Retro Writings

There was a time when I could be successfully ambiguous in my writings. The content may have been suspect, but the writing itself was still eloquent, thoughtful, engaging. Seemingly, I lost that ability somewhere over the last five years. It's like my fanciful side died. Like when a child first finds out that Santa Claus doesn't exist, or that the Tooth Fairy is merely a clever cover story for parents' shady midnight dealings, all that's left seems hollow and meaningless. Might as well just put the suit and tie on and switch to black coffee.

While napping today, during which I was half-asleep, I half-dreamed that privileged people are hatched, not born. Distinctly, they lived in the Upper East Side of Manhattan. Orwell could have been playing tricks on me; I had fallen asleep while beginning 1984. But nonetheless, the idea is an interesting one. Thinking about it now, it seems very Vonnegut-esque. Next time my consciousness is in an altered state, I'll try to take notice of the next piece of this plot puzzle; could make an interesting schizophrenic short story.

I do my best thinking late at night. Whether my mind is cleared by then or the lack of sleep stimulates the right side of my brain, I'm not sure. Whatever the case may be, looking back on my most-thoughtful and introspective writings over the past six years, the best ones all occurred after 2 a.m.

I may have found a direction to pursue, and I feel excited about it. The uncertainty of it, however, coupled with my being a pragmatist, unsettles me. Questions need answers, which then beget more questions. The thing to remember is that those answers are not hard-and-fast rules, nor are they set in stone. Life is what one makes of it. And I intend to build my damn life like a beaver. Punny.

I need to get back into reading great literature. There are several books I need to purchase and reread. Luckily, I've got nothing but time.

Return to a Hi-Fi Identity

When I last left off in this ol' blog, I briefly posted my LSAT results and my plan from there. That seems like ages ago. From the perspective of my personal development, it was. It was a different person who wrote those old posts, echoing fears and stress about a simple test.

Through the last six years, I've grown and changed, matured and aged, more so than in the 17 years preceding them. My most notable transformations were long-term projects of a year or longer -- like going through a meat-grinder, I was still made of the same stuff, but in a totally new shape.

I suppose I got used to those periods of epic transformation. I guess I became conditioned to think that great personal change takes an equally great amount of time. But I believe that as one becomes more self-aware, the speed of those transformations is accelerated. I can speak to that because it's happening now, and much faster.

I said that a different person wrote the earlier posts in this blog. Well, at least a different person from the one writing this post right now. I may not look different, but I feel different, inside and out. I no longer have the same tone of the person who wrote those old posts. I no longer feel as despaired as he did. I no longer define my life and the potential success in it by ultimately meaningless and tertiary details. I've finally opened my eyes to the big picture, if you will.

But what gave me this clarity? To be honest, I can't put my finger on it. Whether it was the drastic life changes I've experienced in 2009 or simply a natural evolution of my own thinking, I don't know. Whatever the catalyst was, I'm grateful for it, because for the first time in a very long time, I feel like I'm on the right track. And for the right reasons.

If my life were pegs, I was trying to shove the square one into the round hole. No matter how hard you try, you're just going about the damn thing all wrong! I pride myself on my foresight, so how I didn't see this coming, I don't know. To be fair to myself, I don't think I could have. I believe it took all the events of the last year to get me here.

Going to law school and becoming an attorney had been goals of mine since middle school, and I had actively pursued them since then. I approached it like stepping stones across a pond: one step at a time to reach the ultimate goal. Great grades, volunteer hours, work experience, extracurriculars, great college, selecting a key major, making contacts, the list goes on and on. One hoop after another that I was jumping through to try to reach this ultimate goal.

But what was supposed to come after that? Provided I could ultimately reach law school, what then? A 40-year career practicing law? Or so I thought.

If someone had asked me two years ago what I wanted to do for a career, I'd have said, "be an attorney." Asked a year ago, I'd have said, "be an attorney." Now? I don't know. And it feels good.

I've finally realized that law school is not a means to an end for me. It's not a contract that forces me to be a lawyer. It's a tool. It's a tool that I can use in many different ways. It's flexible, multifaceted, valuable. Hell, it even cleans grout. Billy Mays should sell it.

The truth of the matter is quite simple. The more I learned about the actual legal profession over the last year, the more I felt unsure about it. And that scared the shit out of me. Why? Because, I've pursued this thing for nine years already! Plus, what the hell else would I do? Journalism is dying, plus there's no money in it unless you're fortunate enough to parlay your reporting career into a New York Times Bestseller. And with my current education, I'm not qualified to do much of anything else.

So it became a matter of survival. My life became "Law School or Bust." Law school became a career choice and the LSAT its bitchy receptionist who won't transfer you to the Human Resources director.

And that's when it lost its luster for me. Because at that moment, it was no longer about my passion for learning the law or making wrongs right. It became something I had to do because I had nothing else.

