How I Fail at Adulthood

These are just the most recent in a series of failures that will make up my struggle to be a real adult for the rest of my life.

1. Eating vegetables like a person
2. Cooking real meals like a person
3. Keeping up with the laundry like a person
4. Washing all dishes immediately post using them
5. Not counting fried potatoey things as an essential part of a meal
6. Leaving the house on time (we're not aiming for early here, because...honestly....I'd be incapable of that)
7. Understanding time constraints (who knew that figuring out a place to live for the summer would be so difficult?)
8. Understanding questions you should ask when offered a job (e.g. how much does it pay?)

That's it for recent failures. I'm sure there will be more. There are daily ones.

Bah.

If only, if only

This article is incredible, and I wish I could say that doing these things would jet power you through law school. Unfortunately, it won't. It might, however, help you to make it through (mostly) sane. Because, let's be honest, how many law students have you met that meet the definition of 100% sane? And if you ask a law student that, the answer will ALWAYS be, "it depends." Always. Because that is the answer to EVERYTHING in law school. Sane? Nope. Logical? Maybe (it depends....see?!?!). Infuriating? Most definitely.

Anyway, the link is CLICK HERE.

Victory Shall Be Mine!

Success of all successes! I'm apparently employable! I have until the end of the week to figure things out and decide if I want to take this particular summer job (e.g. is it actually feasible for me to move for the summer, rent a place short term, and still have enough income), so we shall see. It is, however, really good to know that I'm not a total waste of legal air space.

Things seem to be weirdly alright this week. Which, of course, means that there is going to be some sort of explosion of not ok by the end of the week, but that's for future me to worry about. We'll cross that bridge when we come to it.

In other news, I'm getting better at faking being an adult. I dress like one, go on job interviews, get job offers, do drycleaning, own my own sets of chopsticks, eat breakfast, cook, have a wine rack. Those are the things that make one appear adult-y, right? Sure. We'll go with that.

Oh, and in the world of fun facts (1) I'm pretty sure the assistant prosecutor owns Christian Louboutins (which makes her AWESOME), (2) I will one day own a home with a wine cellar, (3) it will look like this:

(HINT: it's the lit up blue thing under the floor. That is, the mosque of wine.), (4) I also want one of these:

because then I can MAKE MY OWN OXYGEN! Boom, science.

I've also determined that a key to feeling confidence (for me, at least) involves wearing the proper shoes. The "proper" shoes are awesome ones. Not boring black ones. For clarification, not all black shoes are boring and not all boring shoes are black. People do, however, tend to wear either boring, black, or boring black shoes for interviews and court. It's apparently not necessary. Unless it's required by your dress code (yeah, offices have those, and it serves you to be well aware of them).

Finally, when in a bind and making dinner (yes, actually cooking it....for once....when you feel severely unhealthy), here's a quick meal. Take frozen albacore steaks...defrost for several minutes. I'd say about 20. Then put steaks into a ziplock bag large enough to marinate them in. Add desired amount of marinade (for extreme laziness I recommend either champagne vinaigrette or italian dressing - storebought). Allow to soak in marinade for about 5 minutes (or however long it takes to heat a large pot of water (not quite to a boil). When water is sufficiently warm, place sealed ziplock into the water, and allow to cook for about 10 minutes. It's the ghetto version of sous vide. If you're like me and can never seem to make enough dishes dirty, then you'll take the fish out and place into a skillet for like 90 seconds per side to finish it off. Serve with whatever else you feel like eating/can be bothered to make. Ta-Da! 3 dishes, and a tasty meal! At this point you can feel accomplished for the whole day.

Lesson Learned: Quality Assurance Edition

As anyone on a law journal or law review will tell you, most of it is a privilege. You get an office, away from the rest of your fellow students, you get to work with practitioners and professors, you get to (potentially) publish. The downside is that you have to write a comment. And edit other people's writing.

It's the second one that's really the kicker. If you're not some sort of sadist that just enjoys cutting other people's attempts to ribbons, while coating a Word document in red comment boxes, then sitting for several hours in front of a computer and pouring over the minutiae of the all-knowing Bluebook is probably not your idea of fun. It's particularly annoying when there are obscure sources...as in ones only available on microfiche. Now, if you read this blog, you know my feelings on microfiche. It's not a thing that you should have to actively seek out in order to finish an assignment. Technology exists for a reason. Hell, you can get most books in PDF form.

