initial impressions

So far, so good. A week and a day into the Law School Experience, and I don't hate it yet.

Sure enough, I was feeling absolutely overwhelmed at the beginning of the first week, but as the days slowly pass by I feel as though I'm settling into a groove of intense focus and acute diligence. If I can keep up the momentum, I think I'll be okay.

My classes are all great, and if I'm crazy for thinking that, so be it; but I'm totally enjoying this. From Contracts to Criminal Law, Civil Procedure and Torts. The Legal Research and Writing class is the only one that's at all dull. (And it doesn't help that it's at 4pm, which just happens to be the time every day when my mind kicks out of high gear after go-go-going since 6am.)

All of my professors are awesome, and in that regard I feel I am very fortunate; others I've talked with have at least one professor they would rather not have. Perhaps my insanely positive attitude helps in this regard.

The atmosphere here is one of congeniality amongst the students and absolute support from the faculty. None of that Socratic humiliation here. Sure, the Socratic method is utilized, but it is with rhyme and reason and with no intent other than to help us orally articulate our budding legal minds.

And the competition among the students is barely palpable beneath the surface. Sure we will be ranked at the end of the year, but right now we're all just struggling to stay alfoat, and thus more than willing to help one another. From my perspective, the rankings are little to compete over, because in the end it will boil down to each individual's dedication, diligence, and natural capacity for legal reasoning.

The campus itself is spectacular. I feel as if I have finally arrived to a place where I belong. I've never been to a school like this: an old, prestigious university, with oak-lined lanes and old stone buildings. And yet it is the kind of place I've always imagined myself belonging. It's as if I have always known I would someday, somehow get to a place like Tulane, steeped in history and beauty and busting at the seams for all the knowledge it has to offer me, but I never quite knew how it would happen that I might find myself in such a place. And yet here I am, and it's difficult to convince myself that this is, in fact, my campus. In time familiarity and comfort will replace the intimidation and novelty, and I'll feel as at home here as I ever did at JSU.

In some ways I feel like it's 1997 and I'm a freshman all over again, and in some ways that is true; amongst the upperclassmen, the faculty and staff, I'm just another new face. But I'm making friends. The variety of people I've encountered is stunning. It stands in stark contrast to my experience at JSU, where folks seemed to have been pressed from a half-dozen or so molds. At Tulane, my fellow 1Ls come from all over the country and the world, they're of all age groups (I'm not the only married student for a change! And some are even parents, too!), and there's a variety of ethnic and cultural groups represented.

It's odd to find myself here, coming from JSU. There, it was obvious that I did not belong, and I had become accustomed to being the odd student out. Here the situation is wholly different; I feel as if I belong, and I feel a sense of camaraderie with all of my fellow 1Ls. But at the same time, I feel acutely aware of my difference. I'm the girl who only completed the 9th grade. I'm the one who took the alternative route: GED to junior college, and then to university and now law school. I don't have the common bonds that many of the younger students share: high school prom, graduation, moving away to college, dorm life, and so on and so forth. My path has been one less traveled, and yet I've arrived just the same. The differences between myself and my classmates at JSU were both external and internal; here the difference is almost wholly internal, and so it is a different sort of chasm to navigate in order to cultivate friendships. And I'm positive that I'll leave Tulane with several friends for life, which were a rare commodity at JSU.

All in all, I'm completely enamored. This is absolutely one of the best decisions of my life, and the most satisfying, awesome thing about it is that I'm here thanks to little more than my wits and my perseverance.

There's a ton of work waiting for me, and it's going to be a challenge, but one I'll be able to meet, and in the end I'll be so much better for it. So, bring it on, I say.