My Autobiography Would Have Such an Unreliable Narrator...: Sometimes you're the rocket powered roller skate and sometimes your'e Wile E.

In a lot of ways this is the most important lesson I have learned from law school.

Some days are rocket days, days when you move fast and understand everything, days when you feel on top of the world. Days when you are cold called in contracts to brief one of the more difficult cases of the semester and do well enough to earn a compliment from your professor. Days when you go faster and further than you ever thought you would. Sure maybe you are a little wobbly but you are going to get there with or without the weight of the coyote on your back. Some days are Wile E. days, days when no matter what happens your acme shipment is just a little late and a bit defective. Days when you let just a little bit too much of your self slip into your case assessment or confuse a citing rule and mess up a document.

The worst part is that those days are often the days that the morning dawned bright and the box looked undamaged. You strapped your skates on and felt particularly certain that this was going to be the day you finally caught Roadrunner. But no, the cards are not in your favor, the cartoonist (or law school gods) are not going along with your plan and ultimately you fall, left with the sting of rocket propelled road-burn. The crash all the more painful because of your pride and confidence, and because you so badly want that stupid bird. It has been a Wile E. kind of week. (It is never good when I am so strung up that I leave the house for school at 6:30 because I was unable to sleep, and anyone who knows me know I can sleep in.)

All of that hurts, but the important lesson is perspective. Each class, reading, grade, organization, even diploma is not the Roadrunner . Those are merely steps, landscapes, acme products along the way. And it is those things that are important and must be enjoyed, the Roadrunner is about constantly striving for more. And like roadrunner cartoons, when you have been flattened down by one too many anvil, and you're missing your feet because your rocket shoes blew up, its okay because this is the time to make mistakes, there is no client on the line; I don't risk a malpractice suit if I mess up. And hopefully, unlike Wile E., I will learn from my mistakes and not get the rocket powered roller skates again. (There is a whole acme catalog to try!)