Luckily, I have devised a way to make this mind numbingly awful task less horrid. It involves having Top Gear or The West Wing on while going about your business. You should also have snacks and beverages near. By snacks and beverages I mean a glass of wine, mineral water (I'll describe my bizarre obsession with that at some other time), tortilla chips, and enchiladas. It's the perfect balance of crunchy (for wakefulness), nutritional (for lack of hunger pains), hydrating (important when awake for many hours), and soothing (for allowing irritation to sublimate into mere annoyance).

The point is that, at some point, doing a QA assignment will feel like this:

And, once you reach that level of delirium, it's time to take a break. That's where Top Gear comes in. It's unobtrusive enough to remain on without greatly distracting you, but interesting and entertaining enough to actually take your mind away from the task at hand when it's break time.

Before you know it, the deadline will be nigh upon you. Let's face it, I don't think anyone can create perfect Bluebook citations, because real sources are never as clean and easy as the examples in the Bluebook. So, by the time you're done, it won't be perfect, but by god, that article will be as good as it is going to get in your mostly competent hands. You will, however, feel as if you spend 12 hours straight doing this:

The point is that this system will make it less than awful. So, winning?

Triumph Over Adversity

I had my first of two interviews today. Both I have to commute to, since they're in other parts of the state. As is wont to happen whenever you're trying to get somewhere on time, traffic decided to be terrible. Terrible in my terms is anything more than an hour and a half where you're just about at a dead stop for anything more than 9 minutes. Oddly specific, I know, but trust me. There was an unexpected accident on the only way to get to this interview...and a rather bad one at that. I saw the warnings when I started off, and figured that they'd have it cleared up by the time I got there 20 some odd minutes later, but that was false. Rather, the Dept. of Transportation decided to shut down all south bound traffic for forty-five minutes for NO APPARENT REASON. The accident was on the shoulder. I saw them towing it away as I inched by at a whopping 6mph. As I started having mini-stress strokes over being late to an interview, I then called the office I was interviewing at. They start you off with a recorded message, as they do, telling you to punch in the option you want, and then telling you that if you're not sure, you should stay on the line for assistance. FALSE. I listened to the same recording 4 times before going, "screw this" and taking my eyes off the road just long enough to mash the key for the operator. Success! I informed them that there had been an accident and that I was running about 15 minutes late (thanks, traffic), then thanked the lovely receptionist, hung up, and drove like a bat out of hell (within reason, obviously) and made it exactly on time. The interview went fine - I met with two lovely people and appear to be quite suited to the position (maybe even employable!) - and then I thanked them and left. I got back home in an hour. Exactly one hour. I sat in traffic for longer than that. Le sigh.

A journal article edit and one more interview to go, and then I can relax a little. Thank the flying spaghetti monster!

And the Clouds Parted.

I was having a crazy day. By crazy, I mean that aside from my hour "break" between class and a meeting, which I spent in the lawbrary writing a motion, I got zero break between 8 AM and 7:30 PM, and then came home to work some more. Two motions, four classes, two meetings, one interview reschedule, and one seriously tight (and ticking down) deadline later. I'm home, having missed my run, and swaddled in my murdered teddy bear blanket and working away on my journal assignment. Not MY journal....the law journal I'm on. Just when I was starting to get frustrated and discouraged, I logged onto the daily puppy, and there he was. He was staring up at me with those mischievous licorice colored eyes, and all of the creaks in my upper back from hunching over a laptop all day and all of my worries about the next 24 hours just floated away.

I have a new love of my life. His name is Jax. He's black and chestnut brown and has floppy ears. He sweats through his tongue. This is a picture of my new man (and yes, I know he belongs to someone else. Just call me a homewrecker.):

SEE?!?!?! How much better is your day now? Infinitely, you say. Told you so. How could anyone not fall into that precious little face?

Braindead

You know that people think you're competent when you have to write and file two motions in less than 12 hours. Not little nitpicky motions. Motions to dismiss. Two. Kill me now.

Obnoxious Fact of the Day!

Westlaw has zero idea what the difference between civil and criminal cases are. Case in point: I tried to limit my search to criminal cases, it popped up a result featuring family law, and a libel claim by a "former prosecuting attorney." No, Westlaw, no! Bad Westlaw! Just because it says prosecuting attorney does NOT mean that the case is actually criminal.

