blaw blaw blaw

Every moment of downtime at work, at least after I've scoured my friends' blogs and all the news, I am consumed with a vague sense of antsy-pants. But though the feeling is vague, the source is clear: law school applications. I have nearly completed them. Of the seven on my original list, the only one remaining is the University of Richmond. My fate is largely out of my hands.

I could get used to this. The constant sense of being on the verge of an exciting new place in my life. It's a feeling usually accompanied by packing for a distant voyage, or plunging into a new school. Like the day, after my best friend C and I walked back to her mom's car after the high school orientation for rising ninth graders, which was held in the Oakton gymnaseum.

"Do you realize," I said, turning to my friend, "the grades we get in here will determine our futures?" She nodded her head emphatically. I continued, "I mean, we could be taking AP classes next year! And AP classes go on our college transcripts!!"

My blood was gently buzzing through my veins as I rode the high of feeling like my destiny was entirely in my control, a tabula rasa just waiting for my inscription.

In a sense, that's how I feel now. I'm just waiting to find out what schools will accept me, if any. And until I know that, I can't envision much else. People keep tsk-tsking me about considering that I may be rejected from all the schools. But the fact is that even with the best LSAT scores and GPA, getting into law school is still super competitive. I looked up my LSAT score and GPA on a William & Mary admissions matrix, and found that my odds of getting in there are something like 46%. That's on the high end.

So we'll see.

But the thing is that law school is going to cost so much money. And there are tons of other things I wanted to do at this time in my life... own a house, start a family (gasp), travel the world (which to some extent I feel like I've had a chance to do). NOT be in debt and studying. Not removing myself from the workforce. They say that on average, a woman loses $640,000 in earnings for the time she takes out of work to raise a family. That's a lot of money! So I just hope that by not bringing in a stable income, I'm making a valid investment.

Or maybe it's just my hunger talking. I'm so sick of peanuts and cheese.