Alright, this has gone on long enough.

My decision on whether to attend law school or not has taken me on a road almost as long as law school itself. It all began in October of 2005, and it may finally, FINALLY come to an end on Friday the 13th, which is the deadline for the deposit I would need to make to secure my place in the part time evening class of the law school I applied to near my job. Interesting enough, this would mark the 18th month of this pre-law school to the DAY. Hmmmmm….

I’ve been asking for signs, for answers, for guidance, for ANYTHING to indicate whether this was the way to go. I got in return: nothing. But nothing might eventually become something this week. Because I couldn’t get the school to accommodate my night time working hours, I was ready to write off the legal profession once and for all and finally move on with my life. But then something happened at my job. Our night work got eliminated, leaving the possibility that I might actually get transferred to a day shift after all. There’s no telling whether this might happen or not, especially given the idiots that run the place here, but it’s certainly possible. I looked into the possibility of switching my acceptance to the school from part time days to part time evenings, and much to my surprise they were happy to accommodate me in this respect.

The issue now though is my night pay. I earn roughly $400 more a month just for working in the evenings. If it came to me having to voluntarily switch to a day tour (instead of being forced to switch) so I could attend school at night, then I wanted to do so without losing that money. One of my other co-workers at least was still getting night pay even though his hours had been switched, so I knew it was possible. I’ll have a meeting with my union rep this Tuesday to discuss the issue. My union rep also knew of a scholarship I might be qualified for, so we’ll be discussing that as well.

It also hadn’t escaped my notice that for the first time in the almost 7 years I’ve worked here, a new change would be instituted that could eliminate more than 50 percent of our workload. That this was scheduled to happen the same month that I would start law school was very peculiar. It meant the amount of work would soon be light enough that I could spend ample time studying on the job. It was yet another concern that had been squared away.

Finally, Uptown Girl is a lawyer herself. It raised new possibilities for a future relationship that could happen between us, but in what way I didn’t really know. Still, it was another peculiar coincidence. But whether all these strings of coincidences point to something or not remains to be seen. I guess what will seal it for me is being able to secure my night pay even if I start working a day shift. If that happens, it will be a minor miracle that would allow all the pieces to finally fallen into place, and the law school dream formerly left for dead comes alive once again.

If I know my luck though, nothing might actually be decided this week. If I don’t get a definitive answer from my union rep about the night pay until after the deadline, I would still be able to make a deposit, but I would not be guaranteed a seat unless someone else withdraws their enrollment. In this case I would just have to cross my fingers and hope for the best. Of course, if I can get night pay AND be able to secure myself a seat in school even after the deadline had already passed, than I bloody well owe it to myself to give this thing a real shot.

If God is merciful though, than this week will finally be the one to provide me some solid answers.

I finally found a use for the Restatements of Torts and Contracts that I bought to help prep for law school.

I put some of the books between my mattresses to boost my bed at an angle, which should help with my acid reflux.

It seems fitting too, because I simply don’t give a crap about law school anymore until my chronic acid reflux/heartburn is completely healed. I’m beginning to realize attending law school this year is going to take a miracle anyway, beginning with my health problems going away, dropping all the excess weight I’ve been carrying around, and seeing all the pieces fall into place, from my class schedules to being able to prep enough material in advance of school. Then of course there’s the money involved. I have tentatively decided I will not attend law school until and unless every dime of it is already paid for. Ironically enough I would probably end up being more useful to the human race being debt free and without a law degree, than I would be if I were a newly minted attorney who also happened to have a $100,000 loan he’ll have to repay for the next 30 years.

Oh well. I believe in miracles, so it can all certainly happen in time for autumn, but if not, I could always fall back on my original career plan: winning the lottery.

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.

