Who Do I Want to Be?

I have been thinking a lot lately about the kind of person I want to be.  As quickly as I am getting to know the people around me, they are morphing into “lawyers.”  I see people quickly changing around me and I sense changes in myself also.  While my confidence is growing in my ability to do this, the “fireball” (as my grandpa used to call me) inside of me has made several appearances in the last few weeks.  Many people may not know this about me but my family will tell you that I really get fired up about certain things, like “mother bear” fired up.  In law school, many see that as weakness.  Emotion is weakness.  And I have been mulling that over in my mind obsessively.  Last week, the best interest of a child was disregarded in a court of law and I became furious.  Furious!  I yelled at my friends because they were so busy telling me how the law works and why and policy and facts and everything else.  I told them that I am in all the same classes that they are so if they can’t take the moment to let me be truly angry with a broken aspect of the system, they need to stop talking to me.  I also became enraged when, in a mock client negotiation, the opposing team behaved very unethically rather than act professionally.

I am not saying there is anything wrong with my extraordinary and inspiring colleagues.  And I still believe in the judicial system.  The issue that has been surfacing is “who do I want to be?”  I am old enough and strong enough to know when my surroundings are attempting to mold me into something and only I will decide if I am going to become pliable to the shaping.  I love learning about the law.  I love learning how to find it, interpret it, work within the confines of it and I hope to one day be instrumental in furthering it.  However, I do not want to lose touch with who I am and why I am here.  I am not here to win.  I am not here for just the facts.  I am not here to separate myself from any emotional response.  I want to be the woman that cries for an unseen child.  I want to be the person who fights back against injustices.  I want to see the homeless man on the street and not just look the other way.  I want to believe a stranger’s story.  I want to keep the part of me that compelled me through the doors of SU Law in the first place.  I honestly believe I can be a good lawyer and an empathetic, passionate woman simultaneously.

Legal Writing

I used to think of myself as a good writer.  Whether I am or not is not even important.  I find writing inspiring and cathartic.  I enjoy putting my thoughts to paper.  I am not the best communicator in the world but if I can write it, if I can take the time to put the exact words together so it sounds just right as it seeps in to the mind, then I love to write.  I love to write in a way that has just enough humor and humility to make people willing to hear what they would not bother to listen to if I were passionately fumbling for words in their presence.
Legal writing is void of any creativity and even opinion.  They literally tell me exactly what to write and I do what they tell me and I still end up with a B?  I guess I am mediocre at following constraining instructions of how to construct bland information.
So because I have to get back to this life-draining memo, I spark the creativity and love for writing that still exists inside me.  This is the first thoughts of a short story or poem or something that has been swimming around in my head lately.
The command of her voice and the confidence in her step drew is eye.  There was honesty in her eyes and life in her stories.  He tread carefully as he felt for the first time in so long that he didn't want to frighten such a rare creature.  As she playfully answered his questions, he thoughtfully planned his steps.  Maybe, just maybe he had found his fish in this muddied pond.
Okay, back to rules and regulations.

Boot Camp

I am starting to understand that law school works much like boot camp.  They push you to a point of pure exhaustion and then continue to push.  Last week, I reach a point to where my response to everything was just "bring it on."  I didn't care what they through at me.  I performed a client interview, a negotiation, prepared for a mock trial, worked 5 hours at my job and read hundreds of text book pages.  I did what I never expected to be able to do simply because I had no other choice.  That is not even including the personal struggles that I had to weather.  I thought of it as my own personal boot camp.  So the update is, that I am still succeeding in law school.

This week I have a mock trial.  I never anticipated participating in a mock trial but here I am getting ready for it.  And I will do it.  Hopefully, I will feel that i successfully completed the experience.  Either way, I'm doing it.  keep me in your thoughts and prayers.  Specifically, pray that my health can keep up with this pace.  Thank you for the support and love, it means the world to me right now!