AvaFern

@@Heather I
Thank-you for asking! We still aren't at a point where we can review the final exams, but all of my other grades were high, so I am not getting kicked out of law school! I might end up on academic probation if that F stands, lol, but when my last 3 grades finally posted I was well over the academic dismissal GPA, thank God. I have no idea what happened, and I spent most of Christmas freaking out about it, since they oh-so-kindly didn't post our last grade until the 27th, but in the end, the other grades balanced out the bad one. Fortunately, merit scholarships are apparently reviewed annually, so if I do ok next semester, I should be ok there too. I'm still hopeful the F is a mistake, but they are really careful with grades so I think that is being too optimistic.
Hope you had a nice holiday!

@@Heather I
Thank-you for asking! We still aren't at a point where we can review the final exams, but all of my other grades were high, so I am not getting kicked out of law school! I might end up on academic probation if that F stands, lol, but when my last 3 grades finally posted I was well over the academic dismissal GPA, thank God. I have no idea what happened, and I spent most of Christmas freaking out about it, since they oh-so-kindly didn't post our last grade until the 27th, but in the end, the other grades balanced out the bad one. Fortunately, merit scholarships are apparently reviewed annually, so if I do ok next semester, I should be ok there too. I'm still hopeful the F is a mistake, but they are really careful with grades so I think that is being too optimistic.
Hope you had a nice holiday!

Any updates on if the F was a mistake? Your other grades/scholarship enough to keep going? Anxious for you and hoping for the best!

I'm a 1L at a school that cost $45K a year and have a scholarship and my contracts professor was the biggest asshole. I was reading this like hm? Is this a classmate?
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Holy crap! Next time I think I am having a shifty day ill read your post... hope you come back after you have slept off all that gas station food and what ever you washed it down with.
I was definitely in survival mode thru much of grad school. In professions where the professors are also practicing in the same field there is definitely a tendency for the instructors to "eat their young", and this was before all the "accommodations" for "handicaps" like "anxiety disorder" and "attention deficits"...
I can't imagine working full time with a full time law school load. Is academic probation a possibility? Or get a not from your doctor about your anxiety "disorder".
Good luck.

I'll be honest, I'm a shallow a**hole, and I'm cool with it. My weight fluctuated a lot...I would be thin at around 140 for a few years, then fat at around 180-200, then back to thin, then back to fat, then back to thin, until the last time I somehow ended up at 237 and nothing I was doing was getting me thin again. I hated myself. I was so ashamed of what I looked like and I was miserable. I had the sleeve because I wanted to like myself again and I didn't want to feel as if I had no control over my weight. Also, I like being hot.
I'm now at 39 months post-op and I've been at goal for about 20 months, and within 3 pounds of goal for about 25 months. I had three major plastics procedures where I had pretty much all of me "fixed", but I actually did not really even think about the loose skin until I was within about 25 pounds of goal. Because I had lost weight before, I guess I just never really thought about being saggy, or more likely, I had not quite weighed that much before and I had gotten older, so my skin didn't bounce back like it had before. I only actually thought about it when I happened to wonder what fake boobs would look like. I scheduled a consult, with a surgeon who I think is totally awesome, and then a few days later I called and made another consult for a Tummy Tuck. Before I had that surgery with those two procedures I had no idea how confident I could feel in my own skin, since apparently I was pretty saggy most of my life and I just didn't realize it. I then had the rest of the 360 lift, a thigh lift, and a brachioplasty, and while yes, plastic surgery is a bit of a B, I would do it all over again in a second.
I would do so, not because other people now really have no idea I was ever fat, but because I can look in the mirror and not feel shame. I can wear tight clothing that I never could have worn before, I can run my hand across my stomach and feel tight, hard abs, which never, ever had I been able to do, and I can wear all of the backless shirts I never had the chance to before because the girls couldn't handle going without support. I am superficial and shallow, and I derive great joy from the fact that I wear a size 2 or 4 and I can look somewhat decent in almost anything. Plastic surgery though, while seems like it is all about shallow goals, for me was about feeling comfortable in my own skin. When someone is a jerk, I get dumped, or I have a really bad day, my first thought is never...well you're fat, so of course you're worthless...which is the way it always was before. Having my extra skin removed gave me confidence I never realized I was missing before and it has done wonderful things for my mental health.
Also, there is the very valid point made by Babbs that research indicates that people who do have plastics after major weight loss are more likely to keep the weight off. For me, I can look in the mirror and I see an attractive woman, not a deflated fat girl, and this may be shallow and stupid and I know that...but I have the right to do what makes me happy and a small luxury car in plastic surgery accomplished that. I imagine part of the reason that people who had plastics kept the weight off is because they aren't looking, everyday, at a reflection of the person they used to be. Also, for me, the removal of my extra skin made me WAY better at working out because nothing is flopping around anymore- I actually bested my 3 mile time a few months after my last procedure by almost 5 minutes, and I can definitively say that I noticed a HUGE difference in the way I felt working out when I didn't have any extra flubbiness getting in my way.
I will forever be grateful that I was in a place where I could have those procedures done and that I had such an awesome surgeon, because our goal may be to be physically healthy, but why can't the goal also be to be entirely happy in our own skin? Why shouldn't the former fat girl be allowed to feel...sexy...for the first time in her life? I don't think that wanting to be healthy means that you aren't also allowed to want to be beautiful, on your own terms, in your own way, and through whatever means you are able to accomplish that.
I am ok being shallow, because I am happy AND healthy, and I don't feel any great need to justify to myself or anyone else the road I took to get to the place I am now. So I'm as plastic as Barbie...good for damn me...and good for everyone else who does what they need to do, to be where they want to be. In the end, everyone's path is their own and how they get to where they want to be is hardly something I have any right to have an opinion about.

