"School starts in just a few days, and I'm really getting nervous. I enjoy your glib attempts at humor -- especially the song parodies -- but, seriously, what real advice can you give me to stop my knees from shaking and my palms from sweating? I'm desperate here."

Thanks for the question, imaginary friend. It's a good one. A year ago I was pretty nervous too. Although a check of my archives seems to show I wasn't admitting it to the world. I don't know if what I have to share is really advice -- it's just observations I think might help, even just a little bit. We'll see:

1. I think deep down everyone's nervous. Some people just hide it better than others. If they're not nervous starting a whole new experience like law school, moving to a new city, there's probably something wrong with them anyway.

2. This sounds weird, but, being at law school, you kind of start to get the feeling that maybe law students in general weren't the "coolest" kids in high school and in undergrad. Not everyone, but I think probably the average law student is a little less "cool." But, anyway, so in a group of on-average less-cool people, I kind of found that the threshold for coolness is lower than we're used to. It's easier to be cool when most people aren't, and the "cool" standard ends up falling so far, that even if you were never cool before, you might be cool at law school. This may not make any sense to anyone not living inside my brain, but if it does, maybe it's a little reassuring -- just because you don't think you were cool before doesn't mean you can't be cool at law school.

3. But most people I've met at law school are good people. Nice people, kind-hearted people, friendly people. They're all just people. You'll be fine, imaginary friend. If not on day one, then on day two. But don't worry. And don't forget to buy your books before they sell out.