" ...the pressures gone. now i can go on with the rest of the semester, chill up here for the summer, walk and still be on schedule (the one i made for myself [someones law school by 2010 fall]). mama wont like it, but in the end it may be best. it means i get to see some things through that i may not have bee able to before. it also means that i wont be sitting in Charlotte or Durham with no gig and nothing to do for those summer months. and who knows, maybe penny and busko can work a little magic and make something outta nothing. we'll see. i've got this strange since of optimism that wasn't there a week ago when no one was mad at me..."
on 2/4/09 i wrote that in a blog post about my anxiety and optimism over the changing phases of my life. i was this close to graduation, had a plan of action, and was determined to make them all work for me in the next year. what could go wrong, right?
as it turns out, that adage about best laid plans is even more spot on than you think. allow me to update you on the two years that followed.
despite the minor set back of having to come back for classes over the summer, i was determined to finish strong, which given my track record at the time meant that all i really had to do was stay true to the course I'd been on. 3 straight 4.0 semesters to that point had to mean i was doing something right. well, if you know me then you know i was embroiled in a common relationship conundrum at that point (i like that word 'conundrum'), needless to say, i was distracted. but i could still wing it in my classes. as the semester wore on, the knowledge that graduation was an impossibility set in. certain classes (i.e. the ones that had no effect on my graduation or my interest in law school) became chores to me. my mother can attest to how well i take to chores, but since she's not here let me tell you how i take to chores like a shark takes to the desert. work just didn't get done to my standards in these classes. and for no real appreciable reason. i finished the semester with a 3.0, just enough to knock me from magna cum laude to simply 'with honors'.
lets back track for a sec and talk about something i usually like to keep secret: this was also the time when i had my big STD scare. we all have one scare or another, but this was MY scare. this was the one that was NOT supposed to happen me. so i get tested. negative. few weeks pass and I'm still feeling a little genitally compromised, so i go and get another test, a more comprehensive one. the difference is this time i have to wait two week for the results. so I'm going through these two weeks as if I'm waiting to hear from the governor. an air of "dead man walking" followed me from class to class, studied with me, cooked my meals, and rocked me to sleep each 3 o'clock-in-the-morning. the big day comes and i get the phone call. "you're results are here. come into the office to get them." this was devastating. ME, the guy who always, ALWAYS uses protection. the guy who is so selective with who he cavorts with. how could i possibly have contracted something so terrible that i have to walk all the way to the office to get? what seemed like a year later i was in the office. the doctor walked in with that "mmmm hmmmm" look that black ladies get when they feel superior to you (the doctor was a black lady). "OK, Mr. HIM, we have your results. you tested negative for.." and she proceeded to list all the horrible heebie jeebies you could imagine. i felt the power being sapped from my legs as she said, "you're all clear". supported by the steadfast examiners table i declared, "so i don't have anything?" in what turned out to be more of a question than a declaration. "not that we found" i hate the way doctors answer questions.because that mustard seed of doubt would grow, never allowing me to be satisfied with her "all clear" proclamation. i recomposed myself and walked out of that office, a clean man.
that would be the last time i set foot in a doctors office or hospital.
so i breeze through the summer -- at different institutions-- with what would have been a 3.5 at my school (B+ at UNC, A at UNCC) then get set to take the LSAT. fast forward to September: the date of my exam. i sit at my desk, pencil in hand, back up pencil sharp and ready, back up back up pencil go, emergency back up pencil on standby, then the examiner says go... i freeze up. physically I'm poring over the pages with the same ice cold confident precision of every other test taker. but inside is a civil war. my senses are firing, my emotions are raging, but my mind, my mind just... won't... churn. not a single coherent thought is able to form long enough for me to answer the questions that I'd seen hundreds of times in practice. section 1 becomes section 2 and 3 and i mind won't cooperate with me. after the break however, I'm able to get it together. the questions become familiar again. and forget about the essay portion, because i knocked it out cold! the next part sees me in a similar situation as the waiting period i mentioned before, and after another lifetime i finally receive the email! i open it calmly and read through the brief introduction, your basic professional courtesies. finally, my heart beat becoming more pronounced by the instant, i read the score: "1.." so far so good, "5..." uh-oh... i don't read the rest. it doesn't matter at this point, because it's too low to be the score i wanted. well, i, undeterred by that minor set back, embark on what has turned into a year long saga of applications, essays, trips to lobby for letters of recommendation, cross country flights, open houses, inexplicably email's from top 10 schools, and two count 'em, two acceptance letters (after what felt like 50 "incomplete: missing letter of recommendation" letters, but that's another story).
well, gang, my tale has become quite an epic yarn, so hasta que otra vez adieu and adios.
TO BE CONTINUED...
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