Useless Dicta

Dear Karma

2010-02-11T07:50:00.003-07:00

Dear Karma,

I don't know what I did to offend you, but whatever it is I'm sorry. I really wish you would just tell me so we can clear the air and move on. You really are a cruel little creature. You may have been amused to see me lying on a mountain unable to move having to have ski patrol come bundle me up in one of those sleds. And it was probably highly entertaining to watch me try and use crutches for the very first time in my life. But was it really necessary to cause a building evacuation on my first day back to work from my weekend tumble? I can barely walk on crutches, stairs are completely out of the question. But yet because you haven't gotten enough amusement from torturing me this week you thought that you would see if I could handle getting out of a building from the 3rd floor. Lucky for me the elevators still worked. So I get the message loud and clear Karma, you're pissed. All I'm asking is that you accept my apology for whatever it is that I did to make you mad and I'm begging you to please leave me alone for the rest of this week.

Sincerely,

Useless Dicta

Things I have Learned in the Last Week

2010-02-09T17:47:00.002-07:00

1. It is not a good idea to go out and wreck one's knee skiing in order to get a couple of days off of work. As much fun as laying around on the couch all day sounds, not being able to walk, get in the bathtub, get food from the kitchen, or dress yourself is not fun and necessarily comes with the territory.

2. Crutches hurt. Literally every other muscle in my body is screaming in pain from having to use the blasted things.

3. Having to borrow a wheelchair from your grandma is just plain embarrassing.

4. Riding down the mountain in one of those sleds pulled by ski patrol is awful, bumpy, and slightly terrifying. Having to explain to ski patrol that you are not in fact a beginner but managed to have an epic wipeout on a beginner course while riding in said sled is humiliating.

5. Julie & Julia was a cute movie, but somehow it was missing something. Meryl Streep did a spot on Julia Child, but the overall plot of the movie just left me wanting something more.

6. Advil liquid gels are awesome.

7. Packing up 5 years worth of stuff is not fun, but it's absolutely impossible to do when one has a bum knee with orders to stay completely off of it for the rest of the week.

8. Popcorn popped on the stove with a little bit of olive oil and salt is pure heaven.

9. The Hangover is even funnier the 2nd and 3rd time around.

10. Knees apparently have several ligaments and right now my MCL is in poor shape, hopefully not torn but won't know until I see the ortho doc on Thurs.

Destination Lawyer

2010-01-21T23:16:00.002-07:00

I have decided that the absolute worst part of my job has got to be waiting on jury verdicts.* I've never really been fond of waiting for anything. I especially don't like waiting for decisions when that decision is totally out of my control and in the hands of others. While my trial partner and I were passing the time waiting on our verdict we chatted about how law school seems like it happened years ago and how different it is to be a full time lawyer rather than a student who has an internship on the side of school. My trial partner asked me a question that I have been asked about a hundred times before: "if I had to do it all over again, would I still go to law school?" Every time I've been asked that question before the answer has always been a pretty resounding NO. For the first time today, I actually said "yes." Somehow sitting in the courtroom waiting on that verdict made me realize that for the most part I love my job. Sure there are days I don't want to get out of bed, people I don't necessarily enjoy working with, cases I hate, and stupid politics that make my job stressful. But what job doesn't have things you don't want to do, people you don't like, and politics that create ridiculous workplace drama?

In college one of my favorite professors frequently reminded me that life is not about the destination, but rather about the journey. If I had followed that mantra when I started law school I really don't think I would have made it to this destination that I am slowly falling in love with. I hated law school, especially the first year. I was frustrated that law school was such a different intellectual environment than undergrad. It was a very hard adjustment for me to make, and frankly I'm not sure that I ever did successfully make the transition. Towards the end of law school I did have the epiphany that I might actually miss it, but it was more a feeling that I would miss my friends who were all headed in various directions once graduation fell upon us, and not a feeling that I would actually miss law school itself. Sure enough there are days where I do miss being a law student. I miss the freedom of being able to have a 2 hour afternoon coffee get together with friends. I miss being able to roll out of bed, throw on a pair of comfy jeans and a hoodie and run out the door to class. Getting up early and making myself presentable for work every morning is kind of a drag in that regard, and lately my favorite pair of jeans have been ignored quite a lot. But ultimately at the end of the day I love the fact that I am a prosecutor. I love being a lawyer. I can't imagine doing anything else as a career at this point. What's crazy is that those are things that I never thought I'd be able to say when I finished my 1L year. For the first time in my young adult life I'm totally content with where I am and what I'm doing, and frankly I'm really not in any hurry to get to the next chapter.

Life may be about the journey, but it turns out law school was about the destination.

*The waiting was worth it, we ended up winning

10 days and counting

2010-01-10T19:39:00.003-07:00

10 days into the new year and I'm already exhausted. Turns out criminal court rooms are absolute mad houses the week following new years weekend, I'm actually not sure I had time to eat lunch any day last week. It was a completely insane week and yet I loved almost every minute of it. At the risk of jinxing everything I'll say that I'm actually starting to feel like I'm getting the hang of this whole lawyer thing, it's kind of awesome.

To top off an insane work week I spent the good portion of the day on Saturday furniture shopping. I treated myself to some new bedroom furniture and a new dining table set. I figure since I'm moving into my "all grown up" apartment next month that it's time to ditch my college kid furniture in favor of "grown up" furniture. In fact I managed to cross off just about everything on my "need to do before moving" list this weekend, except of course the minor little task of packing everything up. I hear that it's possible to hire people to come pack for you. That sounds so tempting, but it's likely a ridiculous waste of money for me and quite frankly I'm not really comfortable with the thought of other people packing up my stuff. I'm a lawyer, hence I'm a bit of a control freak. What I really need is a magic wand I can just wave to pack everything up instantaneously. *sigh* I really wish sometimes that I had gotten my Hogwarts letter so I wouldn't have had to go to law school . . .

Y2K10

2009-12-31T17:07:00.004-07:00

It seems odd to think that all that fuss about Y2K happened 10 years ago. Has it really been that long? Has a whole decade really gone by? I remember NYE '99 like it was yesterday, which is shocking considering I was practically an infant. I was 15, a sophomore in high school. At that point I hadn't even been behind the driver's seat of a car yet. That night I had a PJ party with a couple of my good high school friends (both of whom I haven't really talked to since high school graduation in '02). We did our nails, gossiped about boys, complained about school, and watched New Year's Rockin Eve on TV (I still remember the performance by No Doubt before Gwen Stefani was a solo artist). We talked about how far off graduation was and how we couldn't wait to finally be able to be college kids. We talked about what we wanted to be when we grew up and the places we wanted to see. We blasted the Spice Girls and Britney Spears to make our own little dance party in my parent's basement.

I started the 00s decade wanting to be a scientist. Genetics was fascinating and I wanted to do work that would hopefully lead to finding cures for incurable ailments. I went to college as a science major. I graduated college as a liberal arts student insanely interested in international relations and heading to law school to "save the world." I did manage to finish my science degree, but I found after just 1 semester of college that I didn't really love it enough to stick with it beyond undergrad. I started law school determined that I would never be a criminal lawyer. I graduated law school wanting nothing more than to be a criminal prosecutor. I started the decade as a naive high school kid and somehow I finished the decade as a lawyer with my dream job. Insane.

The last 10 years were full of plenty of times that I would rather forget, but there were many many more times that are moments that I hope I never forget, and for that I am truly lucky. The last year alone was a huge year full of lots of big moments and change. It occurred to me today that at this time of year I'm usually checking up on Fall semester grades. I haven't been out of school all that long and yet being in school seems like it happened a lifetime ago. When I think about it all I can't believe that graduating law school, passing the bar, and getting my first real job all happened within the span of just a year.

I have no idea what the next decade, or even just this next year will bring. That kind of unknown used to bother me, but now it actually excites me. If this next decade (what are we going to call it anyways?) is as jam packed as this last one then it sure is going to be an interesting journey.

"For last year's words belong to last year's language. And next year's words await another voice. And to make an end is to make a beginning." ~T.S. Eliot

*Hat tip to Lag Liv for reminding me that I too was soooo young 10 years ago :)

I'm a Big Girl Now???

2009-12-27T21:17:00.003-07:00

I've lived in my current apartment near Useless University for almost 5 years now. It's the first place I ever lived by myself, the first place where I had to pay rent and utilities, and act like a grown up with real furniture and responsibilities. But the apartment really is a student apartment. The amenities aren't great, there's no washer/dryer and the kitchen is horrendously tiny. Finally, after 5 years of lugging my laundry over to my parent's house on a semi regular basis I decided enough is enough. I love this apartment, I love the part of town it's in, but I can afford a nicer place and it's time for a change, it's time for a "big girl" apartment.

And so I set out this weekend to look at what felt like hundreds of apartments in Useless City. In reality, I only toured about 7 or 8 apartments and I was lucky enough to find one that I absolutely adore. It's very sunny and open, floor to ceiling windows facing west, 9 foot ceilings, hardwood floors and granite counter tops, stainless steel appliances. Although they don't pay me big bucks to be a prosecutor, they pay me more than enough to afford this place and I'm simply thrilled. I don't move in until mid February. I suppose that's good because packing up the last 5 years of my life is definitely no small task, but I'm so excited about the new place that it seems entirely too long to have to wait a month and a half.

I contemplated moving last summer before the start of 3L year, I even did an application and put a deposit down on an apartment that I liked. I hated every part of looking for an apartment last summer and 3 days after I did my application I had a breakdown of sorts, got totally freaked out about moving and decided that I just didn't want to move and didn't want to give up my cozy little place. But this time it's different, I finally feel like I've outgrown this place. There are some great memories from this place and many fun times were had, but like all things in life eventually you need to move on to bigger and better things. Here's hoping I still feel good about this decision 3 days from now . . .

Merry Christmas!!

2009-12-25T07:35:00.003-07:00

Every time I think that I should seriously think about leaving Useless City for a new adventure we have a day like we had yesterday: It snowed the night of the 23rd, so I was treated to the spectacular view of the stunning white mountains sitting above a town dusted in snow against a clear bright blue sky as I drove home to the parentals for Christmas Eve festivities. Those are the days when I'm reminded why I stay here, it's a beautiful city and although they cause me much grief at times it is nice to be in the same city as the rest of my family.

My mom made my most favorite chicken dish for Christmas Eve dinner, and she let me play bartender in the kitchen so I made my new favorite drink for everyone: Bailey's and Hot Chocolate. So delicious! Then it was on to opening the presents (my family has always opened presents on Christmas Eve). For the first time in months I slept 10.5 hours last night, it's amazing what coming down off a sugar/adrenaline/alcohol high will do for sleeping.

And now that it's Christmas morning it's time for my Mom's famous french toast followed by a day of letting my little sis beat me at Nintendo Wii :-)

Hope everyone has a fantastic holiday!!!

(my lame attempt at an artistic shot of the Christmas Eve dining room- although for an iPhone picture I suppose it's halfway decent!)

Deck the Halls

2009-12-16T17:46:00.002-07:00

Not sure how I did it, but somehow I managed to put together a holiday party in less than 48 hours. One of my good friends (Little Miss Sunshine) got a job to the state directly North of Useless State and she's leaving us this weekend. Turns out the rest of her week is jam packed with other things and obligations so tonight was the only night she was free for a going away/holiday party. Thank goodness I paid attention to my mom in the kitchen all those years ago. Somehow I managed to bake cheesecake, make sugared walnuts, put together a veggie tray, and make a yummy cheese pastry appetizer all last night between the time I got home at 7 and went to bed at 9:30 :-) Now my apartment is all Christmasy, it smells like delicious spiced cider and the food spread looks excellent. I feel so grown up, having my own little party with lots of people coming. So very weird to be the hostess on my own instead of the daughter of the hostess. Cheers!!!

