Disclaimer: BarBri Is Making Me Crazy

In between trips to the grocery store in my sweat pants for "HELP, MORE CHOCOLATE!" and listening to Barbri lectures on my loaner fancy pants ipod touch, I'm constantly hitting the refresh button on my school email, waiting for the long overdue emails indicating that my grades have started to trickle in. (By the way, funny story: when my son was born one of our good friends told me "Ok, just don't let yourself go and become one of those moms who does her grocery shopping in her sweats!" I didn't know what to say to that considering the fact that I had been grocery shopping in my sweats since college. How are you supposed to fit the donut in the car ride home into your belly if it that belly is being restricted by tight waisted jeans?- DUH!).

So, it's been almost a month since I took my first exam and I had yet to receive a single grade. Meanwhile, one of my best highschool friends took her physical therapist licensing exam to practice in the state AND received her passing results in the manner of two weeks. What's up with that people? The law school has taken my money, the tattered remnants of the last good years of my youth and my self-confidence. Do they want to take my sanity too? Because I'm going crazy wondering if I passed law school or not. Are they trying to wring out as much pain from me as possible? You know as a nice parting gift?

At 4:30pm, I figured I would refresh my inbox one last time for the day figuring if they don't post grades during business hours then they certainly won't do so in the middle of the night. Wistfully and doubtfully, I hit "refresh." My heart skipped a tiny beat when I noticed that I had one new message in my inbox. My heart skipped a medium sized beat when I read the subject of that email: "Grades for Pre-Trial Advocacy Have Been Posted." Oh lordy. Here we go. This was my big whopping 4 credit class and probably the greatest variable as far as my grades went this semester. You see, my professors for this class decided that, although we had to turn in actual legal work product for a pretend case, such as Motions for Summary Judgment and Discovery Requests as well as give a final oral argument in front of a REAL judge, we hadn't received ANY qualitative feedback whatsoever.

I wonder what goes through the heads of other students as they retrieve their grades- what do other students feel? My experiences have always been the same. I click on the link to retrieve my grade and my heart starts pounding wildly in my chest. I have to enter my log in information and I can barely see from the crazy pounding reverbrating through my body to the cores of my eyeballs. As I am about to click the button to load my grades onto the screen, warmth injects itself into all my veins. I seriously can feel the blood pumping through each one in my hands, in my feet, in my forehead. Then I start to tingle. It's the kind of suspenseful tingle you get right before you almost fall off a ten foot ladder but catch yourself just in time. But mostly just my bottom is tingling. Don't ask, I have no idea why. My bottom always used to tingle when my mom would kiss me goodnight as a kid. It used to tingle when my husband would kiss me when we were dating. And, it also tingles when I look up my grades- it never ever tingles outside of these three instances- weird huh?

Ok anyway, enough tingling, the page starts to load and I whisper to myself, "Please God, please God, please God!" Something about the situation always insights the deeply buried relgious zealot on me. And right before I scroll down to see the tiny little letter grade wielding oh so much importance, I pause to think. "This is it. In one second I will either be happy or sad."

The moment of truth arrives. The tingling and the heart pounding has built up into an unbearable zenith and.....


B+.................


I stop a moment to think about if this is good or bad. In college, as like other law students, I received straight As all the time. A B+ in college would have made me sad. But this is lawschool, this is an entirely different ball game. Law school has stripped away most of my confidence and my high standards, leaving me to feel as if I were completely and utterly naked on a busy public street. So, my metaphorical nakedness considered, this is.... the BEST GRADE EVER! (I have received an occasional A in law school, but without fail, it has always been tempered by a big fat C).

I am happy. I think I'll scarf some more chocolates as I sit in my sweats and listen to Barbri lectures.