Happenings

So it's time I fess up to my plans and what's going on with me. For about two weeks now, I've been investigating Law Schools. I have an opportunity to have the Marine Corps assign me to a school as a duty station. They'd pay me like they do now, and cover the tuition as well. The deal sweetens when you consider that for 3 years of school, I won't deploy. The icing on the cake is the 10K per year bonus that I'll receive once I've passed the bar; it's the Marine Corps' way of enticing me to stay in.

So it's crunch time with me. I have to decide tomorrow whether I'll take the LSAT in February or June. Registration deadline for Feb 15 is 9 December. I am leaning towards taking a prep class and then the course in June, applying in the fall to schools in Indiana or Columbia SC, and then applying to have the Marine Corps assign me to the FLEP (Funded Law Education Program) in the spring of 2007. Either way, the spring of 2007 is the first time I'll be eligible to apply. One of the criteria is being accepted to a law school upon application. Application deadline is each year, March 1st, and by March 1 2006, I wouldn't even have my score back.

If this is all news to you, and you're like "WOAH. Tom a lawyer?", you can join the club! I am that way too. But it makes sense when you think about my life's course. I have a BA in fine-art, though I am no artist. I've always strived for 'big things', i.e. basketball, Marines, art, house remodeling, marrying the beautiful and hard-to-catch Alison. And I've been saying for a while now that since I've left school, I have a genuine desire to learn.

In reflecting on my academic past, and in light of the Hurricane Katrina, I've begun my story of four years in New Orleans, as I remember it. So far, it's been no indistinct memory.