Two weeks into school, I have been running out of sleep and my study hours have gone into overdrive.
Ever since school began, I decided to keep track of the number of hours I study...literally. I tally the number of hours in a notebook and by the looks of it, I seem to spend more hours studying than sleeping.
Hmmm...which reminds me, I should call Sue and ask her how, according to her personal claims, she has become perhaps the first and only medical student in history who gets adequate sleep each day.
To sum up the entire experience so far, I could not find a better and more appropriate expression than "carino brutal."
Either that is the only term I could think of right now or I do not know enough Latim maxims yet. With the ones I do know, I harbor some uncertainty when it comes to spelling.
About seven years ago, when I was still nursing this childhood ambition (no matter if it had been eroded to an iota all through out high school) to go into medicine, I bought a copy of Eric Segal's Doctors, a book which chronicled the brutality every aspiring medical doctor had to undergo in all the years of study in order to earn the right to be called one.
During orientation, we were cautioned by professors and seniors alike that law school was going to be tough, perhaps one of the greatest ordeals we would ever have to face. The first two weeks would more or less be the yardstick as to how life in the law school would be: how everything goes into fast-forward, how sleeping hours have to be trimmed to almost nil and how less time should be spent for hygiene (not that I look like trash or anything now).
We were warned that this was not the place for people seeking wholeness. Confidence was to be eroded, self-worth was to be questioned. If in the course of your existence you have yet to encounter your breaking point, in this place you will realize it will just be around the corner...or in the next minute.
The work is backbreaking, not excluding the fact that the readings to be lugged up and down the stairs are mounted sky-high. On the jeep on the way home one afternoon, I was trying to figure out how I could manage to finish readings two-inches thick for a class the next morning. I never did, actually.
My tall ceramic cup has become my best friend and he (a gender I chose to bestow upon the thing) has become responsible for clogging my arteries with coffee. My favorite companions now are my barrrage of highlighters and two notebooks for making my digests for cases from four of my six classes. I spend too much time with my highlighters I think I should baptize them with appropriate names, just like I did with my first computer Christina. Come to think of it, I miss my computer, now that our dates have been confined to as often as twice a week whereas before, I almost never turned it off.
The cases are an interesting yet difficult read. For one thing, I am training myself to be more sensitive to the nitty gritty detail lest I get asked about that for recitation and I can only muster silence...although, for instance, knowing the middle name of the petitioner is not always a requirement. Comprehension is also difficult, given the fact that lawyers have always been (in)famous for infusing too much legalese in whatever they write...not to mention that some justices specialize in writing paragraph-long kilometric sentences.
Recitation time is always a memorable (daily) experience. You could almost hear the hearts hammering in the rib cages and sweat dripping from perspiring hands.
But of course, worrying does not help at all, so I always leave the house thinking I have done all I can and being nervous does not help at all by making you stammer and adding more wrinkles on your face. Of course that is easier said than done, although my classmate Mini seems to have mastered that trick very well.
As with any other ordeal, humor always tries to muffle the squeaks...much like a buffer, if I could still invoke a term used often during my undergrad days. There's the laughter in the library, as we wait for photocopies along with the usual jokes about how law school could either turn you into Twiggy or make you balloon like Harry Potter's aunt Petunia. For instance, the moment the professor's footsteps resound in the hallways, significant amount of calories are lost already. The number of calories lost upon the professor's entrance, the shuffling of recitation cards and of course, the moment a name is called...that I leave to your mathematical genius.
One professor told us we live in a parallel world, a world where reality is redefined in new terms...a world, he said, much like Harry Potter where a stick becomes a wand, a broom becomes a form of transportation and a loo...well, pretty much remains the same although I think it sometimes becomes a wailing wall of sorts. That world though is still pretty much obscure and still remains generally invisible before my eyes. To make it visible entails sleepless nights, rustling pages, racing pulse rates and several stabs to the heart.
