Losing Our Collective Sanity

We're legitmately going insane. And by we, of course, I mean my law school classmates and I. Never in my life has any kind of extended experience (especially academic) had such an effect on myself and those around me that it manifests itself in our thought processes, personalities, and conceptions.

If you've never gone through law school, never experienced the thrill/joy/terror/demoralization that comes free with the first-year law student experience, you won't understand, ever. It's like a guy trying to comprehend childbirth, I would imagine. (Note to any feminist-types: I do not mean to compare law school to childbirth in any way. I'm sure popping out a 6-pound, raisin-looking infant is much more difficult than any conceivable male activity. Please don't kill me.) However, since I'm so benevolent (and sarcastic, apparently), allow me to attempt an explanation of such a singular sensation like going completely nuts over the course of two law school semesters.

Have you ever gotten slightly trashed, just to the point where that little part of your brain that normally says things like "hey maybe you shouldn't use your cat as a football" starts saying "feline football is the greatest idea ever?" Or, in the case of those who don't drink (myself included), have you ever just stayed up for a good 20 hours straight or so? Everything just gets really funny, common sense no longer applies, and you start to believe that the Mortal Kombat movies are cinematic masterpieces. You know, stuff like that. You're capable of anything and it seems perfectly reasonable to do whatever occurs to you at the moment.

Now imagine that feeling slowly building throughout the course of the year. At first you can separate your law school life from your outside life, so it's not too noticeable. Then you start to notice the worried expressions from friends and loved ones when you start using words like "estoppel" in every day language. You start making jokes about finders, adverse possession, and prescriptive easements and you're the only one laughing. Pretty soon you just keep it to yourself but you laugh anyway, so everyone around you thinks that you're cackling like Joan Rivers for no real reason. Your hair grows. Your beard grows. In some cases, your gut grows. Doing laundry is no longer essential. For some, hygiene goes on hiatus because, hey, you can be just as effective in class no matter how you smell. And the extra time you save might just give you more time to go over the Luten Bridge case one more time. This all seems perfectly reasonable. Normal, even.

By the end of first semester, you've devolved into something different, and winter break is there to help you realize that and accordingly snap out of it. Then it's back to class and the whole cycle begins again, only accelerated. Here's some of the stuff I'm seeing now as we wind second semester down:

My buddy Bill, who by all accounts was a pretty popular kid back in college, now prefers to spend evenings measuring straight vodka shots out of a medicine cup, while listening to smooth jazz, laughing at random YouTube videos, and pining over the girl in whatever anime happens to be on Adult Swim at the time.

This is the same kid who has had a quasi-frightening wide-eyed stare going all week, and told me that he'd like to just kick somebody in the face because, well, the week hasn't been bad at all, it's just boring and needs to be livened up a bit. So let's kick someone in the face.

I watched South Park the other night, and found myself wondering whether the situation presenting itself at the time might actually be a valid contract or not, and how and whether the UCC might apply.

Finally, today, during Constituional Law, a classmate (who I will not name but who I now respect more than ever) came in wearing pastel pink slacks, a blue and white cross pattern shirt, pink tie, navy blazer, and white crocodile loafers. This same classmate, about half an hour in and in the middle of the lecture, in full view of the entire class, stood up, worked his grove thang over to a classmate on the other side of the room, and started tossing dollar bills like he was making it rain at a strip club! He then proceeded to shake 'n bake it allllll the way back to his seat, sat down, and continued taking notes while the professor struggled to keep his train of thought from careening of the track and we all stared in disbelief. Word is he won $20 from a girl for doing it. But the fact still remains: classmate X made it rain during Con Law. And we all loved him for it.

We're all insane.