Yesterday I was looking out the kitchen window at the park across the road, a care taker was removing tree limbs from the creek. He looked happy. I thought I could be happy doing that kind of work. fleeting thougths of throwing it all in and calling it a really long bad joke ran through my head.
Today while sitting in the libary it felt like it was all over, like I had failed and it was time to leave. I got really depressed (for about 5 minutes).
Not ready for this to be over.
Guess first year wasn't the only time is all feels too much - Obiter
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2 months ago
It's seriously ok to feel like that. It's such a welcome escape: daydreaming of working a simple job with no expectations, no pressure, no thinking, no long hours that will keep you from maximising the myriad delights which life offers.
ReplyDeleteAlthough when I'm scraping guano off a bolster (in my cleaning job) I reasses that way of thinking...
It helps to focus on why you enrolled in law in the first place (well, me, I just enrolled straight from the HSC just on marks. I admire non-traditional entrants like you who try harder to get in).
After you get through the hard slog of study you... well, you will keep going through the hard slog -- but then said slog will hopefully be a part of the fantastic career you were aiming for and will be rewarding and meaningful.
I'm spouting a cliche. Please forgive me. I don't mean to trivialise the stress you're going through. Your study load sounds intense and as a fellow student I fully empathasise with that continuous feeling of abject failure, low self-esteem and incompetency. It simmers underneath the surface. It bottles up. Some of the pressure is released when you triumph in a tutorial or get a great mark on a midsem exam. But it is always there, as it doesn't believe the positive evidence. It is ready to manifest at any stray moment as crying, drinking, procrastination, hopelessness. It makes you feel like the most stupid, worthless piece of shit in the world; a feeling that would buckle Winston Churchill at the knees.
Maybe the feeling may be attributed to the perfectionism and over-achieving work ethic which affects many law students. Maybe, as the academic Duncan Kennedy asserts, the feeling originates from the hierarchical structure of law school and the legal profession, which both aim at convincing us into thinking we're incompetent sods. Or maybe it is because that many students are so competitive that we put on brave faces toward one another, never express our fears and misapprehensions, with the ultimate result that we feel alienated (not in the real property sense!) and alone.
Let me reassure you that you're definitely not alone, mate. Hang in there and do your best.
And from what I read from your blog you possess an enviable willpower and motivation. I think you'll be an epic lawyer. ;)
Anyway -- whoa, sorry for the dark, depressing ramble! It's 1:55 am Wednesday here, what can I say. ;)
Thanks so much Marlowe. I am quite touched you took the time :)
ReplyDeleteIt was all just a bit much, and it came out of nowhere too!
About the guano, I completely understand how you feel. When I am elbow deep in raw chicken or peeling the 1,000,000th onion for the week it is a nice reminder of why I am doing this.
I am really enjoying your style and content with your blogs!