The Ideals

I think I am almost recovered from yesterday’s contracts exam, and now I have 47 hours until my civil procedure exam. The layout of the exam was two 1.5 hour essays and 1 hour of multiple choice. I had a lot of trouble with my time and felt very rushed. It’s hard to keep going straight for that long. It takes a lot out of you. The contracts exam really affected me. I felt really let down afterwards. I realized that I missed three issues: damages ascertainability and avoidability and a liquidated damages provision. What sucks is that if I had seen them I could have written about them and probably would have done well on the exam. But I did not even see them. You can’t get any points for what you don’t include. I wish that I hadn’t talked about the exam afterwards so my confidence would have stayed up and I would have immediately started studying civ pro. Instead I cried a lot and psyched myself out. I’m probably making a bigger deal about these issues then they are. But I won’t have any idea until January 6.

It’s been making me think more and more about the impact of these grades. I read an article about Law School being like Junior High, but instead of it being about what your peers think, it is about what your class rank is. I kind of feel like that. Last night a lot of my self worth was wrapped up in how I did on a four hour exam because that will be the outward expression of me and what I have learned in the first semester of law school. Today, I have been letting that go and remembering that I know that I have learned a great deal. That if I missed three issues on an exam that is not reflective of the big picture. I understand and can articulate the concepts.

I keep thinking about what I would tell a child in this position. I would tell them to ignore the class rank. I am trying to hold on to those ideals. I am trying to hold on to the non-competitive (rule 8a) me. It is very hard. I have a few ideas boiling in my brain, though. I don’t know whether I will be able to go through with them though. I start first with my ideal that my class rank should not be a reflection of my self worth. If I believe this, then does what my class rank is matter? Not really, as long as I pass. I feel pretty confident that I passed. So, really there is no need to know further. If I am happy with what I have learned why does anybody need to know how I scored.

When I first started thinking about this, I thought that I would not share with my law school friends. So far, sharing with handful of people has been a disaster anyway. My score has been higher than their scores and then I just feel guilty about doing better and worrying and complaining with them. They don’t like it either. Then I started thinking that perhaps I didn’t need to share with my friends and families either. I mean, if they think I am learning and growing why do they need to have a number that again only reflects a four hour exam? That’s when I realized that maybe I don’t need the number either. If I truly believe that the score is not reflective of me then it shouldn’t be reflective of me whether it is high or low. I imagine at some point, I will have to write it on some application, but what would happen if I didn’t get it until then? I don’t imagine I have the willpower to withhold this information from myself, but I have until January 6 to figure it out.

This is where I am – This class rank number is not reflective of me. This class rank number is not reflective of what I’ve learned. The hardest thing about ideals is that you have to hold onto them even when you want to let them go. That is you can’t celebrate your class rank/ score when you do well, but say that it is not reflective when you don’t do well. My true belief, whether my score or rank is high or low is that it is not a worthy measure of all that I am.