Just a quick update. I ran Bay to Breakers yesterday, and I had an absolutely terrific time. The sky was blue, the crowd was raucous, the costumes were great, and it was such a warm and sunny day that there was sun by the finish line at the Pacific Ocean in Golden Gate Park. I also ran with a friend of my neighbor, Julia, so I had a running buddy for the entire race (he is pictured above, his name was Sushant). But the best part was not any of these -- it was the fact that I ran the whole 7 1/2 mile race without any trouble from my left knee.

Yep, it's been about eight months since that fateful day that I tried that shitty quadriceps extension machine in the Arrillaga gym, and woke up the next morning with a fat, swollen knee. (Like brains, knees aren't supposed to be swollen, and if they are there is something wrong.) That injury effectively knocked me out for an entire school year. Though I've come back slower, older, and less explosive than before, I actually feel great. I am definitely back.

If you want hard numbers, I finished in 1:11, which is eight minutes slower than my time last year of 1:03. I was 3,771 out of 23,000 (thanks to my Dad for bothering to look this stuff up.) Not bad for someone who still had intermittent knee pain a month ago, and whose only recent practice runs were a 5-miler and a 3-miler in the last two weeks. I can still remember when I couldn't descend a flight of stairs two at a time without excruciating pain.

Anyway, I have to go now. I am driving to Fremont soon and staying in a hotel tonight -- I have to taking the patent bar bright and early tomorrow morning. I don't know if I'm going to pass. if I could study all over again, I would have done about three times as many practice questions. But it's pretty difficult not to play around when you have no restrictions on your time..

It's hard for me to believe, but I'm finished with my second year of law school.

My last final, Secured Credit, was Tuesday and it was a breeze, despite the fact that the only studying I did for it was to read through my notes, once. I may have missed a golden opportunity with this class, as there are only eight people in the class and I think half of them 3K'd it.

After that, it was just a matter of revising my three ten-page papers for Complex Litigation and turning those in.

I should just feel relieved at this point. I'm running the Bay to Breakers on Sunday, driving down to LA, and starting work on Monday at O'Melveny & Myers in Downtown LA. But two things pop out in my mind.

First, I look back and it doesn't feel like two whole years. It's been forever, and at the same time, no time at all.

Second, I don't know how else to describe how I feel, except to say that when I look back at this whole academic year, I don't feel like celebrating. I don't feel overjoyed. Nor is my first and foremost reaction a sense of accomplishment -- although I guess I probably am entitled to one after 6 finals, 12 papers (counted loosely), surviving CIP/recruiting, running the Tech journal, Mock Trial, and innumerable social and extracurricular events. Instead, I look back upon all I've done, and I feel..

an incredible weariness.

Why?