Subtle Changes

It must be happening at school.

Cause I can feel the strange little differences.

People who were once very open and chatty are closing down. Others who were quite good natured are grumpy and sullen. Still others have those secret, almost smirky, smiles.

We have had a spate of grades - for papers and midterms and such. And with that influx of feedback has come a new feeling into the 1L class. I really don't like it.

Don't get me wrong. I have actually come out quite well numbers wise in almost all the graded things, and I am overall feeling just as confused and goofy as I figure most of the other students, good grades or not, are feeling. But I do not like that my fellow journeymen are judging both themselves and others by the small measures of progress we have received.

It's hard to explain that moment when you get an "A" and are thrilled but look to your left and then to your right and realize that two of the people now closest to you in this weird, forced intimacy that is law school 1L year, are both downcast. In my life, one of those people got a "B" and one a "C." Neither of those is fatal, and yet, in that moment, it felt like it for each of them.

Now I see why people are less free with their grade information - already many have begun to say they did "well" or "Very well" or "Not as good as I had hoped" which if you think about any of those phrases much, could describe "A-"s or "C"s depending on the student in each case.

Far worse than that moment when we line up at the Wall of Grades, is the next day, or two days later, when the students who truly did poorly (and poorly, as we are constantly reminded by the denizens of LawSchoolWisdom, really means, very well compared to the vast majority of the population who never undertake this level of education - whatever that means, because it sounds like so much bullshit to justify both the assinine curve and the denigration of most of the population as somehow less worthy?), anyway, when those students who got "C"s or even "B"s are truly depressed, or angry, or feeling very competitive with the other students. Those days are ugly and dark and not at all helpful to anyone, I think.

One friend this week was truly depressed; another has lost all sex drive and is perplexed; a third friend is becoming very cutting with remarks and hostile towards anyone she knows or even suspects did better than her grade wise. It is all so much more real when the people have names and your name is one of them.

So, I am still trying very hard to be that encourager. As rosy posy and freakishly unreal as it sounds, I am actually here to learn, but I don't want to get "better" at the expense of someone else. It is becoming more and more clear to me that success, for me, is about my relationships as much as my own knowledge.

This week I took several unplanned gaps of time out of my schedule (so much for that eh? priorities though!) to try and help other students come to terms with what is happening in their own lives. And also, to let them know that I care. As cheesy as it sounds, right now, I think we all feel like assholes and we need to know that our fellow classmates 1) feel this way and 2) don't feel this way about fellow journeymen.

I'm guessing this post makes alot of sense for a few people and none at all to most. Apologies!