I'll be honest, I'm a shallow a**hole, and I'm cool with it. My weight fluctuated a lot...I would be thin at around 140 for a few years, then fat at around 180-200, then back to thin, then back to fat, then back to thin, until the last time I somehow ended up at 237 and nothing I was doing was getting me thin again. I hated myself. I was so ashamed of what I looked like and I was miserable. I had the sleeve because I wanted to like myself again and I didn't want to feel as if I had no control over my weight. Also, I like being hot.
I'm now at 39 months post-op and I've been at goal for about 20 months, and within 3 pounds of goal for about 25 months. I had three major plastics procedures where I had pretty much all of me "fixed", but I actually did not really even think about the loose skin until I was within about 25 pounds of goal. Because I had lost weight before, I guess I just never really thought about being saggy, or more likely, I had not quite weighed that much before and I had gotten older, so my skin didn't bounce back like it had before. I only actually thought about it when I happened to wonder what fake boobs would look like. I scheduled a consult, with a surgeon who I think is totally awesome, and then a few days later I called and made another consult for a Tummy Tuck. Before I had that surgery with those two procedures I had no idea how confident I could feel in my own skin, since apparently I was pretty saggy most of my life and I just didn't realize it. I then had the rest of the 360 lift, a thigh lift, and a brachioplasty, and while yes, plastic surgery is a bit of a B, I would do it all over again in a second.
I would do so, not because other people now really have no idea I was ever fat, but because I can look in the mirror and not feel shame. I can wear tight clothing that I never could have worn before, I can run my hand across my stomach and feel tight, hard abs, which never, ever had I been able to do, and I can wear all of the backless shirts I never had the chance to before because the girls couldn't handle going without support. I am superficial and shallow, and I derive great joy from the fact that I wear a size 2 or 4 and I can look somewhat decent in almost anything. Plastic surgery though, while seems like it is all about shallow goals, for me was about feeling comfortable in my own skin. When someone is a jerk, I get dumped, or I have a really bad day, my first thought is never...well you're fat, so of course you're worthless...which is the way it always was before. Having my extra skin removed gave me confidence I never realized I was missing before and it has done wonderful things for my mental health.
Also, there is the very valid point made by Babbs that research indicates that people who do have plastics after major weight loss are more likely to keep the weight off. For me, I can look in the mirror and I see an attractive woman, not a deflated fat girl, and this may be shallow and stupid and I know that...but I have the right to do what makes me happy and a small luxury car in plastic surgery accomplished that. I imagine part of the reason that people who had plastics kept the weight off is because they aren't looking, everyday, at a reflection of the person they used to be. Also, for me, the removal of my extra skin made me WAY better at working out because nothing is flopping around anymore- I actually bested my 3 mile time a few months after my last procedure by almost 5 minutes, and I can definitively say that I noticed a HUGE difference in the way I felt working out when I didn't have any extra flubbiness getting in my way.
I will forever be grateful that I was in a place where I could have those procedures done and that I had such an awesome surgeon, because our goal may be to be physically healthy, but why can't the goal also be to be entirely happy in our own skin? Why shouldn't the former fat girl be allowed to feel...sexy...for the first time in her life? I don't think that wanting to be healthy means that you aren't also allowed to want to be beautiful, on your own terms, in your own way, and through whatever means you are able to accomplish that.
I am ok being shallow, because I am happy AND healthy, and I don't feel any great need to justify to myself or anyone else the road I took to get to the place I am now. So I'm as plastic as Barbie...good for damn me...and good for everyone else who does what they need to do, to be where they want to be. In the end, everyone's path is their own and how they get to where they want to be is hardly something I have any right to have an opinion about.

I'm sorry that you have to deal with this. Your husband certainly took the cowardly way out and it sounds like you are a strong woman who will, when you are ready, find a strong man, if you happen to want one, and if not, you and your children will be just fine because of you who are and the resiliency you have. While I know it doesn't feel like it, at some point in the future, this won't hurt anymore and you will be able to look back on it and see how it has made you the person you're going to be. Right now it sucks though and I will keep you in my thoughts.

