good days and bad.

I had a small nervous breakdown earlier this evening. I fucked up my moot, totally failed at it. But it's not the failure that bothers me. I can handle failure.

Take for example another small failing today: this morning I had my administrative law tutorial and it was terrible. The submission I made had almost no meaning at all. It certainly wasn't an accurate reflection of the law or a valid argument to make. I had be buoyed by the return of my second briefing paper (86% or a high distinction, plus a request to put it up as an example for next year's class) but this wasn't why I was ok with doing such a shitty job. I was ok with it because my preparation involved reading the question as I was getting dressed.

The moot was different. I spent five hours in the library today. Admittedly not all of it was preparing for my moot - some of it was sleeping and I also talked to Nikki (Rogers, old school friend) for a while... but I spent quite some time preparing. Reading cases, taking notes, underlining important sections. I spent $2 on printing. I wrote and rewrote. I worked at this. I didn't work exhaustively but I was prepared. I knew what I was doing. I was ready. I was going to kick arse: smash it, as they say.

But I didn't. I failed dismally. My presentation was poor, I gave bad arguments, I didn't have the cases to back up what I was saying. It was terrible. This is the problem. I don't mind failing. What sent me into shock and made me cry (well, I didn't cry about it until I was home and watching sad DVDs, so we can blame them) was that I'm not as good as I think I am. That's the great travesty here. If I work really hard and still can't do it - well, that's incapacity. I know there are things I can't do. But none of them involved using my mind. Anything that required thought I could do. Anything. Give me enough time and I could learn about Puritanism in Elizabethan England or electrical engineering or organic chemistry or gender studies or finance. This was my strength. This is what made me feel good about myself. I was capable of learning anything I put my mind to. But if there are things I can't do... that bothers me greatly. Especially if it's advocacy, precisely what I'm training to do, what I want to do. It makes life difficult.

This then triggered a massive round of self-hate and Nikky-angst and such. And the die alone business. Great fun all around.