Epilogue - Yale Law School, Year 2

Yale called me to admit me at almost the last conceivable moment. It might have been on my birthday, now that I think about it, during the second week of May. I was jumping up and down with glee, having decided that attending the "#1 law school" would signify the completion of my life goals to date.

I quickly learned that life is more complicated than that. Moreover, when you run out of life goals, what is left to motivate you? At YLS (which is, in fact, more pretentious than I gave it credit for, resulting in the appellation "tYLS," or THE Yale Law School, as opposed to any-other-old Yale Law School), there aren't even arbitrary rankings and social pressure to keep me working hard. With the result that I am hardly working. Take away deadlines, and what do you get? In my case, I have yet to turn in a paper, leaving me with three outstanding papers and one course withdrawal. Impressive record for just having finished my 2L year.

At any rate, some people still work themselves to death over the hope of getting a Supreme Court clerkship, but I took myself out of that running early on. Maybe I was discouraged by the fact that everyone else seemed to be a Rhodes scholar who spent the last 8 years winning a Nobel Prize in quantum physics and curing AIDS while building houses for the homeless in Nicaragua and playing violin concertos with the New York Philharmonic in their spare time. Or maybe I didn't want to work myself to death for three years in law school for the honor of working myself to death for two years for judges who getup at 6 am and expect you to attend their exercise classes and then read cases all day and eat dinner in the office and come back the next day after four hours of sleep and do it all over again. Don't get me wrong, it IS an honor, but just not one that I am willing to kill myself (or stab other people in the back) over.

As a result, I have managed to make it this far in law school without doing nearly as much frantic hoop-jumping as the rest of my class - studying the Bluebook (a citation format guide) for 20 hours a week? reading 10,000 pages of student-written note submissions in two weeks for the law journal? writing chapters of professors' books in exchange for a footnote mention (if you're lucky)? No, thank you. But I have also come out feeling like I've spent two years of my life accomplishing very, very little as I watch my classmates rack up a list of impressive resume fodder. In contrast, my most significant accomplishment has been the accumulation of quite a bit of debt. You try to get someone to loan you $100,000 and then spend it all. Go ahead. It's not that easy.

So, feeling pretty lukewarm about my law school experience, I did what any rational, intelligent, conscientious 24-year-old would do: I had my Mid-Law School Crisis. It started, I guess, when I took up tango dancing a year ago. It culminated in the current situation - me, down in Argentina, getting ready to hit up the Buenos Aires tango scene for everything it's worth. On the plus side, Yale paid for my airfare, and, on the assumption that I'm actually going to learn something about the law while I'm down here, gave me a couple thousand bucks to live on for the next 11 weeks. Certainly I have grand plans for my exchange student experience, internship, and "research." But first I have to write one of those outstanding papers, in order to become a 3L and graduate and all of that other incidental stuff. And I'll get to that - just as soon as I buy some new tango shoes and do some sight-seeing and sign up for some dance lessons and find all the best bars and practice my woeful Spanish and eat some more empanadas and figure out how to negotiate the public transportation system and find an apartment (in rough order of priority). ¡Bienvenidos a law school, everyone! Look what "the most important decision of your career" can do for you. Choose carefully...

Day Four - Harvard, Cambridge, MA

I think Harvard got the shaft in my evaluations, in some respect, because I came here last. If I go to another cocktail party, I think I'll barf. Ha ha, how eloquent for a Harvard admit. Point being, I was so sick of wine and cheese - and so hungry for the lack of an actual dinner - that I found myself eating the fruit garnishes. Fancy-cut orange halves, aesthetically arranged grapes, heck, I was tempted to grab the decorative half-pineapple and go to town. But apparently I still have a modicum of decorum left, because I did not give in to that temptation.

