It’s day one. I’m bright-eyed and ready to crush this law school thing. I walk into my first class and find a seat in the middle. I don’t want to look too eager but I also don’t want to be a slacker. I am so ready for today. I read the reading on battery like eight times. Class is starting! I’m so excited. I’m ready for anything. I got this. Professor Church says, “Ms. Towing? Carol Towing, where are you at?” OH. MY. GOD. What’s my last name?! Did he just call on me? How many more minutes of this torture must I endure? I’m sweating. My mouth is dry. My last name is definitely Towing. I want to crawl under the desk and hide. I know nothing. What is an element? He’s asking me a million questions. “INTENT. HARM. CONTACT. TENDER YEARS DOCTRINE.” Am I even forming sentences? I think he’s asking easy questions but I’m so focused on the little cup in Church’s hand, the fear of looking like an idiot, and the sweat that’s collecting under my armpits that I can’t formulate a coherent statement.
I made it. I survived the first day. I’m alive. I have to go back and do it again tomorrow. The thought of having to do it again tomorrow isn’t what’s keeping me up at night though. It’s the thought of the tiny cup that Professor Church holds in his hand. It lasts him the entire class. There’s really only one solution. It’s a magic potion. He sips on it throughout class and it makes his voice sound exactly like TOM HANKS. Initially, I was thinking it was coffee because he drinks it so early but coffee doesn’t last a normal person an ENTIRE class period. He can’t fool me. I’m onto him. By the end of my 1L first semester, I will get to the bottom of this.
Day in and day out, I go to class and my eyes are often diverted to the various distractions and curious behaviors of my professors. Sure, the students are just as peculiar but their odd habits don’t engage me because I’m one of them and our habits are the same. The professors, however, are full of interesting behavior. Church with his tiny cup. Trahan with his Gilderoy-Lockhart-perfectly-coiffed hair. Sautter with her framed Warren Buffet stock certificate. Corbett with his swag. It’s all so much to take in and yet, I must power through the distractions. I must focus on the academics, the law, the end goal.
But first, I must find out what is in that damn tiny cup that Church holds every morning in Torts.