before everyone gets all hot and bothered about my confessions, there's one thing you should know -- my existence is stereotypically white, heterosexual, and lower middle class. i have many confessions, and none of them are about drugs, sex, or anything particularly exciting. if i did something worthy of confessing in the drugs/sex/excitement category, i wouldn't post about it because i would have dropped dead from surprising myself. just so you know.
anyway. so, i got back from my vacation to find an envelope from ubc in my mailbox. it was a letter informing me that i have been accepted to the faculty of law at ubc. yippee. notice my total lack of passion about something i should be passionate about. i have two weeks to tell them that i won't be accepting their offer. why would someone apply to law school and then refuse acceptance, you might ask? well, not just for shits and giggles, though that was certainly part of it. when i came up with the idea of applying to law school, i was all gung ho about it. i am interested in the law, i have connections in the legal community in BC thanks to my current position, i want to have a career instead of just having a job, and i miss being in school. also, at the time, i saw law school as the perfect compromise between my desire to continue my education and chris's desire not to get the heck out of dodge (seeing as how i have already done my master's at ubc, the thought of doing a phd there when i know how shitty the system is isn't too appealing).
however, i have since considered the drawbacks and asked myself what i really want from my life. let us first consider the drawbacks of law school and a career in law: sixty hour work weeks for the first five years, snotty assholes just doing it for the money, rigidity, moral ambiguity, MORE student loan debt, and the hour and a half commute (one way) from our home to ubc for three years. now, let us consider what i want from life: time to spend cuddling and talking (and let's face it, screwing) with my partner; time to visit my aging grandparents in texas; time to spend in one of my favorite cities, austin, with my friends; enough money to buy or build a comfortable and homey home; and enough energy to enjoy all the great experiences of life that i overlook in the pursuit of grueling work and social schedules. oh, and i think i want to write a book. so what to do, what to do? well, working a sixty hour week would make it pretty hard to get in all that quality cuddling, talking, and screwing (not in order of importance, by the way). nor do i think underling lawyers at big firms get a lot of vacation time, especially since every pay check counts when trying to get rid of student loan debt. in other words, i think that a career in law is for the most part (though not totally of course, wouldn't want to be deterministic here) incommensurate with my.... well, with my heart's desire.
by now it's pretty obvious that my confession #2 is that i am not going to law school (at least not this year... maybe i will change my mind after i watch more of my friends and coworkers get on with their lives). what do you think? am i a moron? am i on my way to being a fat, middle aged, prematurely gray and prematurely wrinkled (from the fat) waitress at denny's (or whatever. insert your own local nightmarish 24 hour diner here) with bad lipstick and even uglier hygiene habits? sigh. i think so.
3 comments:
i don't know what wrinkles you speak of, my dear. and if you were to be a waitress some 24 hour diner, it would be a *cool* diner with some attitude and a retro flare. you'd have heavy make-up, upswept hair, and be in capris.
either way, congratulations on getting into ubc. but even bigger congratulations on knowing what you want and going for it.
but does anyone really want to see me wearing capris after my early onset case of cankles?
thanks for the congratulations, and for being sweet.
Dude...wouldn't you rather be a waitress at Denny's (with employee discounts--come on, who doesn't love the super bird?) than a snot-nosed corporate lawyer with a second wave Gloria Steinem complex? Trust me, I work for them, and if you refuse to be of them, you'd be a starving sole practitioner--I'm related to one of them. You're too good for either one of those, man. Besides, all Denny's locations in Austin have wireless--yet another incentive to return to the holy mountain.
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