Classes have ended. Semester four of year two, marks the end of the wildest, wooliest and otherwise superlative filled year of my academic career to date. I have some sad news to impart, second year is harder than the first. It’s harder for many reasons which relate to security, capacity building, and seemingly endless tasks which fill fleeting hours.

First, your security blanket is ripped from you.  The cadre of folks you depend on for a chat, a joke and a smile have been mixed and sorted by the classes they chose. You are no longer in a section of students slated to take most classes together. Last year, you created bonds with section mates which seem further aloft as each day passes into second year because you finally get a choice of when, where, and whether you sit for one course as opposed to another.

Second, your classes are no longer foundational and are now geared to applied analysis and a practitioner’s skill sets. Fast forward from Appellate Advocacy into Estates, Evidence, Administrative Law, Intellectual Property, International Business Transactions, Family Law, and it looks like you’ve made some choices about your career path. Breathe deeply and accept that you asked for this mixed blessing and that the curve, and onslaught of upper class men and women are surely our of your control.

Finals are still an issue of torture but on the plus side you now choose the implements. The take home paper is just as likely as the sit down, sweat and forget classroom examination. Relax, you’ve done it at least three times already so it is not exactly a choice between hot oil or the rack.

In between time is the twenty or so days in between the end of second year and the start of your shiny new second summer job. You are two parts nerves and one part brass because you’ve been successful but have yet to apply it. You drink a little, sleep a lot more and generally try to figure out how you you managed to fill your days before law school created a flurry of discrete tasks and hierarchies. Its been a discipline to make time outside the library and suddenly you are confronted with it, choice. Your apartment looks like something a set designer created for a made for television movie on earthquakes, and your dishes are ruefully painted with meals you don’t even remember cooking.

In between time is an awakening from the sleep walk of neglect and selfishness. It’s time to read a paper for enjoyment or a book on a topic wholly unrelated to anything of use. It’s time for time, for reflective abandon.

I’ve gotta get back to it, work starts on 27 May 08.

TDT