Apparently These Are My 25 Favorite Songs

2009-12-10T21:25:00.003-07:00

Hat tip to Ana for the idea for this post. Apparently these are the 25 most played songs in my iTunes library (which syncs to all five iPods I currently own, yes I'm an iPod whore). Without further ado:

25. Hello Lonely (Walk Away From This), Theory of a Deadman

24. Gravity, Sara Bareilles

23. Broken, Lifehouse

22. Sex on Fire, Kings of Leon

21. City of Blinding Lights, U2

20. Name, Goo Goo Dolls

19. You Found Me, The Fray

18. More Time, Needtobreathe

17. Halfway Gone, Lifehouse

16. Permanent, David Cook

15. Hanging by a Moment, Lifehouse

14. Lost!, Coldplay

13. Use Somebody, Kings of Leon

12. Everything, Lifehouse

11. How to Save a Life, The Fray

10. September, Daughtry

9. Livin on a Prayer, Bon Jovi

8. Free Fallin', John Mayer

7. Where the Story Ends, The Fray

6. Layla (unplugged), Eric Clapton

5. Hotel California, The Eagles

4. Fire Burning, Sean Kingston

3. Falling Slowly, Glen Hansard & Marketa Irglova

2. If It Kills Me (Casa Nova Sessions), Jason Mraz

1. Don't Stop Belivin, Glee Cast Version

I think the Barzam skewed this list somewhat in that there were 10 weeks this year where I had a playlist of pretty mellow music on almost constant repeat, and the Glee cast recording of Don't Stop Belivin became my personal favorite "get in the zone" song for the barzam.

If Only I Had Seen This Coming

2009-12-07T19:19:00.004-07:00

Apparently my friends have the incredible ability to predict the future. Once they all hear of the current Trivia Boy drama the only response I'm going to get is "I told you so," because they all predicted this would happen. I don't know how I didn't see it, but man I wish I would have listened to what they were saying over the summer, maybe it would have made things a little less complicated right now.

Over the weekend Trivia Boy and I went out with a couple of other friends downtown. By the time 9pm rolled around other friends headed out to meet a different group of people at a different bar and Trivia Boy and I headed to a little hole in the wall dive bar that has great drink specials to finish out the evening. Somehow 9pm turned into 1am and one drink turned into one too many. While we were waiting for the train at the downtown station out of nowhere Trivia Boy brings up the subject of the drunken night last July. He prefaces everything by saying that he's drunk but that he thinks about that night quite often and that he's thought a lot about the idea of us being more than friends but that he keeps thinking that it would be awesome in the short term and wouldn't work out in the long term. I was taken aback by all of this, cause I had no idea that he even remembered that night, much less thinks about it. I pressed him on the subject of the short term vs. long term stuff and he didn't really have a good answer. From what I gathered he thinks the long term wouldn't work because he's likely leaving the state by the Spring for an out of state job and he doesn't want long distance. I totally agree about the moving complicating things and I can't do long distance either, but I also think it's a little premature at this point to be worrying about it because we haven't even determined if we want to try the whole dating thing. The entire ride on the train home we discussed the issue. Somehow after that train ride we ended up at my apartment and from there more bad decisions ensued. There's no denying the fact that all of the sudden there's chemistry, I have no idea where it came from, granted our friends always thought there was something there, but this is definitely a new development with the two of us collectively finally seeing it and acknowledging it.

This time once the alcohol blinders were lifted the morning after was even more confusing than the one from the summer. Further complicating the entire situation is the fact that Trivia Boy currently has another girl who he has already asked out on a first date for later this week (she's someone he met while he was out a few weeks ago- I've never met her). I spent most of the following day fretting over the current situation we have found ourselves in. When we finally talked about it on the phone it became abundantly clear that Trivia Boy wants to just see how everything plays out and didn't want to "define things" right now. He also made it clear that he's going to go out on his date later this week because he doesn't think it's appropriate to bail out on it, which I totally respect.

I get the feeling that the major hang up for Trivia Boy is the possibility that he might be leaving in a few months and he doesn't want either of us to get hurt. As for me, I have no idea what I want anymore. I have always been of the opinion that you shouldn't not do something in the present because of a fear about a future that may or may not actually happen. But the fact that he is such a good friend does make it hard for me to figure out what I want because there's more at stake here than there is in a normal "do I want to date this person?" situation.

All in all I have no idea what's going to happen, what I want to happen, or how I'm going to feel about whatever outcome happens. I just hope that eventually my dating life manages to calm down because between all of this drama and trying to get my feet under me at work I'm quickly becoming exhausted.

Is it Really Already December?

2009-12-06T18:24:00.005-07:00

I have no idea where the last 3-4 weeks have gone. Between being insanely busy at work and trying to squeeze in far too many social commitments I'm not entirely sure how I have managed to get any sleep. Apologies for the lack of blogging as of lately. Here's a brief rundown of all that has been going on in my useless world:

1. I won my first jury trial :) It was a case that wasn't very strong that I didn't have much time to prep for, and yet somehow I managed to pull it out of the bag.

2. I managed to survive the useless family thanksgiving which included extended family from both my mom and my dad's sides converging upon my parent's house in useless suburb. Only minimal alcohol was involved and everyone made it out alive. I have no idea how we managed that.

3. IT guy laughed hysterically when I took him my super sick PC and told him the entire story of how I will never ever be switching back to a PC for my personal use. Luckily he was able to fix the computer in about 4 hours. I'm surprised I still have computer privileges at work frankly.

4. There's been lots of figure skating on TV which means hours and hours of tivoed entertainment while I work on stacks of files from work that seem to be getting bigger and bigger by the day despite all the work I'm doing.

5. I have no idea what to buy anyone for Christmas. Normally I'm not really all that into Christmas, but for some reason the festive bug bit me this year and I decided to splurge for a real size tree with decorations (my previous tree was a pathetic little table top tree).

Other funny thing about this tree is that I vividly remember when I was a little kid I was always so mad every Christmas because my parents refused to let us put multi colored lights on the tree. I thought white lights were so boring and not pretty. Somehow as an adult I find colored lights hideous and white lights simply gorgeous. Wonder what my 5 year old self would have thought of the tree with all white, silver, and clear decorations?

6. Despite the fact that I have a pile of work that has to get done before tomorrow morning and I've already spent six hours in the office this weekend, I absolutely do not miss the work of the "usual" December. (law school finals).

7. I need new suits. I'm not pencil thin, but I'm not a plus sized girl either. I hate that pencil skirts are back in style, I look so much better in a-lines. Need some ideas of where to shop, Banana and Ann Taylor have let me down recently.

8. Seems like a majority of my friends are moving or looking to move because they can't find jobs in Useless City. This makes me sad. Hope I don't end up all alone here in my useless world.

9. It needs to stop snowing in Useless City and instead dump some good snow up in the mountains. I still haven't been skiing yet because there isn't very much snow. Super disappointing and lame.

10. Things with Trivia Boy have become 10 times more complicated in the last week. I have no idea how I feel about any of it or what I want. *sigh*

I'm a Mac

2009-11-15T22:44:00.003-07:00

I've been a Mac user for about 5 years now. The reason I switched is because I was absolutely fed up with Windows and all of the XP vulnerabilities, viruses, crashes, etc. My friends have been known to call me an Apple whore because I have multiple iPods, an iphone, a laptop and various other apple accessories that are far overpriced but oh so fabulous.

One of the "privileges" of becoming a DA is that you get your very own office laptop. I had to bite my tongue to stop from laughing when the IT guy came by my desk to set me up. He pulled out this gigantic brick, it's an IBM thinkpad circa 2003. Only has a 50GB hard drive and 512mb of ram and it weighs about 10 pounds. But that's government work for yah. It may not be a glamourous piece of equipment, but at least it gets the job done and has VPN software so I can log into the work servers from home, which is great for helping me avoid having to trek into the office on the weekend.

I tried out the working remotely thing from home this weekend for the first time. I fired up the good old brick, plugged the wireless card in (yes folks- it doesn't even have an internal wifi card) and ran the VPN client. Within about 7 minutes I was all hooked into the work network plugging away on prepping motions hearings for tomorrow morning. About 30 minutes later I started getting all these weird pop ups. The first one said something about spyware being detected. The next few said my system was vulnerable. And then finally a strange, but rather legitimate looking "advanced virus remover" program looking screen opened up. I ignored the first few popups, didn't click on anything and kept going about my work. But by the time the virus remover program came up I was concerned. So I started google searching on the trusty Apple only to find out that the work PC did in fact have a virus, a nasty trojan at that. I literally could have screamed. The only thing I did was connect the work computer to the same wifi network my personal apple is hooked up to. I've never had any virus problems with my apple on this network. And yet, somehow I must have gotten a virus on the work computer when I opened up the browser to navigate into Westlaw for some case law research. ARGH!

I spent a good 2-3 hours trying to remove the virus with no luck. So tomorrow I have to go beg and plead with IT to fix the problem. Granted, I have a simple solution to the problem that doesn't involve having IT spend hours fixing it, but I don't really think the IT guy will be amused if I show up to work tomorrow with my Apple, tell him I need it configured to access the work network and then explain that the IBM thinkpad was sent to its rightful final resting place at the bottom of the dumpster.

Just in case there was ever any question as to if I'd ever switch back to PC land, today's events sealed the deal: I'm a Mac, so deal with it :-)

Adventures in Lawyering #2

2009-11-06T22:45:00.005-07:00

The new docket that I have been assigned to is somewhat of a nightmare, fairly disorganized and totally intimidating, but at least it provides for some decent entertaining moments throughout the day. Overheard in court this morning while judge was setting conditions of defendant's bond on the record:

Judge: Mr. Defendant you are prohibited from possessing any firearms, possessing or consuming alcohol or controlled substances without a valid prescription while on bond in this case. Do you understand?

Defendant: Wait a minute your honor, if I can't drink and I can't smoke pot, then what am I supposed to do to you know relax and take the edge off of well life in general, cause man it sucks?

Judge gives defendant one of the most stern looks I've ever seen a judge give a defendant from the bench

Judge: well Mr. Defendant, I can't give you legal advice, but I can give you some common sense: read a book, watch a movie, take a walk, try yoga, or hell maybe some good old fashioned hot chocolate would work for you, I frankly don't really care what it is that you do just so long as you never ever appear in my courtroom for another alcohol or drug related offense ever again. Am I making myself clear Mr. Defendant?

Defendant: Yes sir, you've made it very clear that you are one bitter asshole, frankly sir I'd suggest that you just go ahead and smoke a joint, might help you relax and take the edge off. But I ain't no lawyer, so I sure as hell can't give you legal advice.

My docket partner and I had the hardest time not busting up laughing in the courtroom while that exchange was occurring. Frankly I'm surprised the judge didn't hold the guy in contempt and increase the bond amount.

