Calgon Take Me Away

I have just emerged from a very hot, very frothy bubble bath - the first bath I have taken without a splashing Landon since he came home from the NICU. While I was pregnant I reveled in my baths, I took one almost every day before bed. They were a time to relax, to reflect on my day, to dream about our beautiful baby who would sleep through the night at two months... yeah, well, part of that came true.

Anyway, the reason I felt that tonight needed to be the night for my first solo bath in 9 months is because I spent 12 hours at the library yesterday, starting the research for my substantial paper, and I am freaking out about it right now. You know how before you start a project you can fool yourself into thinking it won't be too bad - like when you move and everything is still in boxes and you're pretty sure you can get everything unpacked in a couple days. And then you unpack a few boxes and stuff is everywhere and you're suddenly certain that your new home will never be unpacked, stuff will be everywhere forever, and you want to sit in a corner and cry. Tonight, the bathtub was my corner, minus the tears, plus a few bubbles.

The last quarter of my 3L year was not supposed to be like this. I took extra heavy course loads 2L year so that I wouldn't have to take more than 9 credits a quarter as a 3L. I got all the hard stuff out of the way- I took corporations, securities regulation, secured transactions, criminal procedure, commercial transactions, administrative law, antitrust, and more, while pregnant and exhausted- and I even did well. This year was supposed to be about the Landon and spending time with my friends and not being in the library until 10pm on a Saturday night. But then DCFS took over my life and Landon had to see 85 specialists and had 35 ear infections and I just never got around to that second substantial paper I'm required to write. And a wonderful professor let me drop two of my classes fall quarter and replace it with an independent research for him- which was great at the time, but now I actually have to write a paper to get those three hours of credit. And I have three classes that are surprisingly demanding, with enormous reading assignments, and I have to take all three finals in three days and then drive down to Austin the afternoon of the third day - and the movers will have packed up all our furniture the week before and my cousin is getting married in Kentucky the weekend in the middle. And well, basically, I'm a little stressed.

I know I'm a 3L and it's supposed to be easy because I have a job. And I honestly have no emotional connection to my grades right now- I even forgot to check the results of winter quarter until today (all B+ so far). 1L year I used to compulsively "refresh" the webpage every 5 seconds for weeks until the grades poppe dup. But you can't fake a paper- words must be written, citations must be given, some level of substantiality must be achieved. Working on the paper this weekend means I didn't read for any of my classes on Monday, or catch up from the reading I didn't do last week. It's the third week of school and I'm 50 pages behind in two classes. This wouldn't bother me so much if I actually felt like I was going somewhere with the paper (like if I had a clearly defined topic), but I don't. I feel like I'm failing at everything right now and I hate that.

I'm just holding on to the certainty that it all will get done. I will write a 35-page paper on something about criminal justice and cyber law and it will get turned in by May 19. I will talk to my other professor, get a topic, and write a paper for him worthy of 3 credits. On June 13 I will walk across the stage and get my diploma. I'm just not sure how I'm going to get there when the list of non-school related items is frighteningly long and I have a baby who doesn't sleep, but I know I will. And hopefully I'll do it without some kind of breakdown at the end because it only gets harder from there. The day after I walk across that stage I'm going to be 3 weeks behind in barbri review classes and the Texas Bar is one (monstrous, horrible, 3-day) exam I can't afford to fail.