the thin line between optimism and delusion…

I can’t stop thinking about what I should be doing. The problem is that I can’t decide what I should be doing. Oh course, I should be doing my work (at least according to my teachers and some of my friends). But really, what is doing my work going to get me? It is going to decrease the chance that I make a fool of myself in class tomorrow, but it isn’t going to guarantee anything, since we all know that no matter how prepared you are, teachers have this terrible habit of making you forget everything. But doing my homework will in the long run make studying for my finals easier. But of course my worst grade last year was in the one class that I always read for, and the two classes I did the best in were the ones that I didn’t read much for. The important part is that I learn the material, and it can be really difficult to figure out the most effective way to do that. Because I really do want to succeed in law school. It is difficult, because I am what some people would call “a gamer.” And what I mean by this is that I can only give my best performance when it counts. For instance, I did 3 points higher on the real LSAT then my best practice test score. And 3 points is lot, I really needed those points to help my gpa. Or how I am much better at quarters when I am playing in a game than I am when I am just playing by myself (not that I do this a lot). Or how I could always run faster or jump higher in high school if I was actually competing for something. Part of this has to do with being competitive, but it is more than that for me. I don’t really mind losing. Although I am sure that there are some reasons why being a gameris a good thing, because it does allow me to come through when it counts, it is detrimental to my work ethic. I can’t give forth my best effort in practice. And this is a terrible thing. Because if I can’t practice in best form, then I will never be able to be consistent. And also, if I know that I am going to have some added skill when it matters, I don’t have the incentive to practice. Plus, I like to live on the edge sometimes. I didn’t graduate from college until three days after law school started. After fall semester of my senior year I still needed 24 hours of credit to graduate. I took 12 hours at UGA spring semester, 3 hours at Augusta Tech winter quarter, 3 hours at Athens tech spring quarter, 3 hours independent study from UGA, and 3 hours via the internet from Bowling Green University in Kentucky (it was a C.S. Lewis english course I was interested in). I only graduated from college after making a D in a calculus course I took spring term at athens tech. Now, what this means is, had I not passed this course at athens tech, I would not have been able to go to law school, since there really wasn’t time for me to take another course (I might have been able to add late into a summer course at Augusta State or UGA, but only if I was VERY lucky). Knowing this information, I still decided to see how close I could come to failing. I’ve never made a D in my life other than this course. Luckly, from some grace of God, UGA accepts Ds from Athens Tech, and in addition, my degree did not require me to make a C in calculus. I couldn’t get it together enough to take my independent study final until about a week before law school, and it was this grade that kept me from graduating, in addition to the fact that UGA was waiting on my grade from bowling green who had not finished summer classes yet and would not release my transcript until they did. But as it turns out, UGA is a bunch of liars, and they went ahead and graduated me before my bowling green credit came in by using one of my many excess credit courses to fulfill the requirement that they swore would not work. Even though I have graduated, Oasis still wants to list my law school classes on a transcript with my undergrad classes, and puts my law classes in the excess credit area. I apologize for the length of this post, and the rambling that isn’t interesting, but I feel it is necessary to show how lucky I am to be here, but also to indicate that cutting it close can work out and it teaches me bad lessons when it does.