I'm sorry that you have to deal with this. Your husband certainly took the cowardly way out and it sounds like you are a strong woman who will, when you are ready, find a strong man, if you happen to want one, and if not, you and your children will be just fine because of you who are and the resiliency you have. While I know it doesn't feel like it, at some point in the future, this won't hurt anymore and you will be able to look back on it and see how it has made you the person you're going to be. Right now it sucks though and I will keep you in my thoughts.

I'm sorry that you have to deal with this. Your husband certainly took the cowardly way out and it sounds like you are a strong woman who will, when you are ready, find a strong man, if you happen to want one, and if not, you and your children will be just fine because of you who are and the resiliency you have. While I know it doesn't feel like it, at some point in the future, this won't hurt anymore and you will be able to look back on it and see how it has made you the person you're going to be. Right now it sucks though and I will keep you in my thoughts.

I'm really proud of you for sticking to your plan during an emotional time like this. I will say if you look good and you are over 40, you pretty much have your pick of men. I'm a super model around these parts. Lol

Everyone else has said pretty much what I would in some context or another... so I'm just gonna offer a hug and hope that your week goes better.
I know how you feel about the F - I'm rather upset with myself too atm - I missed the first test and assignment because I wasn't able to purchase my book and teacher doesn't have make ups. I made A's and Bs on my other three assignments and Bs on the last three tests... and have walked away with a 68 because of the missed test and assignment hoping I can fix it, somehow...

Girl... prayers are with you on your remaining classes. Sometimes we have wake up calls that make us learn that what we are doing is not working. Or that our confidence let us down.
And I totally understand the need to punish yourself with something that used to be your self medication of choice. You will thru this, because you ARE smart! Hugs and positive thoughts coming at ya. You will find a way to recover, but it may take some hard choices of getting rid of an 80 hr week and a mortgage etc...
You have learned to live on less physically for your health, now got may need to learn on how to live on less to attain the particular degree you want.
And I agree, I am paying someone to teach me, not pass judgements on how many hours I work in a week, nor use it to actually bully me my affecting grades you earned and paid for.
You got this! You will rebound!
11/11/16: HW 380
11/28/16: Duodenal Switch Surgery
11/28/16: SW 374 lbs
12/19/16: CW 346 lbs

I went through a phase where I had to eat a Peanut Butter Twix every single day at work, I knew I had a problem when I had 2 in a day and I got sick of them and quit ( and rather the vending machine stopped stocking it). Pace yourself, stop beating yourself up about it and move on. Don't try eating all that in a day though, sheesh.

@@jvleeuw
Thank-you for the clarification. I'm glad I chose to take it the way it seems you meant it. I'm sorry that you lost your first wife at such a young age and I am certain that raising children on your own was a far more difficult situation than I have ever dealt with. Congrats on your upcoming anniversary and I hope you and your family have a wonderful holiday season!