Nut Up or Shut Up*

2009-11-03T23:13:00.004-07:00

Today was day #12 of my adventures as a DA. Although I did a short stint in the training division (minor traffic cases only) last summer, I started 2 weeks ago feeling rusty and like I definitely needed to find my footing again. Today I was finally starting to feel comfortable, like I finally was starting to get the hang of things. Then of course, in the usual fashion that is the chaos of my office, the chief of my division came and found me and told me that effective next week they are moving me back up to the main office to go into a regular misdemeanor docket to work with an attorney who has been with the office for about a year. I am beyond freaked out.

While it's flattering to be moved out of the training docket so quickly I really don't think I'm ready. I have practically no trial experience and although I did a ton of things as an intern I didn't learn how to effectively manage a docket because my job was primarily research and writing. Those are the things that I should be learning in the training docket, things that I haven't mastered yet.

All of the felony attorneys that I worked with as an intern think that it's fabulous that I'm "moving up" and that it's an accomplishment worthy of congratulations. But I see it differently. If I manage to survive and dare I say even do a good job in this docket it will look very good to the higher ups and could be good for future promotions. However, this is also a docket that has been known to chew people up and spit them out, if I'm not careful it could end in absolute disaster. It's literally a sink or swim scenario. I just hope I somehow manage to remember how to swim . . .

*For those of you who haven't seen Zombieland, go see it, it was hilarious, and once you see the movie the title of this post will make sense.

Punked

2009-10-29T07:48:00.001-06:00

The people who run the admin side of my office really are morons. The office recently purchased software that will automatically make phone calls and send emails whenever the office is closed or opening late due to inclement weather. Idiot human resources director, who caused all the previous drama over the summer, is the person responsible for programming the information into the system. Useless city is currently getting pounded by the first big snow storm of the year. The roads are a mess, visibility is low and every school district in the metro area has had 2 snow days so far. Office was open at the usual time yesterday but by 3:30pm we were told to go home.

At 9:00pm we all got the automated phone call telling us that all offices in the district would be opening at 10:00am. Sweet right? I mean I snow day would be better, but at least a late start lets me sleep in a bit and not have to worry about driving in a raging snow storm in the dark. 10 minutes later phone rings again, this time automated system is telling us that only the main office is on a delayed schedule, the satellite office at the south end of the district (which is of course the one I work in) is opening at 8am like usual. F%&$. Apparently idiot HR director didn't double check the opening times for ALL offices in the district before programming the first message. After yelling about it on the phone with a couple of co workers for about 5 minutes I headed off to bed, set my alarm for 5am to make sure to give myself plenty of time to do the drive that usually takes only 20 minutes in good weather. By 6:30 this morning I had finally brushed 12 inches of snow off my car, scraped the ice and was on the highway headed south to the office. At 6:35 my cell phone rings. Yup, of course NOW automated system says that the south office is opening at 10:00am. FML. I could have turned around to go back home but that would have taken at least 15 minutes and frankly if I had done that I probably would have gotten another phone call saying never mind, just kidding, open at 8:00.

Needless to say I walked into the office at 7:25am and now I'm just waiting for Ashton Kutcher to jump out from behind a door and tell me I got punked......

Adventures in Lawyering

2009-10-27T22:03:00.002-06:00

So far life as a lawyer has been fairly uneventful, which I suppose is good because it means that I haven't been fired and that I still have my bar license. However, that doesn't mean that working in the traffic division isn't entertaining, it's not as interesting on an academic type level as the felony division was, but the outrageous stories and excuses I get to hear on a daily basis really do make my day. In the 7 days I have been in the traffic division so far I have heard almost every excuse under the sun as to why people got a ticket, didn't renew their license plates, couldn't make their court dates, etc. But today I got the excuse that took the cake:

Me: "Ms. Driver, it looks like you got a ticket for not having valid auto insurance, is that correct?"
Driver: "Ummm well yes but I can explain, I had insurance when I was pulled over, I just didn't have the insurance card in my car."
Me: "Okay, well did you bring your insurance card with you to court today?"
Driver: "I brought what is left of it."
Me: "What do you mean?"
Driver: "I know this sounds ridiculous and I know you must hear a thousand excuses every day, and this one is the lamest one in the book, but my dog ate it."
Me: "Pardon?"
Driver: "Here, look- I brought what's left of it."

Driver pulls out piece of chewed up paper that is barely recognizable.

Needless to say we continued the case to give Driver time to call insurance agent and get a replacement insurance card . . .

When Will This Start to Feel Normal?

2009-10-21T21:14:00.003-06:00

I have the piece of paper framed on the wall that says "Juris Doctor."

I have the 5 digit Useless State attorney registration number.

I have my name on the door to an office with a window.

I have a secretary who takes my messages and does all kinds of other extraordinary things.

And yet, despite all of the things that say "I'm an attorney now" I still feel like I should be an intern and a student. I was completely flustered today when an intern asked for my permission to do something on a case and then started asking me for advice about studying for the bar. She was sitting in my office, in the chair on the other side of the desk. The same chair where I sat 2 weeks ago in my then supervisor's office stressing out about the bar results and what would happen if I didn't get a job offer. It was surreal. Suddenly, without warning, I'm the attorney, not the intern. It's so strange.

And So It Begins

2009-10-15T23:14:00.003-06:00

I'm all official now, got my attorney license number yesterday and was sworn in as a Deputy DA today. It didn't really hit me that I'm a real attorney with a real job until I went to my benefits orientation meeting and learned about those adult things I've always heard my parents talk about, 401(k)s, IRAs, HMOs, PPOs, etc. Apparently I have those now, so weird.

As we were waiting to be sworn in today, the mother of one of the other new attorneys getting sworn in today asked us what made us decide to be DAs. Most of the answers were the usual, predictable ones, such as great trial experience, stepping stone to the US Attorney's office or complex securities litigation, etc. While I definitely understand those responses, those aren't the reasons that made me want to be a prosecutor.

In both college and law school I was surrounded by people who strived to change the world and who dreamed of being the fighters for the helpless and defenseless members of our society. The initial reactions I got to my decision to intern with a prosecutor's office after my first year of law school was met with mixed feelings. Understandably, many of my friends and even some of my family viewed it as working for the wrong side, working for "the man" who was always trying to screw over the little person. Let's face it, prosecutors don't exactly have squeaky clean reputation, no thanks to the Duke Lacrosse debacle a few years ago. In light of that, many of my law school colleagues gravitated towards criminal defense. I'll admit, I've had moments where I wonder if I'm working for the right side. I've had days where I have felt like I could be more useful on the other side of the courtroom fighting to make sure that prosecutors and law enforcement have to follow the rules. And yet, despite those days, I have many many many more days where I leave work feeling like I'm doing work that matters, is important, and makes a difference. Somewhere along the way of interning these past two years I discovered that a good prosecutor can actually do more good than a good defense attorney. A defense attorney can't make the decision to drop an unsupported case or craft a plea bargain that gives a person a second chance. Only the prosecutor has that kind of discretion. And yes, it goes without saying that criminal prosecution necessarily gives rise to that old cliché "with great power comes great responsibility," but clichés aside, responsible, ethical, hard working prosecutors really can change the world. That's not to say that criminal defense work isn't rewarding or that there aren't plenty of hard working, responsible defense attorneys out there, because there are, and our system needs good people sitting on both sides of the courtroom. But despite the doubts I sometimes have, I always come back to the same place: I want to be a prosecutor because I get to do work that is worthwhile and might just make a difference, even if it is just a small difference. Oh, and I guess I shouldn't forget to mention that it is fun as heck, almost to the point of being addicting.

When I Grow Up

2009-10-13T21:50:00.004-06:00

I'm getting sworn in as an attorney in Useless State tomorrow morning, and then on Thursday I'm getting sworn in as a Deputy DA. I can't believe it's already been 3 years since I started trying to figure out exactly how to read a case, how to prepare for law school classes, and how to outline, at the time it seemed like the end of law school was light years away. I don't think I ever really did figure out how to prepare for class or outline effectively. But luckily I did figure out how to read cases.

Every time I pause to think about everything that's happened, how life has seemingly fallen into place, I am simply stunned. I found myself at my ballet studio last night examining the hundreds of photos from past performances that adorn the walls and it felt like those performances, some of them almost 15 years ago, happened only yesterday. It was surreal to stand there, a woman of 25 about to become a lawyer, examining the girl who wasn't even a freshman in high school wearing a stunning royal blue tutu who didn't have an answer to the question "what do you want to be when you grow up?"

Today Trivia Boy stopped by my office to wish me congrats and to apologize for not being able to attend the swearing in ceremony on Thursday (he unfortunately didn't pass the barzam but is still going to be able to stay on as an intern with the office while he tries it again in Feb). I was bemoaning the fact that my supervisor thought I should call my mom and have her go with me to get sworn in at the attorney registration office tomorrow morning. Frankly I don't think any of the swearing in stuff is something to make a big fuss about, but tomorrow's swearing in consists of nothing more than filling out a few forms, paying my fee and signing the oath. There is absolutely no reason that anyone needs to go with me for that. Trivia Boy was supposed to agree that I didn't need to make a big production out of it, he never makes a big deal out of anything and I knew he would understand why I didn't want to make a big deal out of this. But instead he sided with my boss. He commented that tomorrow is kind of a big deal because tomorrow I officially become an adult with a career and a professional license. I'm no longer a student, I'm no longer a 20 something on the path to a goal, no longer searching for an answer to the "what do you want to be when you grown up" question, but rather an adult with an office, business cards, and a title. For some reason, as soon as he said that, I wanted absolutely nothing more than to be the 14 year old in the stunning royal blue tutu.

And so I picked up the phone and called my parents to invite them to the swearing in. Because as much as I hate to admit it, Trivia Boy is right, getting sworn in for the very first time is kind of a big deal and I might regret it later if my parents aren't there to share it.

Come Back Down

2009-10-10T07:35:00.003-06:00

Thanks to all of you for the congrats, it's been a pretty amazing few days. For the most part I've been on cloud nine. But it all has to end at some point and I have to come back down to reality. The mandatory staff meeting we had yesterday afternoon at work managed to do just that. After the morning of congratulatory celebrations and hugs and cookies and flowers wore off the reality of what it means to be an attorney with my office set it.

It's going to be a lot of work, and I'm fully ready for it, I knew when I signed up it wasn't going to be an easy 8-5 M-F kind of gig. But along with that dose of reality came a lot of fear and anxiety. I know everyone has to start somewhere and no one knows everything out of the gate. But yesterday afternoon I literally felt like I know absolutely NOTHING despite the fact that I've worked at my office for two years and have seen more of the behind the scenes stuff that goes into prosecuting cases than most other people who just graduated law school and are hoping to get jobs as DAs.

I'm glad we have a 3 day weekend (yes, Monday is Columbus Day, a holiday I don't think I've ever had off, even years ago as a public school kid, thank you government work!) it'll hopefully give me some time to rest up before the madness begins. I'm also thinking some celebratory retail therapy is in order. There's a bracelet I've wanted forever that I promised myself I would get if I passed the bar and got a job. I wasn't planning on those two things happening the same day, but since they did I think that means I get to go buy my bracelet :-) And apparently there are these things called suits that attorneys have to wear, I guess I'll have to go in search of those too........

Pinch Me

2009-10-08T16:23:00.002-06:00

Three days ago I wrote about how there were 3 scenarios for what would happen today. I have no idea how it happened, and it seems entirely too good to be true, but somehow scenario #3 happened: I passed the bar and got my dream job.

I got the fantastic phone call about the job this afternoon. I was literally silently screaming as the two hiring attorneys were on the phone telling me the great news and wishing me congrats. I screamed out loud the minute I hung up the phone and proceeded to dance around my apartment. Someone pinch me, cause I must be dreaming.

