Life of a JRMSU Law Student

MARY ANN A. ELUMBARING

Law school is far different from all the academic arena I was engaged in and here daily grind is
crucial in order to live on. I have read more in one month in law school than I ever did for an entire
semester in college. I realized I was so lucky in my college when the only thing that scares me are major
exams for major subjects but in law school it was entirely different. Life of a full-time working, full
loaded law student is one helluva ride and I quote from Paul Harvey, “Stay in your seat come times of
trouble. Its only people who jump off the roller coaster who get hurt.” However, it is not always a choice
of A and B. For many of us who do not have the resources to cut off work and committed ourselves fully
to academics, we have to withstand the business, the hustle, the day-to-day cramming and the hourly
panic. For many of us who aren’t as privilege enough as others, we have to work for our tuition fees, rent,
daily expenses, meals, books and other inherent expenditures to survive not just in law school but in life
as a whole.
At the back of every working student’s attention, while staring pointlessly at computer screens at
work hoping to finish writing cases or read sections which is the coverage of the week, while typing
random documents or traveling for work to other places – at the back of every working student’s mind is
great panic, the terror of not being able to read what’s due for the evening class or next week, being
frightened of being possibly humiliated at recitations because we did not plainly studied the topics and
dreaded for the piling reading backlogs and the important text of the books that were not highlighted
because it was left unread. Regardless of the logjams, I would never trade the opportunity to attend the
night class from Mondays to Fridays because every meeting is a privilege to learn and earn things that
annotations in the books would never spill. Despite the cramming and panics that law school had given
me, it helps me tend to be more composed in dealing with nerve-racking circumstances because stress is
my daily pill.
I always said to myself not to whine over taking the pen and scribble numerous case digests even
if it takes eternity to finish because when Friday night comes it is done and the Saturday grilling on
Political Law subject will be on. During the class, it felt as if I am on the edge of my seat the entire time
that I could only breathe when the class was dismissed. Instead of saying TGIF or Thank God It’s Friday,
me and my classmates have hashtag TGISA which means Thank God It’s Saturday Afternoon. The only
guiltless time that we could relax in our respective home to "pay back" accumulated sleep debt.
There are times when depression sets in due to failing quizzes and frustrations at school and
work. There are so much realizations I had and one of which is that law school is a temporary sacrifice for
a lifetime reward. It doesn’t take a genius to finish law school but persistence is the key. As James Joyce
once said, “A man’s mistakes are his portals of discovery.”
In JRMSU, I felt so lucky to have my justice league. They are super heroes who saves the day
during classroom. They don’t have capes and armors but they have gavels and books. They do more than
teaching and citing all necessary jurisprudence. They don’t have super strengths but the fact that they
gave extra effort while discussing every articles of the law with congruence of body language, tone and
words intuitively is what it takes to make them our super heroes. In a nutshell, if that person scares the
hell out of you, then you better pack your guts and start burning candles at both ends because one thing is
for sure if we do whatever they said we will never go wrong.
Along the way, I take encouragement from those who have done it. Finishing law school while
having a full-time work is not a unique deed – it is a challenging endeavor that has repeated by many
whose pictures were hang on the Dean’s office with so much pride and honor. It is tough but struggle is
not identical to dead end. Indeed, the thrill is not on the catch but on the pursuit. As my college law
professor once said, “The difficult can be done immediately the impossible takes time.”