After weeks of despairing over whether I should attend law school or not, I eventually began to forget why I even wanted to become a lawyer in the first place. Then a few things happened this week:

A friend and co-worker of mine is currently dealing with an out of control boss who recently got in his face the other day. From what I hear, she was one unstable psychopath who got transferred to his department because HQ couldn’t deal with her. She had a history of micromanaging others, emotional outbursts and other inappropriate behavior. One day she was pulling her usual stunts and when my friend confronted her (nicely) about it, she went ape. Got up and wagged her finger in his face, literally screaming her head off. My friend was afraid for his safety, because not only was she acting completely unhinged, she was also packing a gun. Not a very healthy combination if you ask me.

So now my friend has to have a meeting with the higher ups along with union reps and other parties to sort this crap out. I asked him if he felt she was going to hit him when she got in his face, and when I did my mind immediately started thinking, “She may have assaulted him, since she placed him in an imminent apprehension of a battery. He has a legal cause of action here.” Suddenly, it was like several lights had gone on inside my head. I was beginning to remember.

Considering what my friend now has to deal with because of this incident, it occurred to me: what he needed was a good lawyer.

Then I had another friend who was applying to take a civil service exam as a typist. The exam only required one year’s clerical experience, and since she had been in the workforce for so many years doing all kinds of jobs, including those that required clerical skills, she figured there’d be no problem.

They rejected her. Took the application fee she paid and rejected her for lack of experience. !??!?!?! It wasn’t a mistake either. This is a woman with a college education, and she was barred from even TAKING the civil exam for lack of clerical experience?? She felt her civil rights had been violated.

Once again it occurred to me: what she needed was a good lawyer.

Now I remember why I wanted to be an attorney: JUSTICE. I wanted justice for these people. They had been WRONGED, and as I listened to these stories, I was the guy who wanted to make it RIGHT again. For me, being an attorney wasn’t about making money. It wasn’t about drawing up wills, or working corporate law, or working in a big time law firm so I could make partner after sweating blood for 10 or 20 years.

No, it was all about making things RIGHT again. It was about bringing peace where chaos existed, finding reconciliation between two aggrieved parties, defending the defenseless, and protecting the rights of the poor.

It was about JUSTICE.

I always knew what I wanted to do in life, and I realized that itself was never the problem. It was finding the proper medium in which I could fulfill these lifelong desires that had been the subject of so much agonizing and confusion. What field could help me make the kind of difference I was seeking to make? As I realize the answer to that question, I also realize that this is an endeavor that can only succeed if God blesses it.

Where there is no God, there is no justice. If I choose the legal profession, I need to be able to choose it with the knowledge that God will be int it, and that he will honor the desires of my heart to make things right again.

One of the things that has made it darn nigh impossible for me to make a decision about law school is the fear that I may be trading in a job I hate for a future job I’ll hate even MORE.

The truth is, my current job really isn’t so bad, relatively speaking. I only have to work about 35 hours a week, I get four days off every other weekend, and if I work fast enough, I usually have the last few hours of work to myself for doing pretty much whatever I want (short of leaving). I have a decent salary and excellent medical benefits, along with a pension plan that would provide enough reasonable security for me when I retire. The people I work with are for the most part pretty decent folks, and I don’t even have to dress formally (I haven’t worn a suit in several years).

But the work itself is a mindless drudgeship, the kind where I truly have little to no impact on anything. For the most part, I simply proofread documents and perform data entry for hours at a time, until my brain gets so numb I have to take a moment to collect myself lest I should lapse into a coma.

I always thought I was meant for bigger and better things, and the thought of continuing this drudgeship for another 30 years frightens me to no end.

But what frightens me even more is giving up the security blanket I enjoy now for a career that will make this current job seem like paradise. What really, am I getting myself into here? Will I really enjoy being an attorney, or will I find it so unrewarding, so aggravating an experience, that I will yearn for the days of old when the only trial I had to endure was the daily drudgeship of entering documents into my department’s database? It’s almost a certainty that my first job (post-law school) would offer little security, inferior benefits, and a hostile work environment where I’m pressured to perform, and deal with a crushing workload. Instead of enjoying an atmosphere where nothing short of burning the place down would have any serous repercussions for me, I would instead be dealt a greater responsibilty where people’s lives may literally be in my hands, and one little screwup could cause utter catastrophe for them (and me). Do I really want to handle that kind of responsibility?