Useless Dicta, ESQUIRE!!!!!!!!!

2009-10-08T10:06:00.001-06:00

I have no idea how I did it, but some how I managed to pass the Useless State Barzam.

Commence partying IMMEDIATELY :)

T Minus 60 hours

2009-10-05T21:45:00.002-06:00

The results of Useless State Barzam will be posted sometime around 9:00am on Thursday. That's a little more or less than 60 hours from now. I haven't slept well for the past 3 nights, and every time I think about Thursday morning I get a little naseous. I know there's nothing I can do at this point. The exam was done and over the minute I put my pencil down for the final time back on that last Wednesday in July. Up until now I really haven't worried all that much about it. In fact, the barzam seems like a distant nightmare, I really don't remember all that much of it at all. Even though I know I can't change the outcome at this point and it seems silly to stress about things I can't control, my nerves are working some serious overtime this week.

Complicating matters is the job situation. I didn't really know what to think about the interview last week when I walked out of it. It didn't feel as bad as the quasi interview I had back in April. But it also didn't feel spectacular. However, I've heard through the grapevine of some higher-ups that I had a good interview last week. Several people have also made comments that the interview last week was just a formality and I have nothing to worry about. As much as I apperciate hearing good things from the attorneys and others that I work with, it makes me nervous at the same time. It's a lot of pressure to live up to. On the one hand, if I don't pass the barzam I could be faced with wondering whether or not a job that may have been mine by the end of this week will still be there come May. On the other hand, if I do pass the barzam but don't end up getting the job then I'm going to have to start back at square one and spend who knows how long trying to find a permanent job. I know that I should be hoping for the optimistic third scenario, the one which involves me passing the barzam and getting the job. Call me a pessimist, but the third scenario just sounds like something that would be too good to be true.

I will be so glad when this week is over. I think the absolute worst part of all of this is the not knowing part. I wish I could just fast forward through the next 2 days and find out the results, no matter what they might be, so that I can figure out what comes next. (and so I can stop boring all you fantastic blog readers with my mundane worrying/griping/stressing about the bar, the results and jobs).

Get Back on the Roller Coaster

2009-09-28T21:46:00.004-06:00

As if I haven't been through enough of a roller coaster with my job in the last 5 months (all of which are detailed here I'm apparently about to hop back on the roller coaster. HR director emailed all of the interns today to set up interviews with the elected DA later this week. YIKES. I have the very last slot on Thursday afternoon. Word on the street is that it's good to have the last interview of the day because it means that they aren't tied to an ending time and can talk more (which could end up being a curse- we'll see). They didn't let us pick our interview times, they assigned them and apparently elected DA usually tells HR director which order she'd like to see people in. I'm trying not to read too much into it. I literally felt like I might puke when that email came through today. I'm not really sure how I'm going to sleep the rest of this week (or next week when I find out barzam results for that matter). Although leaving the office I'm with might not the be worst thing thing in the world the job prospects everywhere else are pretty grim. That just puts even more pressure on everything. I think this means I need to restock the wine rack to gear up for the rest of the week. . .

You've Got the Wrong #

2009-09-25T20:14:00.006-06:00

Public Service Announcement: if you are making a phone call to try and set up a drug deal or some other sort of criminal activity, make sure you dial the right phone number.

Around 3:45 this afternoon as I was putting the finishing touches on the brief that is due first thing Monday morning my office phone rang. I answered it with my usual "District Attorney's Office, [Useless Dicta] speaking" greeting. A very gruff voice on the other end of the phone said "It's going down at 1:23 tonight, corner of foothills and first." I responded with "I'm sorry, who are you trying to reach?" The very gruff voice said "Oh S%&@!, who the F*$% is this?" I responded very politely again with my name and said I was the felony department intern at the local DA's office. The conversation ended with "OH F*$%!" and a very quick click.

Lucky for Mr. Very Gruff voice he remembered to block his number before calling and the sheriff's department (who we are required to call whenever we get calls like that, which is rare) wasn't able to trace it. Lucky for me, that phone call provided some much needed entertainment and a good laugh with the rest of the office on what had been a very long and boring Friday afternoon.

Help A Sister Out

2009-09-23T18:04:00.003-06:00

Fashionista has a dilemma so I told her I'd see if I could help a girl out by getting some insight from the bloggy world.

She's known this guy, we'll call him B, for about five years now. They were pretty close friends in college but fell out of touch when she went to law school and he went abroad with the Peace Corps. They never dated, they always had other significant others when they were friends in college. Now Fashionista has moved back to her home state and B is back from the Peace Corps so they've been hanging out, basically picking up the old college friendship where they left off. Neither one of them are seeing other people at the moment. Over the past month or so Fashionista has started to feel like she'd like to be something more than just buddies. She has no idea if he feels the same way, they haven't discussed the issue and as far as she can tell he's treating her like just another one of the guys. She asked me the other day if I thought she should just take a leap and ask him out. I had no idea what to tell her. On the one hand she values the friendship and doesn't want to make the current friendship awkward or strange. On the other hand if she doesn't take the leap of faith and ask him how he feels about going out on a date then she might never know the answer and she might be missing out on something great.

I've been in the situation of turning a friendship into something more and it definitely changes the whole dynamic. Knowing what I know now I really feel like there's no turning back once you go down that road. That's not to say that you can't maintain a friendship should a more romantic relationship not work out, but any friendship that happens to turn into something more than friendship is forever changed once that door is opened. That being said I'm a big fan of finding a significant other who is also a best friend, and I think some of the best relationships grow out of friendships. So that leaves me stuck with giving Fashionista pretty unhelpful commentary- either it could be great if he feels the same way or it could also be good to just leave the status quo alone.

She asked me to enlist the help of the others, she's definitely approaching this like a lawyer and conducting all of the research before engaging in some serious analysis to decide what to do. So come on bloggy world, help a sister out!

When Lawyers Try to be Docs

2009-09-16T17:49:00.003-06:00

We had our annual 3 day training conference this week. Most of it was painfully boring and as you looked around the room you could tell that the 80 attorneys trapped in the room were all visualizing various ways to stab their own eyes out. One of our last sessions today was on Psychology in the Courtroom. A psychiatrist did the presentation and gave us a big handout of all the various mental conditions that we might be faced with at various points in our criminal careers that included checklists of symptoms for each condition. By the end of the hour the row of people I was sitting with had self diagnosed ourselves with ADD, ADHD, Major Depression, Conduct Disorder Not Otherwise Specified, Substance Dependence, various Sleep Disorders, Bipolar disorder and possibly even mild schizophrenia. Seems like par for the course right? Too bad the doc didn't bring any meds with him.....

**Disclaimer: I don't really think the people I work with actually have those things, maybe ADD and Sleep Disorders, but that's about it. However the checklists that we were given just made it way too easy and tempting, we couldn't stop ourselves from checking off the absurd. Why yes I do in fact see circus clowns and talk to Bugs Bunny on a regular basis :)

The Bucket Post Law School/Post Barzam To Do List

2009-09-09T06:15:00.002-06:00

About three weeks before the barzam I began compiling a list of things that I wanted to do once the craziness of the last three years of my legal education roller coaster finally came to an end. It's been more than a month since the barzam ended and so far, I'm failing miserably on my list. As usual I had very high ambitions but somehow I've once again found that my affinity for procrastination wins out even when I don't have things like school or exams on my agenda. Here's the list, original items that were on the list before the bar are in black, things that I added to the list after the barzam are in blue, and things that I've actually managed to finish are crossed out.

Things I Need to do When I Get My Life Back
1. Read 5 fun books that don't have anything to do with law or any sort of intellectual type subject. (I've read 2 so far: Time Traveler's Wife and Prep, both while on vacation 3 weeks ago).
~~2. Clean the apartment~~
3. Organize my apartment, donate things I no longer use/need to Goodwill
4. List all of my used Law School books and supplements on Amazon
5. Finish the knitted scarf and hat set I started last winter
6. Get resume and other job application materials together
7. Start serious job search
8. Research graduate school options as backup plan if being a lawyer doesn't work out
~~9. Research job options at local ski resorts to fund future career as ski bum if needed~~
~~10. Start going to ballet regularly~~
11. Sign up for tennis lessons
12. Call the bestie from high school and set up dinner
13. Plan Nintendo wii party with the crew
14. Seriously assess $$ situation and make budget for the next 6 months
15. Stop eating so much junk food.
16. Start making/cooking more meals
17. Stop drinking 2-3 large coffees a day
18. Clean out car
19. Finally get major law school paper from 2L year updated and ready for publication
20. Work my way through the long list of movies that the crew claims I must see before I die
21. Start reading the 10 books I still have left on my "read before you start law school and don't have time to read for fun anymore" shelf.
~~22. Organize my iTunes library~~
23. Organize my digital photos
24. Trek downtown to have lunch at crepes place with BFF
~~25. SLEEP~~
26. Win the lottery
27. Pay off all my school loans
28. Learn Spanish
29. Travel the world
30. Become the POTUS (or get appointed to SCOTUS)- either will do :-)

Too bad those last 5 are kind of unattainable, at least for the time being!

Vote for Pedro

2009-09-08T21:06:00.002-06:00

The ABA Journal is currently taking nominations for blawgs to include in their annual Blawg 100 list that comes out in December. Click here to vote for Pedro!

*DISCLAIMER* I've never seen Napoleon Dynamite so I'm not really sure what all the "vote for pedro" hype is/was about, but somehow after a glass of wine and an evening of watching Nadal/Monfils US Open match it seemed like an appropriate theme for this little PSA.

OMG Drama Follow-up

2009-09-08T18:16:00.002-06:00

Got an email from a reader today wondering what happened with the flowers that Trivia Boy sent to The Rebel a couple of weeks ago, so here's the update!

She got the flowers just as planned and apparently texted Trivia Boy the following day (mid-morning) with just a short "thanks." Trivia Boy proceeded to call me while I was at work (he was out of town visiting family) to ask what I thought the text meant and if Rebel had said anything about the flowers to me. She hadn't mentioned anything to me (and in fact 2 weeks later still hasn't said anything to us girls in the crew about the flowers) and I didn't really have any good insight on what her text meant, but I told him that since Rebel was watching his puppy the flowers might have been mistaken as a "thanks for watching my dog" kind of thing instead of a "hey I'd like to go out with you" gesture. So I told Trivia Boy that he should just ask her out when he went to pick up the dog. He said he'd think about it and then hung up.

Three days later Trivia Boy called me immediately when his plane landed in Useless City (literally hadn't de-boarded yet) to fret/stress out about whether he should really ask Rebel out when he went to get his dog. 45 minutes later he finally made it to his car and was on his way to Rebel's, I told him to just do it so he'd at least know one way or the other if she was interested. He called again 5 minutes after leaving her place, he somehow convinced himself to just ask her out to dinner, and she said sure. Problem is, Rebel is currently working odd hours at the job she found to bridge the gap between law school and bar results, so she's not available most evenings. So they haven't actually been out on a date yet, Trivia Boy was convinced today at work that they won't actually end up going out because she hasn't gotten back to him about a day/evening that would work for her (he thinks she's blowing him off).

Meanwhile, both Trivia Boy and I have been put on a huge important somewhat high profile project at work. So far we've been doing well on the project, we both got lots of praise from the 2nd highest ranking person in the office last week during a meeting where we brought the mountain of research we'd done and the memo on the subject. My direct supervisor was impressed at how well we co-wrote the memo. Hopefully it'll lead to good things job wise for the both of us in October, fingers crossed!