The Future...

Is here. And it's super weird.

Have you ever wanted all the discomfort of glasses, with NONE of the benefits? Have you ever wanted a tiny clear-ish screen to mildly obstruct your vision at all times? Have you ever wanted to both stare straight ahead and be utterly distracted at the same time?

You HAVE?!?! Then, have I got news for you: Google Glass is here!

Watch the video. It's strange. I don't know how to feel about it. I feel empty inside about it. That's a good sign, right?

Fun Facts

1. Meeting with people in custody is just as unnerving as you might think, despite many of them being perfectly nice.
2. When you meet with an in custody client, you get locked in the room with them.
3. Greasy hair looks good on no one. Same goes for gel that makes your hair look greasy.
4. Driving to long distance interviews is more nerve wracking than regular interview techniques.
5. Most dry cleaners don't do a 1 day turn around.
6. Most dry cleaners are not open after 7:45 PM. 
7. I think eating tortilla chips with various dips as dinner makes you officially not an adult (see: myself).
8. Whoever said that bread is the staff of life lied. I'm pretty sure it's actually a good cup of coffee.
9. For some reason, showering twice a day clears my head.
10. Top Gear is a wonderful, addictive, informative, hilarious, ridiculous show. 
11. Girls, once you enter law school, I have one word of beauty advice for you: anti-aging. 
12. Free sample packs from Sephora are almost as good as having your birthday.
13. I might be the only one who actively uses the term "quarter-life-crisis birthday"
14. Mineral water is the best water of all the water. (Some of you vehemently disagree, and I accept your difference of opinion)
15. Plush, fuzzy blankets are awesome. It's like wrapping yourself in warm, teddy bear carcasses (gruesome, I know. apologies.).
16. Cobalt is in. 
17. So is 1920's fashion.
18. Korean spas: I want to go to there.
19. Spring break was a stroke of brilliance on the part of the entire American collegiate system.
20. Lent. Apparently it's still a thing. You can do something proactive rather than give something up (e.g. start exercising, do one good deed a day, volunteer, etc.). True story. I asked a Catholic.
21. You cannot be both a nail biter and have nail polish last more than two days. 
22. I don't know how to feel about men wearing square toed shoes in a dressy situation. 
23. Rainbow highlighters.
24. Liz Lemon is a goddess. That is to say, Tina Fey is. As is Kristen Wiig. As is Amy Poehler. 
25. Some day, when I'm rich (here is where you all laugh with me), I'm going to buy a single pair of Christian Louboutins. And a Burberry trench and bag. It has to be large enough to hold all of the files I'll likely have to cart back and forth.
26. What would we do without the internets?

Salutations/Karma

I recently was apprised of the fact that my mother now reads this blog (Hi, Mom!), and (thankfully) finds it insightful and funny (of course, she is my mother, after all). In the spirit of that, I'll be trying to keep the profanity to an absolute minimum (sorry, mom!).

On an unrelated note, to prove/support my firm belief that what goes around comes around, I offer you this article about some guy who fought the law and the law won. Proof positive that you can be summa cum laude, a pseudo-ivy leaguer, and it still doesn't make you invincible or a good person. What goes around comes around is never more true than in the legal profession. Let's face it, at some level, everyone knows everyone. Particularly if you're good. You don't get to the top without help, and you don't get help if you're an unforgivable douchebag. Here's the lesson kids: Don't be a jerk.

It's 5'o'clock Somewhere

You guys may have heard/read/seen....whatever applies in this specific situation, since I'm still not sure...me mention that alcoholism is a fairly rampant problem in the legal world. I, personally, am not one of the storied personages who stealthily imbibes by means of sneaking in scotch in a travel coffee mug, but I have heard tell of those that do. (Holy anachronistic lexicon, Batman!) A delightful and lovely and bubbly barista (my favorite one, in fact) revealed that some of the law students get their morning coffee with a not-so-featherlight dose of bourbon - something that definitely would NOT assist my attention span at 8:30 AM and wouldn't help my running abilities at 10:30 AM. In her words, "Y'all are a bunch of alcoholics!" However, even for those who partake of the not so irregular irish coffee, there is a line that can be crossed. I imagine that there is such a line in any enclave of young adults in any city-like environment (or not a citylike environment, for that matter). Granted, it's a relative line, and it is almost certainly not the line that your doctor would recommend, but it exists nonetheless.

