Wednesday, April 06, 2005

It's the most nervewracking time of the year

Okay, so I just had a minor freakout.

Tonight there is a dinner for my 1L section with the Dean. We all get back together and chat and eat catered food in the swanky room in the library and have fun: that's the idea. I didn't RSVP until badgered by the Dean's assistant because I didn't see why I should go, but eventually I thought, "hey, free dinner, and how bad could it be?" and said I'd go.

Big mistake. I walked in and immediately saw some people I don't like, surrounded by a bunch of people I don't know. And I am radically underdressed. There was nobody I felt comfortable talking to so I circled around behind the shelves and the potted plants (so I wouldn't have to push my way through the group) and stood at the table, but apparently I was invisible to the caterers at the drink station, too. I gave up and decided to leave, but on the way out I ran into our section advisor (a professor we didn't take classes with, but who held social events with us). He held the door open for me but I balked.

"I can't decide if I want to go to this or not."

He tells me I should go. I admit that I don't really have any friends in my section. He asks me if I made any friends and I say yes while following him back into the lounge. We walk to the bar and get drinks and he is asking me about the gaming club that I tried to start with the section my 1L year (when I still gave a damn about being a member of things) and if I still play. We chat about Settlers (he thinks it's too complicated) but eventually the discussion turns to law school and everything he says just highlights several things:

I never found my niche in the school and didn't take many classes I enjoyed.
Upon graduation I still have no clear career path or knowledge about how to find a job doing what I want.
I have no friends in this room. Somehow putting me and 79 other people in the same classes for a year resulted in all of them thinking I'm lame.

Eventually I realize that we are running out of non-depressing things to talk about (and making our way through too many depressing ones) and try to listen for a voice that I actually would be glad to hear, but no dice.

Then the professor spills his wine (an accident, I hope) and it gets all over my leg. Of course they don't have any club soda and someone helpfully suggests salt, which they have upstairs. I refuse to traipse upstairs with a leg covered in red wine and sparkling water to cadge salt from the caterers and sit through dinner covered with a paste of home stain remover. Clearly I am not meant to be here. On my way out, the organizer says, "leaving again?"

I notice halfway home that I am still carrying my unwanted beer.
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