So. Harvard is polished, as you'd expect, and has some big selling points. Number one of course is name recognition all over the globe. Everyone has heard of and respects the name Harvard. It opens all kinds of doors, and the alumni networks are vast, global and supportive. Number two, Boston = cool. (Well, Cambridge anyway.) And safe. I walked back to my dorm alone after the bar and felt completely safe. That may be due to the hundreds of coeds swarming the streets... which I imagine could be either a fun social scene or incredibly wearing. (I can't imagine seeing nothing but twenty-somethings, or younger, day in and day out. I get sick of it at Whitman...)

Speaking of which, the class size is, like Yale, a plus and a minus. (I really think Columbia has the right idea with 350.) 700 people are just too many to know everyone. Yet it means there are more professors total available, more social networks, more diverse classes, and so on. I'm torn between hating the huge campus and big classes and really liking the idea that there are more fields to specialize in and more people to be exposed to.

Oh, I have a story about the campus, now that I think of it. So I had a horrible morning. I mean, getting on the train to Boston was fine. Did some reading, finished Bastard Out of Carolina, was depressed - especially in contrast to the ritzy, elitist atmosphere of law school admissions!!! Anyway, all good, until I arrived at the Harvard exit of the T-station (subway). The directions said turn right, but somehow, they must have meant turn left, or I got the directions for the wrong station, who knows. Either way, I ended up going at least half a mile in the wrong direction with two heavy bags and an overloaded backpack. No wheels of course, because I didn't want to take my "enormous" suitcase. And I don't know how to pack light. Or, arguably, pack reasonably at all.

So I got lost, and asked where the law school was and where to go. I was pointed in the right direction soon enough, which was the opposite way I had come and thus at least three-quarters of a mile back the other way. I got back to the T-station and was so exhausted. It might be good Marine Corps training but it is not how I'd planned on starting my Harvard weekend. I have raw spots on both my hands. But the drama did not end there. I continued asking for more specific directions to the hall where the admissions office is located. I asked about 10 people, I think, and some simply had no clue, whereas others should have just said that because they sent me off in wild directions and I got lost another three times or so.

Finally, about to collapse, I found the admissions office. It was empty and locked. What?!? I was about to give up right there, just park my bags and camp out until someone came along. But after a few minutes' repose, I realized my stomach was grumbling, and decided I could at least seek out some food. At least that was something students knew how to locate. I made my way to the dining hall/student lounge area without delay.

To my surprise, not only was food available, but I stumbled upon the admissions crew! They had sent an email to my new Harvard account with the details of where to meet on campus. But I think it's retarded to check my Harvard account when a) I am still a Whitman student and b) I'm not committed to go here, and am not even convinced I want to go here. So I didn't realize they would just send stuff to it that was really important instead of using the address I gave them.

But I got checked into my room, which, as I said, is an unoccupied dorm room, and went out to find some law students. The RA had bought pizza, so, as I had not availed myself of the boxed lunches provided by Admissions, I accepted that free food with glee. One of the girls hanging out said, "I swear, you will never get more free stuff in your life than as a Harvard Law student." The Dean has made a concerted effort to improve the morale of students here because they have a reputation of being miserable. There is free coffee in class buildings and after 9 pm at the library; there are tampons provided in the women's restrooms; there is a new ice skating rink open to HLS students put on top of the volleyball courts in the winter - all student requests that have been granted. Which is cool, but that is definitely not an adequate response to student misery unless the unhappiness is caused by lack of things to do (unlikely in Boston) or lack of funds to buy coffee or tampons (unlikely at Harvard). It's like a treatment of the symptoms instead of the root cause, it seems to me. Almost like bribing people to endure the hardship because at least you don't have to pay for your coffee. On the other hand, it might just be a general indicator that the Dean cares about students, which is what several people have assured me. In which case, maybe this would be a good place to come. They've really worked on narrowing the bureaucratic B.S., which sounds great (i.e. registration, etc.).

