Little Things

"It's the little things that kill,

tearing at my brains again."

-Little Things, Bush

lyrics by Gavin Rossdale

While in the shower this morning I realized how much of an emotional struggle my life has been. I remembered the time when I was in the 3rd grade and we were doing one of those timed multiplecation tests. On one side there was multiplcation and on the other side was division. I ended up doing the wrong side. By the way I was feeling, you would have thought the world was coming to an end. This burning sensation came up from inside of me and stopped in my throat. My face became red and hot. It took everything I had not to cry in front of the whole class. Instead of just settling for the F, which only my teacher and I would know about, I raised my hand and explained what I had done. Turns out I shouldn't have worried so much. I was fine. My teacher understood that I had made an honest mistake.

This feeling I had inside, caused by embarrassment, whether my peers ever knew what was going on or not, happens to me at what I believe to be frequent intervals. I always feel like I've done something incredibly bad, or irresponsible, and because of it, my life, or more realistically, my future career or semester grades are going to be done with. Most of the time it turns out like the above situation. No one really notices and everything turns out okay. After thinking about this, I realized that maybe I'm the one, not the world or the situations I've been in, who is causing all the stress in my life. I've never been one who feels compelled to commit a felony and I have, for the most part, stayed out of trouble. Maybe this is why I fear these small, and usually honest, mistakes. Essentially, I'm afraid of getting into trouble, and more so than anyone I know. Now, my first question is, how do I get over these things? How to I brush off these mistakes and relieve myself of a lot of unnecessary stress? I had not even reached a conclusion on these questions when I came to the second big question: Is sweating the small stuff what got me to where I am today? Think about it. We can all show up to class, but only those who study for the exam are going to get a good grade. And those who study really hard are going to get the best grade or the extra 5 bonus points from correctly answering the bonus question.

This takes me back to my sophomore year in high school. I was in the honors classes. The year before I had been at a prestigious all-girls school in the city where my 9th grade English teacher had a Ph.D. After my parents moved me to the rural town where they grew up because they wanted to raise their family in accordance with small town values (or some bull crap like that), I was one of the most advanced students in the sophomore class, if not the whole school. Well, that year, at my new country high school, my sophomore English teacher tested us on Julius Ceasar. On the test, one of the questions was "How many times was Ceasar stabbed?" Well, I didn't know. I didn't think that was relevant or important information. Therefore, I overlooked that tiny detail while studying. So, during the test I took my best educated guess. I figured he was stabbed once by every person who was present at his death. Therefore, he was stabbed as many times as there were people in the room (I had an exact number, but I can't remember it now... this was like 8 years ago). Nope. Wrong. The answer was like 21, which was more than the number of characters in the scene. Where did this number come from? Why is this important to the study of Shakespear? I didn't know the answer to that, but what I did know, is that if I would have made the effort to research the small stuff, I would have recieved a better grade on the test, and possibly a better grade in the class, which would have increase my overall GPA. Do you see how the small stuff matters?

I don't know what the exact point of this entry is. What I can tell you is that I've beeen having these stressful feelings of public embarassment more often since I've been in law school, and this is only my fifth week! Maybe it is good that I'm sweating the small stuff and not overlooking anything that seems simple and non-important, but really is the important detail. However, maybe it means that I'm making more mistakes than I'm suppose to and the aggregate effects will cost me gravely in the end. I don't know. Right now, the only thing I can do is to take preventative action. It may seem like a lot of work or take a lot of time just to understand or learn an obscure detail or lesson, but it is worth it if in the end if I never have that awful feeling again.

Something's Missing

"When autumn comes, it doesn't ask

It just walks in, where it left you last

You never know, where it starts

Until there's fog inside the glass around your summer heart."

-Something's Missing

John Mayer

These are some of my favorite song lyrics ever. I've always tried to apply them to my life, especially during the autumn months. Usually I probably end up construing them in such a way that they don't make sense or don't have they same meaning as John Mayer intended. However, this weekend, they really were fitting with the state of my life.

I was driving back home for my grandma's birthday when all of a sudden I realized the leaves on the trees were changing to beautiful oranges and reds. It scared me a little because I realized that I almost missed fall, which happens to be my favorite season. At first I was glad I didn't miss my favorite change of season. Yet, a few seconds later, I realized I would be missing the rest of October. There's no time to play in the leaves when you're trying to pull above a 3.0 your first semester of law school. My temporary joy was turned into disappointment. I wonder when I'll get to do nothing but sit in the park and enjoy a fall day. "It's only three years," is what everyone keeps telling me. Yeah, only three years until I'm working 70 hours a week as an associate.

To make my things even worse, tonight as I walked out of the law school for my dinner break between my hardcore study sessions, I noticed how it was one of the most gorgeous evenings I've experienced in quite a long time. Unfortunately, I was only able to experience it for the five minute walk to my car. Apparently, today it was about 80 degrees outside. I, however, was indoors most of the day. The only time I was outside was when I had to walk to and from my car to get to school. I tried to take advantage of the weather the best I could by rolling down the car windows instead of turning on the air conditioner like I usually do. But tonight was one of those nights where all you want to do is go on a walk with one of your closest friends and talk about anything and everything (except law school, of course).

I'm thinking about investing in one of those wireless internet cards the mobile phone companies have been advertising. Even if I'm doing my homework (isn't the word "homework" a little juvenile for law school?) it wouldn't be so bad if I could sit under a shady tree or on a park bench. The only thing is that by the time I ever get around to doing that, there will be snow on the ground which would make enjoying the foliage a little difficult. Maybe this spring.

However, I've been trying to concentrate on my reading a lot more. I used to just read to get the main idea, assuming the professor would just go over the details and what I didn't understand during class the next day. Turns out, that is no where near what I should be doing in terms of preparing for class. One day I had completely read through the assignment THREE times, briefed the corresponding case, looked up every term I did not know or even questioned the context in which it was used, and made a vocabulary sheet. Apparently, the professor thought that was still not enough preparation. At first glance, the law looks pretty cut and dry and that the most law school is, is three years of memorization. Turns out, it's not. Expect anything. There are things my professors can pull out of a case that I never thought was possible. Then I feel dumb for not seeing it myself. So, that leads me to locking myself in the library until I finish and understand every assignment. The only problem is, sometimes I still can't get it all done before class. So, I've been working on my property assignment since 4:30 and at 8:30 I still was not done. Additionally, I still have my Civil Procedure assignment to read... and understand. With that being said, I would like to get six hours of sleep tonight. I don't know if it will happen, but I better get to work.