first grade

B in Torts.

That fucking pisses me off.

I do everything for the stupid classes - I show up every day, I read, I brief cases. I participate and show that I'm not a fucking moron - and then I get a B. A B. That means I'm only in the top 60% of the class. Which means that the people who skipped class, didn't read, etc. got the same grade I did - OR BETTER. He wrote a crappy exam that was too easy, so really hard to distinguish between people. If I was on the bottom of the pile and he was out of A's (only usually 3-4 per class of 150) or B+, then there I am. Too much luck for my tastes. I'm not good enough that luck doesn't matter, and for me it matters too much.

I guess the good news is that it's not a B- or lower.

The bad news is I don't know what to do to do better. There at the end of the term I could have been less busy with work and feeling better and more motivated to outline the classes - but Torts was the one class that I actually did outline in advance. I knew that class material better than the others - which of course has me in a bit of a panic.

I'll go see the prof and go over my exam answer and the model answer and see the differences, and he'll try to give me advice which I will disregard because his advice is always lame. He graduated first in his class at Yale, and he is completely clueless. Kamaria says the A students end up working for the C students, and I understand that now.

So, getting a law job will be all about my connections, because my grades won't get me in any doors. And I have no connections.

Yesterday I thought seriously about applying to jobs at Chevron, etc. - oil and gas field. The prof was yakking on and on about it, and I thought it sounded like a good deal. Oil and gas have always been a part of my life in the background, and there is BIG MONEY there. Could I handle the assholes that run it? Maybe. But I have absolutely no background in petroleum engineering or anything else useful. If I submitted a resume to them, they would laugh.

Honestly for this summer I just saw my chances at a paying job slip through my fingers with my grades. Most firms will only hire 1Ls in the top 10% - definitely not me. And I have no connections in NOLA - but there are three law schools in the vicinity, and lots of LA kids away at law school who come home for the summer and have connections. Few opportunities left for me. I'll try, I guess, just because it would be way easy to not have to think about moving, etc.

But I'm also going to look wherever I have a key - that is, a friend I can crash with for a month or two this summer. Mostly that means Riverside or Portland, both of which may have some possibilities. But I can't afford to work for free - I have a bad attitude about 40 hours a week without a paycheck. So even a little pay would make the difference to me. The vast majority of 1Ls do internships without pay this summer, but that doesn't really work for me. And honestly, I don't plan on working in helping the downtrodden once I graduate - I'm targeting big business and whoever pays me tons. Helping the indigent doesn't pay, and that's who's looking for 1L volunteers. Sure, my nature is to jump on-board and right wrongs and defend the needy - but honestly, it won't help advance my career plans much at all.

We weren't allowed to do any job searching before December, and then we were so crazy busy with finals and then I was in Africa - so I'm really far behind the ball on this. So now I'm waiting for all my grades - because if I have a "big fat C" on my grades, I will be completely and totally screwed. I won't even be able to beg to work for free. Even the indigents will reject me.

Speaking of which, I'm spending today volunteering in a pro bono clinic for Latinos. I really hope I don't get lured in - I need to stick to my big business principles. I need to make money. Lots of money. To pay off debt and invest for the future - because if Dayton and I can ever stop our squabbling, putting him and several children through college will cost a small fortune. More than the indigents pay for damn sure.

And maybe this is just because I'm still sleeping 10 hours a night and not feeling 100% after my "vacation" - but right now, I'm a little over traveling the world for a living. Maybe business class and hotels with plumbing would change my mind about that - but I am totally wiped out still - a week after getting back. And I need to be honest with myself - my hearing is bad enough that learning new languages has become quite difficult. I can hardly understand people in English a lot of the time - African French? Who am I kidding? I don't have the 19-year-old nubile mind I once did.

As my grades reflect.