Mainly I guess my concern is here they have grades, and some people are super-competitive, whereas at Yale (all the time) and Columbia (in the first year at least) courses are just Pass-Fail. Yet I am sure you can be competitive anywhere or laid-back anywhere, depending on your attitude. I already know, however, that in a competitive environment I'll have a hard time not putting that pressure on myself. It might be nice just to eliminate that factor completely.

I spoke to a really cool upperclassman (2 or 3L) named Roy - again, gay, what is with me finding that community? They're all so frank and helpful though, I'm definitely not complaining - but at any rate, he told me that I'd probably get more attention here as a public interest person since 75% of people go to big firms. Again, the pressure is substantial to go into corporate law or a large legal firm, and a huge number of people come in as idealists with an interest or goal and go out as sell-outs seeking a job they don't care about just for the money.

Some of them think, "I'll just do it for a few years, pay back my loans and go back to by dream of being a [insert noble public interest field here]." But from speaking with a Columbia alumna who gave a talk, the rumors seem to be true that it doesn't ever work that way. You get on a track, and you are no longer willing to sacrifice the potential earnings, status and advancement for a less glorified position. You get sucked in. "There came a point where I thought, my loans are paid off, I could go if I want," she told me. "But by then, I didn't want to leave anymore." She said she was glad she stayed. (It's my spin that her decision is a negative one, not hers.) She said having kids and continuing in the profession was really hard, but doable. But as Roy told me, "There is almost a reinstatement of the glass ceiling. If you say you want kids, as a woman, you're automatically off the partner track." So I'm not sure what to believe.

I do know I think the firm thing is pretty icky. Here they sponsor student activities often, which basically means firms buy the law students alcohol all the time. "It's a major crisis in the field," Roy said. "So many students end up doing something that wasn't what they wanted or expected to be doing. They hate the day-to-day functions of their jobs, and all they do is work and then go out and drink. The hours are so long, some firms put beds in the offices, and for diversion there are weekly (or twice-weekly) cocktail parties...There's a huge number of alcoholics in the legal profession."

With my disgust with cocktail parties so evident after just five of them (JUST five? in four days? but anyway) I can't imagine that being part of my regular social routine. A couple times a year, fine. A couple times a week, not on your life. I wouldn't take to drinking, I think I would just jump off a bridge. Or quit. Something drastic, anyhow.

So the people really aren't nearly as bad as I expected. I think everyone expects snooty, snobby people, and they really aren't. They're smart and funny and friendly and open. At least, they are when they're new admits, and/or when they're with other Harvard students. Yet they certainly do seem to become accustomed to a certain privilige, to expectations that put them in a different category. They're used to being taken care of. They work hard in class, but are spoiled afterward. And perhaps I should say SOME work hard in class. Those who aren't competitive still get decent grades, even, according to Roy, when they don't go to class at all - after the first year, at least. And in this environment, anyone would get out of touch with reality. It's just the nature of the beast.

So I find myself a hardened cynic after less than a week of the North-Eastern Admitted Law Students circuit. I think I am choosing between the lesser of three evils here. Columbia seemed the most sinister, frankly, in terms of the subtle pervading corruption of wealth. (Wow, I sound like a communist; who would guess I'm a fiscal conservative? I like to think I'm "grounded," not anti-capitalist - since I'm not - but more specifically, I mean that I want to do something that will make me happy in itself. I don't think money buys happiness, but all these people buy into that myth, and, I can only assume, are largely miserable as a result.) Yet while Harvard has a larger genuine-interest-in-the-law component, it seems the least inviting and most challenging in terms of making friends, enjoying yourself and not either taking school too seriously or drinking a whole lot.

Thus I conclude - albeit before Harvard has had a completely fair shake, since most of their programs, especially academic, take place tomorrow and even Monday - that Yale is the most amenable institution given my interests, and despite numerous concerns about the town and social opportunities, the most appealing to me overall. If I don't get in, I don't know what I'll do. Visit Stanford, perhaps!

