Last week, I made a difficult decision.

I requested – and was granted – a one-year deferral of my admission to Western Law.

While I toyed with the idea of christening my inaugural blog post “The Thrill of Admission & the Agony of Deferral,” it eventually struck me as a bit maudlin.  After all, I still get to go to law school.  I don’t have to re-write the LSAT or tango with OLSAS ever again.  I know exactly what I’m going to be doing between September 2011 and June 2014.

And really – what’s a year?

But I had already read the pre-law books, and received the O-Week schedule…

I’d started looking for a place to live…

I’d gotten to know a few of my future classmates through Facebook and law student forums…

In my head, I was already there.  Perhaps it was making the decision so late in the game that really hurt.  After all, deferral had always been an option.  I mused about it on my personal blog shortly after being accepted in January.  There were always advantages to working for another year.

Nevertheless, on the eve of what would have been my first week of law school, at the start of what has always been very favourite month of the year, I find myself wrestling with the decision already made, trying to convince myself that it was the “right” one.  Out come the lists:

The Good

• Time flies
• I can learn a language or pick up an instrument (I haven’t enjoyed a year off school in a long time)
• I can get a jump-start on the readings
• I’ll have lots of 2L friends from whom I can borrow notes & get advice
• I can save money – possibly quite a bit of money (and pay off my last credit card)
• I can go to Welcome Day in March again and eat awesome purple & white cake
• I can get excited about 1L all over again – and blog about it here!

The Bad

• I’ll be one year “behind,” and I already feel “old” (having spent the better part of the last decade in school)
• Time flies the slowest when you are most anxious for it to pass
• Having to explain the decision to everyone, including the people who would have become my classmates

In the final calculation, this decision probably won’t make a lick of difference in terms of my career goals.  It’s a year, not a decade.  It’s not like a span of 12 months is going to render me an old maid, weaken my motivation or dull my enthusiasm for learning.

My goal of making the most out of this year will begin here.  This blog will allow me to keep a few irons in the law-fire, and hopefully help warm me up for the type of analysis that will be required of me in law school.

363 days.  I can wait anxiously for them to pass me by, or I can embrace them.

So I will cease the pointless pining for my lost spot in the class of 2013, and look forward to my future place in the class of 2014.

And as my father pointed out, “Class of 2014” sounds a lot better than “Class of 2013”, anyway.

So.  Things you can expect from me here:

• Commentary on legal aspects of public health issues (i.e. food safety & tobacco)
• Musings on international/human rights legal issues in the news (especially those that involve public health issues, i.e. access to clean water, refugee camp conditions, treatment of political prisoners & health status of prisoners)
• LSAT advice (including, perhaps, a recounting of my 48-hour trip up to Thunder Bay in the dead of winter to write the test at Lakehead after registering too late to write it in Toronto)
• Thoughts on the application process & the importance of personal statements

Onward!  Thanks for having me.