Countdown to the LSAT

I have officially decided to apply to law school. However, deciding to do something and actually executing the change are two vastly different things. How did I decide on law school in the first place, you might be wondering? Well. Hmm. Um.

As many of you know my mother is an attorney and I have always been very impressed by and proud of her accomplishments in this field. Growing up people would always ask me whether or not I was also going to be a lawyer, and of course I told them no... I was going to be an actress!

Ha.

So the whole acting thing didn't work out because I got bored, and the whole changing the world through art thing didn't work out because it felt like hammering my head against a brick wall day in and day out. A brick wall made of poor dirty hippies who live with 17 cats. Here's the problem with wanting to change the world: the other people who want to change the world with you are infuriating. These people are all about nice feelings and everyone being loved and not actually getting anything fucking done. There is so much in-fighting, navel-gazing and incompetency in most non-profit organizations it would make your head spin. They are lovely human beings, but I wouldn't trust most of them to lead a cub scout troop, let alone the last great hope of humanity.

Wow. I'm a terrible person.

Anyway, so I decided that if I really wanted to make a tangible and in any way, shape, or form immediate change in the world I would need to become a mover and/or shaker. Also, I really want to be like Josh on the West Wing, and he went to law school, so I figure this might be a good first step towards becoming a cutthroat lobbyist (kidding. sort of). The first step towards this first step is taking the LSAT. This will be my first standardized test since the ACT and the SAT, and while I did well on those there has been a lot of beer and pot consumed since I was a senior in high school. I may be really stupid at this point, who knows? And everyone around me is putting the fear of god into me about not having started studying for the LSAT around the time I was actually conceived. Why haven't I started studying, when the test is little over a month away, you might ask. Here's the thing: much like the President of the United States, i'm not a studier. I don't study. I never have, and I've always done pretty well with that plan. This is not to say that I don't work hard at school, I do. But I don't really sit at a desk with a test prep book and "study", in that traditional sense. I imagine the hardest part about law school for me might be the learning to study in that traditional sense. But I don't really think deep down its my inner ferris bueller or spicolli that is keeping me from studying, I think it's what Yoda would call fear (of failure).It's like if I start studying for this test I'm admitting that I am really doing this, that I am really going to law school and becoming a lawyer and will probably never tap dance on broadway. Not that I know how to tap dance really, but still....I know that I don't want a life in the theatre anymore, but it's still hard to let go of the nostalgia for the dreams I once had (sorry, I was watching Dr. Phil today).

It's so much harder to apply for graduate school than it was for college. First of all, i have no fucking clue where I want to go to school. I bought one of those Princeton Review books that goes through every school ever ABA accredited, but I'm barely into the Ns and I've been reading it since May! Before I went to college I literally had two giant plastic garbage bags chalk full of materials sent to my by prospective colleges just because I had been able to write my name on the PSAT booklet. Now I'm applying to schools based on a two page blurb that may or may not have been updated in the last 3 years. Of course, I can ask for prospecti, but after the fawning that I experienced pre-college it feels dirty somehow, like begging for attention from these schools. I'm definitely above that.

I'm so far above that I'm probably going to end up going to some non-accredited at night law school in a strip mall.

The other reason that it is harder to apply for gradschool is that I now have a job, instead of parents. Meaning that instead of being fed, clothed and cleaned for (to an extent) I am having to actually take care of myself, work a full time job and find another 40 hours a week to commit to the application process. I know I sound like a whiney baby, and I don't care. This is why I am going back to school. Real Life is hard. Boo.

So if any of you know of great, affordable law school programs, want to help me write up my CV, or just do my applications for me, let me know. I promise you free legal counsel in the future. Whether or not I'll be able to get you off, well, that's just a crapshoot I guess.