Day Four - Reflections on Yale

So, Happy Hour was fun. Donated by an alum, it's a time that students - and even professors - can get together at the end of each week and socialize. I just hopped in with a couple groups and had a blast debating Supreme Court decisions, philosophy, even Catholicism...

It's a funny story, actually. So what happened was I randomly sat down at a table and it happened to be the Yale gay community. (Apparently EVERYONE self-segregates. I mean, it's partly just that you want to hang out with the people you identify with. And if you're gay, you may want to date, and at Yale there is not much of a crowd to choose from.) But anyway, so I rapidly discover they're having a vigorous discussion of "what next?" in FAIR v. Rumsfeld, the decision that allowed military recruiting at law schools to be a requirement to receive federal funding. Naturally they were upset about it. I suggested that the court system was the wrong approach - since I agree with the decision in terms of the legal reasoning - and that what is truly needed is social change and direct attacks on the Don't Ask Don't Tell policy. They agreed, for the most part. But when I asked, "How would Yale students view students who are in the military?" they were polite and receptive and said, "It's too small to not get along with anybody." But then they quickly referred me over to the "conservative students" table. (I heard it's cliquish there, and that was definitely obvious. But some people cross boundaries. You get assigned a Small Group of 15 students and bond closely with them, to the point that the really cool gay guy Nick was apparently good friends with the very Catholic (in an anti-gay sort of way) Sarah. Hmmm. Like they genuinely like each other, not they tolerate each other.

So anyway, I met Sarah and her friend Sean, and they - both being Catholic - were headed to Stations of the Cross at St. Mary's, which they invited me to. It was an interesting experience, as I'd never done that before. Even better, they invited me to an Irish pub afterwards and we discussed philosophy and Catholicism late into the night. Then Sean gave me a belated tour of the law school and took me to the library so I could do some homework. He introduced me to another fascinating conservative who told me about the Death Penalty class and eventually - after Sean left - helped me find a shuttle back to the hotel.

(Apparently the "safe streets until 4 am" thing is not at all true. There was a shooting on the block where my hotel was not two weeks before! Everyone was emphatic that I should not walk the three blocks to the hotel alone at midnight.)

It's too bad I'm not a big fan of New Haven and it's somewhat dangerous, because I really felt like Yale was the intellectual match for me. Every person I spoke with, I wanted to continue talking to for hours. I had so many questions and points to bring up and topics I thought would be fun to discuss. It's true, they are an odd crowd. Eccentric, I would say. Sean reads St. Thomas Aquinas and McIntyre and all sorts of Catholic theorists, ancient and contemporary, for fun and is full of wild random facts. I see why they didn't admit me right away, perhaps - it could be the reason they were all so interesting to me is that they are honestly more intellectually developed than I am. But anyway, I did feel comfortable there.

My main concern is size. It's both a plus and a minus. Small class size means you know everyone, you get individual attention from professors (or some of them), there are less Yale students in the world so they are more "select" or elite, however you want to look at it. Yet it also means, you know everyone, in that you may not be able to get away from them. You may be stuck in a social group you don't want to be in, or have few to no friends. You may have a hard time meeting people outside the law school, and certainly won't be able to find people outside of Yale.

All in all, though, I had a very, very good experience at Yale. It's much more policy-oriented, philosophical, and... interesting, in my opinion, than more career-focused "professional school" type law school experiences (i.e. Columbia). Now it is just a matter of whether I am accepted or not... I'd rather not get my hopes up if I'm going to be disappointed.

Day Three - Yale, New Haven, CT

Frankly, I'm exhausted. By the time I get to Harvard I may not even be able to speak coherently. Good thing I'm already admitted there... ha ha.

So, more drama, this time with hotels. I changed plans at the last minute and decided to come to Yale before Harvard since I had a day in between admitted student weekends, but all the local hotels are full of geriatrics here for the Psychology Alumni weekend and student hosts all have students assigned because starting tomorrow Yale is having its own admitted students weekend. I guess I should be glad I am not yet admitted because I didn't have to choose between Yale's and Harvard's weekends... assuming I eventually do get in, of course.

