So my first year of law school ends on a high note. I have been invited to join the BYU Law Review Staff as an Associate Editor for the 2007-2008 school year. I worked my grades into an acceptable range. My student loans haven't cleared $20,000 (yet!) and my wife and children haven't starved, frozen, or left me. Everyone, heave a sigh of relief! One down, two to go. I don't know that I have a ton of wisdom to share. I've done a fair bit of "looking back" over the past year, and in the final analysis, I'd rank being a 1L somewhere between "gazing unprotected into the slavering, eldritch maw of Cthulu" and "serving a mission for the LDS church" on Arkham's scale of madness-inducing experiences. Though I maintain that the work is not unduly challenging from an academic perspective, there is a lot of it. There is a good deal of plainly unnecessary hoop-jumping, but higher education has ever been thus. A lot of my professors and my peers have invested themselves quite completely in the idea that they, as lawyers, are better and wiser than everyone else, including those around them. Virtually all of them are convinced of the infallibility of law and preach judicial shamanism with evangelical vigor. But then there are those who see this pursuit for what it is, and with them there is no shortage of intellectual discourse. Some of my peers earnestly wish to improve the world around them even as they improve themselves. I have never been so completely surrounded by so much intellectual excellence. Better yet, most of my peers are not only willing, but wanting to engage in discourse without the trappings of hostility. The capacity to "agree to disagree" and remain friendly is readily observable and most welcome. It is my understanding that, from this point forward, the hoop-jumping is much less pronounced. We shall see! My next task will be my first as a 2L: selecting courses. Any courses I want! Though naturally I will endure some courses because they are vital to Bar Exam passage, I can choose (for instance) to study the First Amendment instead of the Fourteenth, or Copyright instead of Patent law. I'm excited about this freedom. With my invitation to the staff of the BYU Law Review, my paid position as a research assistant this summer, and my grades, I have reached all of my goals for the year. The things I wanted most, I have attained, though in some cases at great expense to my sanity and my patience! My wife has been most supportive in this endeavor, commiserating when I despaired and then pushing me to keep moving forward. I cannot emphasize enough just how much work this has been. The test was rarely one of mental prowess, but instead of raw mental endurance. Even the Law Review write-on seemed more intended to test my patience than my knowledge. And now it is behind me. I think I can do this. It might even be fun!