I started to write my newspaper column for this week, but it's kind of lame, and goes nowhere. So I'm just gonna post it here and start from scratch in the morning with something else. ("Yeah, thanks for posting something lame. I really want to read it now." "Oh, whatever, it's a weblog, not the freaking New Republic." "The New Republic? What are you talking about?" "I have no idea. Just forget it.")
What the heck are we still doing here?
You like the title? I tried to come up with something cute, like "Death March," which has a double meaning because at graduation we march, and, uh... right now it's March. Obviously, that failed miserably. So I decided just to say what I mean. 3L year is useless. No matter what you're doing after graduation -- working at a firm, clerking for a judge, running off to join the circus -- the fact is, unless you've discovered some Holy Grail that I'm missing, right now you're just playing out the string. Extracurriculars are having elections already, so even the stuff you've been doing all year to pretend there's a reason we're still in law school is about to come to an end. Besides the 3L paper, which is kind of a joke anyway -- "I'm writing a short story," "I'm drawing a graph," "I'm making a collage" -- what still demands our attention? By now we've figured out how to get decent grades, and even if we haven't, likely no one will ever look at our transcripts again. No one even shows up to class anymore. No one shows up anywhere. There are 3L mailboxes that have candy in them from Halloween and flyers for Y2K fallout shelters. (Alternate joke: "...flyers for the upcoming speech by President Truman.") What's the point? Nothing new happens to 3Ls. We take the MPRE, which is a joke. But I wrote like seventeen columns about it, because at least it was something different we hadn't done already. Obviously 1L year everything is new. And 2L year is dominated by OCI. And then there's clerkship applications. And since that... nothing. It's more of the same.
At least they should make it more of a challenge. Make us wear a blindfold and see if we can still pass our exams. Have competitions where the losers get expelled. Make some more law firms shut down so people have to scramble. It's not that I want bad things to happen. I just want SOMETHING to happen. And the ice rink doesn't really count. I know we all have the responsibility to take charge of our own law school experiences and make things happen for ourselves -- but there's only so much momentum and energy to summon to do that. There's not much for 3Ls to do. People are planning vacations. Mastering XBox. Ordering t-shirts online with funny slogans. All during class, actually. It's the Internet. I blame the Internet. I blame the Internet for everything lately. It's not the Internet. It's the ABA, mandating that law school is threey years. No, it's not the ABA. It's us. It's our own fault. Why? [and here's where I just lost the will to continue... oh well... more tomorrow...]
What the heck are we still doing here?
You like the title? I tried to come up with something cute, like "Death March," which has a double meaning because at graduation we march, and, uh... right now it's March. Obviously, that failed miserably. So I decided just to say what I mean. 3L year is useless. No matter what you're doing after graduation -- working at a firm, clerking for a judge, running off to join the circus -- the fact is, unless you've discovered some Holy Grail that I'm missing, right now you're just playing out the string. Extracurriculars are having elections already, so even the stuff you've been doing all year to pretend there's a reason we're still in law school is about to come to an end. Besides the 3L paper, which is kind of a joke anyway -- "I'm writing a short story," "I'm drawing a graph," "I'm making a collage" -- what still demands our attention? By now we've figured out how to get decent grades, and even if we haven't, likely no one will ever look at our transcripts again. No one even shows up to class anymore. No one shows up anywhere. There are 3L mailboxes that have candy in them from Halloween and flyers for Y2K fallout shelters. (Alternate joke: "...flyers for the upcoming speech by President Truman.") What's the point? Nothing new happens to 3Ls. We take the MPRE, which is a joke. But I wrote like seventeen columns about it, because at least it was something different we hadn't done already. Obviously 1L year everything is new. And 2L year is dominated by OCI. And then there's clerkship applications. And since that... nothing. It's more of the same.
At least they should make it more of a challenge. Make us wear a blindfold and see if we can still pass our exams. Have competitions where the losers get expelled. Make some more law firms shut down so people have to scramble. It's not that I want bad things to happen. I just want SOMETHING to happen. And the ice rink doesn't really count. I know we all have the responsibility to take charge of our own law school experiences and make things happen for ourselves -- but there's only so much momentum and energy to summon to do that. There's not much for 3Ls to do. People are planning vacations. Mastering XBox. Ordering t-shirts online with funny slogans. All during class, actually. It's the Internet. I blame the Internet. I blame the Internet for everything lately. It's not the Internet. It's the ABA, mandating that law school is threey years. No, it's not the ABA. It's us. It's our own fault. Why? [and here's where I just lost the will to continue... oh well... more tomorrow...]
posted by Anonymous @ 11:48 PM
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