Fo Realz

It has begun.

I attended my first night of orientation last night. SMU School of Law, or as all the faculty and staff referred to it, "THE LAW SCHOOL." I had been so anxious about starting and allowed fear of the unknown almost make me sick. However, when I walked into the auditorium where we had our orientation sessions I had a sudden confidence boost. All the anticipation had become reality in an instant and I was ready to get to work! I enjoyed getting to know the classmates sitting on either side of me and looking around at my class of around 90 students, taking in and capturing the moment of unfamiliarity. At that moment, everyone was a stranger. Four years from now, we'll all know each other like family (which, in the words of Dean Camp, could be "good news, bad news, who can say?"). It was all very surreal and so exciting!

We received some good information during the first night of orientation... about why SMU is the best (wah wah), about how we must remain balanced and have a good attitude, and most importantly about what this semester is really going to look like for us. We have an incredibly rigorous legal research and writing course and will have major assignments due just about every class before we break for three weeks or so before our final is due. The other classes will be very heavy reading. The school even has its own mental health department exclusively for law students (insert assumptions here).

So I have four classes all together: civil procedure, torts, contracts, and legal research, writing and advocacy. I will be in class four nights each week, Monday through Thursday. I thought that law school classes would be like my masters classes and that I would just have one class each night, but turns out I have two classes on Mondays and Wednesdays and two classes on Tuesdays and Thursdays. This will make for some interesting scheduling during the week when I have to read and write for those classes on Wednesdays and Thursdays.

When I got home last night I had the most productive two hours I've had in a long time. Shower, clean my house a bit, install new software, read over assignments... My goal is to be asleep by midnight (which will be hard with so much to work on) and to wake up by 6:30am. I'm curious to see how my body holds up (I'm pretty notorious for requiring lots of sleep and not being a morning OR night person). I'm praying a lot, just reminding God that He knows that I need energy and I need money to not just survive, but to THRIVE and live fully, and that I already know He will provide everything I need.

If you happen to be the praying type, please pray for me that I will make the Word of God my foundation throughout this experience and that I will learn how to put workgloves on my faith even more. I will admit that I am scared to live in victory because I'm so scared that I will fail, or worse, that I will think God failed. I think He is giving me the opportunity to fall headfirst into His provision and, because I'm scared to jump, this law school thing may just push me into that incredible ocean of fully relying on the Lord.