Law school will change my life. I don’t mean that in some spiritual or metaphysical sense. I mean, it will effectively change the way I live my life. Up until this point, I’ve been a lazy bum. Since I finished undergrad in June 2003, I’ve been bumming around and working part time at a retail-clothing store. 4am was my usual bedtime, and I’d consider it a workday or a special occasion if I found myself awake before 11am. Man, life was aimless. Life was easy. Life was pretty damn good.
But law school begins, and I’ve come to realize that I will have to sacrifice a lot if I’m going to succeed. I’m going to be studying a whole lot more than I’ve ever studied in all of my life. There will be little to no time for fun. There will be little to no time for friends. That’s what will hurt me the most. I’m going to have to disappear for a very long time, until the holiday seasons. My friends will invite me out, and I’ll have to say no almost every time. It’s not what I’d prefer, but it’s what needs to be done if I’m going to do this law school thing right.
Seeing as how the drive to campus is at least an hour and twenty minutes, I’ll be relying heavily on public transportation. On school nights, I’m going to be sleeping at the latest 12 or 1am, and then waking up by 6 to 6:30 to drive over to the BART station so that I can consistently get to campus by 8am. If I leave my house too late in the mornings, I’ll have to contend with a bad highway commute, congested city driving conditions, and limited parking at the BART station. I’ll stay late on campus for maybe three nights per week to meet up with study groups or to do some independent work in the law library. On weekends, I’m going to find very little time for play. This whole plan may change during the semester, so we’ll see. But for now, I’ll opt to be overly conservative with my planning.
This is probably the most mundane post I’ve ever written in my blog, but it’s here for good reason. I want all of my friends to know that for the next three years, things are going to be different. I’m going to be unavailable nearly all the time (save for a few special occasions), since I’ll be buried in homework. I guess this is my long, roundabout way of apologizing for my hermitage ahead of time. I’m not trying to snub anybody because I’m forgetting who my friends are. I’m going to have to put my life on hold for a long while because I have a goal to achieve.
I love you guys. Please don’t ever believe that I’ve forgotten you. I’ll do my best over the next few years to keep reminding you.