The fabulous Ryan O'Connell at Thought Catalog has a wonderfully tongue-in-cheek, pithy take on 15 Signs You Need To Stop Drinking So Much. He says it more eloquently than I could, but seriously kids (and not kids), every now and then do a little self-evaluation, and have close friends keep you in check. I firmly believe that anyone, given the right circumstances, can fall victim to crossing that very thin line between blowing off steam and being profoundly stupid. And I say this as a public defender as well. It can permanently screw up your life.


All that being said, I'm going to go pour myself a glass of wine. What? A glass of red wine lubricates my rods and cones for reading. Also, I was in court all day, in the presence of a judge who was in rare form, and all things going slightly haywire.

For the record, I'm just like any other 20-something. When I get stressed out, I tend to over spend on my drinks and food budget. I guess it could be worse. Now, to read/ amp myself up for a speedy run tomorrow...(as in under 1 hour). I predict that it'll feel something like this:

A Word of Advice

When you leave your charged computer in sleep mode for an entire weekend (read: 4 full days, plus some odd hours), DO NOT retrieve it and expect it to still be fully charged. That would be a completely fallacious assumption. And you know what they say about assuming things.....it makes an ass out of you and me. Now, if only ALL of my classes didn't post readings online/if only my client files for the motions due tomorrow weren't online. Technology! You have betrayed me again!

Week To End All Weeks Take #2

So, I posted basically nothing last week - and for good reason! I had 3 papers due last week, had to run to court to take care of clients, and scheduled two interviews for summer jobs. Finding a summer job, as I've previously stated, is the worst thing of all the things (aside from pulling all nighters, which just feels like being the living dead). I got a potential lead on a third. All things considered, I might actually be employable!!!! Holy god.

In terms of life tips/ ways that demonstrate (a) that I am conclusively my mother's daughter, and (b) sometimes I like to check out for about 24 hours, and (c) Top Gear IS productive, I spent a full day cleaning my apartment, doing laundry, and rearranging furniture. Dudes - if you think girls rearranging furniture on a relatively regular basis is weird, don't ever bring that up with a female significant other. It's a form of stress relief/ makes the whole apartment seem new when you can't afford or just can't afford the furniture/decorations you want.

On another note, Whole Foods' guacamole is ridiculously good. And the best tortilla chips I've ever had that did not arrive on my table at a restaurant come in a clear bag and are by a company called "Cabo Loco." So good.

OH DEAR GOD. I ran around like a madwoman all afternoon (after spending the whole day in court), and FORGOT contact solution. I know, I know, #firstworldproblems. Yes, I hate the hash tags as much as you do, but it is unfortunately appropriate here. Crap. Now for decision time. Either go get some contact solution now, or make my last pair of contacts last until next I go home and/or bribe my mother to send me more.


On the upside - SUNSHINE! It happened today.

Performance Review

Sorry for slacking so much this week. It has been hell on earth for me. I'm now going to try to perform the amazing feat of completing a 3-5 page paper in 4 hours. Ta-Da! Also, I'm sick. So, fun times on that front too.

Gah. Sorry!!! I promise to do better next week.

An Open Letter to Winter

Dear Winter,

I've had enough of you, truly. Enough rain to fill a small lake, enough fog to sustain San Francisco for weeks, enough dreariness to sate even the most irritating emo-kid's appetite for the mediocre, enough work to sustain those with 35 hour work weeks.

I've had just about all I can take and I just can't take any more. Case in point - I've been in this building for 16 hours. That's just today. Yesterday I was here for 11 hours. The day before it was a measly 8 hours (note: that was my day off). I remember a time when weekends existed. I remember a time, possibly long ago - it surfaces through the mists and swirling clouds of my memory in small firework bursts - when there was a lovely glowing orb in the sky, where my joints didn't feel as if they were being forcibly compressed in a vice, where the air didn't taste recycled.

