books and sweaters.

I'm twenty-four years old and am about to restart school.

I know I vowed never to set foot back in that place, and to an extent, I won't. I'm going to a new school where I will meet new people and see new things and have new experiences. I will get to live the life that I've wanted since I walked across the stage in 2007.

I'm a little scared, but so many opportunities await. The trip to Spain that I never got to take. The internship in a cool city working with native speakers. Bumming around a college campus, studying until the wee hours, drinking coffee, laughing with new friends, wearing sweatpants because that's normal again, going to the rec, and complaining about relatively insignificant things. I can't wait. Bring on the stress as long as the good times come with it.

beyond the textbook.

"I'm just gonna get a real attorney."

I hear this, day in and day out, about my services and the way that people regard me as a professional. It is demeaning every day, and can even be devastating.

I spent three of the hardest years of my life trying to learn how to be a lawyer, trying to understand something that was much harder and larger than I was. I stuffed civil procedure, criminal law, contract law, evidence, and basic trial prep skills into my brain until I literally cried myself to sleep some nights.

True, there are many days--even a majority of them--that I dread going to work, dealing with people's anger, prejudices, and illusions. The reactions of people when I must break the bad news that they are, in fact, going back to jail, are overwhelming. The thought that I am the only thing between them and jail or, in some instances, prison is too much to bear in dealing with the clients with whom I connect.

In the words of Aretha Franklin, R-E-S-P-E-C-T... find out what it means to me. If you don't, your last line of defense may abandon you like the rest of society...