on grades.

Grades came out yesterday.

Grades have always ben a time of suspense, but law school grades, take that suspense & multiply it by the umpteenth power. The Law School grading system is VERY different from undergrad grades. When I was getting ready to start this summer, I emailed my friend Allison to ask her why she thought law school was so "intense?" Allison and I had taken the LSAT at around the same times, but while I went and left on a mission, Allison started law school at BYU. Allison put the whole thing so perfectly—I'm going to share a portion of her email.

"I'd say the most basic reason for why it's intense or hard is because everyone in your class is used to being the best. Every one of the 140-odd students in your class has always been 'the best,' and most people have built their self-esteem and self-identity around being "the best"—in whatever industry or area of study they come from. When you get all of those really driven, really smart, really committed, type-A, perfectionist personalities together, tell them they are going to be ranked against each other, and put them in a very tight-knit daily environment...and then teach them by even smarter, successful, sometimes intimidating individuals who have done incredible aspirational things with their lives, it gets a little 'intense.'"

I wanted to share a neat experience I had yesterday with scripture study yesterday morning. I was reading in the Book of Mormon in 1 Nephi 17 (this is the chapter where Nephi is commanded to build a ship). I read verse one where Nephi talks about his afflictions and how hard things were, but he starts out verse two saying, "and so great were the blessings of the Lord upon us." This is a stark contrast to Laman & Lemuel's thoughts about their eight year trip in the wilderness. In verse 21 they complain, "Behold, these many years we have suffered in the wilderness, which time we might have enjoyed our possessions and the land of our inheritance; yea, and we might have been happy."

I reflected on these verses and thought, "I'm going to have a Nephi attitude about my grades, no matter what they are!" I have NEVER had a happier semester of school, & I know it's because I resolved to live a balanced life (I talked about that here). I was sitting in Civil Procedure (my favorite class this semester—I'm a lover of rules) when Rebekah-Anne shared a devotional related on grades using the exact same chapter! Heavenly Father, he just inspires us to read exactly what we need to!

I really did feel calm and collected about the whole thing (which is not something I can say about all my classmates). In fact, yesterday morning my writing TA asked me, "Are you ready for today? How are you feeling?" I got really confused and had a slight panic attack thinking I had forgotten some crucial event for the Trial Ad competition I'm competing in. I asked him, "for what?" kind of apprehensive about the response... "For grades," he answered, "Wow, you really don't care, do you?"

I wouldn't say that I didn't care. I just figured 1) I did my best, and 2) Heavenly Father has a purpose for me. Whatever my grades turned out to be, Heavenly Father would take my best, weave it into the details of my life, and make it possible for me to accomplish the things he would have me do.

With that being said, I did well—really well. It wasn't a surprising shock, but it also wasn't like I had known these were going to be my grades. I just kept having that collected calm sensation that the Holy Ghost supplied me with. I won't disclose my exact grades, but I will say that my overall GPA for the semester was in the range of "excellent."

I made a promise to myself that I wouldn't share my grades or ask anyone else about there's. Pride cometh before the fall, you know?

At the end of the day, I attended the J. Reuben Clark Law Society annual fireside at the conference center. Elder Holland was there. :) I was 30 min late because of a bad car crash on the freeway, so I didn't hear much from the speaker. I just loved absorbing the feeling of being there, surrounded by amazingly intelligent individuals and my classmates who have become like family in the very same place where we hear modern day living prophets give us words of loving guidance and counsel.

My blessings are great indeed.

Me, Anna, and Paul in an elevator after the event last night. I joked with Anna and said, "you look like you could be our child!" you know, because of how small she is? & she said, "Lauren, you're brown! I would have come out with more color."

:)