Dave is…
Not doing anything fun.
Literally, nothing fun. Not a thing. No watching the LARPers in Prospect Park on Saturday morning, not going to the Blessing of the Bikes downtown, not watching the savagery of International Pillow Fight Day in Union Square Park, nothing.
No, for the last six weeks what I did do was write 15,000 words on the failures and problems of the Liberian Truth and Reconciliation Commission final report; another 10,000 words on the African Union’s failed attempt to escape their obligation to enforce the ICC’s indictment of Sudan president al-Bashir; do a large number of job applications and a much smaller number of job interviews; and study for three final exams, which in essence meant, teach myself three, semester-long classes in their entirety in a matter of days.
Needless to say this period sucked. It involved long nights in the library, lots of shitty take-out, more than a few games of online Axis & Allies with fellow law school failures, and the kind of coffee consumption more appropriate for a lifetime drinker not someone who just took it up a couple months ago.
But the papers were submitted on April 28th, and after one last brutal 36 hour stretch that saw me take one 3.5 hour in-class exam and another six hour take-home, I am finally finished with law school. Least that’s the presumption. Grades aren’t due till June 8th, so perhaps it’s a bit presumptuous to assume I passed after cramming what feels like three years of law school into one semester. But I am banking on the school’s paranoia about its rankings to ensure I make it through. Failing people would look very bad to US News and World Report.
The conclusion the law school chapter of my life was celebrated, though not at the official school “senior prom” style dance. I refused to give that damn institution anymore of my money and opted to drink on a resurrected tug-boat instead. In a certain amount of symmetry, it just so happens I actually celebrated my graduation from the undergrad part of this university on that same boat six years ago. If only I had known then what I know now I NEVER WOULD’VE DONE THIS.
Sigh. Nothing like end of school bitterness. My apathy over this graduation is profound. People keep congratulating me on it. To hell with that. Congratulate me when (if) I pass the bar and get a job.
(Ed. Note: So the blog is still wildly behind, but at least you get a sense of why. Post-graduate activities have been better about leading to stories, but as I am currently cramming for the bar, those tales will only be told intermittently. I apologize for that, but at least I’m proving the blog isn’t completely dead yet. Bear with me till the end of July and things will go back to normal. Whatever that is.)