After going back and forth with the local law school that accepted me into their part time program, I finally made a decision.

I will not attend law school.

I knew if it was meant to be, the pieces would fall into place. Instead, my school absolutely refused to give me any leeway in granting me a schedule that wouldn’t conflict with my working hours. After conferring with my admissions counselor, the director of admissions, the assistant dean, and finally the dean himself, they flatly stated I must adhere to THEIR schedule, and I would be unable to change it should I be assigned to classes that fall within my working hours. For $25,000 a year and a debt load that will surpass more than a $100,000, this is how they’re going to treat me?

Up yours, law school.

Let’s get one thing straight: I don’t play by your rules. If I should ever attend law school sometime in this life, it will be under MY terms. The bottomline is, you’re all full of crap. You perpetuate a system that robs people of their financial freedom, commit academic fraud by doing virtually nothing to prepare your students for the real world of lawyering, and encourage the use of a grading curve that promotes back stabbing competition, as well as the false notion that students are doing well in classes when in fact they are HORRIBLE students, and are only surviving school because of their inflated grades.

Simply put: You SUCK.

I wanted to be a lawyer for charitable reasons, but I finally had to come clean and concede that I don’t really love the law enough to survive the perils of law school, and especially the legal profession itself. It does interest me at times, but it’s certainly nothing I’m passionate about. I don’t like the idea of writing dry memos and briefs all day long, and certainly not as a junior associate slave for some two bit law firm. Reading legal material is absurdly boring as well, mostly because it’s hard to digest the pompous and sometimes godawful writings of judges and attorneys who had probably failed third grade English during their adolescent years.

I also realized my debt load would severely limit my options and would make me a slave to my loans unless I somehow struck it rich with a case or won the lottery. By not attending law school, I will be completely debt free in the space of a year, and at that point I will be beholden to no one. I can probably do more good as a non-lawyer who is debt free then as a practicing attorney who is over $100,000 in debt.

However, life can be a funny old dog sometimes. While I have decided not to attend law school now, it doesn’t mean the door won’t suddenly open up later on in life. There’s a saying in Scripture where God promises His people that they would be “the head, and not the tail.” I know the time will be right for me when I can attend law school as a head beholden to no one, rather than a tail who would be at the mercy of a corrupt and perverse legal establishment.

Though I’m a bit disappointed, I do feel like a heavy burden has been lifted from my shoulders. Now I can focus on getting myself healthy again, exploring interests and hobbies that I could truly be passionate about, and of course last but not least: finding the girl of my dreams.

The law school I was accepted into part time is already starting to get on my flippin’ nerves. I emailed an admissions counselor to see if I could request that my class schedule be set up so it doesn’t interfere with my work schedule, since I work a late afternoon shift.

“In your first year, your classes are selected for you. You cannot choose a set class schedule. Our office of Academic records generates these schedules, and doesn’t do so until the summer.”

I wrote back indicating that it would be impossible for me to attend classes if I got a class schedule that conflicted with my working hours. Since the whole point of a part time day program was to accommodate people with nontraditional working schedules, I asked for some leniency or that we be able to work something out to both mine and the school’s satisfaction. My emails are now being ignored.

Beautiful.

I talked to one of my blogging buddies about it, and she let me know that her school allows part timers to choose what time they want to take mandatory classes, so I know what my school is doing is a crock of moose poo poo. If I don’t get an answer by tomorrow, I’ll either write to the director of admissions, or stop in person and give them mean looks. That failing, I’ll write to the dean of of the school, and failing THAT, I’ll wash my hands of law school.

Honestly, this really frosts my chocolate chip cookies. I’ve been in the workforce 7 years, and when a job pays me, then it’s expected that I would have to revolve around their schedule. But when I pay a school $26,000 a year PART TIME, then I bloody well expect to be accommodated as much as possible, dammit.

But I’m not overly upset about it. I’ll let the chips fall where they may, and if it’s meant to be, I’ll be starting my first classes in August. Right now I’m more concerned about getting my health and body in order.

I know I haven’t been blogging worth a skinny minny for the past few weeks, but I just have nothing to write about that would be appropriate for a blog. I usually spend most of my online time on a conservative forum, and I’ve met some great people there who genuinely make it a fun place to visit (no single hot chicks though). As a result, I have far less incentive now to blog here, where I generally have no audience, and where I’m simply unspired to write more than a paragraph or two of my personal thoughts.

My interest in law school has also begun to seriously wane as well. I simply don’t see the point in plunging myself $150,000 in debt for a career that I now only have a mild interest in. As much as my current job annoys me, I enjoy far too many perks now that I know I’d probably never enjoy again should I decide to become a lawyer. The whole idea behind my becoming an attorney anyway was to provide legal assistance to people at little or no cost, but more importantly, under MY terms (without having to toe the line with any firm that employs me). As I look at things now, I just don’t see how it could be done. I’ll wait until I hear from the local law school before I make a formal decision, but right now it looks like I won’t go through with it after all.

It may be that I’ve gotten too comfortable and complacent. Other than not having a social network or a girlfriend (which some people would say is a GOOD thing), I generally have everything I need: a beautiful car, a place to live, a smokin’ fast PC, a kick-butt laptop, and an easy going work schedule that allows me to work only four days a week. What more do I need really?

Instead, I should probably focus on getting myself healthy again and paying off all my debts, which is probably one of the best things I could do right now. If I continue to save for a year or so, I’ll eventually be completely debt free. That’s not an accomplishment many people can boast of, and it’s one of the things that preclude me from taking the law school plunge. Becoming debt free for the first time since I graduated high school, only to sink deeply once again into the red because I took the law school plunge is not something that sits well with me.

So as things are right now, my career prospects are at a standstill, though that’s not necessarily a bad thing.

So the other day the thought occurred to me, “Why not apply to the local law school here part-time?”

The idea made perfect sense. For one, I wouldn’t have to uproot myself and move to another state, and more importantly, I wouldn’t have to give up my job either. I’d also have a chance to try it for a semester to see if it’s something I can really do, instead of investing thousands upon thousands of dollars only to end up realizing it isn’t for me. Plus, the school is literally just down the road from where I work and they also allow you to attend part time during the day, meaning I wouldn’t have to change my hours either (since I work in the evenings rather than during normal working hours.)

Even though it’s an ultra-liberal school, nobody says I have to STAY there. If things work out and I ace the first semester, I can tell them to sod off and then transfer to my school of choice. It really would be a good way for me to test the waters, because if I can ace the first semester at a secular, whacked out leftist school while working a full time job on top of it, then I’ll know I’m on to something here.

But, there’s still the matter of getting accepted first. They have an early decision process where I could apply and bind myself to attending only that school if they accept me. I believe I’m given priority consideration if I take this route, so it’s very tempting. Early Decision (ED) requires me not to apply to another other school under the same early decision process, and to withdraw my application to any school once and if I’m accepted to this one.

Slight problem though…

I’ve already been admitted (though deferred) at another law school in Virginia, the one I’ve been planning to attend last year. Since my admission has been deferred, then technically, I haven’t really applied to any schools this year. But… if I am accepted at the local school, then I’d have to withdraw my admission to the one in Virginia. Maybe. Or maybe… I could just play stupid…

I don’t want to have to commit to attending the local school just yet, but I do want the advantage of being an ED applicant. Could I pull a fast one here? I can’t see how they’d be able to find out. There’s no record of me having applied to any other schools this year, and there won’t be.

But, Providence seems to have stepped in, as I couldn’t get the ED form to come up on my online application to save my own life. It simply refused to merge with the main application. Very curious. So I finally gave up and applied under the regular process. Ah well… whatever will be, will be.