Last day of class, first day of finals

Before I give you the "here and now" of lawschool, I just want to say that in describing the people her at school, I probably painted a pretty bleak picture. While everyone here, myself included, is arrogant in their own way, I failed to mention that there are some truly great people here. A lot of my friends are compassionate and caring people. As isolated as everyone is here, there is a sense that we're in this together, each fighting our own separate battle, but each battle somehow linked to the other. John for instance, married, two kids, 1 hour commute everyday from San Marcos, purely brilliant. I didn't like him when the semester started, but over the last 3 months, respect for his power of analysis has turnted into admiration. We talk regularly now and his dry wit hits makes me laugh at the most unexpected moments. My study group is a surprisingly refreshing. We studied till past 1 last night. We fought our way through the complicated terms of title 28 of the United States Code and Federal Rules of Civil Procedure. We debated and learned, laughed, and yelled all while drinking our tall cups of coffee.

~About school.....
This is probably the last you'll hear from me till mid December. You see, today was our last day of classes. Most of our classes ended Monday and Tuesday. Fittingly, Teeter chose to teach right up until the last day of the semester. He's our most dedicated professor and as hard as he's been on us, it really feels like a parent child, "I just want the best for you," type relationship. He taught for an hour today and ended class with an excerpt of a law journal article he wrote about the dangers of fear, anger and greed in young lawyers. He spoke of resisting the urge to succumb to fear and anger, to resist greed. He described a place where lawyers resist these three mortal sins and live a happy life full of honor and joy. We were all near tears. He finished and said good luck. The class erupted into applause as he exited out a door by his podium.

We'll have him again next year, but it almost felt like we'd never see him again, like he was saying farewell. The reason is that most of us will disappear over the next two weeks. Each of us to a place cluttered with notes and books, laptops and outlines, red pens and legal pads, highlighters and hornbooks. A place without TV or the internet, no cell phones or magazines. We will study, and we will study some more. We'll sleep with our outlines in our hands, eat with future interests flashcards in one hand, a slice of pizza in the other. We'll drink coffee constantly, and focus. The entire semester has come down to one test. Nothing else matters at this point. On Monday we'll leave our nests where we study and test for 3 hours. We'll talk briefly after the exam, trying to pretend we feel ok about how we did, and then we will return to our place of solitude for the next exam. We will think in increments of only subjects property for 3 days straight, contracts for two days straight, torts for three days straight, Civil Procedure for 2 days straight. And then it will happen. The tests will be turned it, time will be called, there will be absolutely nothing we can do. We will sleep, and cry, and laugh with family and friends. We'll read books and magazines that have nothing to do with school. We'll watch movies and play video games, read the paper and talk on the phone. It'll be over, for four weeks at least.