Bye bye Austin, hello law school

Today I got into a truck to begin the 15 hour drive from Austin, TX (my home of the last 18 years) to Atlanta, GA to attend Emory Law. I attended high school in Austin, got my undergraduate degree from the University of Texas at Austin. I've met most of my friends and all of my exes in Austin. 18 years is a long time to accumulate memories, both good and bad. So it is with mixed emotions that I depart. I am sad and scared to leave behind so many important people and familiar surroundings. But there's also a lot of pain left behind there. Moving away quite literally is moving on. UTA has a great law program, no doubt, but they don't offer the area of study I'm most interested in. Emory does.

Moving is also a chance to start over, to shed the scales of the past to become somebody new, hopefully somebody better, happier. That doesn't mean anybody is getting cut out. I'm just interested in ch-ch-ch-changes.

So it's a new city, major educational endeavor. Big changes. A number of my friends have had the law school experience; most have not. I'll start by sharing my 1L experiences here on this blog as (legal mullet). If you're hoping for something salacious like Lena Chen's Sex and the Ivy (the infamous Harvard sex blog), you'll be disappointed. I'm not like that and I certainly don't kiss and tell. I'm almost 32 for crissakes, not 19.

Instead, what you'll get is an idea of the brutality of the Socratic method, study groups, exam hell, and the reading, reading, reading (among other things). I'll also review those handful of Atlanta places I can afford to frequent on my student allotment of money and time.

Orientation officially starts on Wednesday, August 18 and runs through Friday, August 20 from 8 am to approximately 4 pm. Attendance is mandatory. There are also some events scheduled on the 16th and 17th. Kaplan/PMBR are sponsoring Building Community Day on Tuesday. They say it's an opportunity to meet about 90% of my fellow 1Ls and includes, among other things, a scavenger hunt. I'm looking forward to it.

I'll let you know how the lottery goes on class draw. If you are unfamiliar with this concept, I'll explain it when I receive my fall class schedule.

Classes starts on August 23. In the meantime, I have to get to Atlanta, sign my lease, and move in to my apartment. Then I'll need to scout out the neighborhood for essentials like the grocery store and a yoga studio (more on that to come).

I'm really excited to start this new phase in my life. It has been a long time coming.


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