@@jvleeuw
You can't get an F in law school. In regular college, I wouldn't be too worried about it, but in law school, if you are beneath a certain GPA, you are dismissed. Also, because I am full scholarship at a school that is $40K a year, if that F drops my GPA low enough, not only do I get academically dismissed, but I also lose the entire scholarship. Unfortunately, it's a full-time scholarship, so I don't have the option to go part-time, without paying full tuition. A single F in law school, especially your first year, has the potential to literally screw you into eternity. At a 4th tier school, which is where I am, if you are not in the top 10-20%, which that F will prevent me from being, you are almost automatically barred from most jobs in big firms.
I don't really want to work for a big firm, and I'm less concerned about the overall GPA problem than I am about the issue that first, if I have to repeat that class and it isn't available next semester, by default I'm dropped to part-time, which then eliminates my scholarship, and second, if I score badly on the other exams, the scholarship is gone AND I get academically dismissed. Hopefully, @@cheneisew is right and they don't dismiss the first semester, but our handbook which I have now read all over again, seems to indicate that I could very likely be kicked out effective sometime within the next week. Also, as a fun little kicker, once you are academically dismissed from any law school it almost entirely eliminates your chance to ever attend law school again.
So, while I can appreciate the advice to chill out and not sweat it, I'm not that kind of person...I have always done well academically and it is the one thing that I have always believed myself to be...smart. I got an F in undergrad in statistics, and that was almost 12 years ago, and I had to justify it on my graduate and law school applications ever since. An F in law school may not be the end of the world, but it has the potential to entirely end any chance at ever becoming a lawyer.
@@LipstickLady Yes, I tried really, really hard to let the "find a man" part go. I'm going to take it to mean relax, get laid, drink some wine, get a good night's rest, and you'll feel less crappy in the morning, as opposed to far more offensive ways to take it, lol.
@@woo woo and @@LipstickLady
Also, I do think you both make valid points about accommodations. Periodically today everytime I have had a mini little meltdown whilst thinking about my epic f-up, school comes back to haunt me. Blaming others for my issue isn't generally my style, and it's a very extrinsic locus of control characteristic, which I really try to not engage in. I feel like if I can at least objectively recognize that I'm doing that, it is somewhat less awful of me. I think my biggest issue is that I don't believe that the accommodations for everyone are valid. For example, I have one kid in my class, SUPER nice dude, works really hard, and is dyslexic. He gets time and a half to take the exams, he's had his diagnosis since he was a kid, and he works his butt off to keep up with everyone because he can't read as fast. To me, that is more than fair. I am mostly frustrated that several people, one of which I referenced in my first post, who have never, ever had any diagnosis until after midterms when they realized with a diagnosis they could have 4.5 hours to take a 3 hour test, now have this benefit. Several people then went to a psychiatrist and magically ended up with ADHD just in time to take finals. I am careful about my comments on ADHD because I recognize that this is a very valid condition, but when your entire adult life it never occurs to you that it might be a problem, and then 2 weeks before finals you suddenly have a diagnosis that gets you accommodations, I think you are full of crap and you worked the system. That then makes it even harder for people with valid diagnoses to be respected because everyone knows that multiple people don't have the condition, but they took advantage of the rule to get an advantage over the rest of us. When you have a valid disability, I am fine with leveling the playing field, I just think that when you get a brand new convenient diagnosis, after you fail all of your midterms (which this person did), just in time for special accommodations for finals, I call bs on that. Do you think I'm wrong? I would never say anything negative about the one guy I know who has had his accommodations in place for years...the dude is dyslexic, that's only fair, but when never before have you had a problem, and suddenly you realize you get extra time on very, very hard exams if you come up with a condition you should have had diagnosed well before now, I really feel like this is working the system and frankly, cheating. That is where my statement came from yesterday, although I was too busy crying into my icecream sandwich to clarify it as well as I should have.
I know that my F is not the end of the world, it just feels like it. Best case I have to repeat that class and I think I can find a way to do that without being dropped to part-time, but worst case I get kicked out of law school. I would be so ashamed. I worked so hard to get there, and I worked so hard to do well, which I had been doing great until this grade, that now I feel just so much like a failure. I can handle failing at some things (like sports...I like sports and I play a lot of them, but man I'm kind of a clutz in some of them), but a big part of my identity is my belief that my brain can get me through anything, and now the one thing I have consistently been confident in may be why I fail at what has literally been my goal in life since 4th grade.
Apologies for my whining...fingers crossed my last three grades are high enough to save me. Thanks again everyone for your kind thoughts.

I just bought all of this, in one trip, at a gas station, and I planned to eat every bit of it.

