Patience is a virtue

Prior to law school, every book you buy, every attorney you talk to, and every law related link you stumble across all make mention about how law school changes the way you think. At first I thought it was just another method of making law school sound so much tougher than it actually is. After glancing back over the last year, I've realized that this is definitely a true statement. Everything that I read or hear gets analyzed to the most minute detail possible. Is it a bad thing? Yes and no. It tends to get me in trouble when it comes to bitchy women, but at the same time it drives the stupid ones away. Win-Win situation I guess. I've always been critical, and for that matter cynical, of certain things that I read. Some people piss me off more now than they used to and others piss me off less than they used to. I guess it's one of those tit for tat (whatever that phrase is) sort of things. It's hard to read something without saying, "Wow, the idiot that wrote this document didn't have much more than a 3rd grade education." I find myself constantly biting my tongue a lot and doing my best to refrain from throwing foreign objects at random people.

Let me give you an example. Today I was filling out a financial aid form for next year. It's a computerized form that is adaptive to your answers (you know...where if you answer one question in the negative, then there's no need to answer the next three questions...sort of thing). So if you answer "no" to "Do you have kids?", then there is really no need to answer the "Do they depend on you?" question. One thing that just threw me into a sea of frustration was the question, "How many people live in your household?" and then the subsequent question of "How many of those will be enrolled in school?" My answer to the first was "1". Since the very first question before entering personal information was "Are you applying for Financial Aid on behalf of someone else or yourself?" and my response was "ME", presumably one would logically conclude that putting the two together there would be no need to answer the enrollment question. Then again, this is a government form...enough said. Thankfully, I refrained from the further action of tossing the mouse at the monitor. I think I've actually learned to be more patient while in law school.