I am asking for prayers since I have re-commenced my law degree and am finding it confusing and difficult at the moment. I am putting the effort in, but a lot of my legal research seems to have been a waste of time. What I am hoping for is a miracle to help me pull through.

Law seems to be where my passion is. The eighteen months I took off university just made me lost, no matter how much money I had at the time. I just could not find a filler for the hole it left in me. I need to have my mind absorbed in this stuff and thinking of strategies all the time.

At best during that absence, I found a little spiritual illumination, which somehow drew me back to law. I seem to know a lot about law, the trouble is putting it on paper in exams and getting the work done on time.

My days are very long since I work full time on top of my studies. I don�t want it all to go to waste.


I know there are some very special people that visit this message board, so please include me in your prayers if you read this.

I'm praying

Here too.

Me too. I hope you find some peace soon.

zoe

Me three. (Or is that four? )
Best of luck, Fire, keep us posted.

U

quote:

At best during that absence, I found a little spiritual illumination, which somehow drew me back to law.

I guess there's a first time for everything.

Good luck.

Fire-
I too am praying

and me......

for both you and your country's legal system, which no doubt needs your passion and clear-thinking about things that matter most

I have a mid semester exam today.

I hae been studying for it for weeks since it is closed book which is unusual for law exams. The problem is that the place I work at changed their minds needs me to work today, which will eat into my last minute preparation time and add to the pressure.

I am nervous about the test because I know I know quite a bit about the content, but unsure how I can apply that in a theory exam. I would hate to all my hard work to go to waste.

But then again, when I relax, I can just think of the content in my head.

Anyway, wish me luck today, and if you have time, please say a tiny little prayer for me.

Hey! Employer! Cut those students some slack during Mid-terms!

Anyway, I survived the mid-semester exam episode as I was calm from the moment I sent this post. There was plenty of time to do prepare, and I think I scraped a pass, which is positive.

I have an assignment due in a week�s time. I sort of have been trying to do it, but have been stuffing around and procrastinating. Now I realize that when I get into the guts of it, it seems a little harder than what I thought it would be and might take more than a week to complete. I could get an extension I suppose, but that would only make life harder as I have other study to do with exams coming up, plus a complicated tax return that might land me in hot water due at the end of this month.

I have been sort of contemplating what my life will be like without this law degree, and the life it would be is the life of a average workingman that has the white picket fence, the General Motors or Ford car, the 2.3 children, the 40 year job at the same place till I retire.

I could not bear to live that kind of life. It would be a life where I don�t try to change any of the injustices of the world, and just live in total ignorance of them. It would be a life where I believe everything is hunky-dory, where in reality the world around me is burning.

But death is not an option for me either. I would rather spend the rest of my long life in a Tibetan Monastery learning about enlightenment and Kung Fu (hey, I got to have some form of exercise to kill the boredom). But I would rather have a law degree up my sleeve before I did that sort of thing.

Anyway, please pray for me to get my assignment done on time and get a decent mark in it.

Help me understand. You want folks to pray that you do your homework?

My friend, it's a big world out there and your only limitation is your imagination. It's a world full of opportunity and with a goal, a plan and a little work, you can do anything you want.

You can make your life happen or let it happen to you. Your choice.

Fireant, help me understand too--

You know I will and am praying for you to succeed in your goals and do whatever you want with your life basically. Yet in a way I agree with Uncle Don in the above post when he says that it is your choice whether you do or don't.

Things happen the way they happen, because it is the right way for them to be happening on.

I wanted to be a prima ballerina, I would've given anything to become that, and if you were to ask me a number of years ago, I'd have told you that it was the only path for me and I wouldn't know what to do with my life if I wasn't a ballerina. But life had other things in store for me. A life that turns out to suit me better, and makes me feel more enabled to do the things that I was destined to do (helping myself and others).

Is it worth the struggle, and, will having a law degree really enable you to do whatever it is that you want to do? Ultimately, it is only a piece of paper. The rest will still have to depend on you, won't it? If you answer that with 'yes' then I say: "Go for it and give it all that you have, fight for what you want and don't take 'no' for an answer". But your posts, as I perceive them (and that is likely to be wrong) do not say 'yes', they say: "despair and struggle". (No offense).

Again, Fireant, I want you to be successful and be everything you can possibly dream of. You are in my prayers...

Usha

fireant,

I flunked Biology when I was in high school, for a lot of reasons, not least of them was a really cool football player who ditched me in the 2nd quarter.

When I retook the class, I got a B+, and I remember praying before a test (for which I had studied) that God would carry me through that one.

Well. As it turns out, Sawdust (again) has a point (for at least the second time this month). You gotta work for what you want.

Usha also has a point. Do you want what you're working for?

I'm getting along on this path, and one thing I've discovered is that "what is" must be known and mastered before you can turn it into "what should be." It sounds like you've got a firm idea about how your legal training will help you become a change agent, but that dream might interfere with your ability to engage with the learning about "what is."

