aka the ramblings of a long-winded writer who only has 500 words (loose-maximum) to answer the question, "Why law school; why this law school?"
When I graduated from college (spring 2010), degrees in hand, there was no fucking way in fucking hell that I was
a) going to work in some office from 9-to-5, orb) ever go back to school
[period]
&my grades reflect this outlook.
Out of (a quick estimation [the specifics are not the point]) roughly 66 classes, I received 56 A's-and-B's (34 of which are A's) and 10 Not-As's-or-B's, and yes, I used to perceive of my college transcript as a failure, and yes, I understand that most college grads who see that I have two degrees in Art think that A's-and-B's in Art is easier than, say, two degrees in some science, and I would say, "Sure," but you're also sort of revealing yourself to be an Elitist asshole, cause it's not like you have degrees in art, so, what the fuck do you know? You're simply basing your perceived "betterness" on the hierarchies of Elitism as opposed to an individual measuring of each other against each other, as individuals.
Anyway, my point is that my grades reflect my putrid disdain (remember, i am a person for whom the idea of straight A's is realistic with the simple modicum of effort) for the idea of "graduate school." And so, I did not strive to achieve any sort of GPA worthy of graduate school entrance, etc., and yet, my graduating GPA is well within the "average" of accepted applicants, and so, it makes me fume to think of the me back then who just. couldn't. care. anymore. after her one B+ in high school Spanish "ruined" all of her chances of any future academic success, according to her.
I'm pissed at the perfectionist I used to be. If I had had a healthier relationship with my academic performance/achievements, I would have had a healthier relationship with my performance/achievements, and I would not have beaten myself up to the point that I had convinced myself that, since I wasn't able to get "straight-A's" in high school, I must be too stupid to go on, do anything more with my life. So, I didn't even try to do well in college; I just couldn't.
GAH! If I could go back, I would, and I would slap myself, but not really, cause, like, I would not respond well to that, obviously, like, who would?
Thus, I have to suck it up and accept the reality that I just didn't try hard for any of the classes that I simply did not care about, and honestly, what does it say about an "institution for higher learning" that I could essentially not do any of the work for some classes and still obtain a C?
I have a handful of C's for classes for which I never read the textbook, but I showed up to class and took all of the quizzes/tests, etc., and I managed to pass with a C? I would consider these classes, terrible. I also have a few D's for classes wherein I exercised the exact same behavior, but I only managed to barely "pass," if you can even consider a D, passing, and institutions do consider a D passing, which I think is total shit. Nevertheless, I would consider these classes to be better than the classes I got C's in, cause one must actually do some work to obtain a C, cause since I didn't do the work, I got a D. Square is fair.
And I even have one F, because of circumstances around my first year back in college (i basically was not part of the process of my first round of college-entrance experiences, as i was raised by my adopted bulldozer-mother, and so, by the time i returned to college, i did everything myself while visiting my ailing adopter-father at the psychiatric ward of the VA hospital in denver, while financially supporting myself by working part-time at starbucks, while attending school full-time in boulder, etc.) made the whole process of registering for classes a bit confusing, and I accidentally registered for some summer class, and then I was notified about it after it was too late to withdraw, and even after I jumped through the necessary hoops to request that a professor acknowledge that I never attended the class due to the fact that I had accidentally registered, the old, white male professor never even looked at me when I visited him in his office to request his acknowledgement that I never attended his class. He milled about his office, filing shit, while I explained to him my situation. He clearly never completed his end of the process, and so, I have an F instead of a W.
Whatever.
Despite my "poor" performance, grad school is still well within my reach.
But why do I want to go, now, after being so boldly, vehemently opposed to the idea, back when I had the opportunity to go and the support to do so?
I never knew for what I would go to school to study.
&so, I lived my life.
&while living my life, my bodybuddy/lifemate and I encountered many problems that were easy to solve and some that have been more difficult to solve and some that remain unsolved. Obviously the easy-to-solve problems were solved easily and their solutions aren't really something that will "change the world," etc. And obviously, the problems that remain unsolved are unsolved, so really, there's nothing to share. And so, the difficult problems for which we have found solutions are the problems that I am interested in bringing into the larger world.
One of these problems was how to pay our people in the House of Taps brewery business we designed back in 2019. We moved to Longmont, Colorado in late 2019 so that I could attend the Longmont Leadership Program (which went to shit, cause, happy-covid-times, and the program itself turned out to reveal the general racism within the small rural, white town of Longmont, etc.) and bring to life House of Taps. House of Taps is a beer brewery business wherein the brewers themselves are essentially working together to brew beer and share profits, which I know just sounds like a co-op or profit-sharing company, but it is not. I obviously do not have the time or space to outline our business model here, especially when considering that we've built out an entire website to detail the model.
Nevertheless, the LOPSIII model is one of the main pillars of my desire to obtain the knowledge that one obtains by attending law school. How much of this model do I share in my personal statement? Well, since I can't share it all (word-count), perhaps I shouldn't detail the model at all and merely mention it?
LOPSIII is an acronym for Locally-Owned, Profit-Sharing, Income-Inequality Inhibitor. There are mechanisms built into the articles of incorporation that create equality throughout the wages of everyone who works at a LOPSIII, sustainability within the reach of the business itself with regards to the larger community and ensuring one business does not wipe out all of the others, and enhances economic contributions to the surrounding local community in which the business exists.
That's it, in the smallest nutshell I can muster, seventy-one words. This might do. I'll give this above-last paragraph another stab next week.