My friends would say I’m relatively laid back. No, really. In my normal life, no one would ever think, “hey, I bet you really enjoy crushing people’s dreams.” Well, I’m here to tell you that I do. I don’t know why. It seems reasonable to assume that in grad school I still had something to prove. I was young, my undergraduate grades weren’t fabulous, I bombed the GRE, sure, I wanted to do well and prove everyone wrong.
That excuse is no longer valid. I have a PhD. I’m a decade older than most of my law school peers. I have nothing to prove. I could sit on a nice B average and keep my scholarship and my sanity.
And yet, I found myself spending around 8 hours on a very small assignment. The assignment is so small its impact on our grade is practically negligible. I completed the bare-bones of the thing in an hour. And then I revised. And edited. Rinse and repeat. It’s a sickness. And it’s not just some industrious work ethic, it’s more like this:
And it’s not just the assignments. I keep getting sucked into these bizarre conversations with other students where I find myself telling them how the assignment or concept or whatnot was hard, except, it wasn’t. I thought at first it was just a feature of law school, but now, I think I might be engaging in some sort of psychological warfare. I drop the words “grad school,” “my dissertation,” and “my students,” oh say, every 12 seconds.
I don’t know! Maybe I’m insecure? I have no idea! But it’s a little unsettling.
And it’s not just me, I’m pretty sure I know more about some of these kids’ GPAs, current grades, volunteer work, and LSAT scores than my own. But, maybe I started the war? I don’t know!
And regardless, why am I engaging in the war? They are children! Most of them are only a year older than the students I teach, and as an instructor, I spend half of my professional life reassuring them, pumping up their little egos, explaining that college is not “real life” and that being a day late turning in an assignment in my class is not going to destroy their future.
What changes in that hour drive from the institution I teach at, to the institution I am attending that makes me become an asshole? I don’t know! I enter this venerable institution and it’s like a competitive switch flips and suddenly, I must crush everyone.
Oh god. I know what this is:
It’s true. I’ve become “that girl.”
Well. Crap. This took a turn.
I think I need to go read this article: Top Signs You are a Gunner. Or maybe this one. Hey Gunners: No One Thinks Your Big Words Make You Sound Smart.