Fact of the matter is that all areas of human understanding, learning, graduate degrees, fine fancy stuff, are designed to keep things the way they are. The changes into "what should be" are small, piece by piece affairs. And you won't be able to help get anyone to "should" until you understand what "is."

So. Stay the course, and let your energies be directed at what the people in the know say about what it "is" they are teaching you. And then study it.

You've got a lifetime to mess around with the rules they tell you are "so."

Take care.

Kate

fireant, my prayers are very much with you. I've been where you've been so many times I don't want to begin to recall, but, thankfully, I've survived one way or another.

I don't quite understand why the rest of you are questioning whether this is a situation requiring or deserving of prayer. Ordinarily I could care less which section of the forums one posts in, but it seems to me that in this case the ADHD forum is where one should wrangle over whether fireant has a "real" problem or not. By posting here, my guess would be that all he wanted was simply your prayers. If you believe in the power of prayer, then leave it to whatever power, force, or spirit to decide what kind of help fireant needs and let it give it to him.

Perhaps the rest of you should say a deep prayer of thanks that it is so easy for you to "choose" when you can work productively and when you cannot, that you do not quake in terror and/or confusion when you see a complex task before you, are not sure how to proceed, and have had too many past painful experiences of not succeeding no matter how hard you tried, what help you sought, and what hours you spent wrestling with the problem.

Finally, you might also show a little appreciation for what fireant is trying to do -- work and go to school at the same time when the way he thinks and works best may be to focus on one thing at a time. Yes, there are people who can handle multiple jobs, school, and other things all at once because of the way their minds connect and disconnect and reconnect fairly easily. Others struggle with it and have far less of a margin for error when, as often happens, they miscalculate the time they need to accomplish something. It's very painful to suddenly realize what needs to be done, to beat oneself up over the fact that one didn't "get it" earlier (and say things like "I was sort of trying to do it" simply because the mental work involved in being confused and sorting it out does not "count" because it did not produce any practical results), and then try to decide whether to steal the time to do it "right" to be able to prove that one really did, finally, understand or cut ones losses and go on and hope that one more sub-standard performance (from the perspective of those measuring and handing out credentials) is not going to keep one from reaching one's goals or, even worse, destroy one's spirit, sense of self-worth, and hope for doing better in the future.

It is an awful choice, one which requires the awesome powers of divine wisdom, grace, and compassion. Please, dear God, help fireant get through this.

Hi Kathy,

You do make a more than fair point, thanks for the reminder

I didn't see Sawdust, Kate or myself really questioning Fireant's post or even passing judgment about whether or not it deserves a prayer. Nor did I take anyone of the posters here as NOT being appreciative of what she is trying to do. I read something in the posts and wondered. I could've kept silent, but decided not to. In the end, it is none of my business

If my post went too far and wasn't respectful I do apologise

U

Hi Usha,

I'm sure you meant well - same goes for Kate and Sawdust. And maybe I "read" too much into some of their posts (taking them as reiterating the old, just buck up, pay attention, and work hard and you'll succeed line of advice). It's just that in times past when people have given me such advice (or, in a different vein, told me to stop procrastinating, just do it and stop being such a perfectionist), it literally has made me want to cry because no one "got" how hard I really was working, how much I was sacrificing in terms of my own basic needs (for food, sleep, and companionship), yet still found myself in a muddled mess and behind my fellow students. One can beat oneself up in so many ways trying hard and then, in the end, find that one nevertheless missed something critical, couldn't pull it together as quickly as others, or spent so much time locked up in fear and procrastination that even when one finally figured out it was not as difficult as one imagined that one sheepishly realized that it could have been done easily earlier but now there was no way to get it done right. To have someone say, after the fact, well, you shouldn't have done it that way is.... well, to put it nicely, not at all helpful -- comes as just more nails to put in one's coffin, not the bright light path of salvation the speaker intends it to be.

Anyway, I do not believe this prayer request was from someone who isn't trying hard enough or doesn't want to do what is asked of him. His heart and soul are in this effort, notwithstanding his frustrations and miscalculations. I don't know fireant very well, but I do know from his online posts that he's been in law school before, dropped out to work in the mines (made high wages but ended up dispirited and who knows with what damage to his health), and has returned to school with great hopes of making it through this time, not to be at the top of his class, but to just do well enough so he can earn his degree and whatever other credentials he needs to appear in the courts in Australia. I know from my experience as a law student, an attorney, a law school teacher, and a legal writer, that doing well in law school (at least in the U.S.) is a relatively poor indicator of whether one will be an effective advocate in the courts. Law school may provide all sorts of important knowledge but success is largely measured in how one demonstrates mastery of that knowledge as an academic discipline rather than how one may successfuly apply it in legal practice. Some of the best litigators in this country did not get top law school grades, serve on the school's law review, or ever wrote a scholarly article (all of which the best students do). And while I have no way of knowing what fireant can and will actually accomplish, he has repeatedly expressed a burning passion for the law. For him it's not just a job or some way to break into a professional career of some sort, it's a calling. And whether it's following his "bliss" (in Joseph Campbell's terms) or whatever else you want to call it, I'm hoping and praying he succeeds.

