Tuesday, April 07, 2009

is there a word for this?

this entire semester, i've been experiencing something. i'm not sure there's a word for it.

you see, my days are pretty busy. i read text books and compose notes for my upcoming classes. i'm preparing to give an oral argument and write a term paper for my writing seminar. i very much need to start outlining, especially since i have the most hellacious exam schedule ever concocted: four exams in four days, including two in one day. oh, and those four days are all in the first week of exam period.

so i have all that work, and all that to be concerned with. but that's not the problem.

no, the problem is that i have the bar exam at the end of july. i'll have a little over two months to prepare for it, but that doesn't seem like enough. i want to prepare for it right now, you see? i don't want to be the old me that waits until the last minute to do something important (and yes, i consider two months to be last minute in the world of bar exam prep). but i can't, because i'm up to my ears in stuff i have to do just so i'm elligible to take that exam. and even beyond the bar exam, i have yet another problem on the horizon: getting an actual job.

so is there a word for this feeling? to be stuck working on Step 1, when you so desperatly want to be working on the more difficult Steps 2 and 3? it's like if i had a certain amount of time to get to the top of a mountain, only i start with my legs shackled tightly together, secured by numerous locks. i'm tired of sitting at the mountain base, wasting time picking the locks, even if i'm making decent progess, because what i should really be doing is hiking my way upwards. i could try picking the locks as i akwardly hop my way up, but trying to do both these things at once will likely only lead to certain failure in both challenges. drag that feeling out over several months. that's me.

not only am i curious if there's word for this combination of furstration, malaise, and irritation, but i feel like if i could find that word, it'd almost make the whole situation better. or i could at least move on from trying to understand what i'm going through and actually go through it.*

*which is exactly why i wrote all that. aren't i clever.

2 comments:

Bear said...

Overwhelmed? Harried? FML?

That sucks. Good luck with everything.

Phantom said...

As to the word, I have no idea, but I'm right there with you. The only beneficial thing I have to say is that the vast majority of 3Ls don't start working on bar review until after graduation, so for the moment #2 can be delayed. I think the hard part is balancing #1 with #3. I want to finish law school strong, but if I'm not employed it's all in vain. But if I don't finish strong, it will be harder to get employed... Yeesh.