The Zen of Tar Heels!

I just wanna give a mad shout out to all the Tar Heels in my life, because y'all keep me grounded. This past week I have spent some time with old friends and even as diverse a group of people they are - there seems to be an honest and simple desire that pervades them all, to just strive for a good quality of life. To find the right direction but w/o anxiety- but with a calm, a trueness to oneself, insulated from a list of societal fears and expectations. Maybe its a romantic notion of mine, just like how we all idealize how wonderful our times in Chapel Hill were.

Last night we were joking about how random it was that I was the one who ended up in law school, a rigid course we all traditionally thought belonged to people who couldn't figure out what they were doing and needed some form of academic legitimization to keep them fueled. I was the wandering free spirit that ran away to India after graduation, that lived on a commune, that just picked up and did whatever the hell I wanted. BUT my friends looked at me, and said "good for you Reena, going to NYU law. You can do what you want for human rights causes, and people will listen to an NYU Law grad - they aren't gonna just listen to any dirty hippie for the cause." It doesn't matter what i do in law school, just having the degree will help me. Maybe its naive point of view, insulated from how comeptiive a field int'l human rights are, the lack of jobs, yadyayadydya - but at then of day it is where I am coming from. And I need to be reminded of it.

I haven't quite found my zen at law school - the place still has an ability to push me off track, to make me quesiton myeslf, to pierce me with pressure I don't even own, pressure so outside of my own natural drive and ambition. In high school in the MAGNET program i even rejected the pressure - when people told me that I was potentially "runing my life" and i had no idea what i was doing with myself. (that was being a reckless teenager?) But I had the folks with me who were own their own path. (Shout out to Gabe, Mary Anne & Hutton!) In law school, i swear the institution diseases my relationships with my friends from time to time cause we are constantly side by side for opportunities and we measure our progress with each other, we speculate, we push, we advise each other. It can be taxing. Its hard to be the lone slacker as well.

But Carolina Folks, Ya'll are my crew, y'all make me feel right, you keep me where I need to be. :)