So, I did everything right. I've worked 60-80-120 plus hour work weeks for over a decade, and before that, slightly less, as I was still a child. I have two successful businesses, multiple degrees, and this fall I got a full scholarship to law school. Ever since I was a kid, all I wanted to do was go to law school, but since I've been entirely on my own since I was 18, clearly that was never happening. I spent almost all of my 20's working super hard and yo-yo dieting, until I was so fat I had to have 80% of my stomach cut out. I then spent 18 months getting to goal weight, spent a year going through plastics surgery, and then finally, I felt like maybe I could really go after a dream for once. Since all I did was work, I didn't get to have a husband or kids, but hey no big deal, I was smart, I could do other things. So, I applied to law school, did decent on my LSATs, and got a full scholarship. I was so happy.
Then I got to spend the last 4 months getting 2-3 hours of sleep a night, because oh right, one does not get to work 80 hour weeks, when 40 of the hours that used to be available for work are now forced to be spent in a law school building because your classes are scheduled just far apart that you can't go home and you get to sit in the library and work. Also, thanks to traffic, and my fantastic forced 1L schedule I get to sit in traffic an hour to 90 minutes a day both ways. But hey, when you've got dreams, you can handle going to bed at 3am and getting up at 5:30am, you can sit in classes and try to learn what everyone else gets to spend literally their entire day learning, and then you can go home, work your ass off for 12 hours so that you can still pay your mortgage, because right, you're not a child, and you don't have a spouse, so the only person paying your bills is you. The only person you ever get to count on is you. And so, while everyone in law school full time has literally the only job of learning this crap, and no one even has a part time job, which,...not joking, there is an American Bar Association rule that you can't work more than 20 hours a week, and if they find out they start deducting your grades until you're at part-time, starting of course with your highest grade. Class elitism much? We wonder why there is such a huge class separation in our country and then we see the fact that law school, all law schools in the country ban their students from working. HOW IS THAT LEGAL?! So, back to the "all about me" story. I'm also working on an MBA, which isn't terribly difficult since I have other graduate degrees, but when your law school will actually kick you out if you work more than 20 hours a week, you can't say..."oh I'm sorry, I had to work more hours than most of you idiots are even awake this week" when you don't do great.
But I didn't do badly...I got A's and B's on all my midterms, without studying, because I'm supposed to be smart right? I booked the property midterm, and I thought I was golden. Well, 2 of my final 5 grades just posted and I got a f****ing F in my contracts class. AN F. Never in my entire life have I gotten an F. I've been first in almost every class I've been in for almost a decade. I thought I knew contracts...clearly I did so freaking horribly that I got an F. The fact that a girl with accomodations, who gets 4.5 hours to take a 3 hour test got an A, oh well hey cool, the law allows her to cheat. Several others have the same accomodations, which when law schools have mandatory curves, their high grades, knock down my grades. I resent the hell out of that, it is absolute bullshit, and the more I think about it, the madder I get. I have the exact same diagnosis that she has, but I decided that I was going to pass law school without cheating...clearly that worked out well for me. I got an F, in a 1L doctrinal class, which not only tanks my GPA for the entirety of law school, but now I need to re-take the class, which is the absolute best case scenario, or if my other grades suck, then I fail out of law school, not to mention the fact that my school is $45K a year and if I don't have a 2.0 GPA it's revoked. My other grade was an A-, which doesn't even balance out my F. I have 3 more grades to post, and if I don't have at least a B or C in all of them, I just failed out of law school. I will be the absolute laughingstock of the world. I have had more career success than almost everyone I know, and yet, I possibly just flunked out of law school because I can either pay my bills and suck at school, or I can be homeless and have the time everyone else does to do well. I don't get to rely on anyone else...it is ALWAYS on me and for the first time in a very long time, I have possibly failed at life and because I am feeling narcisistic at the moment, I am absolutely convinced that everyone is going to be highly amused that I failed. Oh, how far it is too fall. Man, I'm whiny.
So...I will leave out the pharmaceuticals I first enjoyed, but I then walked to the gas station and bought $25 worth of stuff that will make me feel better. Peanut Butter cups, ice cream, chocolate shake, twix, butterfinger....all the things that used to make it so much less hurtful that I was a worthless loser. So far I ate the ice cream sandwich and I already feel like puking. I'm pretty sure I'm going to go to bed, wake up, and throw all of that stuff out.
I suppose the lesson here is that 3 years ago, I would have eaten every bit of that while crying myself to sleep, and yet 3 years ago I would never have even been in law school because I wouldn't have thought the fat girl had any business being anywhere other than on a treadmill. Now, I want to barf up my ice cream sandwich because apparently milk, chocolate, and Cookies are still on the list of things that make me sick, and even while buying all that crap, there wasn't the same old, feeling, like I was bringing my chocolate-food-friends home for dinner. The more I write, the more I have no desire to go eat anything else. Also, much as I tend to take the side of people who fall off the wagon, because I have my fair share of Starbucks mini scones and sometimes a few bites of sweets (and I thumb my nose at a lot of the rules), around Christmas is really the only time I eat sugary baked stuff because it makes me gain weight quickly, and makes me insanely sick. The last two Christmases I've had almost none of the sweets I'm allowed, and I haven't really missed them. Maybe that's a good indicator for anyone who is considering surgery...you really do stop using food as a crutch, as a friend, as an old reliable companion, even if sometimes you go spend $25 at a gas station in the middle of the night on all kinds of crap that you're probably not going to eat.
So, since I need to retain my calm, cool, reserved, never worried about anything reputation with my friends, you all get subjected to the hot mess I am right now.
I think I'm going to go drink Scotch. Or Tequila. Or both.
For the record though, this is why I try not to judge the bad decisions of others...I make all too many supremely crap choices myself.

My surgery was 38 months ago. I will have about 3-4 pieces of ham (as in 3-4 bites that I cut into pieces so maybe like a half a piece of normal-person ham), 3-4 bites of turkey, which is pushing it a bit on dense Protein but dinner takes forever so plenty of time to eat slowly, and then a bite or two of whatever else looks good, which is usually beets, maybe one of those baby onions (pearl onions?) covered in that cream stuff (which is kind of making me gag right this second but I'm usually good for one on holidays), a few bites of stuffing, which helps to make the turkey a little moister and less likely to be barfed, and I'll probably put a bit of gravy on the turkey and stuffing and a little orange sauce on the ham, mostly because it makes them moist and easier to not get sick.
For dessert I will have a cookie or two.
I will then sit there while my mom and my aunt make disapproving looks, lol. If I plan it correctly, I can eat slowly enough and let the creamy-oily-sugary things get cold enough that they don't make me barf.
So it sounds like my Christmas is horrible, but I will be wearing a size 0 dress (I bought it already, haha) and I will be more than content to have enjoyed that amount of food with no real desire to have anything else. It sounds weird, even to me this far out, but I don't have any real interest in eating any more than that. My birthday was this week and I debated having a cupcake or a cookie to Celebrate...in the end, I had neither. Not only wouldn't it really have been very good and it probably would have made me feel awful, but the effort to drive 5 minutes and go get myself a cupcake or something sugary to Celebrate, compared to just eating a granola bar at home, wasn't worth it. It may not seem like it, but having no real urge to celebrate your birthday with food is kind of an awesome thing.

