Thursday, September 11, 2008

Life and legend

Breaking news, folks:
I'm still exhausted.

Seriously, I can't remember ever being this tired for this prolonged a period in my whole life. In a recent Facebook message, my WLA Big Sister pointed out that I'm taking 18 credit hours this semester- that's 18 hours per week in a classroom. It hadn't occurred to me before, but it feels about right- the most I ever took in undergrad was 16, and class itself was so much easier then.

Still, it's easy to feel energized just thinking of the amazing people who walked Harvard's paths and sat in its classrooms before you. Six of the nine current Supreme Court justices were here- so were Oliver Wendell Holmes, Ralph Nader, Janet Reno, and both Michelle and Barack Obama, who was great again on TV tonight. (Watching him, I couldn't help wondering whether he ever used a locker in the tunnels, and which. I plan on a whole post about the tunnels at a later date.) At dinner with the Dean on Wednesday, our faculty leader told me he'd once taught Alberto Gonzalez, another HLS graduate. I asked him whether he could've spent a little more class time defining the word "torture." But disappointments aside, it's an electrifying place to go to school- even moreso, I'm told, once the first wave of exhaustion passes and you can actually enjoy it.

But back to that dinner Wednesday night. They held it in a rare books and artifacts room in the Langdell Law Library, full of treasures Dean Kagan admitted were placed there on the exclusive basis of their value on the open market. (She was hilarious all night, using funny stories she'd heard from us while making the rounds to embarrass each professor in turn during her speech. She even made our Torts instructor demonstrate his amazing name recall on a whole table of students, bewildering everyone who'd assumed he'd just memorized his own seating chart.) I realize I'm gushing, but it's these sorts of events- these chances just to talk and socialize with both classmates and professors- that drive home what an exceptional class of people you're flung into when they admit you to Harvard.

Well, okay- more like an exceptional class of caffeinated zombies at the moment. But I'm told that'll change any day now.

We'll see.

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

Hang in there, Sweetie!