Define "Crazy"

The Rules of Attraction

"And it's a story that might bore you, but you don't have to listen, because I always knew it was going to be like that." - Lauren Hynde

Receipe for Crazy Town: Throw in a couple of Southwest reporters, more drinking, less drug use, more nerosis and mix it all up.

As the my last quarter of law school looms before me, I find myself with ever-lessening patience and filled with rampant cynicism. I know that sounds pretty horrible, but it's honestly kind of liberating since it's paired with a sense of contentedness and stability.

I was reading back over some stuff, remembering what it was like when I first got here. I remember during orientation, I was dreading this place. No one was really like my old friends from undergrad. Everyone seemed perfectly put together. And that just wasn't me. It never had been and it will never be. And I remember just leaving town as soon as I could, scared that I would have to be part of this sterile, monotonous place for three years.

I was very wrong, obviously. My first read on the place was entirely incorrect. The place was dramatic and fun. Unstable people and crazy situations abounded. It made the monotonous hours of class and excessive reading bearable. And it was all so exciting and new. Who will get with who? Who is going to make an ass of themselves when they're drunk? Who hates who? I still swear I actually heard someone utilize Sean Bateman's infamous line: "Since when does being with somebody else mean I'm not faithful to you?!" It sick, in the most decadent and irresistible kind of way.

Perhaps one of my fellow classmates verbalized this mind frame best when she announced, "Of course I'm becoming better friends with her---the girl is a trainwreck."

Sensitivity does not exist in this place. And if you are a sensitive person, this is probably not the place for you.

I understand this is all obscenely childish, but when you put 400 twenty-somethings in a highly stressful and competitive situation and effectively socially segregate them from normalcy, this is what you get. You get a Bret Easton Ellis novel with more witty and eloquent characters. There's too many opportunities, too much excess.

After a whirlwind first and second year, the act has grown tiring. Maybe I'm growing up or maybe I'm just too tired to care. I figure the why doesn't really matter. The fact is that my view of this place and most of the people in it has changed. Things that were once amusing are not so any more. Things that used to manufacture laughs now having me rolling my eyes and wishing for my bed.

What happened?

I'm not sure. After the summer, which I spent a large part of living like a nun, my energy just was . . . different. As was my life. I didn't have time to spend on mundane things, like figuring out why people broke up or why so and so is mad at this person. I was worried about finishing up reading and avoiding the wrath of professors. When not occupied by that, I was either trying to catch up on sleep or striving to maintain my fledgling relationship with an undergrad or trying to have a second of carefree time with my classmates.

You know how they say absence makes the heart grow fonder? That's not true in this case. I think the prolonged absence brought me some piece of mind and perspective that was greatly needed. In my five month hiatus, I found some really good, honest solid friends. I found out who were the people who needed a boot from my life, who the people were who really made my life better. I found a couple of guys who are good people, who are normal, who aren't narcisstic and overly competitive, like so many of the guys I have known before. They bring joy and light in to my life in their own little ways, no matter how far they are away.

Coming back to Crazy Town has been . . . interesting. Scary. Overwhelming.

The other day we were at dinner and a friend posed a great question: Does law school attract the crazies or does it make people crazy? I'm not really sure. Maybe a little of both.

In three years, I've seen a lot. I realize now that my class is the last of a generation. Granted, we were still different from the classes that came before us, the classes of legendary party tales. But we were still part of the last good ol' boy generation--for the most part, our class gets along. Even we don't, we can still interact socially. We're not big believers in class-cest. We mostly believe in working hard and having a good time.

I remember the days when we were the "lame" class. I remember the upperclassmen and their antics. I remember laughing and singing karaoke until my throat hurt and drinking beer in parking lots. Although there were definitely some shenangans and antics, everyone generally had a good time.

I just don't feel like there's a lot of that going on anymore. People who dislike each other, usually for the most innane and trite reasons, don't know how to handle themselves socially. Instead there's scenes befitting a middle school gym class in the middle of bars that apparently lawyers and judges all over town hear about. So many people seem to conciously disregard each other's feelings in their actions. Strong friendships are imploding, jealousy knows no bounds. Death glares in the hallway are an every day thing. Annoyingly, some are being shot my way for something that is so stupid and childish [fyi: that I wasn't even a part of] I refuse to even talk about it. Dignity is getting harder to find. Morals are flexible, if they are utilized at all. The line between being honest and being rude is constantly ignored. I was watching the show "Skins" earlier tonight and was thinking, "This show is not even that bad, I heard about WAY worse stuff than this happening this weekend." And then I realized how messed up the thought was. There's too much crying, too much fighting, too much anger, too much jealously, too much insecurity, and too much hate.

These people could easily be found at your nearest watering hole and/or law mixer.

And watching this whole thing---it just kind of leaves me with a sad feeling.

I'm not saying the whole environment or everyone is like this. They're not. But I wondered aloud in class one day if our school was now requiring mental instability in order to be accepted and a couple of people actually wondered the same. They weren't laughing. What is happening here? Isn't there a better way to live?

I think there is. As a person who was wrapped up in all the crap for two years, I know there is. But having to return to the insanity . . . I sometimes wonder if I can tolerate it any more. I just want to go to class. I just want to smile and laugh with my friends. I just want to play Mario Kart until 4 am with a boy I adore. I want to go to basketball games and make fun of our cheers. I want to graduate. I want to leave.

After last Friday, which was . . . complicated, for a variety of reasons . . . I just want my last few months to be unlike what I saw that night, what I've seen previously. My goal is to maintain this great life I have found in the last few months of academic hell and hold on to it through my last, and probably most insane, quarter of law school. I don't want to go backwards. I want to go forward. I just don't want to do it hating this place and having a strong distaste for some of the people in it. I don't want it to end this way.

And so, instead of a New Year's resolution, I am employing a last quarter solution: Live simply and live well. I will be with those I love. I will laugh as much as I can. I will forgive those who have hurt me. I will not allow the craziness to make me bitter. And I will make every second I have left here count.

It would be mindboggling to think what this place could be like if everyone else would do the same.

"Rock & roll." - Sean Bateman