A musing Beam

From The River Wild : Meryl: ... I'm sick of the whole thing. I'm sick of the whole fight. Everything has become unbelievably hard. Her mom: Huh. Honey, forgive me, but you don't know what hard is. That's because you give yourself an out. In our generation, we had no out. That was the pact of marriage. Do you think if I gave myself an out ... with your father, given his orneriness and his deafness, that I wouldn't have taken it years ago? I have often chatted with my daughters about the difference between the hard and the impossible, and that distinction has been in my mind frequently of late. (Not, by the way, because of my marriage; to quote Joe Dirt, you're paying attention to the wrong part of the story, man.) I think that the values of delayed gratification, sacrifice, and paying for things as you go are increasingly ... not valued. I have friends that run into hard times, and I understand hard times -- I grew up in them, and most of the world, b

I am starting my sixth term of law school next week. Since I am on the four year plan, I take ~11 hours of class each term, at night, for four years. So far, I have squeezed in regular classes, an externship at the Arkansas Supreme Court, moot court competition, law review, and a research assistantship with Dean DiPippa. I am going to travel to Minnesota at the beginning of March with the moot court travel team, but besides that ... I'm trying to make this term low-stress. Last term almost killed me... and I still don't have my grades yet. Ack. If I had it to do over again, I would follow the same path. Law school is tough, as much harder than college as everyone always said each next step would be, but I never found that so until now. Junior high was actually easier than elementary, high school was not much harder, college was pretty simple ... and then, BAM! Socratic method with smart people! This has been the first really challenging academic experience of my life,