Okay. I'm Listening

I met this morning with the director of the career services office at the undergrad Crimson College, after almost a year of urging and gentle reminders from the Neener, who's been going to see "the career shrink" with good effect for some time.

I need to buy Nina a really nice dinner.

Bill started off by asking about how I knew Nina, and then dove into the problem. He asked what I didn't like about law school, and when he saw I was having trouble answering that, he said, "Okay, let me rephrase that -- what do you like about law school?"

I told him I thought that learning about how society worked, about social injustice and inequities was really valuable for me. I told him I liked mediation. He asked if I was an "educator," and I told him I liked counseling and advising one-on-one. He asked why I'd gone to law school, and it was a relief after so many lies in so many interviews to say, "I took the path of least resistance. I never thought I was committing to going to law school by taking the LSAT, or by applying to law schools. And then I had the letter of acceptance to Crimson, and I -- even though I knew it was wrong -- I just... couldn't turn it down."

After about 30 minutes, he started talking. And the things he said -- he validated thoughts that I had had about being in law school in a way that didn't villainize anyone or anything, but broke it down so rationally and perfectly, I thought I might cry.

"Everything I've heard you say makes me think that the only thing you're getting out of law school is anxiety and stress," Bill said. "You aren't the kind of person who feels rewarded by the activities that you do in law school. You aren't the person who is energized by answering questions thrown out by the teacher in front of the class, showing what you know in front of everyone else. And what you're doing, what you have been doing for the past two and a half years is giving, giving, giving all your energy -- and getting nothing back. Law school doesn't have anything to give to you, because you're in the wrong system for you.

"I can see that you are a remarkable woman." (Here, I laughed deprecatingly.) "No, I can. You give a sense of professionalism, you have a solid sense of yourself. You're an excellent listener, and maybe that's why you have been able to move through different cultures and different cities easily, because people sense that you respect them. You observe and you listen, and you respect everyone.

"What I see over and over is that the students here and at your alma mater are good at a large number of things. I could sit here and talk for seven weeks about different jobs you could do, and for most of them, you'd say, 'Yeah, I could see myself doing that,' because you can. You could do those jobs, and you would get them, because you would sell yourself, and the employers would believe your sell job.

"But that's why that's the wrong approach. It's not about you fitting yourself into job X or Y. It's about you figuring out who you really are."

We talked some more about this and that, including how Crimson Law School really needs to finesse their admissions process so that a large number of its graduates don't come back seeking Bill's advice after a year of working in a firm. And then he gave me a list of eight questions to answer about myself before we met again.

I left Bill's office feeling hopeful. Bill was realistic and optimistic, and I felt like I had just gotten an advocate and guide in one.

I had talked with Bill so long that I had missed the beginning of my corporations class, which is about the sixth class in a row that I've missed. Despite this questionable attendance, or perhaps because of it, I dawdled, getting breakfast at the Science Center on the way to the classroom.

I had just finished my eggwich and was sitting staring off into the distance, thinking about the conversation I had just had, when a voice from my left said, "Hello."

I turned to face a dark-haired and stocky young man in a striped polo shirt, with I-Pod earpieces in his ears and stubble on his cheeks. I wasn't even sure he was talking to me, but I said hello back.

The voice turned out to belong to a freshman math major, who is taking an extremely difficult math class, wants to become a physics professor, and has mild Asperger's syndrome and ADHD (all gleaned from our ensuing conversation of 15 minutes). He didn't really exhibit many of the usual difficulties with social behavior and awareness that are characteristic of Asperger's; I told him so, and he said that the meds he took for ADHD helped with the Asperger's too. (I wonder, though, if I didn't notice his oddities because I often ask inappropriate questions myself.)

He talked about how hard his math class was, how people who take that class have gone on to be superstars in the math world, how he knew he wanted to be a physics professor from age 11, how people with Asperger's syndrome are often very gifted in math and science, how he was so busy with doing the homework for his math class that he didn't even have time to date this girl he'd asked out (I told him he should build in time in his schedule to go out on dates), how he'd gotten drunk at a party last weekend and pole-danced (along with a number of other male students, apparently), how he was such a Jew because he was at Crimson and in the math major, how it was obvious that OJ Simpson was guilty, and ... a number of other things.

For some reason, I sat there listening, even though I might normally have excused myself from the onslaught of personal information from a stranger.

"What are you doing here? Are you waiting for a class?" he asked.

"I'm, uh, waiting for ... the motivation to go to class."

"Which class?"

"It's at the law school," I said, gesturing vaguely in that direction.

"You're a law student?" he said. I nodded, and he was off again -- his father was a lawyer, a bankruptcy lawyer, until he got really bored with it and at age 40, he quit and became a turnaround management specialist (which I learned about in bankruptcy!).

"Why don't you want to go to class? Do you not like it? If you don't like the law, why did you go to law school?"

"Oh," I said, thinking how odd it was to be having this conversation twice in the same morning, "it was the path of least resistance."

"Well, it's not too late to switch and do something else. You could transfer to another grad school. What year are you in?"

"Third year."

"Oh." He considered this. "If you were in your first year, I'd say you could transfer or something, but since it's your last year, you could stick it out and just do something else when you graduate."

"Yeah, I'm working on it," I murmured.

"You should do something you like. Otherwise you'll end up like all those other lawyers who live in the suburbs and are dead inside. That's what the suburbs are, right? Like my dad was pretty unhappy as a lawyer, but now he likes his job."

"I'll think about it," I said, amused and slightly spooked by the conversation, but also strangely touched by the frosh's advice. "Well, I guess I should go to class now."

"Yeah, I've got class in 10 minutes too." He paused. "You know, we never even told each other our names."

"I'm hk."

"I'm Jack."

"Jack," I repeated. "It was nice talking to you."

"Yeah, it was interesting. You know, we probably won't ever see each other again."

"Huh," I said, taken aback. "Well, I see the Asperger's coming out," I laughed.

"No, but it's true," he insisted. "We probably won't meet again."

"Not unless I skip class again and hang out in the Science Center," I agreed, with a smile. "But that's kind of sad," I said. "Well, my name is hk, and you can look me up at the law school."

"Okay. Good luck with finding something you want to do."

"Thanks. Take care of yourself."

And I walked away.

Over the summer, one of my officemates said to me -- while resting his hand on my shoulder and looking at me with devout, shiny, slightly crazy eyes -- "hk, God has a plan for you. Don't forget." I told someone about that later, and how I wished it were true, and if it were true, how I wished God would speak up a little louder, because I couldn't hear the plan, and I was pretty confused about what it was.

Well, if God exists, and if He has a plan for me and every other being in the universe, He may not have spelled it out this morning, but He did drop a couple pretty heavy anvils on my head. A chance meeting with a kid who repeated the same advice that Bill gave me just half an hour earlier? Yeah, I'm pretty sure I'll never see "Jack" again either. But I hear ya, man. I hear ya loud and clear.