Now, the only light I know comes in fluorescent tubes, buzzing with the effort of replacing Apollo's rays. The papers upon which I gaze, hour upon weary hour, dance and mingle in my vision until they are merely a ball of black and white. The pops of neon color that grace this bleak landscape are artificial, placed in an attempt to soothe my last, frayed nerves. For a while it helped too, but that was when I thought I had control over all of this. Ah, what a fool I was. Presently, I see the power that this annual moment of repose, of death before the rebirth of spring holds over us all. Whether consciously or unconsciously, we all bend to its power. We soak in with our daily tribulations each and every one of its raindrops, and behind our eyes float its clouds.

Some might call that sentiment beautiful. Maybe even cathartic. Not me. I've been in this building 16 (going on 17) hours. I just want to fucking sleep.

Sincerely,

Actively Convincing Myself Not to Cry

Yay, Adulthood!!! Round #4973

I'm dancing to classical music in the lawbrary.

I'm no longer capable of making myself solid food breakfasts, meaning that the only thing I wake up in time to make is a smoothie (zapping some shit together in a blender - total time: 3 minutes).

I haven't folded my clean clothes in over a week. (There's a legit pile on the floor of my closet)

I've resorted to wearing sports bras to school because clasps are hard.

I no longer wear shoes with laces because tying things is hard.

I didn't check the physical mail box all weekend because that would have required an extra stop (read: extra effort).

I just realized that I don't physically possess a writing implement that is not a neon highlighter.

The only logical choice for food that I can find at the moment is chicken strips and french fries.

A Word of Advice

You never want to be the center of any law school drama. Being the one that STARTS the drama is also bad. I get that there are times when some people have a little *too* much fun, but at some point there is no excuse for your actions.

Examples:

1. Assaulting a bartender
2. Dumping liquids on people in anger
3. Spreading malicious rumors (with no basis)
4. Being a downer/sad-sack
5. Breaking things that are not your own
6. Drunk driving

It's not a comprehensive list, but those are things you should never do. 

Coping Mechanisms

When stress takes over, as it will from time to time, there are a number of ways to deal with both the lack of sleep and the stress without losing your mind completely.

The main methods of dealing with this in law school are as follows:

1. All the caffeine available
2. I've been told that some people use adderall
3. Meditation (if you have more will power than I do)
4. Exercise (again, for people with more wherewithal than I have)
5. Denial (I'm excellent at this one)
6. Mild substance abuse (relax, I mean drinking...as if it's rampant presence in the legal field is some secret)
7. Internet distractions

In honor of that last one, let me present to you my current source of joy (however small it may be)

PUPPIES!

For the Record

This is one of the worst weeks in the history of weeks. For most of the people I know.

Not only do I have class before I'm quite awake, have two papers to work on, have a disaster area of an apartment, and have a professor that is literally yelling before my caffeine kicks in, BUT I also forgot my phone at home, am slightly sweating from the near-run to campus I did, recently found out (to my great dismay) that this professor takes attendance, failed to get the ideal 20 pages done on my comment that I turned a rough draft of in last night, AND I found out that the asshole that listens to terrible excuses for music at ungodly hours of the morning lives directly above me. Unfortunately they also own the apartment. And do it all the time. People are the worst.

Before you get your panties in a bunch, yes, I know that the beginning of the last paragraph was the worst run-on ever. I'm aware of my egregious transgression of the hallowed rules of grammar. Rest assured that I don't typically write that way. The way that was written is meant to convey my sheer exasperation.

The point, however, is that people are the worst. Apart from the quite special individuals who make the highly questionable decision that bath salts are the life path for them (likely bringing about the beginning of World War Z - See: Man eats face), there are special people that lack entirely the capacity for being considerate, people that are just awful, and people that lack any conscience whatsoever.

Oh god. I should have definitely eaten food this morning. So much coffee in such a short period of time. My tummy is becoming increasingly displeased with my life choices. Yes, I just said "tummy" like a small child - DO YOU SEE HOW MY BRAIN ISN'T WORKING?!? Yep, reverting to second grade style vocabulary. Awesome.

Writer's Block

Is officially the worst thing ever, in the face of 3 important papers. My brain hurts, my back hurts, I'm fairly certain I'm aging before my time, and I've been sitting in the same chair for nine, count 'em, NINE hours. Fuck my life. I'm gonna go home and work on my night cheese in an hour. Hopefully I'll have made headway with something by then.

