While you were out....


The following people died:

Donald Regan
David Brinkley
Gregory Peck
Hume Cronyn
Larry Doby
Strom Thurmond
Katharine Hepburn
Buddy Hackett
Barry White
Buddy Ebsen
Tex Schramm
Bob Hope

Quite a list. The average age of it is 86; I should be so lucky to live so long. Two (Hope and Thurmond) made it all the way to 100; two more (Ebsen, at 95, and Hepburn, at 96) were within shouting distance. All of them (well, except for Regan - don't know him well enough to say this) had great accomplishments in their lifetime, and their passing is a loss to all of us.

The sad thing is, that of all of my classmates in law school, I'm afraid I'm one of a very few who could tell you what all of these people are known for without first looking them up in an encyclopedia. My traveling companion through Ireland could probably guess that Regan had a position in the Reagan administration (Secretary of the Treasury) and that Strom Thurmond was a member of Congress: He watches CNN enough to know that. But knowing that Larry Doby broke the color barrier in the American League, or that Tex Schramm was once the president of the Dallas Cowboys, or that Buddy Ebsen was the original Tin Man in the Wizard of Oz (before an allergy to the makeup forced him to quit)? No way. He wasn't even sure of who Barry White was.

The sad thing is, he made Moot Court, and I didn't. He's also on a journal, and I'm not. Supposedly, he likes someone in our class who made three journals, and Moot Court. Needless to say, they both had the time to invest in writing competitions (he's self-employed and can set his own schedule [he's also fairly well off] and she's not working at all), and I didn't. Why not? Because I was too busy working. Now that the fall recruiting season is near, I'm reviewing the OCI materials and - guess what? All that work I did? Doesn't mean squat now. All that matters is whether I'm in the top 10% of my class (I'm not - I'd be lucky to be in the top 40%) or if I'm on a journal.

And that's what really irks me. My school supposedly caters to evening students (of which I was one). But they don't, really. Most of the firms schedule things during the workday for evening students, and many of the presentations (both required and optional) begin at 5:00. I'm not the first to complain; many of my classmates are equally irked.

Maybe I'm being whiny, but I think there should be some measure of reward for sacrificing the huge amounts of time I dedicated to work and school. One of the day students (who shall remain nameless, since she obviously never worked) said that I knew what I was getting into, and if I wasn't willing to make the commitment to law school, then I shouldn't have signed up. I did know what I was getting into, but when I applied, my job description was different. It changed right before school started, and suddenly, I had more work on my hands, and I couldn't do anything about it. And, with the full knowledge that my grades would probably suffer (and they did), I put more effort into work than I did school, with the hope of stashing as much cash as I could for the long road ahead.

Now I'm beginning to wonder if I did the right thing. Should I have quit the job? Stuck with it? Dropped out of law school? Do I have a hope in hell of getting any job next summer? Or am I totally out of luck?

I feel that I have a lot to offer, and no one who's interested in buying. I sure hope I'm wrong.

I think I need to update that resume........