Each of us has a reason for enrolling in Law School. Each of us, no matter how great or trivial, carries a purpose--a compelling force that can withstand insurmountable challenges of terror professors, of voluminous books, of life-ending recitations, the bar exam preparations and so much more.
So what’s your purpose? Here is mine.
So what’s your purpose? Here is mine.
From what I know, my father once dreamed of becoming a lawyer until he realized that he had to be a father first. A family to feed and children to raise. So he changed the course of his fate and went to the shores and tried a living as a fisherman. in God’s grace, he had his own vessel. Life from then on became smooth sailing.
But when you knew that your father gave up a part of his life for you, there's nothing in this world that can prevent you to make it up for his sacrifice. A dream for a dream. And because of that, I felt obligated to always be the best and make my family proud. Life from elementary to college was like a race. Relentlessly striving to get the gold medal, the tallest trophy, the grandest prize--name it.
In fact, it was an unwritten agreement between me and my family, being the eldest (Lord, why does it have to be me?), to take up Law. Even the people in our small Municipality, where everybody knows everybody, knew that it’s going to happen. Thence, I volunteered to continue what seems to be an unfinished love affair between my father and Law School without ever fully comprehending what kind of endeavor I’m putting myself into.
So the life in law school began. Where one enjoys the bragging right in excessive displays of hardbound books, shirts with nose-bleeding legal maxims that if I’ll be asked in streets I would have faked a phrase, loud chats at the canteen, pretending to study at the library only to see the crush and frequent moments of physically present but mentally absent saga. But of course, you know that I’m just joking and that jokes are half-meant, yes?
On a more serious note, just like any race, it is tiring. There were always, and will always have, hurdles tempting you to give up. And though how much I try to deny the fact, truth unravels itself in its own time, it surfaces like a thief in the middle of the night. It was in Law when I faced my own blow of what I call, real-life challenges. My Daddy (Lolo) lost in elections and seeing him down, feeling betrayed by his own people, is sadder than anything I’ve ever experienced yet. Everybody in the family got stuck at that downfall. My father became jobless, that’s just politics. Everything else seems to be slowly tearing apart. And the saddest reality is; thy strength is thy weakness. I lost my purpose. I too, took my solitary respite. Started skipping classes until it became a habit. That poignant moment when you ask yourself, “Porque iyo taqui? Or “Porsigi pa ba iyo?” On the verge of quitting, I told myself, “Si hinde iyo pasa quiere desir, hinde para demiyo.”
Lo and behold, miracle of miracles, I am still here and I can almost certainly see the finish line. Life is a race; I’m still in the running towards the goal.
But I have a secret.
When you’re at your lowest point, you get to see things in a different perspective. The corners of this dignified institution can attest to the silent prayers of a student to pass the exam though she wasn't able to study well because of an emergency at the workplace or that she had to stay up all night because her baby was sick or that her husband haven't returned home the entire week. Life in law school taught me several lessons and among those, is about life itself.
It taught me that a right is different from a privilege, like sleep to law students. It is here where I saw that a law student can also take on multitude roles and still pass the exam, just like our working+student+wife+mom or working+student+husband+dad. So I told myself that using working student as a reason for failing a subject is unacceptable. And just as when I'm about to complain that I’m getting old and that my memory is getting frail, I looked around and realized that I cannot use age as a defense as well. In law and in life, alibi is the weakest defense. That was how I learned to stop the whining and do the winning--a little pat on the back, at this point, won't hurt.
And now that life in law school is almost over, this I declare, it's this point where you start pondering what made you reach this far and what's moving you to go farther. Sigh. So near yet so far. In my moments of aloneness, repeatedly, I search deep within for a driving force, one that can propel my spirit to soar high and hit that dot in A-T-T-Y. There's God, my family, people that I will come to aid and, yes, my law professors. In all honesty, I am most afraid to fail the bar exams because of our professors. For four years I have seen how they rush to school after a court litigation or catch a flight back to Zamboanga just to be present in the class only to find out that their students have gone home strictly following 15 min. late-absent university rule. Been there, done that- peace sign ON!
Amidst the intermittent electricity, warm room, blood-sucking mosquitoes, they stay. While recitations make me want to pull the trigger to my head for certain reasons excruciating to mention, their sincerity cools me down more than our defective air-condition in 3rd floor (PEACE, Dean. I’ve got nothing to complain). To pass the bar, for me, would mean to vindicate them for their valor. That instead of making the most of their free time with their family, they meet our classes. And if this has not reached your knowledge, it is the Dean of the College of Law who's the last one to leave the building to lock the college doors. Only in WMSU CLAW!
I'm not doing this entry if not for the chance of thanking these people who made life in law school more meaningful. Your knowledge will make you a lawyer but it is your attitude that will make you a good one.
With a father's wish, family's pride at stake, people’s expectations, superficial frustrations, a (very) caring lover and a lesser penny-- almost four years have gone by in a blink of an eye. In retrospect, I daresay that, law school is a school of life.
To all my fellow WMSU CLAW students, whatever our individual purpose may be-- Ad vitam paramus! We are preparing for life.
P.S: Life is a race.
By: Shim Lei R. Climaco (SLRC)
LLB-IVA
LLB-IVA
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