My grade now depends on a coin toss

My negotiation today did not go well. As predicted, my opponent only wanted to play hard-ball and wasn't willing to budge. Then she told me that she doesn't really care about her grades, she doesn't feel like competing with much younger students, and this class is just a game for her. Must be nice to blow $100K in law school tuition just for kicks. My children and my husband are giving up a lot for me to go to law school. I'm not doing it just for fun, and it frustrates me that someone else's apathy has so much impact on my grade. (The grades in this class are based on your negotiated settlement as compared to everyone else's, and thus your opponent's ranking will be inversely proportional to yours.)

So, in this negotiation, her first offer was $1 mil, mine was $15mil. She said that was not doable and that we might as well give up right then and there--this is 30 seconds in!!! I called her bluff and told her that was fine with me. Then she said that she could go to $3 mil., but that was her limit. I went down to $7.5 mil. and would have come down more. But she just said that she wouldn't budge and if I couldn't take $3 mil then negotiations were over and we might as well quit wasting time. I said ok, and she filled out the form that said we reached no agreement. She asked if I had calculated what I would get if we didn't reach a settlement and it came down to a coin toss. I told her that I had and I knew my options, but that I didn't know what her's were--and they were very likely not the same. She seemed surprised by this--apparently she hadn't considered that non-settlement could have different effects on us.

So now, our grade is literally left to a coin toss which will decide who wins the "litigation" since the case did not settle. Honestly, it probably would have been wiser for me to take the $3 mil. But I was not about to let her steamroll me and win. If my ranking is going to sink to the bottom because she refuses to play fair, then I am taking her with me. I'm just so irritated because she did not even try to actually work out an agreement.

To cheer myself up I bought new shoes. I've been looking for tall, pointy black heels forever because my tall rounded black heels hurt my feet. I finally found exactly what I wanted-and they were on sale!!!! Nothing like a few shopping -induced endorphins to make a sucky day better.