to burn cool and collected

The pressure is mounting as my first year of law school draws to a close: the last major writing project of the year (which counts for 40% of the grade for that class) is due on Monday, March 22nd. Then it's oral arguments, followed all too quickly by final exams, replete with the arduous process of outlining. (Outlining is law-student lingo for preparing a study-guide since most exams are open-note, and to benefit from the process of doing so even for those exams that aren't.)

After exams, we're free to work for the summer, and the expectation is that we do legal work, even if it's on a volunteer basis, so as to get some Real World experience. Fortunately, I already have Real World legal experience, and I already have two paying jobs lined up for the summer. I'll be working as a judicial intern at the Louisiana 4th Circuit Court of Appeal for a small stipend, and I'll be doing some part-time contract work for a small law office in Metairie. I hope to get another part-time gig lined up, too, simply to expand my network of local attorneys and to add some more breadth to my legal experience. All in all, though, I'm relatively isolated from the stress of finding a summer job, which is a great relief.

As for the school work, I'm trying my best to stay on top of things, and I think I'm doing well enough. My brief is completely drafted, giving me 5 days still for revising, copying, and binding. (We're required to professionally bind the document as if we were really submitting a brief to a Federal Court of Appeals.) So that is good. I'm sufficiently caught up on my reading, too.

But I'm not pushing myself too hard. For instance, I haven't started outlining yet, even though it would be best to have done so. Instead, I'm taking steps to actively avoid burn-out: taking breaks to go for a walk, making time to cook and eat real food, and getting plenty of sleep. I've yet to know whether this will be a fatal error, or if it will prove to be the best strategy.

Apparently it's working enough to at least affect a calm exterior: classmates remark on my serenity. Little do they know how furiously the anxiety churns within. But I'll fight through it, so that even as the heat turns up (literally and figuratively as NOLA says goodbye to winter) I'll keep my composure.