I really hope I do. I like it here, too. It's so different from Columbia. I think it's more... me. The architecture is so old and grandiose, it's funny. The library's interior looks like Notre Dame in Paris. The computers are in these little alcoves off to the side of what would be the nave, if it actually was a cathedral. Of course, I can't use those because I'm not a student here, so I got sent off to a sterile computer lab where non-students are restricted to computers from the early '90s and they don't even provide chairs! The divisions here are tremendous between the school and the town, even worse than Walla Walla, I would say, because the regions outside the schools are so much bigger. I've noticed so much explicit exclusivity and marginalization. It would be hard to deal with as a student here (at any of the Ivy League schools).

I attended a seminar taught by a district court judge. She was really nice and a very good teacher. It was about sentencing laws, exactly the kind of thing I am really interested in, and the class had a lively discussion, although only a few people out of the fifteen or so actually spoke. (I was tempted to pipe in just to mix things up a bit, but hadn't read the article, so naturally I couldn't really contribute anything worthwhile.... but if I had had something to say I seriously would have.) And I still saw students surfing the web. Apparently "everybody does it." I seriously want to sign a contract for myself before I start law school that says I will never do that. It seems so stupid... But anyway, I was impressed by the class and could totally see myself in it.

The admissions department is just as frustrating in person as over the phone. They literally didn't have time to talk to me and basically shooed me out of the office and told me to come back later. But it sounds like the students here don't like it either and it's just one of those hurdles to get over. The students are so nice and friendly, really open and inviting. And these ones weren't even arm-twisted into talking to me by admissions, since after all the admissions department could care less. Even when I did ambush them randomly, they were frank and yet still positive about the school.

I guess it's true some professors here don't have time for students, but clearly not all. There are such amazing opportunities. I spoke with a first-year law student (a 1L) who wrote a bill that is now before the Connecticut State Congress. He had no prior experience but it's part of his law clinic on Legislation. Wow! Others are traveling to the NY maximum security prison to have discussions about the law and such with prisoners, and there's another trip up to Boston to watch the 2nd District Court in session.

I guess wherever I go there will be a lot of opportunities, but you can definitely detect different focuses. At Columbia most students - not all, but most - go to huge firms. Here most students go on to be law professors and judges, so the focus is more on the theoretical - Philosophies of Law, Ethics, things like that. Things I am more interested in.

Yale also has a loan forgiveness program whereby if you make less than $43000 per year (and the starting Marine Corps salary is $42000) they will gradually forgive your loans, depending on how long you are there, of course. Generous, huh? Their loan repayment is also generally on a sliding scale, which is good to know.

New Haven, according to my taxi driver, is a fair-sized town that has been cleaned up a lot in the past few years. "You can walk the streets at 4 am, no problem," he says. He also said it was nice because it has city-ish aspects but a smaller college town feel. I enjoyed the coffee shop and it looks like there are plenty of amenities, including ethnic food and sushi (yay!), of which Walla Walla has a serious shortage.

I'm surprised by how down-to-earth the students seem. I honestly expected a bunch of pompous assholes (pardon my French). But, while they are all super-smart, they don't put on airs about it. At least not with prospective students. I did greet a janitor who was standing outside with some other black employees and he said to them as I passed - observing my admissions office folder - "She's a prospective. The Yale students don't ever say 'Hi.' We say 'Hi, hi, how are ya,' and they just walk on by." It is true that this school, despite being international, is way more upper-class white. But hey, I come from Whitman. I am not going to go to a school simply because it is more diverse. But I see now that it is a factor to consider.