As I read the primers and study some of the materials people use for law school, my mind does seem able to grasp the legal principles easily enough, and I do enjoy performing a “lawyer like” analysis of hypotheticals. But then again, there’s some days when I just don’t bother at all with it. Even if I couldn’t get enough of playing with hypos, it only provides a glimpse into what I may be doing as a lawyer. The profession requires excellent networking skills (which I don’t have) and the ability to relate and socialize with people (which I don’t have). It would also require the ability to sift through dry legal material, while in turn writing dry legal documents in the form of motions, briefs, memos (and whatever else it s that lawyers write). Is this something I can do competently, and more importantly, is it something I could ENJOY doing?

I simply don’t know. I’m so confused and perplexed right now that my decision is literally changing by the moment. The other night I was resolved to go to law school, having firmly made up my mind, only to wake up the next morning with a sense of sheer dread that I was making the biggest mistake of my life. The $150,000 price tag alone guarantees that if my decision to go to law school turns out to be a mistake, it would be a mistake I’ll have to pay for for as long as I live.

Too bad I can’t win the lottery. Having 200Gs or so to play with would obviously make this decision a little bit more palatable. I’d lose nothing by trying, and I could always go back to my old job (based on the one year grace period I might be granted).

But alas, I must deal with reality. On the one hand I can accept a life that is secure, but boring and unfulfilling, or a life that may turn out not to be a life at all, where I end up pissing away those things I’m taking for granted now.

Or maybe there’s a third option that has still to make itself known…

There are times when I’m only mildly annoyed at the thought of having to come into work. And then there are days where the mere mention of work has me foaming at the mouth. This is one of those days.

One of the most annoying things about my job is the blaring ring the phone gives off: an obnoxious bullhorn of a ring that has the same grating effect as fingernails scraping a chalkboard. After 6 years of hearing these rings, the mere sound now evokes thoughts of homicidal violence. Methinks it’s time either for a new phone, or a new job. I think I’ll go with the latter.

Not that this job doesn’t have perks mind you. I get four days off every other week, have excellent medical benefits, as well as ample time on the books for when I want to take vacations (which is always). The work may be about as exciting as watching paint dry, but there’s not much to it, and if I get done early, I can relax for the rest of the day.

And yet, I hate this job. Truly, utterly, HATE it. It was precisely the kind of job I had gone to college to avoid… and yet, here I am. But now with law school on the horizon, my life would obviously change drastically, and the day would come where this job will at long last be a thing of the past.

But would things change for the better?

I’ve often asked myself what would be better: a job that I would LOVE doing, but had no perks, or a job I’d hate doing, but had many perks? I’ve always believed that if I truly loved my job, then nothing else would matter. Yet what scares me about the career choice of becoming a lawyer is that I would not only end up in a job I’d utterly despise, but one that would have no perks either. Things may suck now, but the possible future of being saddled with a six figure debt in a profession I’d end up hating just as much as the job I have now absolutely terrifies me.

The truth is, I’ve gotten comfortable. As much as I hate the boring, mundane routine of life I’m living now, it’s a life I’ve gotten used to. Here, I’m safe. Out there, I’m not, and by deciding to take a chance here in making such a drastic career change, I run the huge risk of losing the very security I enjoy now. If I end up leaving the nest, would I fly, or would I fall?

I don’t know what to do. You would figure this would be the part where God would come in and show me the way, right? Nope. It’s been proven over the years that God could give a rat’s ass about me, in spite of my pleadings for just a LITTLE direction, just a little something to at least show me that I’m not making the biggest mistake of my life by choosing to go to law school, but He’s too busy helping Benny Hinn and Rick Warren make their millions to be bothered by the likes of little old me.

So, I’m on my own. Should I, or shouldn’t I? Take a chance, or suck it up and count my blessings?