TODAY

Classes for the first semester of law school are over.

There is an astonishing lack of excitement, joy, or relief. As my classmate said, the hardest part is yet to come, and that hangs over us all like the proverbial pall.

I never thought I wouldn't make it. So there's no relief in that. And I can't say that I never thought it would be this hard; I rather thought it might be. I was prepared to hate law school. There's no joy in saying that I was underprepared. I just haven't run across anything that makes me think this was the right choice. Yeah, I've met a couple nice people whom I like. (They're all pretty nice, after all -- I just don't have much to say to most.) Yeah, learning new things was intellectually satisfying. But as Roberta Flack sings, where is the love?

I got dinged from my first summer job application -- a death penalty group in Atlanta. That's humbling.

The clique in my subsection, upon the instigation of the Mormon Who Brought Them Together, invited a couple of the satellite moons for a end-of-semester dinner and hanging-out tonight. It was a good time. We played a card game I first ran into last year, in a Korean game cafe. I played "can't get past me" with their cat, who, trying to fake me out, hit a table leg instead and then tried to pass it off by pretending that she actually wanted to rub against the table leg, because she luuuurves the table. Luuurves it. That was far too funny.

I am heartily, completely, bone-wearyingly tired of people watching TV in the common room. I am sick of having to listen to sports games second hand. (Secondhand sports-game-watching kills!) I don't understand why there is only one girl who occasionally watches the TV without guys around and why every other time the TV is turned on, it's always a guy.

I have to get up in 7 hours to go to the post office to mail gifts, which I bought yesterday and today. That's the only way you can sort of avoid lines at this time of year.

Double M, who is here doing research again, left for the weekend to see family in New York. She'll be back on Sunday. We had donuts and coffee at Dunkin' Donuts this morning before she got on the train. I was up until 3 and got up for breakfast at 7:40. Must sleep.