Official

It's hard to put a finger on when I felt like an 'official' law student. I'm in the middle of my second week of classes and I definitely feel official now, but during orientation I still felt helplessly green. At some point during the past week, I must have unwittingly clicked over from 'non-student' to full-blown student mode. Maybe it happened when I stopped checking my printed schedule to determine my class times and locations, or when I looked around and knew the names of more than 50% of my regular classmates. Or when I realized that I know where all the bathrooms and water fountains are, and that canned sodas are cheaper in the basement vending machines than in the dining hall. Maybe when I had to get my student ID replaced (already) after losing my wallet (already)... not sure when it happened, but I'm definitely there.

The transition from worker to student was (surprisingly) not that much of a shock either. Perhaps because I taught for a year, so I technically was still in a student setting. OR (more likely) because I discovered the library and spent all summer reading as many books as I could carry home...

Anyway, I know that I'm a law student because now it is 'normal' to wake up at 6:30, to commute 45 minutes, to carry my weight in casebooks and to come home and impart unto C (whether he likes it or not) the most interesting issues that have come up in class or in the readings. As I'm sitting here, getting ready to prep for Contracts, I realized that I am 'comfortable' here... and it's a great feeling.

K