Welcome to the rest of your life.
It will not suffice to simply say that I am having a blast at Law school. As usual, I enjoy complicating things. It's been quite the ride and I expect that this has everything to do with the fact that I'm being completely washed over by a social arena that is both alien and intense.
In short, I don't know what to make of everything.
I've been enjoying the classes. I feel engaged, and for the first time, am not fighting with the otherwise standard curriculum to breathe some life into what I'm learning. Although, I do miss the days when finding some meaning in my cut and dry courses amounted to a cheap thrill (come on, the relationship between the church and the nuclear bomb, that's got to be a keeper).
But then there's everything else outside of class and, I can't say that I'm too thrill with what I... see. I just get this over-arching sense that not only am I here to be given legal training, but I am also here to become molded, suited and fitted - for this industry. Maybe it's my third-culturism or a fear of expectation (there is a certain degree to security in difference), but I simply cannot stand the idea of social conformity.
So here I am, in a sea of relatively homogenous people with generally homogenous life directions. And then there's me - who, in some wrapped moment of logic, decided that engaging myself in a locale-specific industry was the best way to get back to Southeast Asia.
The diversity quotient has dipped, and with that, I think I find myself alone, as far as Law school in concerned, in my life goals. I know who I am, what I want to do, who I want to be and most importantly, who is with me on this. And I just don't think that the Law school ethic gels with that. Its quite uncomfortable.
But then there's the legal buddy, who likened the legal corporate identity to just one more ornament on the Christmas tree of me. But really, what does this have to do with me? Who takes off her shoes during an interview and gets hired anyway?
It will not suffice to simply say that I am having a blast at Law school. As usual, I enjoy complicating things. It's been quite the ride and I expect that this has everything to do with the fact that I'm being completely washed over by a social arena that is both alien and intense.
In short, I don't know what to make of everything.
I've been enjoying the classes. I feel engaged, and for the first time, am not fighting with the otherwise standard curriculum to breathe some life into what I'm learning. Although, I do miss the days when finding some meaning in my cut and dry courses amounted to a cheap thrill (come on, the relationship between the church and the nuclear bomb, that's got to be a keeper).
But then there's everything else outside of class and, I can't say that I'm too thrill with what I... see. I just get this over-arching sense that not only am I here to be given legal training, but I am also here to become molded, suited and fitted - for this industry. Maybe it's my third-culturism or a fear of expectation (there is a certain degree to security in difference), but I simply cannot stand the idea of social conformity.
So here I am, in a sea of relatively homogenous people with generally homogenous life directions. And then there's me - who, in some wrapped moment of logic, decided that engaging myself in a locale-specific industry was the best way to get back to Southeast Asia.
The diversity quotient has dipped, and with that, I think I find myself alone, as far as Law school in concerned, in my life goals. I know who I am, what I want to do, who I want to be and most importantly, who is with me on this. And I just don't think that the Law school ethic gels with that. Its quite uncomfortable.
But then there's the legal buddy, who likened the legal corporate identity to just one more ornament on the Christmas tree of me. But really, what does this have to do with me? Who takes off her shoes during an interview and gets hired anyway?
1 comment:
I wonder whether or not you continue to feel this way - at least viz some of the foregoing. The push to conformity I see, certainly, but I suspect you and I would have a completely different take on it.
The diversity is relative. You're just one reason the whole thing seems so diverse to someone like me. Some of my classmates from other schools have commented on how equitable UBC is compared to nameless WASP-y institutions out east that shall remain nameless... although perhaps that's not what you mean(t).
Regardless, diversity takes place in all kinds of settings. I've met literally nobody who understands my goals because my goals are tied to who I am and where I'm from, but our body - faculty and student - don't recognize the kind of diversity that makes me an island in a sea of unwitting conformity.
In some ways, forced homogeneity is better than the unwitting kind, because at least with the former you can understand that there might have been a different path at one point.
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