of things driving me right now – my aspirations for the future, some amount of (perhaps misplaced) pride, my sense of duty to the world around me … but most importantly, my desire to rejoin the people and places I love in a better position to help and support them.

So to my family, friends, and the beautiful and wild Great Northwest – here’s to you, and to hoping for the best.  If I succeed, it will have been because of you. 

I will see you soon.