It was a long, gruelling road to get into law school. I didn’t go to university straight out of high school; instead, I worked in various restaurants and cafes, got married, had children and then pursued my studies. My undergraduate years as a mature student were fantastic. I couldn’t believe how much I loved learning! I met great friends, found incredibly mentors and gradually gained the confidence to consider myself worthy of going to law school.

Well, that didn’t go quite as planned. I wrote the LSAT three times, applied to schools in cities where I had siblings and hoped for the best. The first round of applications all came back with rejections. So did the second round. After that, I was depressed and deterred. I decided to give up my dream and settled on a Plan B. Regardless of this, my husband encouraged me to try one more time, and I did so, begrudgingly.

You can imagine my surprise then, when I received an acceptance letter. I could not believe it. I cried. I jumped up and down. I frightened my dog and my children. This was it! I was actually going to get my chance.

Like many others, I uprooted my family and we moved to a different province so that I could fulfill my dream of becoming a law student. Everyone had to make significant compromises: my children left dear friends behind. My husband left his pals and his work behind. We all left family. The sacrifices are real and affect each of us every day, but my girls said to me, “If this is your dream, we want to help you achieve it,” and my husband echoed the sentiment. And so here we are.

Sadly, it’s not what I expected.

When I first started at the College of Law, I was intimidated by all of it. Thankfully, that has mostly changed. But the intimidation has been replaced by a sense of frustration and disbelief at the disproportionate amount of immature and bizarre antics that go on. I have tried to understand it, but have failed miserably. Worse, though much of the mythology that surrounds law school has been dispelled, what remains is the fact that a legal education forces one to relive high school. Yes friends, it’s true: it’s like “Pretty in Pink” all over again. I lived it once and I have no interest in doing it again.

Lately, a division has occurred in our section. It was probably already there, but I’ve become quite sensitive to it as of late. The easiest way to describe it is that there is a cadre of “cool kids,” and then there’s the rest of us. And I know what you’re thinking: so what, right? Well, let me inform you that regardless of being 39 years old, all of the old garbage from high school in the 80′s has reared its hideous head. Most of the time, I feel like an out of place poseur that everyone smiles at politely but snickers once my back is turned. Does that not describe everyone’s high school experience? If it doesn’t encompass some parts of yours, you were the asshole doing the snickering.

So here’s my plea: please stop. Stop acting too cool for school. Stop doing word of the day in Property Law. We’ve all allegedly grown up, and thus, listening to someone painfully attempt to fit “coitus” or “masturbation” into a sentence pertaining to estate law is not only a huge waste of everyone’s time and terribly disrespectful to our professors, it’s also a horrible embarrassment. Stop ganging up on other people and making them feel bad. Stop the sexist and racist comments. Please stop the eye-rolling and the snide remarks. Everyone in our class is smart and deserves to be there, so please start treating one another in this spirit. Lastly, please be kind. All of us are insecure and want to be liked so badly; do consider this above all else. We spend hours every day together, so why not do what we can to make it as meaningful as possible?

For me, each day at law school is an honour. It is the most challenging thing I’ve ever done, and I’d be lying if I didn’t admit that I’d already considered transferring into the Creative Writing Program on several occasions. Despite that, I carry on because I’ve met some remarkable people who share my passion. Although we’ve only been in school for ten weeks, I feel a kinship with my section that I didn’t anticipate. It is a wonderful, unique relationship, and I would hate for it to be ruined because our tiny insecurities overtook our sensibilities.

We are all in this together. Embracing it works better than resisting it.

Thank-you.