Despertar

if money was no object

I repeat: I wouldn't be in law school.

Grades came out yesterday and transformed everyone into assholes. They turned it into an honorary weekend and got drunk, all of them. The ones in the top fifty percent got drunk and made loud, arrogant jokes about what a breeze last semester was. The ones in the bottom fifty percent got drunk and cried all night.

I didn't get drunk at all, and the whole scene made me very depressed. Every time I see how emotional people get about law school, I feel like I shouldn't be here, because I don't get emotional about law school. The only sense in which my emotions are tied to academics is in that I feel anxiety about disappointing other people's expectations. That's it. I don't feel happy when I pull an A or sad when I fail, at least not until someone else interprets those markers as a measure of my character. I don't volunteer to answer questions in class because I want extra participation points, I do it (if I do it) so my professors will literally like me better. Smile at me more in the hallways.

Nothing about understanding the Uniform Commercial Code makes me happy. Nothing. This is a means to an end for me, an investment in a future in which I can love and breed and buy and create without feeling guilty because I can't really afford to do any of those things.

I guess that makes me a bad person.

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Survey.

1. I cannot tolerate: intolerance. That's it, really. I can tolerate just about anything else, including a passive-aggressive roommate who has taken to Post-It notes as reminders of household chores she wants me to do. They're all over our kitchen and bathroom, and they say things like "Wash me! Love, the pots and pans you used yesterday."

2. If money was no object: I would quit law school, pay off my student loans and finish my Teach for American application.

3. When I woke up this morning: I was disgusted with the state of my room, but I know, from experience, that it won't get clean until I'm feeling better about life or expecting company.

4. If only more people knew: the subjunctive rule.

5. My heart skips a beat when: Justin makes unprompted contact.

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I have never been as functionally destitute as I am right now. Given my profound brokeness, I'm thinking I need to cut some regular expense, either the food or the Brazilians. Votes?