Note To Self

Procrastination is not your friend. You may be excellent at it, but it is NOT, I repeat, NOT your friend. You will end up sitting alone in a sad little room for the third day in a row, being frustrated and generally impotent to make things turn out how you had envisioned. Quality product takes time to produce. You should know this by now through your taste in fashion.

Dear Disrespectful Jerk

Dear Asshole,

While I do appreciate that not everyone in the world has things to do on Sunday, and that Saturday nights are prime party time for twenty-somethings, your basic lack of courtesy far surpassed my ability to forgive disrespectful bullshit. I don't know what possessed you to put on that godawful song (at least, I have to assume that in your mind it qualified as music) at 2:35 AM. Frankly, I don't care. What I do care about is that it woke me out of a dead sleep. Sleep that I desperately need as I enter one of the most hellish weeks of law school this far. I can appreciate the desire to party until you drop as much as the next person, but there is no logical way for me to forgive your actions. The fact that I could not only hear every verse of the "song" well enough to sing along, but could also hear every line of bass, drums and guitar (including some sorry excuse for a guitar solo in the middle) through CLOSED windows and WALLS created murderous impulses the likes of which I have never before felt. I could have forgiven you if you had only played it once, then realized your mistake and turned it down, but you didn't. No, you kept playing music that sounded like cats being tortured remixed into Skrillex and then fed through a wood chipper for a FUCKING HALF AN HOUR.

The worst part wasn't necessarily playing music too loud. It was that you were playing that lower-than-pond-scum attempt at music SO LOUD that I could hear it despite the fact that I'm fairly certain we don't live on the same floor of my building. Just FYI, there is a City Ordinance against doing precisely what you chose to do from 2:35-3:05 AM. It's called a noise violation. You get fined $100 for every single time it happens and someone formally complains. You know when I looked this up? LAST FUCKING NIGHT WHILE PICTURING YOUR HEAD EXPLODING, AS I WAS HAVING A RAGE STROKE. Just so you know, I fully intend to make use of my new knowledge of City ordinances, along with the non-emergency number for the police the next time it happens. I try to be a good neighbor - not make too much noise, not leave crap in common areas - but you have pushed a stressed out law student to her breaking point, and god help you if I find out who you are and where you live in my building, because you WILL be blamed for all future noises that wake me up unexpectedly. For your own sake, I hope you're not one of the people renting a unit in my building, because I'm sure your landlord doesn't want dozens of noise violations suddenly appearing. In fact, if you are renting, I'm fairly certain that your actions violate your rental agreement, rendering it null and void, and allowing you to be evicted.

Sincerely,
A law student you should not have pissed off.

Dilemma.

I need to write 20-25 pages by tomorrow evening and have ZERO inspiration and an epic case of writer's block.

I also have two more papers to write this week. Dear god. It's going to suck. Does this mean that I should treat myself to some teriyaki chicken while in the sad place (AKA journal office)? I think it just might.

Stupid social life. Every time I try to have one, I get woefully behind in all the things. Gah.

Rule 9

There's this thing that you can do after your 2L year that is called, curiously enough, being a Rule 9. What this means, in a more practical sense, is that after finishing two full years worth of credits and coursework, you can be eligible (post a mini background check of sorts, and your employer signing off) to do actual client representation during your summer job, under the supervision of a barred attorney before you pass the bar. Sounds fun, right? The less fun part is that you have to disclose therein all of your parking and/or traffic infractions. As anyone who lives in a city can tell you - parking is a bitch. By which I mean, there is never enough of it, and there are tons of times where your meter runs out. It makes it even worse when the lot at school - which usually has abundant parking - costs an insane amount of money per day JUST BECAUSE IT'S A MONOPOLY. Seriously. On campus parking means that the school owns all of it. Means that bureaucracy says, "Charge all the monies!" This can sometimes lead to (when running egregiously late) parking without a permit, and then forgetting to move your car and get a permit when you have time. Which, of course, leads to getting a ticket, which costs an assload, and sadness, and having less money for food. It's a vicious cycle. Particularly for people that have the same laziness problems I do when it comes to walking places in the rain...or just walking places. My point is, it's both embarrassing and inconvenient to have to try and list every single one of the parking violations you've ever had.

