It's Beginning to Look a lot Like Finals

It's that time of the year! Yuletidings, carolings, chestnuttings, giftgivings, huggings, lovings, etc. Everywhere, that is, except for the hallowed halls of Law School Academia. This is the point in the year where the rubber meets the road and you try desperately to prove to your professor that you learned something in the intervening semester. It is, on the whole, a vain and lonely exercise. An exercise where I: want to scratch my eyeballs out to stop the pain; where I'd rather faint from exhaustion than sleep; where I feel pressed to do anything and everything in order to "be prepared" for a final exam and wonder if I should also "do a good turn daily" or if the Boy Scout motto alone is sufficient; where I rack my brain to figure out why I did all of this; where I look back on my life and wonder how I got here; where I look forward to my life and realize I don't know where I'm going; where it all seems like a Twilight Zone episode and I've been stuck in some timewarp where THIS is it and the rest of my life has only been a dream leading up to this horrible, horrible reality; where I morph into a curmudgeonly grinch of a man; where I don't necessarily start to grow a beard, but often forget to shave it; where I wonder if I really ever smiled; where I wonder what would have happened if.... Needless to say, this is not my favorite time of the year until after finals time. And that's too bad, because December was the BEST MONTH EVER when I was a kid. I got out of two weeks of school. It smelled like pine and candle wax in my house every day. Rosy cheeks and mistletoe dotted friendly hallways. And maybe most awesome of all, I got to celebrate two very important birthdays: mine (15th Baby!) and Jesus'. While mine is often overshadowed by His, I'm OK with it. I understand. December birthdays know what I'm talking about... Anyway, back to finals time... When people ask me if they should go to law school during this time, I tell them to ask me later. When people ask me how I'm doing, I tell them to ask me later. When people ask me anything, in fact, I usually just grunt, nod / shake my head, and hope they leave me alone. Well, most people anyway. There are one or two who inspire a smiling grunt. Anyway, before I launch into the anti-Spirit of Christmas that is Finals time, I wanted to wish you all a WONDERFUL Holiday season. May family, fun, love, and joy abound. Heart, Pre-Grinched (3x larger than one week from now) Eric