I never quite experienced this feeling in undergrad. I was over-scheduled and I had many places to be back to back. But, I never had an intellectual marathon anywhere near my “easiest” quarter here.

Nevertheless, an intellectual marathon is upon us. That’s what these nearly two weeks are for us law students. It’s an intellectual fatigue that manifests in all forms of discomfort, malaise and eventually, absentmindedness toward everything except neat factor-tests and chunks of case law and statute. I notice that, during the marathon, I’m more prone to spill things, and my eyes are more squinty. My deplorable posture sinks even further as though the very laws of gravity are changing to my detriment.

Nothing really heals these wounds but time and sleep. And, that won’t come until Friday for most of us–when we’ll want to celebrate as a conscious reward for our minds and sleep as a unconscious reward for our bodies. As life becomes more clearly about measuring humans by the amount and quality of work they do, it seems only to become more convoluted. (“Wait! I thought there was more to it than this!”) I know there is (or think I do), but at this point, I don’t see it. I don’t see anything separating a myopic carpenter from an enlightened student. Each one, in his own time and right, will have to answer to labor. Every man has to earn his keep. And, I’m more convinced that there’s nothing more or less glorious about a scalpel in the hands of a surgeon or a hammer in a roofer’s hands or a book in a student’s.

We all have a debt to pay. And, most of us are doing the best we know to keep up with the terms of our loan on life.