I think this may have taken a left turn somewhere along the writing of it. Apologies. Anyway, my point is that (evidently) the MPRE exam is not a requirement in order to be accepted as a Rule 9 intern. Weird, right? You basically sign something saying that you read the Rules of Professional Conduct and will be supervised by someone and you're good to go. (Obviously there's more to it than that, but you catch my drift) It seems like there should be something more than just swearing that you're moral and aren't going to do something that is shady. Being the masochist that I am, I'm taking the super unnecessary MPRE. Yay for overachieving?

Apparently I lied

By the time I got all awake and coherent this morning, I had an email inviting me to an interview. In under a month. Apparently the requirement is just to be shamelessly able to sell yourself and to have zero qualms about saying things that are questionably used-car salesman-ish.

So that's a thing.


Congratulations to us all?

Jobs

More specifically job applications, are the worst. It's a constant stream of trying to sell yourself (actually, specific facets of yourself) to various people in the worst kind of self-promoting PR, and revising the same letters hundreds upon hundreds of times. At this point, I have an obscene number of cover letters on my desktop. It takes hours to revise them to fit the job that you're applying for (case in point - the two hours I just spent applying to three jobs). And at the end of this whole, soul-crushing, mind-numbing process, will the person on the other end have a remotely accurate feel for who you are as a person? Probably not. Will they really know if you'd be good at the job? Also probably not. There's (and I'm pulling this number out of thin air here) about a 10% chance that you'll nab an interview from blindly sending in a full job application (in law school this consists of resume, cover letter, transcript, writing sample, and often a reference list). That means it's a 90% likelihood that you're going to get rejected. Now, what's special about getting out right rejected in law school is that sometimes you get these lovely rejection letters. Remember those from applying to college? Yeah, they come back with a vengeance. And, depending on how many jobs you apply to in one go, can fall upon your self esteem in a deluge. The other option is that they simply never acknowledge receipt or consideration of your application. That's also disheartening and can make you begin to question existence and the meaning of life and whatnot (e.g. am I really a person? Do I exist? Did I hallucinate sending in an application?). Is it really fair to assume that these people can evaluate your value as a productive member of society/their workforce without ever seeing your face or working with you? No, it's not. It's also impossible for your value to be based upon whether one person reading your shamelessly, car salesman style self-promotion finds you to be competent. Basically, and to quote Al Pacino - "I'm out of order? You're out of order!...the whole trial's out of order!" Begrudgingly, though, we are forced to accept the system for what it is, not because it is incapable of change, but because those who control it lack the time/funding and will to change it. But, I suppose, that one of the strengths of law school (likely professional school in general) is that it truly teaches you how to deal with both difficult people and disappointment (and I do mean fairly consistent disappointment with yourself, your situation, the job market, the food in your apartment, etc.). I tend to consider this so-called strength also a weakness. I don't know about you, but I think that there's only so much rejection and disappointment you can take before wishing that you too could make a deal with the devil as played by Willem Dafoe (Yes, that is a reference to the Mercedes Benz Superbowl ad, so DEAL WITH IT!). Some of this whole rant, I'm sure, was brought to you by excessive caffeine, stress, exasperation, and hunger.

Happiness

If the mere existence of this list doesn't brighten your day a little, then you might not have a soul.


So, happy Monday! http://thoughtcatalog.com/2013/31-signs-youre-liz-lemon/

Weird Day

Today has been one of those.

I woke up late for my first class, which I obviously then skipped, because what is the point of showing up an hour late to a two hour class? Answer = there is none.

From there I was told that the school was on lockdown. Now, friends, this sounds far more terrifying than it actually was. We got some message about them just testing security measures....but that seemed like bullshit. Anyway, apparently all it involved was a security guard at the front entrance....and signs saying that the other doors were to be used as exits only. I'm really not sure what all the hubbub was about and, frankly, I don't feel safer knowing that those are their "enhanced" security measures.

In the lawbrary I did some frantic reading and catching up on things I was supposed to have already read...only to discover that I read the syllabus wrong and was, in fact, a week ahead in the sense that I did reading attributed to the wrong day. After surrendering to my utter failure as a functional student, I ventured unpreparedly into the maw of the class I had just inadvertently shirked my duties for....only to find that we were covering a topic with which I am intimately familiar. So, I sort of got off the hook on that one, surprisingly. I even participated.

Now I'm back in the lawbrary attempting to fix my earlier "I-can't-read-english-as-printed-on-a-syllabus" problem. All in all a very weird day.

