Here Comes Your 19th Nervous Breakdown…

As I sit here staring at this Asset Purchase Agreement, (which could be written in Mandarin  and it would have the same impact on how much I understand), I think to myself, here comes your 19th nervous breakdown.  It may be my 50th but the Stones didn’t write it that way.  I’m pretty sure I passed number 19 about midway through the first week of my  1L year. I remember getting my books for my first classes and it all looked like a foreign language, and at times, it still does.  Page after page of International Shoe, Pennoyer, Erie and Palsgraf made us all wonder what we were even reading.

I heard when I started law school, the problem with law books was there weren’t any pictures.  And they were right.  There was nothing there to amuse me as I read the 100 pages a night for con law, coupled with the 60 pages a night for any number of other classes.  I do vaguely remember a picture of some houses in the property book. But even it was all gray and dark and not in pretty colors. And there was one old picture of the penny scale in Palsgraf, but again, not very exciting.  Reading for law school is rather painful if we are all honest about it.  Those who say they enjoy it are either liars or insane.  I must admit I do like reading old cases.  I find them to be funny, honest and shorter.  There wasn’t a lot of law yet so the dicta was pretty scare. It didn’t seem like they enjoyed reading their own thoughts as much  as some judges do today.

I have given up on reading for pleasure.  People offer me a book and I practically snarl at them.  How dare they think I have the time or the inclination to read ONE page more than what I read for school.  My mom loves to read and she is always telling me about the latest book she is reading.  I used to enjoy reading, now, not so much.  Maybe one day when the scars have healed from law school, I too will enjoy reading again. I think perhaps I should have kept count of the number of pages I have read over the years.  It would be amazing and sickening at the same time. 

So go on about your reading of some happy, quaint book.  I will be here reading another 100 pages of crazy talk by some people who have seen fit not to put pictures in my books.