Boston University School of Law

As I sit in my apartment counting down until I, the last remaining out of town captive (see victim) of BU Law’s 1L class departs for a short (5 days thanks to my lovable but arguably inconvenient puppy) vacation (reprieve, parole) to my home (if I even truly have one of those) in Las Vegas, I can’t help but to think about how sooo much as changed in such a quick time.

My life, mannerisms, thought processes, sleep habits, choices of entertainment, hair cut schedule, and anything else you can imagine has changed. Some for the better, some for the worst, and some I am still undecided about.

Law school thus far as been an interesting experience for me. My sensibilities and passion has been pushed to the brink, as I have often (too many times to count) pondered about why I chose to subject myself to this experience.

I have weighed my desire to wade through the ivory tower of academia against my desire to go back to a time when life was simple, and made sense (and made cents as I have never truly been paid much, but the expensiveness of Boston has been a bit much for poor scholar like myself). Now my every thought and social interaction is deprived of the simple elegance of regular humanity.

I guess this is the process they call “learning to think like a lawyer”.

My life is now filled with law jokes (some funny,some corny, some in between), debates, and interpreting everything, EVERYTHING, every single personal relationship I have through the lens of contracts (thanks for a great semester professor Kull!).

Indeed, just two days ago I found myself questioning a worker at McDonald’s about how they can possibly say that the dollar menu is no longer applicable after 12 am with no sign to warn us unsuspecting customers who relied to our detriment on the possibility of late night fries (that may or may not digest before our next finals THANKS SUPER SIZE ME) for 99 cents.

Earlier that night, I found myself wondering if I would have a tort claim against my friend, her room mates, and the owner of the building she lives in, as the snow rendered walking up her stairs an abnormally dangerous activity and an open and obvious risk; thanks for teaching me to adequately assess risk professor Fleming!)

And increasingly I have found myself thinking of my personal relationships in terms of civil procedure with me attempting to decide if I should move to summary judgment after a long interpersonal discovery.

My friend took the corniness a bit further by free styling two lines about res judicata as we walked to the law tower to clean out our lockers, thanks professor Webber!

I have went from a cool down to earth multimedia artist and activist to a sleep deprived, over caffeinated, extremely concise communicator (thanks legal writing!) who also happens to remain COOL, if not as down to earth as I was (can’t help it, it’s all the Latin I have picked up this semester).

Overall, I have made some incredible friends and have survived the 1st installment of the 3 year hazing process dubbed law school.

It has made me change in very obvious ways, and in some ways that are not so obvious.

I still have my doubts about whether it was worth it (this may be my last post if grades aren’t where they should be!), but I do not doubt for a minute that the experience was one that I will not forget.

I am 1/6th of the way to my esquire (really how cool is that, say it one time to yourself, and then another time out-loud, Brandon Greene Esquire, although to fully embrace my ivory towerness I will probably have to go with something more catchy like B L Greene Esquire or perhaps my stage name Pro-Dash Esquire (has a nice ring to it) )

The point is, it was rough, irritating, annoying, fun, invigorating, exciting…worth it.

I (probably) like many others here are first generation law students. Even making it this far is a success story. Making it through in (arguably impossible to do without access to) good spirits with a good sense of humor to boot, is remarkable, yet we all did it.

For those of us who came here hoping to leave with a skill and an ability to change our world, we are on our way, it just so happens that we will have to do a lot of changing on the journey.

That (change) is what law school and Boston are all about (see the coin laundry monopoly).

Next semester will more than likely be more difficult, more time consuming, and more (insert adjective which means the opposite of happy, sunshine etc) but we will all get through it the same way we got through this one, as small units, made up of folks who can laugh, share, complain, and make lame jokes together.

Happy Holidays (yaaaaaayyyyyyY!), and see you in a bit (baaaa humbug!) I have no idea what I have become!!!!!!!!!