Wake Me Up When September Ends

2009-09-07T20:58:00.003-06:00

The month of August flew by so fast that I really don't quite know where the entire month went. Somehow now that the calendar has turned to September time seems to be creeping by. I've had no less than 4 ~~nightmares, premonitions, delusions~~ dreams about barzam results in the past week. This is particularly odd for me in that I very rarely (almost never) dream, and I guess if I do I never remember them by the time I wake up. Seeing as how results are still a full month away I can only imagine what is yet to come in my adventures of sleeping.

My task for this week is to finish up my job application materials so that everything is ready to go in October once results are posted. I'm making two sets of materials- a set for lawyer jobs if I pass and a set of non-lawyer jobs if I didn't pass/can't find legal job even if I did pass. Ugh. This of course is getting done with almost constant coverage of the US Open on in the background. I'm not sure when this happened, but suddenly I've developed this obsession with watching tennis, I could get lost in it for HOURS. I've been thinking I should check into lessons in my area, but I suppose I should have a guarenteed income before I do that right?

Another thing I want once I have a big kid job with a steady paycheck and a pet friendly apartment:

I've done a fair amount of research on those adorable little things this week and I really really really want one. Bad news is that puppies are really expensive from breeders (right around $2K) , there's no bulldog rescue in my state and they very rarely end up in the local shelters (which I suppose is a good thing).

Sorry for the somewhat boring blog post, life lately has been somewhat uneventful. The most exciting thing that September has brought is the return of the Pumpkin Spice Latte at Starbucks, so much for the post barzam diet & budget.

Got Lawyer?

2009-08-31T17:33:00.005-06:00

Maybe law school and studying for the barzam came in handy after all.

I had to sign my apartment lease renewal today. My lease expires today and I've been going back and forth for 3 weeks now with the idiot girl who works in the leasing office to get her to actually do the renewal paperwork so I can sign the damn thing. Finally, on the very last day of my current lease, literally an hour before the office closes she finally has the paperwork done. I go to sign it and the renewal notice says "Discussed future billing of water, sewer, trash." Ummmm okay what? My rent currently includes water/sewer/trash and I pay for electric and gas separately. Dumb leasing office girl says "oh yeah, ummmm well they might start charging you separately for water but they probably won't so that clause just says we discussed it."

So I signed it. Good luck actually enforcing that clause bitches. Last time I checked, if they want to make a change so that rent no longer covers water/sewer/trash as outlined in my original lease agreement the wording that I agree to in the renewal will have to be more specific than "discussed future billing" and the girl who explains the clause will need to have a few more IQ points. Cause by signing the renewal with that clause and having that discussion with dumb girl all I did was acknowledge that she told me that the landlord is thinking about billing separately for water. Nothing in the signing or the conversation actually indicates my agreement to accept the change or my promise to go ahead and pay the water bill on my own. Clearly landlord didn't run this by a lawyer, and clearly he needs one. Maybe I should drop my resume in the box with my rent check tomorrow?

What Comes Next?

2009-08-26T21:11:00.004-06:00

I've been back at my internship for about 3 weeks now and I absolutely love it. I get along really well with all of the attorneys, paralegals, and secretaries in the department that I work in and the work that I get to do is interesting, engaging, and sometimes just downright fun. Ever since I started in this department a year ago I have felt like I am learning a ton on a daily basis and that hasn't changed since I've been back from the barzam, which is great. Another cool thing that I've noticed happening is that the senior attorneys in the department have been including me on discussions about various new cases that have been filed and asking my opinions about whether I think there's enough evidence to proceed, what I think about the defenses being raised, etc.

All that being said, it's scary to think about what happens just a little over a month from now. There is no guarantee that I will have a job once bar results come out, no matter what the result ends up being. The other interns with the office, who are mostly working in the misdemeanor and traffic divisions, are hoping to get hired as full time attorneys so long as they pass the bar. They have basically been running dockets and doing the same kind of work that the attorneys in those divisions do so it would be a very smooth transition for them should they get hired. I on the other hand have been doing research and writing because I'm not authorized under the student practice act to appear in court on the cases in the division where I work (felony division). I do break away when I can to go do some court work in the traffic division, so it's not totally foreign to me, but should I get hired as an attorney after the barzam results I will definitely have a bigger adjustment to make.

While I do want to be a prosecutor, and I know that I can't just start off in the big leagues where I am currently interning, I have been thinking lately that spending another year where I am would be fabulous. There's plenty of work to keep me busy for at least a year and in talking to my direct supervisor this morning it sounds like they will have to hire another intern to replace me after the bar results because there is too much work for the department to not have my position filled. So I'm trying to figure out exactly what I should do and how I should approach this. On the one hand I know I want to be a prosecutor and I don't want to fall way behind the rest of my peers meaning that if I'm offered a full time position I almost have to start in October to be on track for moving up with everyone else, etc. However, I love where I'm at right now and I think staying in my research/writing job longer would benefit my career down the road. While a full time attorney job would definitely pay more, this is likely the one time in life where I can get by on what I make at my current job and where I don't need to worry about benefits, retirement, etc. Also, staying in my current position would take the pressure off of trying to get hired in a class that has 6 other interns vying for positions. I have no idea if it will be easier to get a full time position in the spring or even next fall, but if I get to stay where I am then that provides at least a little job security for the time being.

I also have no idea how to ask to keep my current position after the bar results. I don't want the higher ups to think that I don't want to be a prosecutor or that I'm only asking because I'm paranoid about not having any job in a few months, but I also don't want to just sit around hoping for a permanent offer come October. Anyone have any thoughts/advice on how to proceed? I've been thinking about talking to my direct supervisor about this to see what she thinks before talking to the people higher up the chain that actually have the power to decide. But I want to make sure I have a well thought out reason/approach before I even talk to my direct supervisor.

Thanks for the help :)

OMG Drama!

2009-08-25T18:44:00.002-06:00

A week before the barzam I mentioned that Trivia Boy has a huge crush on one of my friends, the rebel. While a few of us in the crew know that he's smitten for her, no one really knows if Rebel herself has any ideas about this crush. She's been wrapped up in an on again off again thing with another guy for the last 6 months or so and seems to be very preoccupied at the moment with that. Despite this, Trivia Boy hasn't been deterred from being interested in Rebel, but he hasn't exactly gotten up the nerve to just go ahead and ask her out.

I was totally taken aback today when Trivia Boy rolled into my office at work to tell me that he had flowers delivered to Rebel today as a way of letting her know that he's interested, even though he only wrote his name on the card instead of writing something that would for sure get across the message that he's into her. He's leaving town tonight so he timed it so that he wouldn't have to see her at Trivia tonight (which ended up getting canceled anyways- but that's besides the point) just in case the response isn't what he's hoping for. He told me all the details of the flower delivery, he went to the florist and picked out the arrangement himself, something with sunflowers as the main thing, he then made arrangements to have the flowers delivered to the main office of Rebel's apartment complex this afternoon while she was still at work (she has a temp job so he didn't want to try and have them taken to her office) and then called her apartment office to make sure that the receptionist would call Rebel and let her know that she had a delivery to come pick up when she got home. For some reason, the whole time he was telling me this story I was feeling jealous and I don't know why. I'm assuming it's cause I never seem to date guys who are thoughtful enough to randomly give flowers, much less get flowers from someone who I'm not dating and I was just having one of those days where I'd like to feel special, but I dunno.

I brushed all this off went back to the massive post conviction appeal that I'm currently working on (for a murder case no less!) and happily went about the rest of my day. Despite this, for some reason I found my mind drifting as I sat in horrible traffic on my commute home thinking about what it would be like if I got home and found a message from my apartment office and went down there to find flowers waiting for me. WTF? I've been saying all summer that there's nothing going on between us, plus it's clear that he's into someone else. Even though there was that one night after the barzam, it didn't go anywhere, it didn't mean anything, and it didn't change how I generally feel about the situation (that we're friends and nothing more). And yet, here I am today all of the sudden feeling jealous and who knows what else. Oye. I think this might require a bottle of wine and a good cheesy movie, hopefully I'll wake up tomorrow with my head glued back on straight.

Seems Like it Happened Only Yesterday

2009-08-20T21:18:00.002-06:00

If we are lucky in our lifetimes we will have the privilege of knowing at least one person who touches us, inspires us, and pushes us more than any other person we've ever met before. For me that person was my ballet teacher who I had throughout middle school, high school, and college. I've talked about her briefly before on this blog. Today is the four year anniversary of her death, ever since I got the terrible news back in 2005, August 20 has always been kind of a sad day.

She was so much more than a ballet teacher, she was someone who literally was bursting at the seams with all kinds of life and optimism- qualities that I myself can only hope I achieve at some point in life. She was, and still remains, one of the greatest influences of my young life. I remember I was asked during my college entrance interview who the most influential person in my life is and I named her without even stopping to think because she was someone who had the upmost compassion for everyone she met in life and had this spark about her that was simply indescribable. She was 65 when she passed away, but she had the heart and soul of a 20 year old. She was constantly looking for new adventures and was always ready to start a new chapter of learning and exploration. About 3 weeks before she died she started asking me about the law school application process because she had become interested in possibly doing it after seeing me start the process. I was taken aback then as to why someone like her, someone who was literally a prima ballerina and one of the most well known teachers and composers in the area who already had 2 masters degrees would possibly need, much less want to go to law school. Her response simply was "why not?" I think had she had more time she would have actually done it, and it would have been spectacular.

I know that she wouldn't want any of her ballet students (all of whom remain like a second family to me) to be sad or depressed on this day, she would want us to have a good laugh, remember the good times, and of course dance, so I've tried to not dwell too much on the remembering today, because doing so inevitably makes me sad, but nevertheless I felt a need to write about her. I hope that I can some day learn to handle whatever life throws at me with the same level of grace and dignity that she always seemed to display. I will always be forever grateful to have known someone like her and to have been able to count her among one of my good friends, I really can't believe she's been gone for 4 years, I know all of her beloved students miss her like it happened only yesterday.

Best and Worst of 1L

2009-08-20T15:47:00.002-06:00

As the 2009-2010 school year gets underway around the country, several other blogs have written about the topic "Best and Worst of 1L." Basically, just share your best memory and your worst memory of your 1L year- for all of you out there who have made it through the 1L battle please chime in!

Worst 1L Memory.
Despite how much I have complained on this blog during law school about arbitrary grading and grades in general, I made it a point never to talk specifically about the specific grades I got in any particular class (even though I have talked about the general kinds of grades I have gotten in law school). I've always had a rule against it, I just don't think grades are anyone else's business and I don't like it when people talk about their specific grades. But my worst memory of 1st year revolves around a specific grade in a specific class, so I'm going to have to break that rule.

The very first law school exam I took was a mid-term in Torts. I thought I understood torts, I liked the subject matter liked the professor and studied my ass off for the exam. I felt totally prepared walking into the exam and I walked out feeling like I was at least somewhat competent. I found out a week later that I got a D on the exam. I had never gotten a grade that low in my life. It was by far the biggest blow I think I suffered in law school. I was kind of a slacker in undergrad, I did papers at the last minute, never did my reading for class, and didn't put 100% effort into any of my science classes and yet I got by with grades that were still above average most of the time. At my worst my non studying would usually leave me with a C. I knew law school was different and I knew law school was hard so I put 110% effort into getting ready for that exam because I was terrified of it. I was devastated when I found out that after all that work I managed to get the lowest grade of my life. I literally cried for at least an entire day and then contemplated dropping out of law school without finishing the first semester for at least the next week.

