Saturday, January 29, 2011

Priorities

I probably shouldn't be blogging.

I should probably be reading the 12,000 pages we have covered so far for my Fourteenth Amendment class. Or at least attempting to understand what the heck some of the words on the pages of the thick book mean. Maybe if I was doing that, I would be more prepared to sit in on yet another impossible-to-understand conversation on Monday with 50 of my closest friends and a professor who I'm pretty sure dislikes me, although I can't figure out why.

I should probably be working on my never-ending contracts paper that I started exactly one year ago with the intention of publishing with my professor but which has changed so much as it has basically switched topics every 12 minutes for the last 365 days. Maybe if I was working on that paper, I would finally get something published before I head off into the real world in just a few short months.

I should probably be working on the case that Jeff and I have to present in DC ten days from now. Or at least I should be reading through the materials so I can get an idea of what the heck we're going to be doing in some courtroom with incredibly well-prepared teams from all over the country. Maybe if I was doing that, I would actually start to feel confident about representing the school instead of how I'm feeling right now--overwhelmed.

I should probably be working on my moot court argument that I have to deliver in New York just two weeks after I return from DC in the national competition. Maybe if I was doing that, I wouldn't feel so guilty after talking up how much effort I was going to put into the competition for over year.

I should probably be working on my bar application; frantically trying to track down the address to every place I've ever lived or seen or thought about; digging through every single record of everything I've done and everything anyone I've ever know has ever done and meticulously documenting it on the 15 billion page bar application. Maybe if I was doing that, I would be less stressed about the looming March 1st bar application deadline which seems to require everything short of offering up my second-born in some cultish blood sacrifice (they do require the first-born), but instead I watch the ticking-clock and wonder when I'm going to have time to care about any of it in the next 30 days.

I should probably be working on my journal assignments, pouring over pages and pages of tedious editing. Maybe if I was doing that I would actually get a journal assignment done before midnight of the day it is due.

I should probably be reading for all of my Monday classes.

I should probably be answering overdue emails.

I should probably be working on a research assignment for work that I need to have done early Tuesday morning.

I should probably be out attempting to have a social life so my friends and family will stop feeling the need to pray for me.

I should probably be running because once again I've committed to a marathon just a few months from now without thinking about when I might train for it.

I should probably be trying to figure out what I'm going to do with the rest of my life, since graduation is approaching and clerkships don't last forever.

I should probably be cooking something for the event I'm about to head to as I promised a couple of weeks ago to cook something for the event I'm about to head to.

I should probably be sleeping, as there has been far too little of that in the last three years.

I should probably be figuring out what I should probably be doing the most right now.

But instead I'm blogging. Oh well. None of this has killed me yet.

~It Just Gets Stranger

5 comments:

  1. you're stressing me out with that to do list. but somehow, i know you'll get through doing all those things. you always do. i just hope it doesn't kill you this time :)

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  2. I feel exhausted just reading about all the things you should be doing.

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  3. I like your blog Eli! I totally sympathize with this to-do list. And while my list isn't quite as long or demanding, it all had a familiar ring. Thanks for writing.

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  4. I should be going to bed because it is 11:35 pm, but I'm reading your blog because it has been TOO long! ...you should get a job in Oregon!

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  5. I really like the format you used for this list of priorities and and hoping to use it in my ESL classroom sometime this week. It's surprisingly similar to a lot of the poetry formats we've been looking at lately.

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