That's not what it is. Maybe for some people. But not me. For me, it's a foundation. A solid education in how to think, how to write, and how to communicate. And from there, the sky's the limit. Maybe I will be an attorney. But maybe, I'll go into real estate. Maybe I'll go into media or advertising and start my own firm. I don't know what's in store for me, but I know that a law degree will open doors that are closed to me now, and it doesn't necessarily have to be one with a law firm's name on it. It also comes with a neat little suffix to your name.

The bottom line is that law school, for me, will be a tool. What I decide to create with it is to be determined. That's not something I have to decide right now. And I'm more at peace now than I have been in a long time.

The results are in...

I will keep this brief for now -- I'll update more significantly later.

I got my February LSAT score, and I got a 161.

As a result, I will be taking the June LSAT to try to improve by 9 points.

The story of the nightmare that was the February LSAT will be coming shortly in its own post.

In the meantime, I'm searching for jobs and expanding my network base.

That's it for now.

Two days to go

Two days until I take the LSAT. I've been scoring consistently in the 160s on my practice tests.

With no timing issues on the real thing, I should have a 165.

With no timing issues AND no stupid mistakes, I should have a 168+.

I'm so close it hurts.

A near-slip

Whew, that was close. Almost disastrously close. When I start losing faith in myself, I'm in big trouble. I'm glad I was able to make a recovery today because if I had continued down that path of negative thinking, I never would have made it.

This process of preparing for this test has gotten out of hand and ridiculous, but I'm almost done. A couple bad practice test scores blew my confidence and I thought I had simply done as well as I was capable of. I needed a day to re-energize and refocus my energies. I went over wrong answers today for a test I had done well on. Then I did the same for a test I did piss-poor on. Widely disparate scores on the tests, but my experiment found the same results: one test was not harder than the other. For whatever reason, I just did worse on it. Maybe it was a lack of focus, maybe something else. The bottomline is, I'm more than capable of getting a great score on this thing if I stop making DUMB mistakes. I need to focus, think clearly, and THINK THINK THINK because when I do that, I get them right.

Another test tomorrow -- going to try to put this plan into action.

Corner turning?

I finally finished the LSAT that was sitting on my desk for weeks, taunting me, challenging me to actually sit down for an hour and finish it. With only one logical reasoning section and the logic games left to do, it didn't take me long.

I was able to finish the logical reasoning section with a little time left over without feeling rushed while I was taking it. I finished every question and only missed three, a figure that's becoming consistent. The last few LSATs I've taken, I've only missed two or three questions in the logical reasoning, a huge improvement from where I was a few months ago.

The logic games screwed me up this time, shockingly. The logic games section has become the ace up my sleeve -- it's the only section I can count on to only miss one question, if that. Well, for whatever reason, the first game threw me for a loop, and I wasted two minutes just staring at the rules until deciding to move on and come back to it. I finished the other three games relatively easily and came back to the first game, checking the clock first. Only two minutes left. I reread the rules and suddenly it made perfect sense. The whole premise of the game was pretty simple, angering me that much more. I did the first question, and my alarm went off. Out of time.

I went ahead and finished the section anyway, and then checked my answers. The section was perfect. I didn't miss any questions. Angrily, I marked off the four questions I had done after the alarm, and checked my final score. I got a 165. If I hadn't screwed up my timing, it would have been a 169, one point shy of my ultimate goal.

The good thing here is that I'm becoming consistent. The last three LSATs I've taken have been between 164-166. If I can continue to hone my skills over this last month and eliminate some of the careless mistakes I make, I think by the time I take the real thing on February 7, I could hit my goal. Naturally, it scares me that I have yet to break 170. Maybe I can peak on test day. Ugh...

A Shot in the As...er, Arm...

I took a timed reading comprehension section today and responded with my best performance to date. I finally was able to finish the entire section, and I only missed five questions. Typically, missing fewer than double digits was a success.

It seems I may have discovered a strategy for that particular section. I aggressively read each passage once through, speedily attacking the language with my undivided attention. It was a furious and stressful reading style, but it was enough to get the gist of the passage and know where everything was -- the structure and organization of things. Then, when I had to go back and refer to the passage to answer a question, I was able to find the appropriate section quickly, more quickly than usual.

Here's the key: when I re-read the part I needed, I slowed down. I would normally read with the same tenacity as earlier, but inevitably, I'd miss a key word, like a "not," which completely changes the meaning of things. So instead, I slowed down and read the appropriate section once. I don't have any statistics or evidence to prove it, but I think this saved me a lot of time and also improved my accuracy.

Hopefully, this particular section was not an anomaly and is a sign of things to come. Considering my motivation was on the ropes, I hope this is the shot in the arm that I needed.