My 3.5 Most Instructive Tough Learning Experiences Huge Decision Today

I made a huge decision today about my next semester - I dropped two classes - Laws and Rules of the Federal Courts, and Workers Comp - and enrolled in Admiralty and a seminar on the law of property, heritage, and art - basically a writing seminar on the law of antiquities. Getting out of Federal and Workers Comp wasn't a hard decision, it was opting to take Admiralty and the seminar instead. I had to get out of Federal because the professor, whom I had civil procedure with and was probably the least worst favorite professor of my first year in law school, e-mailed all of the 2nd years she had taught civ. pro. with and told us not to take her class until 3rd year because it's too challenging for 2nd years. That's that. After lunching with the attorney I'm shadowing I learned something valuable that made me change my mind about Workers Comp pretty easily. That's that. I was interested in seeing if maritime law/admiralty is something that piques my interest, but I was really deterred by the fact that a visiting professor from the naval academy was coming to teach it (i assumed he would be a hardass prohibitively challenging professor). The other course I'm taking is a seminar, something that was recommended to me to take from my neighbor last year, a finishing 3rd year. All I know is that I don't know very much about the professor - one of the reasons I purposely avoided enrolling in it at first - and that the roster reads that there are only 2 students in it - the professor, myself, and one anonymous other student - that's it. I took a class with only 4 students in it in undergrad., and I'm thinking it's possible that this smaller environment, like the class environment at Wake Forest, will be just what it takes to give me the gumption to participate more. Maybe, maybe not. This course is writing-based and is more relaxed than most law school classes, which is something that I think will help me a lot - I'm discovering that I'm more writing and academically skilled than skilled in applied work. The class also focuses on the rights of international property like archaeological finds and antiquities, which might be interesting I am hoping! .

After lunch yesterday I began to think I had a little more grit than I thought I supposed that I did and took a chance and enrolled in these things. It's high risk high reward, so whatever. One cool side-note is somehow, my class schedule is arranged so that I have intense Mondays, especially Wednesday, and Fridays, but no class at all on Tuesdays and Thursdays. I'm hoping that since I am kind of an intense-worker - I work great when I can just roll 48 hours studying or writing something, but sputter and lose focus if I have to study in between classes or study for half a day and have the other half off - that this schedule will improve my GPA. Either way, I'm kind of excited that I'm done with my first year, and after lunch with Fred (my boss) yesterday, that I have the toughness to overcome whatever intellectual shortcomings I might have in certain law school courses. I survived the first year, and I have 3 seminal experiences that remind me that when the going gets really tough, that I can still make it, and things get better regardless of immediate circumstance

My first experience in learning how to be tougher was the entire year of 1998. First, my grandma (dad's mom) died in February, then my granddad (mom's papa) had a brain hemmorhage a month later and lingered on in a very poor state in our home with my grandma and a full-time nurse. My grandma living with us was too much - she didn't act herself, probably because of losing my granddad - she spread lies about my dad and told me them too - when I was 13. Then my dad clammed up and became resentful, and never really acted like a dad - some other things he did I don't want to publish in a blog, but needless to say there were some rough things that went on that he did to me. My mom not knowing what to do, just kowtowed to my grandma's whim and let my grandma wreak havoc in the house as matriarch. Worst of all was losing my granddad towards the end of that year. Truthfully, my dad was never there for me, and all my life and to this day, my granddad was like my real dad.

My second experience in learning how to be tougher was when I took Algebra I in 8th grade and I got my 3-week report card (we had 3 6 week periods per semester) that said that I had a 42 average in Algebra mid-way through the period. My parents threw a huge fit, I lost my cool too, and everyone eventually acted a little more level-headedly. I remember walking up the stairs to my room and turning around and promising I would do it, and everything would be okay. After that, I started going to an Algebra tutor every day after football practice - something that is REALLY hard for a 15 year old boy to do - and made near straight 100's every day (I really think my lowest grade for the last 3 weeks was a 92 on a homework assignment). I finished the 6-week period with an 82 average.

My third experience in learning how to be tougher was during my first year and a half in undergrad. I got really into debate and postmodern text, and lost faith in reality, capitalism, and the school I was in. Feeling guilty about propping up privatization by attending a private school, sensing that all of reality was a sham, and that my own compliance with "the (prevailing) system" rendered me personally accountable for some really, really, really awful things in the world made me feel terrible every day. Soon enough I started not concentrating on problems in such an epic context, realized I was just a person in the grand scheme of things, that my participation in any "system" was highly limited and did not make me responsible for bad things in the world because of my restrained existence as a mere ant in the universe, found empowerment as an individual rather than as a part of a collective, and generally discovered reasonable limits for my own reflective thought.

I guess my unwritten fourth would be surviving my first year of law school while my parents went through a divorce that, while not publicly messy, they really screwed me over by involving me much more than I should have ever been, and really screwed with me a good part of the year. When the shit gets tough, I just think about these things.

Anyway that was a large, weaving, tangent, but I made a big decision about my courses next semester that's all really. I can't believe I wrote this much. Here is a song that I really like from Slumdog Millionaire (good movie by the way!)