● The sense of purpose.
● Always having too much reading or briefing to breathe, and just adoring it.
● Champaign in its entirety. I toured four law schools before Illinois, and literally the moment I pulled into Champaign I knew that’s where I belonged. Just this perfect blend of rural with a brush of urban and a dash of horse farms and corn fields.
● Bounding out of bed at six in the morning with my stomach an absolute coil of barbed anxiety.
● Knowing my mother would never even consider driving four and a half hours to arrive unannounced.
● My wonderful, wonderful, beyond fabulous apartment. Completely adored that thing.
● The piano teacher Koreans who lived below me in said apartment. In my second bedroom (the art room) I could hear the students playing, and they always had some strange concoction wafting through the floorboards so I never felt alone.
● Taking a walk around the pond on the premises of said apartment at night, just meandering around and glancing in the windows, wondering what transpired within.
● The Plant Man at said apartment. This Neil Young doppleganger had an entire garage and apartment of plants.
● Tucking into the library or the Auditorium, all of us studying together alone.
● Happening upon a group of high-wire 1Ls and emitting some variant of loud noise. They ricochet like super balls.
● Listening to Sirius radio during the four-and-a-half hour drive to school every Sunday evening.
● The skydivers who soared right over the freeway roundabouts the three hour mark during warmer months.
● The ladies at the gym every morning, who decided to adopt me as a surrogate daughter and always inquired as to my progress.
● The guy at the coffee shop who would ask me every morning as I acquired four shots of espresso, “Are you an attorney yet?” When I shook my head he would shrug, “Keep trying.”
● Warmer, longer summers.
● The entire town essentially revolving around orange and blue.
● The cherry trees that lined the road between Assembly Hall and the College of Law, which exploded into comforting, cheering pom-poms every spring.
● Studying at the arboretum, and taking breaks to watch the horticultural students investigate one thing or another.
● The fact that the powers that be positioned the College of Law between the school’s art museum (seriously, the place seemed custom-built for me) and a graveyard. Just to remind you of the alternative option when days proved too overwhelming.
● Wandering around the Quad or hanging in the Union, watching the undergrads have a normal life and vicariously reliving the Good Old Days.
● Having an address and area code in Illinois instead of Crapsconsin. Illinois actually has something going for it. Not just an endless sea of cheeseheads and beer bellies.
● No. Green. Bay. Packers.
● Folks in Illinois are nicer. They just are. Not even sure how to describe it.
● University of Illinois at Champaign-Urbana. The entirety of it. I just adored that place.
I wish I could have calmed down enough to enjoy it, and realized that none of it really mattered. I should have just focused on passing my classes rather than striving for As, and just aimed for a diploma as opposed to perfection.
Live and learn.
...and then live again because I find myself doing the same crap over and over again, but eventually I’ll catch on.
Anyway. New blog. New start. Off we go.