Failure to Read

Apparently ok. This entire class just so happens to be on the topic of my journal comment. Praise be to Kanye (in the words of a very dear friend).

Thoughts

Why can't syllabi be available in downloadable calendar form? I mean, I know that they're always works in progress and all, but what happens when I REALLY can't remember things? The answer is that I do the wrong assignment or get surprised and have to cram at the last minute. It's honestly not beneficial to anyone.

Side note: while, as a child of the 1980s, I have mad respect for 80's style (though, honestly, no one should ever wear that much neon, parachute pants, or a side pony), there is a point at which an off the shoulder shirt becomes inappropriate. One such point is when you're in the freaking library, and I have the unpleasant realization that you're not wearing a bra, mostly because from across the room I keep being met with large portions of your left shoulder....almost down to areas that shouldn't be visible in public. I mean, I get that the US tends to be more prude-ish than all of Europe, but honestly, when I'm trying to read, I don't want to see your boobs.

Just saying.

Weekend Recap

Less drama than expected at the past weekend's events. Unfortunately. As predicted, hump day was good times of disastrous proportions, but was (mercifully) drama free. As those of you in law school know, drama is par for the course in every aspect of law school social gatherings. Either someone will say something that is marginally scandalous, a hook up will occur (I like to call it "law-cest"), or someone will just get belligerent and do something hilarious (well, it will be later). In this instance, we all imbibed, and as more than one person put it - "I asked for a vodka cranberry....and I'm pretty sure this is just a cup of vodka." It resulted in very little other than ruining a friend's quest for temporary vegetarianism, and eating a delicious fried chicken sandwich at a strange hour of the night.

It was a night of camaraderie, revelry, and fun. For some people it was too much fun, and resulted in much sleeping, advil, hydration, and limited amounts of food the next day. I was not such a person. I participated in the grand traditions of the Superbowl. Not that I know anything about football. Like at all. I know negative information about football, other than there are two lines of players - offense and defense - and that the goal is to take the ball to the end zone. And believe me, the first of those two facts took me a damn long time to learn. This would all be evidence as to why I lost my fantasy league. In a most egregious fashion. I lost so many games. And I had help in setting my lineup. And still lost. It was truly pathetic.

To top off a tiring, but otherwise lovely weekend, I just realized that while diligently doing all of my reading, and assessing case strategies, I did all the wrong reading. Evidently I can't read syllabi. That's disheartening. On the upside, I'm part of a week ahead, while simultaneously being a week behind by not reading the things I was supposed to for this week. CRAP. So much fail is happening.

Time to go to the one thing that always fixes things - food.

An Open Letter to Friday Classes

Dear Friday Class,

I'm bad at this game. We both know that I have sacrificed my sanity, physical well being, and general enthusiasm for life over the course of the past several week days. We both know that by about 2 PM on Fridays, my brain has begun its shut down sequence for the weekend.

I know that part of being this thing called a "responsible adult" is sucking up my whining about how life is hard, and just facing it head on. I know that part of that is forcing myself to continue working even though I don't want to, and trying to digest information and apply it, even though my brain gave up an hour ago. So I continue on. Soldier ahead, as it were. I read words on pages, write things on my computer. Although, honestly, it turns into some sort of bizarre exercise in my ability to lack conscious thought or will and to still have the ability to accomplish tasks. In a strange way, it's rather fascinating. But that's not my point. At some moment in time, you begin questioning the logic of having class on Friday afternoons.


I mean, I'm clearly not taking much of this in, my contributions to the class discussion are questionable, at best, and the class as a whole appears to have slowed down markedly for the day. At the very least, can we agree that though intensive discussions on a Friday afternoon are not the best choices? I hope so. For your sake and ours. Lord knows that no relatively logical, relatively sane grad student wants to be throwing money into a class where they're neither contributing nor absorbing anything. And we have to assume that the professor teaching this doesn't want to waste his/her time. What I'm saying is, isn't there really better things for all of us to be doing? Like drooling over sushi, imagining fried potato-y things, musing about what we're actually supposed to accomplish in the next few days/months/years, or even just doing laundry. God. I really need to do laundry. And eat. real food. Friday Class, experiencing you during both a major sugar high and then the ensuing crash really doesn't benefit either of us. So, can this please stop being a thing?

Thanks.