My surgery was 38 months ago. I will have about 3-4 pieces of ham (as in 3-4 bites that I cut into pieces so maybe like a half a piece of normal-person ham), 3-4 bites of turkey, which is pushing it a bit on dense Protein but dinner takes forever so plenty of time to eat slowly, and then a bite or two of whatever else looks good, which is usually beets, maybe one of those baby onions (pearl onions?) covered in that cream stuff (which is kind of making me gag right this second but I'm usually good for one on holidays), a few bites of stuffing, which helps to make the turkey a little moister and less likely to be barfed, and I'll probably put a bit of gravy on the turkey and stuffing and a little orange sauce on the ham, mostly because it makes them moist and easier to not get sick.
For dessert I will have a cookie or two.
I will then sit there while my mom and my aunt make disapproving looks, lol. If I plan it correctly, I can eat slowly enough and let the creamy-oily-sugary things get cold enough that they don't make me barf.
So it sounds like my Christmas is horrible, but I will be wearing a size 0 dress (I bought it already, haha) and I will be more than content to have enjoyed that amount of food with no real desire to have anything else. It sounds weird, even to me this far out, but I don't have any real interest in eating any more than that. My birthday was this week and I debated having a cupcake or a cookie to Celebrate...in the end, I had neither. Not only wouldn't it really have been very good and it probably would have made me feel awful, but the effort to drive 5 minutes and go get myself a cupcake or something sugary to Celebrate, compared to just eating a granola bar at home, wasn't worth it. It may not seem like it, but having no real urge to celebrate your birthday with food is kind of an awesome thing.

@Moogle @@woo woo
They added midterms to our school because too many people just flat out failed the finals, lol. Our midterms are such a tiny portion of the grade though that in the end it's still all about the final. The class I failed was the one that had the heaviest weight on the final at a 70%, so I guess the fact that I had a solid B with the curve on the midterm didn't matter. Thanks to my A- in the only other class that posted, I'm still technically beneath the acceptable curve, but hopefully the other grades help cancel out the F to the point I don't get kicked out, but who knows...I thought I did well in Contracts and apparently I got an F. Outside of the fact that now I will likely have to repeat that class, I'm pretty sure it will screw me out of my scholarship at the very least.
I really only went to law school at this point in life because it was free. I've wanted to be a lawyer since I was a kid, but at some point I just accepted that I could either pay my mortgage or go to law school. Having free tuition was like winning the lottery and now...I have one semester of law school, and if I don't pay for the next 2.5 years, I'm forever the person that flunked out of law school.
I never thought at a Tier IV school, when I got into Tier I based pretty much entirely on my LSAT that I would suck so much I'd possibly get kicked out my first semester. The waiting for the other grades to post is killing me....it's like being executed, except that every time you step into the noose it starts snowing and they call a snow day and send you back to your cell. Ok yes, dramatic a bit, but ugh.
Everytime I read through all of these postings I feel so much better. It is really nice to have such kind and supportive people who have never me and don't know me take the time to help a stranger feel less like a complete loser. Thank-you all.

@@FrankiesGirl
I am SO hoping it was a mistake! The problem is though that in law school all of your grades are done with a special anonymous number. You can't ask any of your professors about your grades until they have all posted because it risks the anonymity of your stupid special number. You can also get an F automatically if you put your name on the test (which I am 99% sure I didn't do, but who knows), if you fill out the stupid bubble part wrong on the multiple choice part, and for a few other random dumb things, which I think you can dispute. I haven't had less than a B on anything, and I had As and Bs on midterms- I just can't understand how I did so badly as to be at the bottom 5% of the class which is the only time you get an F in Contracts- which was a class I thought I knew fairly well. So...I have to wait until the end of the week when all of the other scores post until I can find out what happened, and then it will be Christmas, so hopefully after the holiday, this time next week I will actually be able to talk to the professor. Of course nothing else has posted yet today, given I have been obsessively checking it, so I get to spend god knows how much of the next week finding out if I only suck at one class, or if I blew any others too. At least though I know it was nothing personal. Between the anonymous grading and the fact that this professor didn't even know I was in his class (I asked him about next semester during another final and he was shocked I was his student, lol), I'm trying to convince myself I'm just a random number and somewhere something got messed up. Unlikely, but one can pray.
@@Nymea
Don't be too impressed with my walking, lol. I took half a xanax to quell my hysterical sobbing long enough to finish working after I saw the grade and I didn't want to risk driving. The gas station isn't too far from my house, and I figured the cold air might make me feel better. Mostly it just made me cold, but at least I burned off maybe a bite or two of the ice cream,haha.

I'm not sure if this has been mentioned, but is it possible that the F in that class is a mistake? I can't help but think that it may be, and it surely wouldn't hurt to ask at this point. If someone was doing the grading by hand, it would be VERY easy to get things muddled if there were lots of students needing grading...
So sorry no matter how it shakes out because it sucks to get a awful surprise/disappointment like that.

