Sick, sad and don't fit in!!!!

I need some zen..... bad...... I am about to complete my third week of being a second year law student and I feel just like I did all of last year, like I want to run far far away from all this nonsense....
Being sick always opens a vulnerability in me that i normally protect against myself, but I feel lonely here, completely alone.... in a frusturating way because I am always around others.

Last Friday, I went to this amazing symposium: Grassroots Solutions to Inractable Problems with a Nobel Peace Prizer winner Jodi Collins, but the truly inspiring person was this woman Afifa Azam, an Afghani woman who ran a small group session on the role of NGOs -- she started the Afghanis' Women's Network of 96 NGOs working in Afghanistan.... what was the most inspiring part of her session was the positivity she had about the situation in Afghanistan, despite all our difficult questions and the immense challenges the country faces, she believes in the power of change.

After our small group sessions, all the people from around the world who ran the small group session presented in front of a panel of "experts" - academics on the topics.... One of the local activists called NYU (center for global affairs, not law school) out, and was like :look, who are actually the experts? Who should be on the panel? The academics or the people working at the grassroots level, people who belong to these communities.

Even the nobel prize winner just didn't buy into any formalities and cussed and laughed and refused to be called a keynote speaker. The lack of pomp and circumstance made me feel like I was a million miles away from the law school.... it was an amazing feeling and afterwards when I went to say thank you to Afifa, she hugged me and gave me a big kiss.

It was such an uplifting event, it made me feel like i belonged to a community, reaffirmed my committment to my career goals, and I felt like myself...

Then there is this week at law school.....
I fell sick on Wednesday and then this profound sadness overtook me... I dont' know what it is, I was having a good time at law school for the first couple of weeks.... I was happy to just be around my friends, to be involved in the clinic with good people and to seem isolated from the corporate happenings of others as the interviewed for firm jobs... i couldn't even talk in their language.

But even with my friends... this week I feel lonely, like a misfit.. and the confidence I came in like a peacock showing its feathers seems to be slipping with me.

Its just simply that when I didn't feel like a place fit with me, I would just leave, or find different avenues, or niches... but law school perveates all parts of my life sometimes... and this year, when i thought i had it all figured out, when i though i new how to maintain myself, perhaps my physical exhaustion ran me down, but today law school has gotten the better of me and i am sad.

Hopefully I will be my brave self tomorrow!