I was absolutely terrified going into my first round of finals thanks to that grade because I was convinced that all of my grades were going to be that bad and that I was going to flunk out. In the end I ended up with a not so great, but not an abysmal grade in Torts and respectable grades in my other first semester classes and everything else after that turned out just fine. So moral of the story is, don't let one bad exam, bad day in class, bad grade, or even bad semester get you down. Ironically enough my highest grade that first semester was in the class I studied the least for, hence why I returned to my undergrad ways of procrastination and minimal preparation for the remainder of law school. Not sure it helped my overall GPA, but it definitely saved my sanity.

Best 1L Memory
Best day of 1L hands down was the day that I found out that I was accepted onto the international law journal. I got that news about a week after finding out about my bad grade on the Torts midterm and was worried that I wouldn't be on the journal long, but I was nonetheless over the moon that I had passed both sections of the write on. It was the first time I felt like I had a place where I belonged within the law school and it turned out to be one of the best things that I got to do while I was in law school. I was truly lucky to have been able to work with the group of people who were on that journal and I definitely made some long time friends in the process. That being said, the actual journal work itself wasn't glamorous or even always fun, but if I had to do law school all over again that is definitely one thing I wouldn't change on the second go around.

Rested, Relaxed, Tan, and Back to Work

2009-08-19T23:07:00.006-06:00

I've returned from my trip to Mexico and it was fantastic. I had a great couple of days with Fashionista in Useless City for a couple of days before we headed south of the border and the week was capped off by getting some much needed rest and relaxation. We visited the Tulum ruins which were about a 10 minute drive from our resort, the beach at the ruins is by far the most beautiful beach I have ever visited:

Tulum Castle overlooking the Caribbean

The beach at the Tulum ruins.

Big thanks for the book recommendations that I received prior to my vacay. I didn't get as much reading done this year as last year, but I did finish both The Time Traveler's Wife by Audrey Niffenegger and Prep by Curtis Sittenfeld both of which were excellent. I think Time Traveler's Wife was definitely my favorite of the two, that was one of those books that you just couldn't put down. I will definitely have to try and see that movie this weekend.

I also managed to get pretty tan while down there, enough so that people at the office have been commenting on it for the past couple of days, which is honestly kind of starting to bug me, cause I don't think I look normal being this tan, but it is kind of fun nonetheless. I'm now contemplating scheduling a short trip during the weekend that bar results come out in October so that I'm not at work when results are announced- in my state they post a list of everyone who passed on the Internet and while it would be fun to be at work celebrating if I do pass, if my name isn't on that list I absolutely don't want to find out while at the office. If anyone has any suggestions of good places in the US to take a short trip please let me know! I've already been to San Francisco, New York City and Washington DC so I'd like to see another city/town.

Useless Thoughts on the Barzam

2009-08-14T12:00:00.000-06:00

I'm still on vacation in Mexico- this is a prescheduled post to give y'all something to read over the weekend :-)

It's been a little over two weeks since i took the barzam in Useless State. In the days immediately following the exam I kept feeling like I should write a final post reflecting on the whole process, but every time I sat down to write it my brain just hurt from the whole process and I ended up walking away from it. I'm forcing myself to finish the post now because at some point I think I'm going to want to look back on it, either because I passed and will just be reminiscing about the whole process or because I failed and will be starting the process all over again come January.

What I did to prepare for Useless State Barzam
I signed up for both of the prep courses offered in my state, Barbri and Kaplan PMBR. PMBR was geared specifically towards the MBE portion of the exam while Barbri provided the preparation for every subject tested on the exam as well as MBE prep.

I went to every Barbri lecture (I did the classroom version- I don't know anyone who did the iPod but I've heard good things) and focused on the lectures like i had not focused on anything since college. This meant I took nothing but my lecture handouts and a pen to write with. No computer to distract me, no iPhone to email from, etc. Others in my class did use their laptops during the lectures but I noticed that they did spend an awful lot of time "multi-tasking" with Facebook, blogging, emailing, online shopping etc. Granted, I did a lot of "multi-tasking" in law school and still graduated with a decent (but not stellar) GPA, but the barzam is different and I knew that I had very little time to prepare so I was proactive and took away all sources of in class distraction before it became a problem. Another note on Barbri, I never read the long outlines prior to class. I stuck with what was taught in lecture and if there was a particular area that I was having problems with understanding after the lecture I went back and supplemented with the big outline. I had friends who read the long outlines before every lecture and they spent a good 2-3 hours on most days doing that. You have to find what works for you, but I know that spending 2-3 hours reading outlines full of material that in the end isn't all that important would not have been helpful for me, regardless of whether I passed or not.

After my barbri class every day I made flashcards that covered the material taught in lecture. I was not allowed to be done for the day until the flashcards were done. I ended up with more than 2000 flashcards by the time I was done. In looking back I'm not sure that the flashcards really helped and I probably wasted a lot of time doing them. I didn't really use the flashcards once they were made, but the process of making the cards involved reviewing the lecture notes and putting things in my own words, which I'm sure did help more than I know right now. About two weeks out from the exam I started making condensed outlines of all of the essay topics. I found that to be far more helpful than the flashcards. I should have figured out sooner that outlining would be better for me than flashcards because outlining was what I always did in law school. I very rarely made flashcards in law school but I decided to do cards because I did them for every closed book exam I had first year and I was convinced that the only way I could memorize material was with flashcards. As I pointed out awhile ago, flashcards should not be made for the barzam just because everyone else is making them . But adding to that, flashcards should also not be made just because you started making them for some topics and feel like you have to have them for every single topic regardless of whether or not they are actually helping. I decided not to outline the MBE subjects. For some reason I felt more comfortable as a whole with the MBE topics. To review those in the final week I ended up making these colorful charts.

If I had to do it all over again I wouldn't waste the time or money on Kaplan PMBR. The MBE prep that barbri provided was more than adequate and the PMBR questions were unnecessarily hard (they purposely make their simulated MBE that is a part of the 3 day course WAY harder than the MBE itself) and the review of the simulated exam was poor to say the very least. With the 3 day PMBR course being so close to the barzam itself at that point in the prep period it definitely would have been more valuable to spend those 3 days learning essay topics or doing practice problems on my own. The 6 day course at the beginning was also not all that helpful and while I suppose it did give me a brief foundation in all of the MBE subjects heading into barbri I think that week right after graduation would have been better spent relaxing and getting ready for the actual review crunch to begin the following week with the start of barbri.

Overall I should have done more practice for every portion of the exam. Granted I don't know if I passed or not yet, but in the days leading up to the exam I was panicked that I hadn't done enough practice and the only reason for this panic was that I hadn't done enough. I did about 1000 MBE questions. While it's not a numbers game, nor is there a magic number of MBE questions to get to before exam day, I didn't feel like I had done enough questions on a consistent basis leading up to the exam. The recommendation is to do about 36 questions per day, which should take just over an hour to complete if you use the full allotted time of 1.8 minutes per question. I had entire weeks where I did no questions. I buckled down the last two weeks and did long sets of 100-200 questions each day, which was probably good for getting my stamina for the actual exam ready, but part of the MBE is learning tricks that you only learn by seeing similar questions over and over and over again. I cringe at the thought of how many questions I missed on the real exam just from the fact that I didn't do the other 2000 MBE practice questions that I had at my disposal.

As far as the essays and performance tests went I read most of the sample answers that were given in the essay and PT books in the days leading up to the exam and I practiced about 20 essays over the course of the summer, but I should have done more. On the practices I had done I was having a problem finishing them on time and I was having problems organizing and writing clearly. Forcing myself to do more essays would have helped with both of those things. I tended to avoid essays like the plague when I was prepping because very frankly they downright scared me. Since they scared me I should have practiced doing them until I was blue in the face. For some reason I wasn't worried at all about the performance tests early on in the game. Everyone who took the exam last year told me that there was no reason to worry about them and that since I had a ton of writing experience in law school I would be fine. But then about two weeks before the exam I figured out the math and discovered that the PTs alone could save a seriously bad essay performance. I made sure to read every sample PT that barbri gave us, but walking into the exam I definitely felt like I would have been more confident on the PT if I had done even just 1 or 2 more as practice.

The Barzam Itself

A lot of people say that you should take at least the day before, if not the 2-3 days before the Bar Exam totally off from studying. I fully intended to do this. But as the exam got closer the panic set in and I suddenly felt like I knew absolutely nothing. In a phone call with BFF on the Sunday before the exam I was literally losing it because I was stressed that I was supposed to be taking Monday off and didn't feel like I could. She stopped me in my tracks, asked me exactly why I had to take Monday off, pointed out that there was no absolute rule that said I had to take Monday off and then pointed out that my entire life I have procrastinated and crammed, so why should this be any different? She was right. Although the bar is not something that you can cram for in the 12 hours, 2 days, even 1 week before the day, I knew that the only way I was going to not absolutely hurl walking into the exam room on Tuesday was if I studied on Monday too. So I did. I took a break in the afternoon to see a movie with some friends, but for the most part I studied all day. I even studied Monday evening over dinner with Trivia Boy (he was studying too- and probably more freaked out than I was). I went home, tried to sleep, but was too hyped up, so I got up at 3:30am and proceeded to look over sample essay answers, my outlines, and my charts until I left my house for the testing center at 6:15. I consumed 4 regular cups of coffee and 2 energy drinks before 7am and I had another energy drink during lunch that day. I didn't fall asleep during the exam, I typed like a maniac the entire exam, and I have no idea if I passed or not. I took plenty of time on the performance tests and managed to finish in the allotted time for those. I also managed to write something for each and every essay, including the sub questions, but typed up until the moment time was called in both sessions. Hopefully I put enough down on the page to pass. Point is, I absolutely threw all of the conventional wisdom out the door for the first day of the exam. I don't know if I passed, there are days where I feel like I certainly failed, but point is, if I passed then this is what worked for me. If I didn't pass then it's a lesson that I need to put in way more prep work up front in the study period and not wait until the last minute.

Once essay day was over I felt much much better. That seemed to be the general consensus of everyone taking the exam. Sure the MBE isn't exactly easy, but it's not as terrifying as the essays either. The MBE is something that you pretty much know you can handle walking in, you're not facing the stress of facing an essay in a topic that you barely know anything about. So I did get a good amount of sleep the night before the MBE, and walked into the testing center feeling at ease instead of like I wanted to hurl myself off the roof of the building. I tended to be very fast on my MBEs all summer, the actual test day was no different. I typically finish 100 questions in 2 hours. I took it a little slower on test day, making sure to carefully read everything and take a short break half way through each set of 100 and even doing that I still finished 45 minutes early in both sessions. Since you can't leave the testing center I just folded up my sweatshirt on the table and took a little cat nap. I had friends who were worried that I had done this, they thought I should have used the extra time to check answers, etc. I decided against that because I have an incredible ability to change answers that were correct the first time. In fact, I made it a policy to not change any answers once I had selected an answer. When I was practicing I noticed that 85% of the time where I changed an answer, the first one I picked had been right. It wasn't worth it to possibly change a wrong answer to a correct one when I only had a 15% chance of actually doing that.

