the cowards never started and the weak died along the way

I am done with law school. Or perhaps for the sake of accuracy, I should say that assuming by some miracle that I pass Trial and Appellate Procedure, I am done with law school.

And tomorrow I graduate. Our hats are dumb. Imagine if you will - a regular graduation hat has mated with a Chef Boyardee hat and hath spawned a law school graduation hat. They're still mostly flat, but a little poofy. Like a beret. Because everybody knows how cool berets are.

Finishing law school is strange. Maybe because I never really imagined myself finishing. Not that the material was difficult to manage, but from Day 1 I was pretty much without a clue. It seemed like everyone in my class knew how to be a law student except for me. I didn't have a highlighting system, I didn't "book brief", I didn't find a study group during the first week, and most lamentably of all, I was horrendous at making outlines. Outlines are a staple of law school courses. The professors blabble on for 4 months about whatever subject witout making any attempt to cohere all the lessons and topics into something you can understand. You're expected to do that yourself - by making an outline. I sucked at it, I still suck at it, and I managed to survive 3 years without ever completing an outline that was at all meaningful or useful.

But I was determined to not be another obnoxious law student. I'm obnoxious enough on my own right, of course. But I wasn't going to be law school-variety obnoxious. Like the people talking about starting salaries during the first week of class (some of 'em dropped out). Like the two guys besides me in Torts who "decided" that they were going to be top 5 (they aren't). Like the guy who talked on and on about how he was going to be Editor-in-Chief of Law Review before he'd even picked up the write-on packet (he didn't even make Law Review).

On the third day of classes, a young lady invited me to her study group. The third day of classes. What do we have to study on the third day of classes? We still barely know what a tort even is, consideration might as well be astro-physics, and we're supposed to commune together to share our knowledge? We don't have any knowledge!

That girl eventually had a nervous breakdown. That is a fitting testimony to study group sessions on the third day of class.

So I was clueless the first week and I was clueless the entire first year. Then I made Law Review. I was still clueless, but at least since I was on 3rd floor, there was a rebuttable presumption that I was not clueless. As a side note- Law Review is a funny thing. During the first year, everybody wants to be on Law Review. Second year? All the same people talk about how dumb Law Review is and how glad they are that they aren't on it. Riiiiight.

And of course the paper. 37 Tex. Tech L. Rev 473. Knock yourself out.

And so I'm done and graduating. Still just as cluless as Day 1. I'm just glad I'm not that girl that passed out on the first day. Well, I'm always glad I'm not a girl, but in particular, the one that passed out. Well, I guess being a guy and passing out would be disfavored as well, but not as much as being a girl and passing out. Because then I would be a girl. Yeah, I dunno.

I just threw a Diet Coke bottle into the trash can, left-handed and behind the back.