I should qualify that implicit praise of Columbia's diversity by saying that despite the presence of many black students there, they self-segregated alarmingly well. An hour after we arrived the admitted black students had formed a solid group in the corner. It wasn't because nobody else talked to them or anything - no one knew anyone, and starting a conversation took a little courage, but I would have started one with any of them if they hadn't all formed a clearly exclusive cluster almost right away. The current black students reached out to them immediately also, creating a clear racial division within the social groups. I thought about joining them anyway, but it felt like an intrusion somehow. That was frustrating to me but I didn't do anything about it... I guess that is an illustration of race relations in America today, not to mention a telling sign of what the diversity-at-Whitman initiative will likely accomplish (or not accomplish).

But back to Yale. I am going to happy hour here in a short while, which is a weekly thing with free drinks in one of the student lounges. (So Harvard has free coffee, and Yale has free booze. Hmmm....) Anyway, I wish I could think of more to report, but as I said, I'm tired. Oh yeah, the hotel thing. I forgot. So one of the booked hotels took pity on me because they didn't want me staying at the "dump" next door where they rent rooms by the hour. Honestly, the so-called slum looked perfectly nice to me. Maybe the classy place just wanted to rip me off, because that's what they accomplished. I'm paying $90 (plus tax) to sleep on a couch bed in the "Bentham Suite" or some crap, when I could have paid $50 to sleep in a real bed at the Duncan. Sheesh. Too late now, I suppose. And Harvard is putting me up in an empty dorm room tomorrow. "Bring sheets or a sleeping bag," they tell me. I didn't bother to tell them that had I known that when I left Seattle I might have brought them, but that now that I'm on the East Coast they are a little harder to procure. But whatever. I can sleep on a bare mattress. It's not a couch bed, but hey... it's free.

Day Two - Columbia, New York, NY

My Columbia experience is almost over, and it has been almost 100% positive. Then again, I don't yet have a basis for comparison. We'll see what I think after I've been through Harvard's admitted students weekend.

What I can say now, though, is that law as a profession is getting creepier and creepier. The majority of people from Columbia go to work at big firms - they have a day during the fall of your second year where 700 lawyers from 68 firms come to conduct interviews and most students are hired before their third year. (Kind of decreases the incentive to work hard that last year of school, huh?) Anyway, these firms have cocktail parties every week and do things like defend corporations against class-action lawsuits. Like the opposite side from Erin Brokovich. Not so sure those are the people I want to associate with.

I mean, let me rephrase. They are really, really nice people. Brilliant. Ambitious. But they seem as if they have been sucked into something, or perhaps, rather, as if something has been sucked out of them. Law school is an ingenious system. Get people $140,000 dollars into debt and they are pretty desperate to make a good salary when they get out. I'm sure, as a professor, you can just watch the idealism fade from people's eyes.

I'm already having a hard time justifying working an internship for free when these people, after only one year of law school, or maybe two, are making $3000 a month for a summer job. I see them shopping in class (no joke, everyone brings their laptop to "take notes" and then at least 25%, maybe even a third - I counted - write Instant Messages, read the news, and even shop for new jeans, shoes and accessories online in class. In this class taught by a federal district court judge at a school that costs $40,000 per year. What!!!???). Anyway, I see them shopping in those circumstances and I'm sort of sickened. They're already spending the money they have yet to make. Either that, or they don't really need to work in a super high-paying profession anyway, because they already have it. Moreover, so many people after their first year just seemed unenthused, uninterested. They are just going through the motions. It's a means to an end, an the end is just lots of money. Gross.

I am suddenly seized by fear that I, too, will become corrupted. But maybe the fact that I am joining the military will keep me straight. At times I might hate myself for doing it, like when I see my friends get hired on at $200,000 per year in their second year of law school, but in the end I think it is really smart. Commit now, while I'm still sane, not to sell my soul.