Wow what an amazing story. Your life sounds exhausting and impossibly full. Thank you for sharing it.
You know what stood out to me the most in the whole thing? Not that you went to the store and bought things you will regret sooner or later but that you WALKED there. I don't know your situation or whether you walked to the store when you were at your heaviest but for me the idea of walking anywhere was not on my radar for a good few years. Now I am loving walking again.
I don't suppose walking to the gas station burned enough calories to cover the ice cream sandwich ... but I don't think one slip is going to make a difference in the long run.
Others have provided some great advice which I can't really add to so I will just say I hope things turn out right for you and thank you for sharing
Please let us know what your other grades are when they are posted. I for one would really love to know. I am rooting for you to survive this and be able to continue on with your scholarship

Thank-you all for your very kind words- I much appreciate it. It was nice to wake up this afternoon (except for the 2 times I woke up to re-check to see if more grades had been posted) and to have such supportive, thoughtful replies. I haven't slept into the afternoon in years, so it's now almost 5:00 and I feel like it must be 8am, haha. I'm feeling like a highly emotional hot mess right now, so several of you made me feel quite teary that strangers would be so nice to someone they don't know. I very much appreciate you and the time you took to make my day better. Thank-you.
To the 3L, @cheneisew I hope I don't fail out- the first semester, ugh. I had a B on the midterm in this class, and full credit for the attendance/ professionalism component...I don't understand how I ended up with an F! The only reason I know of that grades would default to an F is if you put your name and not your secret number on the test, which I didn't do, but good lord, I knew the material well enough for at least a C. And of course I can't even ask until next week, when all of the other grades are posted. If I am under a 2.0 I both lose my scholarship and get kicked out. I got into Tier I & II schools, but I went with the Tier IV school because it was full scholarship and in the city I live. In hindsight, I guess the curve is stricter, but how humiliating to get kicked out my first semester if that happens and how insanely expensive it would be if I lose my scholarship. Also, go you for being a 3L- you are almost done- congrats!!! (I am so jealous, lol).
To the one person who obviously knows nothing about law school (and who I'm not going to specifically call out by name), how law school loans work, and the fact that when you own a business you can't just decide to stop working or you literally tank your entire future and that of all of the employees depending on you...I'm going to let that post go. We all have ideas about things we know nothing about, me included, so thank-you for taking the time to reply with an overall uninformed post- I'm going to take it as tough love instead of taking it personally. I hope I helped you have a better day. xoxo. Beyond that though, you are entirely correct though that legal accommodations are not cheating. They are though incredibly unfair when the grades of other students are determined by a mandatory curve and people included in that curve have 4.5 hours to take a 3 hour test. If their grades did not have the ability to so substantially hurt mine, I wouldn't much care that they aren't held to remotely the same standard. Alas though, I will concede that using a handicap to an advantage is not cheating, but frankly given that I would qualify for the same accommodation and I recognize that the real world does not care if you need extra time to do something and I choose not to use it, I think it puts me in a unique position to have an opinion, albeit one that is not remotely polite or politically correct. I struggle with this problem because I have a friend with two little girls who do have accommodations and it would break my heart if someone was ever hurtful to them because of it, and I try to let it go and be grateful that I have never needed to use my own diagnosis to perform well. I am just so very frustrated that since so few people get A's, that people with accommodations take up those slots and bump the rest of us down. I am fine with them getting good grades, I am just not fine being measured by a standard that is not the same for everyone and having my grade influenced by it.
Also, by the time I went to bed last night I had eaten my one ice cream, I had a Peanut Butter cup, and a mini butterfinger. The rest went into a bag and my best friend (skinny dude who can eat as much junk as he wants) is going to get it later this week, lol. I basically paid $25 at a gas station for an ice cream and a few bites of chocolate, but I would have felt far worse this morning if I had eaten it all and in the old days pre-sleeve, I'd have eaten it all plus more. Today blows, but at least I didn't eat 4000 calories last night, hahaha...silver lining.

I just bought all of this, in one trip, at a gas station, and I planned to eat every bit of it.

