The Reasonably Prudent Law Student

Yup.

If I could say only two things about my first day as a 2L, those things would be that it is:

• done
• abhorrently lacking in hot elevator boys

Meh. You win some, you lose some.

But can I just say how THRILLED I am that I’m a 2L? Because I think I just did!

I’ll tell you nerds alllllll about my day. Mainly because I’m a bachelorette and don’t have anyone to bother about these things except my brother. And he’s declared a moratorium on my speaking, so…yeah.

:-|

First day as a 2L at lovely John Marshall Law School!

Let’s bullet this mo-fo.

• The morning started out on the Metra. Metra sucks pondscum and smells like farts. It was not pleasant.
• The walk from Union Station to Plymouth, however, was very pleasant. Not a single homeless person accosted me. Small victories.
• Connected to the school network in a record-breaking 5 minutes. This was nothing short of a miracle because (1) I brought my brand new Toshiba netbook for the first time and (2) it takes about 20 minutes, a mini-tantrum, and random prayers to Allah (SWT), Tom Cruise, and cream cheese brownies to get connected to the network when you’ve been on it already for about six months.
• Saw my old classmates, swaggering around with the unmistakable ‘yeah, I’m a law student, and I’m not freaking out – so what? you wanna fight about it’ airs of newly minted 2Ls. Outstanding.
• Went to CivPro; stayed off interwebz the whole class except for accessing Cornell’s uploaded US Code. The professor was nice and pretty engaging. All in all, it’s probably going to be a great class.
• Made my way around the lounge, chit-chatting with friends.
• Bought new books and paid almost $700 for them. For one semester. Yes, I already bought books online for literally 1/10 of that price (literally), but they haven’t arrived yet, so I bought my books and plan to return them on Friday so that I can at least do the assignments while I wait for them to arrive.
• Made sure everything was squared away with the Student Accounts office.
• Talked to some new 1Ls. They’re so shiny and cute and jittery and pinchable. Kept remembering what it was like to be one of them. Almost vommed. But didn’t.
• Rode the elevator up and down far more times than was necessary. Curse me and my inability to structure my trips around the building efficiently.
• Swung by the DePaul campus across the street and met up with some friends. Then the little cafe there started making cookies, and I had to get out or I was going to destroy things. (Fasting. Cookies don’t normally make me destroy things, don’t worry. Just when I’m fastin.)
• Lugged my ridiculous butt-load of books all the way back to Union Station.
• Pulled up Evernote and finished up my notes for ConLaw this week.
• Boarded the stupid Metra and read tasbeeh (Islamic rosary, basically) for a little more than an hour. The train was delayed. Everyone was, like, so shocked, I, like, can’t even tell you how shocked we were.
• Came home. Ran errands, did reading for Professional Responsibility.

All in all, uneventful day. And I like it that way. Thank goodness I only have one class on Mondays (and Fridays). I am NOT a Monday person. Mondays make me stabby. And you wouldn’t like me when I’m stabby.

I do have three classes back-to-back on Tuesdays, and three classes almost-back-to-back on Thursdays, which sucks copiously, but I have one class each on Mondays and Fridays and Wednesdays off. Considering it’s Ramadan and we have to be up long before the crack of dawn, that is A FREAKING GODSEND. One day out of the week, I don’t have to deal with the Metra and I get to catch up on a little bit of sleep. Thank goodness.

The only complaint I have about the day, however, was that there were no HotElevatorBoys.

:(

Well, that’s not fair. There were a couple. But they were 1Ls, nice enough, very excited, kind of like whoa-skipper-am-I-going-to-have-to-put-down-some-newspaper excited. They were cute. But not hot. And call me crazy, but I think the first day of school needs to be kicked off by ridiculously gorgeous boys you run into on the elevator.

I think I was just spoiled by last year. I was a lowly 1L, laden down with books and my laptop accessories, with all my naive notions about law school starting to crack and crumble and crash all around me. I was on the elevator, ready to go home, thinking that maybe I was in way over my head and law school was weird and the people here were weird especially that boy with the weird hair and it smelled weird and the elevator was weirdly small and I was starting to get claustrophobic only I’m not claustrophobic at all so that was weird, and then it happened.

Some random kid got on the elevator. Nice jeans, forest green sweater, nice shoes, blonde. Gorgeous. The kind of gorgeous where you can’t even look directly at the dude because he’s that gorgeous. Like, you’re afraid you’ll burn out your retinas or slip in your own puddle of drool or something.

So, typical of my wallflower ways (stop laughing, jerks) I said nothing. He gave me the once over and didn’t have to ask.

HotElevatorBoy: So you’re a 1L.

Hoomster: [please don't say anything stupid, please don't say anything stupid, please don't say anything stupid.....] Yup. [OMG THAT WAS SO STUPID WTF YOU FAIL GO SIT IN THE CORNER RIGHT NOW.]

HotElevatorBoy: How do you like it so far?

Hoomster: [please don't say anything stupid, please don't say anything stupid, please don't say anything stupid.....] It’s okay, I guess. [Aaaaaaaaaaaaaa NATURAL SELECTION HAS CLEARLY FAILED THE HUMAN RACE BY LETTING YOU EXIST.]

HotElevatorBoy: Yeah, it can be a bit much at first, but you’ll settle into it.

Hoomster: Huh. [ASDFJKL:ASDFJKL:ASDFJKL:ASDFJKL:WTF]

*elevator ding*

HotElevatorBoy: [grinning] Good luck with everything. See you around.

Hoomster: [DON'T LET HIM LEAVE. SMACK HIM WITH YOUR LAPTOP.] Yeah, see ya.

Only I never saw Hot Elevator Boy again. :(

We’re not a big school. We don’t have some huuuuuge building where you have to leave breadcrumbs from one class to another. We’re a relatively small student population in a very tall, very narrow, more-cavernous-the-higher-you-go-up Chicago building.

And yet I never saw Hot Elevator Boy again. Ever. And I would have recognized him if I saw him, because I threw caution for my retinas to the wind and looked at him.

Sometimes, I wonder if he actually existed, or if I just made him up.

I tend to do that sometimes.

=/

But all in all, not a bad day. Not a bad day at all.

Have to add this First Day as a 2L Limited Edition Collage, just because no one rocks the glamor shots like me and Dennis.