Here's to hoping the feeling doesn't change.
Ever since school began, I decided to keep track of the number of hours I study...literally. I tally the number of hours in a notebook and by the looks of it, I seem to spend more hours studying than sleeping.
Hmmm...which reminds me, I should call Sue and ask her how, according to her personal claims, she has become perhaps the first and only medical student in history who gets adequate sleep each day.
To sum up the entire experience so far, I could not find a better and more appropriate expression than "carino brutal."
Either that is the only term I could think of right now or I do not know enough Latim maxims yet. With the ones I do know, I harbor some uncertainty when it comes to spelling.
About seven years ago, when I was still nursing this childhood ambition (no matter if it had been eroded to an iota all through out high school) to go into medicine, I bought a copy of Eric Segal's Doctors, a book which chronicled the brutality every aspiring medical doctor had to undergo in all the years of study in order to earn the right to be called one.
During orientation, we were cautioned by professors and seniors alike that law school was going to be tough, perhaps one of the greatest ordeals we would ever have to face. The first two weeks would more or less be the yardstick as to how life in the law school would be: how everything goes into fast-forward, how sleeping hours have to be trimmed to almost nil and how less time should be spent for hygiene (not that I look like trash or anything now).
We were warned that this was not the place for people seeking wholeness. Confidence was to be eroded, self-worth was to be questioned. If in the course of your existence you have yet to encounter your breaking point, in this place you will realize it will just be around the corner...or in the next minute.
The work is backbreaking, not excluding the fact that the readings to be lugged up and down the stairs are mounted sky-high. On the jeep on the way home one afternoon, I was trying to figure out how I could manage to finish readings two-inches thick for a class the next morning. I never did, actually.
My tall ceramic cup has become my best friend and he (a gender I chose to bestow upon the thing) has become responsible for clogging my arteries with coffee. My favorite companions now are my barrrage of highlighters and two notebooks for making my digests for cases from four of my six classes. I spend too much time with my highlighters I think I should baptize them with appropriate names, just like I did with my first computer Christina. Come to think of it, I miss my computer, now that our dates have been confined to as often as twice a week whereas before, I almost never turned it off.
The cases are an interesting yet difficult read. For one thing, I am training myself to be more sensitive to the nitty gritty detail lest I get asked about that for recitation and I can only muster silence...although, for instance, knowing the middle name of the petitioner is not always a requirement. Comprehension is also difficult, given the fact that lawyers have always been (in)famous for infusing too much legalese in whatever they write...not to mention that some justices specialize in writing paragraph-long kilometric sentences.
Recitation time is always a memorable (daily) experience. You could almost hear the hearts hammering in the rib cages and sweat dripping from perspiring hands.
But of course, worrying does not help at all, so I always leave the house thinking I have done all I can and being nervous does not help at all by making you stammer and adding more wrinkles on your face. Of course that is easier said than done, although my classmate Mini seems to have mastered that trick very well.
As with any other ordeal, humor always tries to muffle the squeaks...much like a buffer, if I could still invoke a term used often during my undergrad days. There's the laughter in the library, as we wait for photocopies along with the usual jokes about how law school could either turn you into Twiggy or make you balloon like Harry Potter's aunt Petunia. For instance, the moment the professor's footsteps resound in the hallways, significant amount of calories are lost already. The number of calories lost upon the professor's entrance, the shuffling of recitation cards and of course, the moment a name is called...that I leave to your mathematical genius.
One professor told us we live in a parallel world, a world where reality is redefined in new terms...a world, he said, much like Harry Potter where a stick becomes a wand, a broom becomes a form of transportation and a loo...well, pretty much remains the same although I think it sometimes becomes a wailing wall of sorts. That world though is still pretty much obscure and still remains generally invisible before my eyes. To make it visible entails sleepless nights, rustling pages, racing pulse rates and several stabs to the heart.
Here's to hoping the feeling doesn't change.