Anyway, Columbia. Right. I like their teachers, a lot. Of course, I'm sure the Harvard faculty will wow me too. But I have heard that Columbia's faculty is more committed to teaching than to things like publishing, doing research, handling cases, etc. The professors here are actually passionate about their students. (Isn't that novel? Maybe even moreso than Whitman, which has proved a great disappointment in that regard for me.) I know because I was able to personally talk with several of them, and because of the great classes I attended. So that's a plus. The city is fun, and huge, yet the campus is small, cohesive, and beautiful so location is another big plus. There's a park nearby, cut into the hill. (According to the Torts professor, "Best sledding school, by far." Ha ha.) The buildings are new, modern yet classic. For some reason, I like it here a lot.

Columbia seems... accepting, open, universally appealing and interested. Not closed off like Whitman is in many aspects. Apparently the liberal organization and the conservative one on campus support each other. Attend each other's events, co-sponsor things, etc. Political debates are avoided. Which might bug the heck out of me and make me call Eric a lot, but which also might make being a conservative easier. My host, a lesbian, was really enthusiastic about my JAG plans. She was like, "I would do it too... if I could." Which inspired an impassioned discussion of how the United States is the only country with a similar sexual orientation restriction in the military other than Iraq, Iran, Syria and Lybia. Or something like that. Pretty appalling, if you ask me. Apparently she dated a Marine once, although "not at all like you," as she told me, "she was really butch." Ha ha. But anyway, she isn't willing to do the incognito thing and I don't blame her. I am sort of hoping against hope I can do something to affect that policy, although I don't know how. I don't think in-Corps activism is really encouraged by the Marines. At all. But she said, "I am glad to hear there will be JAG officers like you."

She's my host, I guess she has to say that. She's a cool person, no doubt; she knows just about everyone (although it's a small school so maybe that's not such a surprise). It's fun to see how much they gossip. Everything is everyone else's business! They say "it's like going back to high school, but in a good way." There is even a prom (the Barristers' Ball). I think I'd love the closeness and interconnectedness. But I wonder how much what I am hearing has to do with the fact that it is obvious I'm an admitted student. (They give us folders and badges and other markers of our status so people know to be on their best behavior, tee hee.) So of course everyone is really enthusiastic when they talk to us, y'know? I am not sure my bullshit meter is sensitive enough to really know what the true story is.

A couple people have said, "Go to Harvard if Columbia doesn't offer you a fantastic financial aid package." They really think the name value is worth that much. I agree that the look in people's eyes changes when you just say the name. But I am not at all convinced that that is a good basis for choosing a law school. And a lot of other people have said, "Harvard Law students are the unhappiest, most miserable students I've ever seen." That doesn't sound good. But then, some people might say that about me at Whitman. I'm usually freaking out and stressing about something or other. Yet that is what satisfies me, in some way. Maybe it's a sickness, I wouldn't know. But if it paid off in the end, perhaps it would be worth it...? No, I would definitely not go to Harvard if I got the perception it was actually that awful. But I don't think it IS like that for everyone. Maybe that's just what people who didn't get in tell themselves to make themselves feel better. My ultimate judgment, naturally, depends upon how it feels there this weekend.

I am starting to get the sense that wherever I go it doesn't really matter in terms of getting a job. The dean of the career center here made me feel good about going JAG. I was worried it would affect my job prospects in that all it would do is put me 4 years behind everyone else on the career path. But apparently she thinks it is an advantage (as I, also, originally had hoped). She says if I want to be a litigator it is a good first step. So I guess I am on the right track after all. She kind of looked at me funny when I said Marines and said, "You'd have to go to boot camp..." And I just smiled and said, "I know, I already went." And she was like, "Oh." I guess they expect to see some manly female but, hey, it's fun to surprise people. It was definitely reassuring to have someone who is intimately familiar with the legal profession telling me to go for it, though.

Hmm, what else? I guess I am getting almost overwhelmed. I feel exhausted and ready to go home, yet it's on to another school tomorrow. And more traveling. I hate traveling already. (It didn't take much.) I have decided to spend tomorrow at Yale and head to Harvard on Saturday, which is when their admitted student festivities begin. So I'll write again once I have more to tell.

