Hello, My Name Is Tacitus, And I Am...

...apparently really ungenerous with my time.

Perhaps it is another symptom of first year of law school (like carpal tunnel syndrome, elevated stress levels, hypertension, and myopia), but I find myself not in the holiday spirit when it comes to giving away what I now should have plenty of -- time.

I think it's a residual casualty of exam period, when every minute feels so precious, when you find yourself carrying an outline around on the bus so that you can glance at it during the ten minute ride to school, when you find yourself subconsciously running through elements of various actions even in mid-conversation.

So anyway, I arrive home for two weeks of time off from the pressures of law school (of course, this opens one up to the equally imposing pressures of family, but that is a topic for another post, or a whole different blog). I spent the first day running around the city looking for the "perfect gift" for everyone. I felt great. Then Christmas eve arrives, and I am set up for two straight days of family time. And despite the comforts of home and family, I find myself constantly distracted by thoughts of what "productive" things I should be doing. For. Two. Straight. Days.

I am thinking about letters I need to send to firms and organizations for summer jobs. I am thinking about brushing up my resume a little more. I am thinking about what books I need to buy for classes. I confess: I even had a dream/nightmare (it was fairly neutral, really) last night about receiving first semester grades.

When I was working as a consultant -- particularly when I was working freelance, and every dollar came to me -- it became second nature to think of my time literally as money. Every hour that I wasn't billing, I felt somehow needed to matter in other ways -- "quality" time (with family and friends), necessary "down" time (just chillin') or "life" time (errands and laundry and eating and such). I was sometimes ashamed of these feelings, but I also knew that they made me feel like I was getting the most out of every day.

When I came back to school, I was grateful to no longer think of time as money, but rather as opportunity to learn and grow. But the law school schedule, particularly around exams, have made me realize that when you have more things to do than time to do it in, time can be "precious" even when it has no positive monetary value. (It still has monetary value, of course, as every minute I am enrolled in school I am paying for.)

So I'm sitting around, trying to enjoy my crazy family, and still, I cannot escape the feeling of time pressure that has pervaded my life for the past four weeks -- and I feel pretty terrible about it. And hence, as I have in the past four weeks, to escape this pressure, I blog on... pointlessly. I guess I have more time on my hands than I thought!