Three hours and forty-six minutes.

My life returns in 17 hours.

confidence

I've been getting a lot of questions about what an incoming 1L needs to prepare for her first year. Like everything else in law, there are differing schools of thought over whether to read ahead; whether to take a Barbri course; whether to have the last rocking summer you'll ever have (my personal favorite). To me, the most important asset an ambitious 1L must have is confidence.

I just got back from office hours, and the resident spaz of my section hyperventilated and rattled off incoherent questions for close to an hour. She began every question with, "I know this is a stupid question, but..." (and, no, my prof didn't give her the "there's no such thing as a stupid question" spiel.) While someone else was talking to the professor, she asked me a question, and apparently my answer conflicted with her understanding. As I spoke, her eyes enlarged, and the heavy breathing began. Then I fantasized about slapping her in the face, grabbing her by the shoulders, and saying, "Look, you crazy b----, chill the f--- out!" And then I daydreamed about slapping her again for good measure.

Contrary to what you may think, I sympathize with pre-exam panic attacks. I have them myself: two mornings before my Property exam, I woke up at 5am with my stomach in knots, and I didn't eat until 2pm that day -- and I never skip breakfast. But then I mentally slapped myself, yelled at myself to get it together, and attacked my property book like an animal.

What I don't sympathize with are people who indiscriminately freak out in front of anyone and everyone, expecting some sort of reassurance. I don't know this girl that well, and she only talks to me when she's freaking out. (Note: Law school is not filled with people like this. This is only one girl, and she earned herself this reputation. Ask anyone in my class. Anyone.) Anyone who does this in front of strangers day in and day out are sheer attention-getters, no question.

Anyway, back to confidence: For a lot of people, law school tends to do a number on your self-esteem, at least for the first few weeks. I'm a pretty confident person, but the second week of school, I wondered whether I was really law school material. Me! The girl who's wanted to go to law school since forever! I started to learn (through the helpful perspective of all those who have traveled this path before me) that everyone feels this way. To keep it from destroying me, I chose (1) to stay away from braggarts who like to destroy other people's confidence, and (2) to exude nothing less than the most carefree demeanor. This demeanor makes my fellow classmates believe that I know what I'm talking about, even when I haven't the slightest clue. This in turn insulates me from all but the most extreme situations of freaking-out-itis, which allows me to focus on studying my exams and kicking ass.

Moral of the story: Don't be the resident spaz in your section because other classmates will laugh at you.

the market participant exception. my dad.

I only have fifteen minutes to write because all the teenagers took the unlimited time computers here at the library. So --

The most frustrating feeling coming out of an exam is realizing that you know way more than you were tested on. This is inevitable since a 3-hour essay exam can't possibly trigger every single concept of constitutional law, which has percolated for over 200 years. Nevertheless, I now feel that I have much too much useless information in my head. Did you know that a state cannot regulate interstate commerce, but if the state participates directly in the market -- say, by selling cement or buying services -- it may exert full leverage on the market? Did you know this is true even when the state is the only market participant and is, for all intents and purposes, "regulating" the market it inhabits? See, what the heck am I supposed to do with this now?!?

****

Saturday was the thirtieth anniversary of the Fall of Saigon. My dad was a doctor for the South Vietnamese Army and was captured several days before the Fall. The North Vietnamese placed him in a re-education camp for two years, and during the first month or so, he didn't know where my mom was. He sent a letter to her home in Saigon, which eventually got to her, and he basically told her how he loved her and missed her; that he didn't know where she was; that even though it broke his heart, she should leave the country because it was too dangerous and because he didn't know when he would be let out. My mom always complains about my dad to me, but this was one of the first times that I saw her speak so tenderly about something he did. My father probably could have avoided this fate several times: (1) by taking the scholarship to go to the US years before to study medicine [he was scared], or (2) by running away before they captured the city he was assigned. His medical doctor friends escaped, but he stayed -- he believed that leaving at that moment wasn't the right thing to do. When he eventually tried to escape, he got in a boat off the coast but was almost immediately captured.

I had friends whose grandfathers were in WWII and had these amazing war stories to share. For a long time, I wished that I had someone like that in my family, not realizing that the man in my house that likes to watch Survivor re-runs and to talk about Amber and Rob was a hero in his own right. I can only hope that the same passion and commitment to something good stays with me for the rest of my life. My dad's not perfect: he's anti-social, temperamental, and stubborn. But I'm happy to have him as my father and to have his story to guide me.