Day One - Columbia, New York, NY

Had a bit of drama getting over here, largely due to high stress and lack of sleep prior to departure (aka looming thesis deadlines and undergraduate conference presentation). Forget to bring itinerary with airline information from Walla Walla and then accidentally left address of NY apartment where I am staying in my car in Seattle. But performed triage to recussitate what was left of my trip and through some vigorous phone calls to my travel agent at school (aka Tristan) I made it here on time and in one piece. Phew.

New York weather is crazy. When I arrived it was overcast but fairly warm. Two hours later when I walked over to the law school, it was snowing heavily. Four hours later when I left the school to look at campus housing, it was sunny. Weird. But hey, I like variety. (Better than 60 straight days of rain, anyway.)

The girls I am staying with are SO nice. In fact everyone I've met has been wonderful. Very welcoming, very engaging, very intelligent. Good combo. The classes I attended were interesting. Not traditional law classes - I'll see some of those tomorrow. But these electives were cool. The first one, Law in Contemporary Society, the prof just opined about how self-serving most lawyers are and how the legal profession has been reduced from a noble cause to a mindless exchange of corporate legal fingerwaving for lots of money. Apparently most people from this school go straight to a firm and many of them end up hating it. (According to his biased perspective.) But that's not what I want to do anyway, so being the idealist I am, I was very sympathetic to his call to reject the corporate lures of status and income for a purpose that will actually better the world or help people. It still sounds attractive to me, but I can see how if someone offered me a $140,000 starting salary when I was about that deep in debt already, that would sound pretty good. The second class was about economic development and again, I had a hard time figuring out where the law came into it, but it was like a more sophisticated version of a class I took in France and we debated the value (or harm) of agricultural subsidies. There were a lot of international students in the class and it was valuable to hear their opinions. I really like how multicultural this school is and how many different viewpoints are represented.

I like the multi-room apartment housing. It's less expensive and you get a living space as well as a bedroom (as opposed to a studio or "efficiency" apartment), plus people to live with, which I guess could be a pro or a con depending on the people, but as I said, so far I've really liked the students I've met here. Another decision I'd have to make would be living with all law students or just grad students from any of the schools. Hmmm. Do I want total immersion in law school insanity - where my peers can sympathize - or a break from the monotony once in a while? It sounds like the first year will be a really intense experience. But okay. If that's what it takes. Oh, and when I say it's less expensive, I mean it's only $900 per month instead of $1600. It costs SO much to live here! But what did I expect? It's New York!

Speaking of which... It's New York! It's so exciting! I feel like a small-town girl coming from Walla Walla... even if I do live in a suburb of Seattle most of the time. The only place I've been that is anything like this is Paris. So it actually feels almost familiar, except I understand the language here a lot better. ;) It's beautiful. There are old cathedrals and parks and museums and it seems like a really exciting place to live. All the law school buildings are new and very nice.

Columbia has a reputation, apparently, for focusing on corporate law, which I am not at all interested in. But the people interested in Public Interest Law, like me, say that actually it's an unexpected plus, because the Public Interest Law department has less students to focus on so you get more attention. Plus again... you're in New York! Lot's of public interest projects to do here.

I asked a little about conservative culture on campus because I've seen a lot of liberal activism, kind of like Whitman. Apparently because of the business emphasis there are a fair amount of economic conservatives and free market thinkers. It is definitely not socially conservative at all, but I think after four years of the Whitman hippy-liberal experience, I wouldn't know what to do someplace where it was. They do have a thriving Federalist Society which I may check out this evening. But I already know that I can fit in wherever and do my own thing. Frankly, I'd rather stand out and not just be one of the crowd.

Well, they've got me scheduled for all kinds of fun for the next two days, so I'd better be off. I just wanted to record my experiences for later comparison.