Bubble bookends

It all started with a scantron in February 2002. The pesky LSAT. I recovered by taking a 2 month trip to Italy.

Then there were applications and the working and waiting for school to start. Finally, 1L began. I did a semester. There was the overpreparation and unknown of the first set of finals. I did another semester, and then the end of 1L. When all was said and done, I agreed with most of my peers that the grading and ranking system is arbitrary. But it lives.

I spent a summer working as a patent agent (what I did briefly before law school). Then it was back to 2L, where I did the typical 2L shuffle. Some more finals. I got engaged, did some more law school stuff, ran my first half marathon, externed for a judge, and what do you know, I was 2/3 done with law school.

I split the next summer between two law firms and finally decided to go with one of them after graduation.

Then, 3L hit. It was a completely different experience. First of all, E and I got married, so I spent much more time planning the ceremony than doing school stuff. I took some classes. But, I was fairly checked out of the whole school thing. I managed to check in just in time for the first sent of finals, just in time to deal with my grandfather's passing. Then, my father became ill, so I chose to spend more time with family and replaced several days of my second semester of class with days in the hospital. Again, I did my best to check back in to school just in time for finals, but only time will tell how successful I was at that attempt...

And now, today, it all ended just like it began. I sat down with some #2 pencils, read some questions, paid extra attention to words like NOT, LEAST, and MOST, and filled in bubbles in a room full of my peers doing the same.

It's all done.

Graduation is merely a ceremonial recognition of the truth: I don't ever have to do another piece of work for law school, ever again (assuming I passed all of my classes).

Wow.