Hey there, Sars.

Just read your response to “Considering,” the girl whose roommate is so very annoying.Usually I agree with your Vine advice, but this time, I’ve got to take issue with your solution. I lived for a year with the male version of that roomie, and I think you’re being overly optimistic.

Freshman year at college, I got stuck with a guy who bugged me to no end.The situation sounds a lot like Considering’s, what with the drama and yelling and the whole no-sleep-at-night thing. I did ask him to sit down and work out some ground rules, so we could at least coexist civilly; he told me to get bent, and the next time I left the room, he proceeded to piss in my computer keyboard.(You’d be astonished at the amount of liquid that fits in one of those things without overflowing.”Ick” doesn’t even begin to cover it.)

That was the first shot in a very ugly war.Long story short, sometimes just explaining your grievances is insufficient, because the offender knows he’s annoying but just doesn’t care.If Considering doesn’t get a reasonable response from her roommate, she should be prepared to complain to Residence Life until one of them gets reassigned.

Brian

Dear Brian,

Ew.And yes, obviously, with a roommate like that, you go to the housing office and demand that they reassign you to a guy who doesn’t act out with urine.But Considering hasn’t even tried talking to her roommate yet; it’s pretty clear from her letter.”I think it’s pretty rude” this, “I can’t take her constant bitching” that — it’s not that I can’t sympathize, but, you know, it’s college.Living with other people is part of the deal, and Considering has to learn how to do that, even with people who annoy her, or she’s got a looooong four years ahead of her.

Of course you should make other arrangements if communication isn’t working, or if your roomie is a psycho, but in this case, I think Considering expects her roommate to guess how she feels and behave accordingly, and that’s not going to work.

Sarah,

I think that I am pretty good at giving my friends advice; however, I can’t seem to figure out what to do in my own situation.Or maybe I do, and am in deep denial.In any case, here’s the issue: my girlfriend never asks me any questions about myself (me, my past, my family, how my day went), and then has the temerity to complain that she feels she doesn’t know anything about me.This woman has no problem going on at length about herself (she Has Issues), and I listen attentively and ask questions, yet when I volunteer some story or anecdote in kind, I get nothing.Nada.No comments.Silence.

I’ve tried to talk to her about it, and she of course has no idea what I’m talking about.I love her, and want to be with her, but this is really bothering me.We’re in the same graduate program, have lots of the same interests, et cetera et cetera.What’s your take on this?Am I an idiot?

Thanks (and keep up the good work!Your column rocks!),
Baffled in Boston

Dear Baffled,

Thanks; I try.

You’ve talked to her about it, you say?That’s that, then.She’s so self-absorbed that even pointing out said self-absorption doesn’t work.I mean, do you understand why she complains that she doesn’t know anything about you?It’s because she thinks she should know things about you, not because she actually has any interest in those things for their own sake — you know that, right?And you know that she considers you an audience, or a status symbol, not a person?Because she’s not capable of truly caring about anyone except herself?

Maybe she’ll learn, maybe she’ll change, maybe she’s got a legitimate reason for treating you like a butler — I don’t know.But there’s a reason that she doesn’t ask you about yourself.It’s that, in the end, she doesn’t really care.

If playing Max to her Norma Desmond is enough for you, okay, but I’d dump her.

Hi there,

I’m looking for a little outside, objective advice, and I thought I’d ask someone who provides just that.

I’ve just started law school, and it’s pretty much kicking my ass. I should back up and say that I’ve never ever had problems in school before; I was pretty successful all through high school and college, and got into a well-known JD program as a result. However, now that I’m here, I find myself panicking all the time. I’ve never had so much difficulty understanding material. I can’t seem to make the kind of connections my professors expect us to be making. It takes me eons to get any reading done. I dread going to class, and once I’m there, I dread being called on — I just don’t think I’ll be able to answer the way the professor wants us to.

All of this has lead to what I think must be depression — I can’t sleep right, my eating is off, and I don’t want to do anything. I also have panic attacks with alarming frequency (like, at least one each day). I can’t seem to stick to my schedules, and I find myself in tears half the time.

I’ve talked to school administrators and am starting counseling, and I’m getting a tutor for the class that’s kicking my ass the hardest. So, I think I’m taking the right steps. The thing is, I’m now no longer sure that I want to feel this awful for the next three years. I don’t think being a lawyer is worth this kind of misery, no matter how long it lasts. I guess what I’m looking for is a few words of wisdom on how to bear through a tough time, or perhaps some insight into whether it’s worth bearing through it at all.

Thanks,

1L in hell

Dear 1L,

I had to watch the Biscuit suffer as a 1L, and trust me, it’s not just you.The first year of law school is, for many many people, unmitigated agony.There’s a ton of work, almost all of it very difficult and also extremely boring, and after the fourteenth iteration of a seventeenth-century property case involving a fox killed by one guy’s hounds on another guy’s land and blah blah blah, you start wondering exactly how hard you’d have to hit yourself in the head with your con-law textbook in order to kill yourself.The Biscuit is a very smart guy and a conscientious student, and he almost quit about seventeen thousand times in the first week, but he gutted it out, and now he’s got a schmancy job at a top firm in New York.

So, a few things to keep in mind.First of all, it’s doable.The first year of law school is specifically designed to separate the wheat from the chaff, but most people get through it, and so can you.It’s still early, only November; your mind will learn to work in the weird nitpicky ways that the study of law requires.You just have to keep at it until it feels more natural.It’s going to suck, mostly, but it’s also only going to last a year, and believe me, everyone else in your class is flailing too, whether they admit it or not.And another thing: nobody actually expects you to do all the reading.That’s part of the reason you get so much reading in the first place — to see how well you do at prioritizing.

Second of all, it gets a lot easier — a LOT easier.The first year is bad, but again, it’s supposed to be; it’s supposed to train you to manage a huge volume of material (not to mention to hone your bullshitting), because that’s a skill you’ll need as an attorney.The last two years, you concentrate more on things that interest you.The coursework is more pertinent, and less like digging out from under a shelf of textbooks that fell on you.Yes, it’s bad now, but next year is not nearly as cruel, and third year is a cakewalk.Your tutor will probably tell you the same thing, but if not, talk to the 2Ls and 3Ls at your school; ask them how they managed and what it’s like further down the road.

Long story short?Write the words “that which does not kill me makes me stronger” on a piece of paper and pin it over your desk.Dig your heels in and work as hard as you can.I understand that it’s hell and that you have doubts, but the first year really isn’t a good basis on which to judge the rest of law school, or the rest of your prospective law career.I’ve not gone to law school myself, but I’ve seen many of my friends slog through the first year, and from what I can tell, it’s about as bad as it ever gets in the field.Finish the first semester, take a deep breath, and re-evaluate then — and by then, you’ll have gotten halfway through, so you might as well finish the year, right?And then the worst is over.

[11/1/01]

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