The deep breath before the plunge

Yesterday was my last class for the semester. Our professor congratulated us for learning so much over the last four months. We all immediately scoffed, because we are studying for exams now, and we have realized just how little we really know in comparison to what we need to know. But he brushed off our disbelief and reminded us how little we knew about law when we first appeared in his class. He spouted off a series of contract law issues and asked us what the outcome would be, and pointed out that we actually knew the answer. Four months ago we wouldn't have even known what those words mean.

My professor stated his opinion that you never learn more about the law than you do during your first semester of law school, because that's when the learning curve is the steepest. We will continue to learn the basics of law in the rest of our first year classes, but we already got at least an inkling of how things work. From here on out we are merely refining our knowledge and learning specialized facets of the law. This professor is quite good, and he got a fairly thunderous applause as he left the room the last day. And by the end of the class, we even felt fairly good about ourselves and our chances of surviving finals.

Last summer Becca and I went to Cedar Point with my family. They had a great ride called the Power Tower that lifts you way up in the air and then drops you. At this point in the semester, I feel a little bit like that top point where the bottom is about to drop out on you. Our professor just provided us with a view of how far we have come, and just as we take a deep breath to enjoy the scenery, everything plunges back to earth and we hit the white-knuckle terror of law school exams. It may be frightening, but we actually pay a lot of money for the pleasure of subjecting ourselves to such terror. And if anyone has an emotional breakdown in the middle of the exam, you just might hear some screaming like the amusement park ride. But at least the view was good for a while.