So, I did everything right. I've worked 60-80-120 plus hour work weeks for over a decade, and before that, slightly less, as I was still a child. I have two successful businesses, multiple degrees, and this fall I got a full scholarship to law school. Ever since I was a kid, all I wanted to do was go to law school, but since I've been entirely on my own since I was 18, clearly that was never happening. I spent almost all of my 20's working super hard and yo-yo dieting, until I was so fat I had to have 80% of my stomach cut out. I then spent 18 months getting to goal weight, spent a year going through plastics surgery, and then finally, I felt like maybe I could really go after a dream for once. Since all I did was work, I didn't get to have a husband or kids, but hey no big deal, I was smart, I could do other things. So, I applied to law school, did decent on my LSATs, and got a full scholarship. I was so happy.
Then I got to spend the last 4 months getting 2-3 hours of sleep a night, because oh right, one does not get to work 80 hour weeks, when 40 of the hours that used to be available for work are now forced to be spent in a law school building because your classes are scheduled just far apart that you can't go home and you get to sit in the library and work. Also, thanks to traffic, and my fantastic forced 1L schedule I get to sit in traffic an hour to 90 minutes a day both ways. But hey, when you've got dreams, you can handle going to bed at 3am and getting up at 5:30am, you can sit in classes and try to learn what everyone else gets to spend literally their entire day learning, and then you can go home, work your ass off for 12 hours so that you can still pay your mortgage, because right, you're not a child, and you don't have a spouse, so the only person paying your bills is you. The only person you ever get to count on is you. And so, while everyone in law school full time has literally the only job of learning this crap, and no one even has a part time job, which,...not joking, there is an American Bar Association rule that you can't work more than 20 hours a week, and if they find out they start deducting your grades until you're at part-time, starting of course with your highest grade. Class elitism much? We wonder why there is such a huge class separation in our country and then we see the fact that law school, all law schools in the country ban their students from working. HOW IS THAT LEGAL?! So, back to the "all about me" story. I'm also working on an MBA, which isn't terribly difficult since I have other graduate degrees, but when your law school will actually kick you out if you work more than 20 hours a week, you can't say..."oh I'm sorry, I had to work more hours than most of you idiots are even awake this week" when you don't do great.
But I didn't do badly...I got A's and B's on all my midterms, without studying, because I'm supposed to be smart right? I booked the property midterm, and I thought I was golden. Well, 2 of my final 5 grades just posted and I got a f****ing F in my contracts class. AN F. Never in my entire life have I gotten an F. I've been first in almost every class I've been in for almost a decade. I thought I knew contracts...clearly I did so freaking horribly that I got an F. The fact that a girl with accomodations, who gets 4.5 hours to take a 3 hour test got an A, oh well hey cool, the law allows her to cheat. Several others have the same accomodations, which when law schools have mandatory curves, their high grades, knock down my grades. I resent the hell out of that, it is absolute bullshit, and the more I think about it, the madder I get. I have the exact same diagnosis that she has, but I decided that I was going to pass law school without cheating...clearly that worked out well for me. I got an F, in a 1L doctrinal class, which not only tanks my GPA for the entirety of law school, but now I need to re-take the class, which is the absolute best case scenario, or if my other grades suck, then I fail out of law school, not to mention the fact that my school is $45K a year and if I don't have a 2.0 GPA it's revoked. My other grade was an A-, which doesn't even balance out my F. I have 3 more grades to post, and if I don't have at least a B or C in all of them, I just failed out of law school. I will be the absolute laughingstock of the world. I have had more career success than almost everyone I know, and yet, I possibly just flunked out of law school because I can either pay my bills and suck at school, or I can be homeless and have the time everyone else does to do well. I don't get to rely on anyone else...it is ALWAYS on me and for the first time in a very long time, I have possibly failed at life and because I am feeling narcisistic at the moment, I am absolutely convinced that everyone is going to be highly amused that I failed. Oh, how far it is too fall. Man, I'm whiny.
So...I will leave out the pharmaceuticals I first enjoyed, but I then walked to the gas station and bought $25 worth of stuff that will make me feel better. Peanut Butter cups, ice cream, chocolate shake, twix, butterfinger....all the things that used to make it so much less hurtful that I was a worthless loser. So far I ate the ice cream sandwich and I already feel like puking. I'm pretty sure I'm going to go to bed, wake up, and throw all of that stuff out.
I suppose the lesson here is that 3 years ago, I would have eaten every bit of that while crying myself to sleep, and yet 3 years ago I would never have even been in law school because I wouldn't have thought the fat girl had any business being anywhere other than on a treadmill. Now, I want to barf up my ice cream sandwich because apparently milk, chocolate, and Cookies are still on the list of things that make me sick, and even while buying all that crap, there wasn't the same old, feeling, like I was bringing my chocolate-food-friends home for dinner. The more I write, the more I have no desire to go eat anything else. Also, much as I tend to take the side of people who fall off the wagon, because I have my fair share of Starbucks mini scones and sometimes a few bites of sweets (and I thumb my nose at a lot of the rules), around Christmas is really the only time I eat sugary baked stuff because it makes me gain weight quickly, and makes me insanely sick. The last two Christmases I've had almost none of the sweets I'm allowed, and I haven't really missed them. Maybe that's a good indicator for anyone who is considering surgery...you really do stop using food as a crutch, as a friend, as an old reliable companion, even if sometimes you go spend $25 at a gas station in the middle of the night on all kinds of crap that you're probably not going to eat.
So, since I need to retain my calm, cool, reserved, never worried about anything reputation with my friends, you all get subjected to the hot mess I am right now.
I think I'm going to go drink Scotch. Or Tequila. Or both.
For the record though, this is why I try not to judge the bad decisions of others...I make all too many supremely crap choices myself.