What I would do differently

If I have to do all of this again, either because I didn't pass or because I end up taking another jurisdiction, there are definitely things I would do differently. To start with, I wouldn't waste time and money with PMBR (see discussion above). Also, I'm going to keep my barbri books and forgo getting my materials deposit back because I want to keep my lecture handouts that are all filled in with my notes. I'm doing this even if I pass because if I end up taking another jurisdiction I think I'm going to try and prepare for that just with books and self-study materials instead of sitting through another 2 months of lectures, it will be easier to do that if I have my notes from this go around. And in the event I don't pass I'm not going to take barbri again. There is no reason to sit through the lectures again. If I didn't pass it's because my preparation wasn't adequate, so that means on the next go around I'm going to have to spend lots of time memorizing and doing practice problems until my head is ready to explode.

Also, as much as I adore my friends, and love Ms. Fabulous in particular, if I do this again I'm going to have to be very careful about studying with people. I realized too late into the game this go around that the studying with Ms. Fabulous was hurting more than it was helping. My main problem tends to be that I really can't get anything done if I'm by myself. I like background noise and activity going on around me. Even if I have music or TV on, if I'm totally by myself for too long I go nuts. But I'll have to figure out some other method if there is a next time because although I'm solely responsible for my procrastination and preparation, Ms. Fabulous definitely distracted me and made it hard to focus on what I needed to get done. By the time the exam rolled around I was freaking out that I hadn't done enough and I was resentful that I had spent so much of the summer "studying" with Ms. Fabulous because it felt like all of that time had gone to total waste.

So there you have it, my long rambling, semi-coherent thoughts about the bar exam. Better late than never right? A lot of people have said that waiting for the results is almost worse than studying. So far I haven't found it to be too bad yet. I like the approach that Ana wrote about over on her blog: assume that you passed until you're told otherwise. There are days where I definitely feel like I failed, but for the most part I'm just trying to keep busy and not worry about it. I'm sure I will feel different and lose a lot of sleep when the week of results rolls around. But until then, I'm enjoying having my normal life back. Life really is brighter on the other side of the bar exam :)

Back to School

2009-08-11T13:00:00.000-06:00

Orientation for new students begins at Useless Law today. I really can't believe that I'm already done with law school. While I was in law school it felt like it would never end. By the end of my 1L year orientation seemed like it had happened a decade earlier. I definitely changed a lot during law school, and that first year in particular. And yet, now that I'm finally on the other side of it all, orientation seems like it was yesterday. I remember that I was nervous and anxious to meet my new classmates, worried that I wouldn't fit in, and scared that I wouldn't make it through the first semester alive. You hear a lot that first impressions matter so be yourself at orientation but also try not to be standoffish, rude, etc. If you would have told me on the first day of law school orientation that Fashionista and Ms. Fabulous would become 2 of my best friends in law school I would have thought you were crazy. They were soooo unlike the girls I was "usually" friends with. And in fact, we didn't become fast friends. I wasn't really friends with Fashionista until second semester of 1L year, and didn't get to know Ms. Fabulous until second semester of 2L year when I started my internship with her at the DAs office. But I'm so glad they are my friends, I don't know what I'd do without em, they made law school bearable and even fun at times. The only piece of advice I'm going to give to 1Ls here is this: if you leave orientation feeling overwhelmed and stressed because you don't have any friends and don't really see how you'll make friends or even fit in among the people in your class, don't fret, everything will be okay. As for the rest of the 1L advice, browse my past posts, there's plenty of rants, ramblings, advice, etc already contained in this blog. And besides, Lawful Lady said it best a few days ago:

Bottom line - everyone has to stumble through this experience and figure out things fo they damn selves.

And she is absolutely right. So to all of you newly minted 1Ls out there starting this crazy journey, good luck!

For all of you 2 and 3Ls out there try to make the most of the time you have left in law school. Don't be afraid to have some FUN, I know it sounds totally cliche, but it really does go by faster than you can imagine. Soak it all in and know that there is absolutely a light at the end of the tunnel.

Insomnia

2009-08-11T04:23:00.002-06:00

This summer I've had an increasing problem with insomnia. It doesn't happen every night, but at least once a week (and sometimes more if I'm really unlucky) I have one of those nights where I'm able to sleep 3.5-4 hours and then for no reason at all I'm wide awake. Or worse yet I'll have one of those nights where I go to bed at a decent hour and cannot fall asleep for the life of me. Benadryl doesn't work, wine doesn't work, it's just downright frustrating. Tonight (or rather this morning) is one of those days. I was hoping maybe it was just a barzam problem, something that would go away once that was no longer stressing me out. But the barzam has been over for 2 weeks and yet here I am, awake at 4:00am. So now I'm hoping that this particular episode is because I'm all hyped up, excited, and somewhat anxious for the rest of this week. Fashionista arrives in Useless City this afternoon. We have a day and a half of fun scheduled starting with a round of Trivia with the crew this evening. Then on Thursday morning Fashionista and I leave for a fabulous 4 night stay on the warm crystal clear waters and white sand beach paradise of Tulum, Mexico!

I'm also slightly nervous about the whole Trivia Boy/Fashionista situation. Things haven't been weird at all with me and Trivia Boy, we've fallen right back into Friends mode without missing a beat, that one night a couple of weeks ago really was nothing more than bad decisions heavily influenced by far too much alcohol consumption. Trivia Boy is also out of town at the moment and may or may not be back in time for Trivia this evening with the crew. I feel horrible that I'm hoping his out of town stuff takes long enough for him to miss trivia tonight. I just get the sense that even though things are cool between us they are not cool between Fashionista and Trivia Boy (sounds like things between them ended badly). And to top it off Fashionista hasn't even told me about her whole thing with Trivia Boy and I doubt she will, and although I certainly won't bring up any of it to her (because I promised Trivia Boy I wouldn't) there is still bound to be a weird vibe if we add him to the mix this week.

On that note, I suppose I should see if I can try and squeeze out a few more hours of sleep before I get to the cleaning that has to get done before Fashionista arrives. Since I'm going to be out until I get back from Mexico next week I've scheduled a couple of barzam and law school related posts that I've been working on for when I'm gone. Have a good week everyone, and for those of you heading back to law school (or just about to start) enjoy the final few weeks of freedom to the fullest extent possible!

Return to the Real World

2009-08-03T21:52:00.005-06:00

I was a crazy crazy person when I agreed two weeks ago to return to my internship today, a mere 4 days after finishing the barzam. I had plenty of rest and fun during those 4 days off, and I was excited to go back today, but despite all of that getting up and actually getting dressed for work was brutal. Also, it seems odd to go to work for a week only to leave to go on vacation for a week with Fashionista, but that's just the way the scheduling ended up working out, so oh well.

Once I got to work it was fabulous. It was great to see everyone again, I was shocked at how excited all of my coworkers were that I had returned to the office. I had a big welcome back card waiting for me on my desk in my new upgraded office (I used to have a cubical, new office doesn't have any windows but it's nice to have a door that I can close if need be). The upgraded office actually happens to be the one that belonged to Trivia Boy, but he's only in the office for one day a week if at all, so apparently he's getting booted out on my behalf. After catching up with everyone and settling into the new office it was time to dive in head first into a mountain of work that should keep me plenty busy until barzam results come out in mid-october.

My direct supervisor is a senior deputy DA and she is fantastic. She treats me like a daughter, in a good kind of way. She's a great person to work for, is a fantastic mentor, and is someone that is just one of the girls over lunch. While we were catching up today the drama that went down back in May came up in conversation. I mentioned to Supervisor that I was glad to be back for the couple of months that I have to wait for my barzam results, but that I also know that I need to be looking for other jobs in the meantime based on those conversations with the HR person back in May. Supervisor said that HR person was totally off base with what she told me and apparently in the few days after she gave me the info that I wasn't being considered for a full time position there were multiple emails exchanged between supervisor and the elected DA who makes the hiring decisions. According to supervisor, elected DA was actually impressed with me at the lunch meeting that we had back in May and that she is under the impression that things are looking good for me in terms of hopefully getting an offer (assuming of course I passed the barzam). I'm glad I didn't know any of this last week on the eve of the barzam because I think I would have been even more freaked out about the exam if I had known that a potential full time job was actually riding on passing.

In other news, as we were discussing the office arrangement and the fact that I was kicking Trivia Boy out of his space it came up that apparently Trivia Boy talks about me a lot at work. This worries my supervisor because she's not so fond of him. She's not sure why, and she said that he is of course perfectly nice and a good person to have on the team at work, but that she just can't put her finger on it, something is just off. Considering everything that happened the evening after the barzam her comments definitely made me pause to think for a moment. The more I pondered it the more it became clear in my sober state that she is totally right, something is off. He's getting over a very serious relationship, has a crush on one of my friends and recently had a fling with one of my best friends from law school. That right there is enough to raise multiple red flags. So despite the fact that my friends think we should be together and despite whatever happened last week, he's going to have to be nothing more than a friend at this point because he's not in a place where he can give me anything more, although he likely doesn't know that yet. Supervisor said it best today: "girl you're freaking fabulous, you shouldn't be settling for anything less, even if it is just for fun." And she is absolutely right. I am freaking fabulous. It's nice to have someone else remind you of that every once in a while.

Great Summer Reads

2009-08-02T16:07:00.002-06:00

Alright everyone, I need your help! In less than two weeks I'll be venturing to the lovely tropical paradise south of the border to soak up some sun and powdery soft white sand. I need some reading recommendations. Last summer on my beach vacation I zoomed through the first three books of the Twilight series (the fourth book hadn't come out yet). While I have a reading list over a mile long that I need to tackle now that law school and the barzam are finally over, on vacation I need a particular brand reading, particuarily something that is fun, completely mindless and highly entertaining. Examples of things that would fit that description but I've already read would be The Shopaholic Series, He's Just Not That Into You, The Devil Wears Prada, Good in Bed, In her Shoes, and The Nanny Diaries. Any and all recommendations are definitely welcome :-)

The Morning After

2009-08-01T16:56:00.003-06:00

Champagne and I really don't get along very well. Champagne is that friend we all have, the one who when we're around them we do things we would never ever ever do without them. Oh champagne.

Thursday night was the big barzam is over celebration with tons of people from useless law. My entire crew was there (minus Fashionista who moved and took the barzam out of state) and we had an absolute blast. By the end of the night all of us had so much fun that none of us were able to drive home, so we hopped on the useless city light rail (which really is a poor excuse for public transportation) and headed to our various homes. Almost all of us live within walking distance of a park & ride lot so getting home and going back to get our cars in the morning was not a big deal. Trivia Boy however lives almost a mile away from the nearest park & ride lot but only about a 5 minute drive away from my place so we planned that he would crash on my couch for the evening and I'd take him back to his car the following morning.

That all would have gone according to plan had Trivia Boy not found the unopened bottle of champagne in my fridge, a left over bottle from the last day of law school celebration. It was 2:30am at this point, I was exhausted and ready to just get some sleep. He poured me a glass over my protests. We proceeded to finish the champagne, open a bottle of wine and before we knew it the sun was coming up around 6am. There was lots of intense conversation that night. Man that boy has baggage like you wouldn't believe. It came up that apparently Trivia Boy and Fashionista had a fling for a few months right before school ended but that things apparently went directly south as soon as she moved back to her home state, I had no idea that they were even very good friends, much less that they hadthat kind of friendship. About a half hour after finding that out (and another half a glass of wine later) it became totally obvious that Trivia Boy was hitting on me. He was completely drunk, I was drunk, it was not a good combination. There may or may not have been something more after that, but let's just say for the past day and a half I've been trying to figure it all out and geeze this is a confusing point to be at right now. Fashionista is coming out here in less than 2 weeks for our fabulous vacay. Things were going to be awkward between her and trivia boy because of the drama that happened with them before she left. But now I'm worried that I might have just added myself to that awkward equation. Yikes. Champagne and I should never ever ever be left alone with Trivia Boy ever again. Or any kind of alcohol for that matter.

