1 down, 5 to go

I have successfully completed my first semester of law school.  Finals were an agonizing, stressful, hellish two weeks and yet, I came back and will do it five more times before I take the bar. It's a great experience to be tested on a subject in Torts that was never really covered in an entire semester of lectures and have a professor that thinks it's fun to give crappy grades to everyone.  Just kidding.  It's not really a great experience, it actually sucks.  

Winter break was a much needed break from Moscow and the law building, from reading and briefing, from sleepless nights and outline memorizing.  However, it was an agonizing month waiting anxiously for grades to be posted and waiting to see if I really am cut out for this law school thing.  Grades finally came out yesterday, a week into the second semester.  I've come to the decision that discussing what my grades were is not my thing.  I am happy to report, however, that I did indeed pass all my classes.  :)  I also made a number of conclusions about how I want to live my life from now on.

This came after pretty much every person in my family told me how much happier and full of life I seemed to be.  Perhaps this is because I'm no longer being controlled and told what do and can actually do what makes me happy.  What makes me happy is not stressing out about things that are out of my control.  I want to be happy so I'm going to be happy.  I want to be the girl that smiles more than she frowns and that people love to be around.  I want to be the girl that says yes to knew adventures and meeting knew people.  I don't want to be the shy girl that keeps to herself and misses out. Someone I recently met told me that I was a free spirit.  I've been called intriguing, fascinating, and free spirited in the last two weeks and it really caught me off guard.  But after I thought about it, I decided that those are the words that I want to be used to describe me.

This semester is going to be tougher and probably more stressful than last.  But it's also going to be better.  My classes are a lot more interesting and my professors are not cranky old men.  I decided that I'm in control of my own fate.  I care a lot about law school and I care a lot about my family, friends, and being the best person I know how to be.  But I don't care about the little things that don't matter. My big sister said something to me while I was home that has stuck with me.  If a problem is fixable, then there is not need to worry.  If it's not fixable, then there is no help in worrying.  

So here's to a semester of long hours in the library, fun new adventures, a lot of smiles, and not worrying about what is out of my control.  :)