How did you know...

LD1970

You're all going to laugh at me.

When I was 12, I knew a kid who died of leukemia, so I decided I needed to be a medical research scientist and find the cure.  As I got older, it became "work on the cure."  Well, when I hit chemistry in 10th grade, I hated it.  And while I was good at every other science class in my life, I sucked at it.  Just couldn't "see" it.  I stuck it out and took AP Chem in 11th grade... for one marking period, and then dropped it for a difference science class, and thought, "Maybe I ought to find something else to do with my life."

I was always really directed and would go crazy if I didn't know what the plan was.

Well... I saw the movie Soul Man.  It's a bad movie with Tommy Howell where he gets into Harvard Law School and his dad decides that right then is the perfect time to teach the kid to be self-sufficient and not pay a dime toward school.  TH, of course, wasn't counting on this and didn't have the funds, so checks into scholarships.  The only one he could qualify for is actually for African American students, and he's white as can be.  So he overdoses on suntan pills (yes, really, I said it was bad) and gets the scholarship.  Of course, when he gets to school, he meets the woman (a gorgeous single mom) who would rightfully have won the scholarship, falls in love with her, and decides to come clean.  He ends up having to go before the J Board to see if he's going to be expelled.

Well, his best friend, who also got into Harvard Law with him, defends him in front of the J Board and makes this terrific impassioned speech.  I sat in the theater watching that speech and thought, "That looks like fine.  I could do that!"

My senior year of high school I took a class in Political Institute and a class in Criminal Law as electives to see if I liked it.  I spent the year debating with my teachers, discovered I loved it, and ended up a Politics major/Legal Studies minor in college.

Now I'm 15 years out of law school & still love it.