Humbleness

Law school has a tendency to deprive someone of their own self-esteem. In the past week, I have been overly-conscious of my self esteem, and general self worth. This bout started on Friday after my interview with the GBLS. The position was something that I ultimately desired for the longest time because it would give me the chance to serve the Asian community in Boston in a bilingual setting. Yet, the interview didn't transcend as smoothly as I would have hoped. In between a lot of background information exchange, I didn't think I came across as strong of a candidate as I could have been. I stumbled in my speech, painted myself into a corner with my Chinese verbal skills, and above all, my phone had to ring in the middle of the interview (Nokia's are terrible). Being my own greatest critic, in my mind I failed to come across as an ideal candidate.

So for the last week, I have been running the scenario over and over again in my head. What did I do wrong and what did I do right? As a result, I have been feeling slightly depressed because this position is ultimately what I want to do, and in the place that I want to be. To compound my current bout of self-reflection, I had a meeting with my Civil Procedure professor today to go over my exam. Throughout the semester, the professor had touted his willingness to meet with students to discuss class and career issues. In fact, he made it sound like he was extremely open to students dropping by nonchalantly. Unfortunately, I never did make that effort to meet with him after class, mostly because I am extremely intimidated by his presence. He seems like the type of person to be extremely confident of himself - almost to a point of arrogance. To me, he was virtually unapproachable.

However, I bit the bullet and met with him today in an attempt to better my current semester and beyond. What I got was the inescapable feeling that I was wasting his time. First of all, he had messed up the scheduling, which resulted in extra wasted time. Moreover, i got the sense that he was constantly in a rush; his wife came in, his phone rang, and he his general demeanor indicated to me that he had no interest in meeting with me.

With that said, his substantive feedback was extremely helpful: I need to have a clearer outline, and above all, I need to write better and be more concise in applying the legal doctrine to the facts. However, the feedback wasn't that simple and straight forward. The professor essentially took my exam, and ripped it apart - not once mentioning anything good that came out of the exam. In fact, for the first two pages, he proceeded to dissect the exam in meticulous fashion and as a result, I felt incredibly feeble.

Prior to meeting with him, I had met with two professors, and to my surprise, I was extremely satisfied at the general receptiveness of the meetings, not to mention their providing constructive feedback in an informal setting. The sentiment that I got from this particular professor was quite the opposite: he was generally unfriendly and extremely lacking in his social skills. I could do nothing but sit there and nod and let him do all the talking. Even though the meeting lasted one half hour, it felt like forever.

Needless to say, I won't be taking any more of his classes...ever. As a result of the events from this past week, my self-confidence is severely lacking and I generally don't feel as optimistic about my overall abilities to be in this line of profession. The stress is building. What if I don't get this internship? What will my options be, given the fact that I lack the motivation to look for something else? Actually, I don't have anything planned as for right now, other than an offer from a friend to work for his dad who is a Connecticut judge. The uncertainty is debilitating.

As a final word, I hope this general feeling passes quickly. Prior to meeting with him, I was at least optimistic about what I have to do for this semester to improve. After the meeting, it seems like there is much work to be done. Nevertheless, I'm trying extremely hard to turn this experience into a positive one. In the meanwhile, I will attempt to figure out my summer, and will make a conceited effort to improve based on his comments, with little attention paid to his general unapproachable nature.