retired from sad, new career in law
my first semester of law school didn't pan out the way i'd hoped. the time for introspection was probably three weeks ago, so now i'm just rocking myself through the aftershocks of failure and attempting to formulate some semblance of a gameplan for salvaging my average over the next few years. it feels bad, not just because jobhunting will be so much harder, but also because this past semester felt like my last chance to prove something to myself—that i can meet my own expectations, live diligently, and achieve the conventional kind of success my mother yearns to flaunt amongst the other aunties after sunday service. grad school doesn't come free, and with academic vindication so far off, i feel like i'm not making the best use of my accumulating debt (or dwindling """good""" years). the opportunity cost is too high for me to be fumbling this spectacularly, and it's been disappointing to confront the reality that i'm no longer as high-functioning in high-pressure situations as i used to be.
yesterday, i went on a 2-hour walk with my mother and she told me that, quite frankly, she doesn't know what do with me. aren't i devastated by the long-term downward trajectory of my life? don't i want better for myself? for her? she's humored me with the liberal arts/neurodivergence/biting-her-tongue bullshit for long enough (give or take 3 years), so where are the results? one of my younger cousins scored top 10 in her high school class of hundreds for physics and math, you know, and she's been wechatting my mother to ask for advice about pursuing a career in medicine. imagine where i'd be now if i had just taken that advice to heart and actually applied myself! she's certain that the untapped potential for neurosurgery is still hidden within me somewhere, lying dormant, waiting to be activated by the right canon event.
to be honest, i don't think my mother will ever emotionally recover from my decision to eschew medicine in favor of finance, and then finance in favor of law. i probably could've softened the blow by going to a better law school or performing marginally better on my final exams, but nothing will change the fact that i'll never have comma-space-M-D written after my name. it's no secret that i'm frustrated by how poorly i performed this semester, so no matter how immeasurable my mother's disappointment might seem, my own disappointment dwarfs hers by magnitudes. logically, i know that i will likely undergo several more career pivots prior to retirement, but right now, law school feels like my last chance to carve out a meaningful inflection point and reverse the lemony snicket circus direction my life has been heading in. it's been a long time since i was last a full-time student, and i want to do well for my own sake—by graduating after 3 years of sincere effort that i can be genuinely proud of. pride isn't something i've been positively moved by in over a decade, but it'd be nice to know that i'm still capable of meeting my own expectations (and further, necessary to build up trust in my own self-control). very few aspects of my life are within my control, so i need to do what i can to turn the tide in my favor (': i can't be fighting myself and the world at the same time...if nobody got me, at least i know that i've got me.
i don't usually do new year's resolutions, but i have tried to gradually implement some positive changes to my lifestyle over the past 2 months that i hope to sustain in 2026:
- going to sleep before midnight and waking up before 7 am. whatever i want/need to do during witching hour can get done in the morning, even if it's just reading for fun. i find that i'm less likely to doomscroll for hours on end when i'm online at the crack of dawn, as opposed to tw*tter rabbithole mining in the dead of night, and even if i'm awake for the same total number of hours during the day, at least i'm getting more sunlight than before.
- checking the weather and selecting my outfit the night before. i cannot trust myself to make slayful, professional wardrobe choices while groggily stumbling through my closet in the morning, because i usually end up defaulting to the same oversized cardigans, neutral tees, and wide-legged pants with elasticized waistbands. there are neatly folded stacks of cute, comfy clothes in my closet that have never seen the light of day due to my stubborn refusal to use any critical thinking skills before noon, and this has been helping me cycle through more of them with each passing week.
- standing/walking while passively watching/reading things. i have two standing desks in my apartment, neither of which had been used in standing mode prior to october of last year. my class schedule requires me to sit in a lecture hall from 9-5 and read hundreds of pages per week, and most of the other hobbies i usually do while sitting could be enjoyed equally while standing. in the interest of preventing an early death due to my excessively sedentary lifestyle (amongst other unhealthy habits), i've started standing more indoors and using my walking pad while watching TV.
- spending less time reading textbooks and more time writing practice exams. if the past semester has taught me anything, it's that i'm only graded on what i manage to type out during my final exam, not the hundreds of pages of notes i painstakingly took before/during/after class. i need to work smarter, not harder, and get a better feel for my professors' grading preferences before i actually sit for their exams.
and a speed-run through some other goals for this year:
- read at least 24 books. i set my goodreads goal at 12 because i only managed to get through 15 in 2025, but i've already read another in the past two days and i'm optimistic about my tbr lineup for this year. getting back into physical copies has helped, somewhat.
- visit my maternal grandparents. i'm hoping to squeeze in a 2-week trip between the end of spring semester finals and the beginning of my summer internship (crossing my fingers that i'll even have one...), but if it doesn't work out, i'll probably fly out in december. maybe i'll even drop by taiwan on the way!
- get involved with volunteering in my local community. it's been a few months since i moved here for school, and now that i've familiarized myself with the area, i'd really like to serve the folks around me through an immigration or social work-adjacent nonprofit program.
- stop being such an antisocial cave hermit! i need to start saying yes when people invite me to things and proactively check in on people more often. making friends certainly does not get easier as an adult, and i'm not doing myself any favors by holing myself up in my apartment 24/7.
the world is going up in flames, but that doesn't mean we should all lay down and await the sweet embrace of apocalypse. even though it may feel futile at times, trying will always be worthwhile.
assuredly,
t