And from everything I've read he has ever posted, it sure sounds like he has tried and is trying very hard to make it through school this time. So....... I think perhaps what he needs most is our love and care and some divine assistance in helping him weather through the rough patches -- not our advice as to how he should go about doing it -- unless, of course, he asks. Maybe none of you intended to give such advice -- your encouragement just struck me as worded in a way that sounded like you were just telling him to work harder at getting things done right and on time as if what he was lacking was a strong will to do so. I'm just saying that I strongly suspect that it's not that simple -- why, especially, prayers may be needed and most appreciated.

Anyway, if I have misread anyone, I, too, apologize. I'm only hoping to shed some light on what fireant is going through (which I may or may not be able to do) -- not denigrate your honest attempts at helping him and wishing him well. I'm afraid it's all too easy to bring in my own issues -- esp. when scrambling to settle into work on a Monday.

P.S. Kate -- I should have read your post, in particular, much more carefully. There are still things I think you don't understand in terms of what makes it so difficult for some of us to follow the "rules," but you have expressed much wisdom about the big picture.

P.P.S. Usha -- funny thing, I, too, wanted to be prima ballerina (even studied briefly in London), and, as it turned out, I am much better off not having done that and instead having been blessed being able to do it vicariously by being able to see live performances by people like Margot Fonteyn, Antoninette Sibley, Merle Park, Maya Plisestkaya (sp?), Suzanne Farrell, Alessandera Ferri, and many others (whose names escape me now) .

quote:

Maya Plisestkaya

Maya Plisetskaya-- Her star-performance of The Dying Swan on the Red Square in Moscow is still giving me the goose bumps every time I see it.

It's a good thing I was not destined to be a ballerina-- I would not have done the art-form that she procreated justice

PS-- I thought Fireant was a woman Ah well

While I am not a woman, I am still quite capable of doing humourous and comical impersonations of Queen Elizabeth II, Dame Edna and Mrs Doubtfire.

Hi Atticus,

quote:

spent so much time locked up in fear and procrastination

Been there, done that, as well as been through the muddle and struggle. If those are what Fireant is going through he has my support and best wishes (but not prayers since I don't know any gods to ask).

I enjoyed ballet in primary school, but with my physique and lack of grace I never stood a chance.

Sue,

quote:

I enjoyed ballet in primary school, but with my physique and lack of grace I never stood a chance

Which character do you feel more familiar with: A swan with goose-bumps, or a goose with swan-bumps?

(With me it's the latter )

Kathy,

I do very much admire MR. Fireant for his efforts of transcending mediocracy. My post reflected something I'm going through myself, in terms of doings and beings. I guess what made me crinch slightly was that I read that he didn't want to settle for an average 2.3 life. I have reached a point now where I couldn't care less if a goal is reached by me or someone else. Yet, if we want to contribute, change or bring some kind of awareness, we do have to work in order to get it done. It takes an ACTION rather than a re-action.

Anyway, it's something that needs further contemplation on my part and your point is well-taken.

Fireant,

I'd really like to hear you impersonate Mrs. Doubtfire

And the other ones too, come to think of it

fireant et.al.: my first time to visit this interesting thread. the thrill of learning, which is intself a difficult task for most of us, disintegrates when confronted with a test. i took one course in law librarianship and although legal information is hierarchical and logical, i never really understood the language and
did poorly on the tests. never mind, i still got the degree and excelled in other areas, in which I found my calling within the profession.

kate: this is truly inspired [Fact of the matter is that all areas of human understanding, learning, graduate degrees, fine fancy stuff, are designed to keep things the way they are. The changes into "what should be" are small, piece by piece affairs. And you won't be able to help get anyone to "should" until you understand what "is."]

Bonsoir Sue,

quote:

but not prayers since I don't know any gods to ask

You reckon prayer = a) request, b) attn. deity of sorts?

Bonsoir Andger

quote:

You reckon prayer = a) request, b) attn. deity of sorts?

I always thought that prayer was asking one's god(s) for something.

Then I saw that Thom wrote something about saying thanks, as well. So is it a conversation with one's god(s)?

Atticus - your posts touched me. I too knew that struggle a long time ago. As I read your posts, no-one had ever come so close to mirroring what I was going through then, as your posts. Thanks.

Fireant, heaven forbid you end up being some hotshot lawyer serving the wishes of the elite classes, driving around the city in a flash car, living with views of sails - God (the word is just a name) will still be with you all the way.

quote:

Which character do you feel more familiar with: A swan with goose-bumps, or a goose with swan-bumps?

ROFL!

More like a duck, I think (if it walks like a duck...)

Maybe I could have got a part in La Fille Mal Gard�e as a chicken or something, and you could have danced in clogs!