So yes, my name is Useless Dicta, I make bad decisions when drunk, particularly when the buzz is from champagne.

That's a Wrap

2009-07-30T09:15:00.003-06:00

The two dreaded days at the end of July have come and gone, I'm still alive, and frankly those two days went waayyyy faster than I thought they would, which is a good thing. Whether or not I passed the minimum competency test to become a licensed lawyer is a big fat question mark, but the important thing is at least for now is that it is done and over, nothing but a bad and very distant memory.

To celebrate I headed to a concert with the BFF, it fabulous and the fact that it was raining/misty for the whole evening (outdoor concert) made it totally memorable. We met up with Ms. Fabulous and Big Wig at the concert, it was a blast. About half way through the concert BFF and I were talking about the last time that we saw the headliner band in concert and realized that the other band playing with headliner had actually opened for them at that last concert but no one knew who they were yet. Then after some more digging in the big old brain vault we realized that last concert would have been July of 2006 (same venue as last night), about a month before I began law school. So I suppose that it was totally fitting (and oddly symmetrical) that I ended the law school/barzam saga back at the same venue with 2 of the same bands.

As for how I'm spending my first day of barzam freedom I'm doing some shopping, getting some much needed organizing and cleaning of my apartment done, and then I'm going out for a completely fabulous night of celebratory fun with a big crew from Useless Law. Trivia Boy is insisting that I down a shot of whiskey with him this evening to commemorate the occasion, but the thought of that makes me want to puke right now, so I think I'm definitely sitting that one out. Besides, champagne seems so much more appropriate for this occasion. Speaking of Trivia Boy, if it wasn't for him having the incredible knack for being completely inappropriate (in a hilarious can't stop laughing kind of way) I might have passed out from sheer fear and nerves while waiting to enter the building Tuesday morning, instead I entered the building laughing so hard I was crying. I may not have passed the exam but at least I failed because I didn't know enough about the essay topics or bombed the multiple choice on Weds and not because my nerves kept me from writing coherently. There's also another excellent Trivia Boy story from mid-day Weds on the barzam, but I'm not sure I can blog about it since I don't know who all reads the blog. I'll see if I can figure out a way to tell it in a descreet way :)

And on that note I'm going to return to my life as a normal person. It's about time! Good luck to those of you finishing up a 3 day hellish exam or those crazy few who decided to take 2 barzams!!

We Will We Will Rock You

2009-07-27T18:34:00.002-06:00

Dear Barzam,

All of us barzamers across the nation who have spent our entire summer getting ready for tomorrow's battle are ready. Prepare to be rocked!

Sincerely,
Barzamers

In other news, my bar preparation today consisted of getting everything ready for tomorrow: packing snacks, lunch, making sure computer was in working order, etc. Also on my to-do list was my Rock the Barzam playlist. Livin' on a Prayer of course made the list, been my theme song forever, always puts me in a good mood, and frankly a little prayer tomorrow can't hurt right? Also making the cut, Fire Burning (can't help but DANCE when that song comes on), Let it Rock, Beat It, and of course Don't Stop Belivin'. Anyone else make a bar music mix? Any must have tracks that I need to add to mine?

Good luck to all of you and just think this week really could be worse, we could be getting ready to go back to law school after all :)

Final Stretch

2009-07-24T09:32:00.004-06:00

The weekend that seemed like an eternity away 2 months ago at law school graduation is now upon us: the final weekend before the bar exam. Before I started this summer I had heard from many people who had already taken this exam that the final weekend before you really need to slow down with the studying and definitely take the Monday before the exam totally off to charge up for the 2 days of exam day hell. But another thing those same people were saying is that by the time you reach the bar exam you've had at least 7 years of post high school education and that by now you've figured out what works and what doesn't work when it comes to studying for exams.

And herein lies my dilemma for the final 3.5 days before judgment day. My entire life I have been a procrastinator. I'm the queen of cranking out 15 page papers in the wee hours of the morning the day it's due. I'm practically a professional at cramming for exams of all kinds and it is literally impossible for me to do tons of studying and preparation too far in advance of the drop dead date. I used to try and figure out why I'm such a procrastinator, is it an avoidance tactic because I'm unhappy? Is it mere laziness because I'm actually bored and not being challenged enough? Is it my way of rebelling against the "establishment" and breaking the rules? I finally hit a point where I stopped trying to figure it out and instead just embraced it. I am who I am and I've been doing my thing for many years now. I have usually found success in the end, so why try to change something just for the sake of appeasing others?

So far this summer I have studied more on a regular basis over an extended period for this one exam more than I have ever done so at any previous point in life. But I haven't put in too many long days before this week, I still have tons to memorize and I have barely done any practice essays. The exam is now finely close enough to breathing down my neck that I'm starting to feel the way I normally feel when I shift from being an epic procrastinator to a productive machine that churns out whatever work needs to get done. I'm starting to think that I'm going to throw all the advice to the wind and study my ass off this weekend and study some on Monday as well because that is what I have pretty much done for every major test since I started college. I'm not really worried about burning out before Tuesday because I've never had a problem with exhaustion during any kind of exam before, adrenaline is a pretty powerful thing, and I'm more worried that if I take the day off I'm actually going to forget a ton of stuff or lose whatever tiny ounce of motivation may be creeping up on me and actually do worse on the exam come game time.

Thoughts on this? Anyone think I'm nuts? What are you other barzamers doing this Monday?

Final side note: I've been busy making ridiculously colorful nerdy charts for MBE subjects, check out my Twitter feed for the links.

Up and Down and Up Some More

2009-07-23T14:34:00.004-06:00

My summer has been full of ups and downs. Right after the total high of law school graduation I had some work drama that threw me for a loop and put me in a pretty good funk to start off bar prep. Then bar prep itself has been up and down. I go between feeling like this exam is totally manageable, minimum competency, to feeling like it is absolutely impossible and that I haven't put in enough effort, focus, or work to pass it. I decided around 11am that I'd had enough already today and needed to clear my head, so I grabbed my iPod and headed outside for a walk. A pretty major street divides Useless University in half. The law school is on the North end of campus, and while we have a beautiful building, the North side of campus just isn't as pretty as the South side. The South side is full of nostalgia, so many undergrad memories it was nice to walk around over there. The garden area is also one of my favorites because in the summer time the fountains have gorgeous water plants and it's a pretty quiet place tucked back away from the street noise:

I plopped down in the middle of the huge lawn, surrounded by the water garden and took a nap for an hour in the warm sun. It was quite possibly the best decision I've made this summer. After recharging my batteries I headed back over to my spot in the law library. My new email icon notification was on my desktop when I restarted my computer so I checked it, and literally almost fell out of my chair when I read the first email in my box:

Useless Dicta, we would like to bring you back after the bar exam while you await your exam results to work in your previous position in the Felony division. If you would like to do that, please let me know what date you would be returning.

Thanks,

Internship Program Director

After all of the mixed things that went down in May I literally almost danced for joy right in the middle of the law library!!!! It's not a permanent offer and there is no guarantee I'll still be employed come October, but it's at least a couple of months worth of money and it's back in my same department which I absolutely loved. Frankly, if they would let me just be a research person as a licensed attorney in the felony division I'd probably be a pretty happy camper. The DAs that work in that division are fabulous, the cases are super interesting, I get to handle some high profile stuff, and I literally learn something new every single day. Misdemeanor and traffic court on the other hand (which is where every new DA starts and spends at least 2 if not 3 years) is a lot like high school with the cattiness and drama that goes on between the young DAs, it'd be a dream to get to skip that crap all together, but at least I get a couple more months in "adult land" before having to worry about whether I'll get a full time DA job and have to go back to high school.

As awesome as it is to find out I have a job for a couple of months and as great as it is to get such good news during bar prep, I can't help but wonder if they are going to stick another knife in me and twist it before yanking it out come October. I'm definitely not going to sit around waiting for them to offer me a job. When I get back from my vacay I'll be putting 110% effort into job searching . There is a part of me that would really like nothing more than to be able to give my two weeks notice before bar results and move onto bigger and better things (hopefully as a DA in another district), but we'll see.

Alright, now that I've been distracted for a few hours and have gotten NOTHING done today for bar prepping, it's back to work I go........

Life Outside The Bar

2009-07-22T08:36:00.000-06:00

By this time next week I will be starting the final day of summer from hell. The Lexis rep at my school told me a few months ago that finishing the bar is as close to the feeling of getting out of prison that she ever wants to experience in her life. Before the bar everything is scary, there’s not enough time, and you’re just trying to get through every day without a major breakdown. After the bar it’s like you have a whole new lease on life. You can sleep in if you want. The trees are greener, the sky is bluer, and you can justify the 3 hours by the pool with your friends and family.

I’m not entirely sure I have had the right approach to my bar studies this summer. I don’t think I’ve done enough practice essays, I think I started the huge process of memorizing 16 subjects too late, and although I’m not doing bad on the MBE questions, I’ve done far fewer practice questions than many of my friends which likely won’t help me get a score high enough on the MBE to cushion any essay blow I might be facing. But that being said, the summer hasn’t been miserable because I haven’t let it be. Sure, I haven’t had a summer jam packed with fun, but I’ve seen friends, been to trivia almost every week, watched plenty of TV, slept a decent amount almost every night and have seen at least 8 movies in the theater (prior to this summer the last time I’d seen a movie in the theater was over a year ago).

Would I do things differently if I had to start the summer all over again? Sure. Were some of my choices detrimental to my bar studies? Probably. If I fail the bar am I going to be pissed that I chose to spend time relaxing and hanging out with friends this summer? HELL NO! Yes the bar exam is big, yes it’s the most important exam of my life. But it doesn’t just happen ONCE. It’s offered twice a year, and I don’t have a job contingent on passing the first time. Yes, it will suck to fail, but it won’t be the end of the world. Life will go on.

Which brings me to the point of this post: Trivia Boy. There was a request in the comments to a post a few days ago for an update, so here it is. Trivia Boy and I, along with a few other members of the trivia crew hit the usual bar last night for our weekly gathering. I swore up and down when summer started that I would not be at trivia the week before the bar, but yet there I was. After spending 12.5 hours in the library yesterday I figured a break would be good. Somehow by trivia ending at 10pm Trivia Boy had talked me into heading to the movie theater down the street to see Transformers. It didn’t even start until 11pm. It’s almost 3 hours. Do the math. Somehow he managed to talk me into seeing a movie that I wasn’t all that interested in seeing, about a bunch of silly robots running around earth blowing crap up, that didn’t get over until almost 2am one week before the bar. How he managed to do that I will never know, after all I told him flat out when that movie came out a month ago that there was no way in hell I was going because the first one was soooo terrible. Before you all jump to conclusions though it was not one of those kind of late night movie dates, we really are more like brother and sister than friends who might hook up. He’s someone I hope is still a friend 10 years down the road that can look back on this summer and laugh along with me at how absurd it was that our other friends thought we should be a couple.

What’s even more entertaining is that within the past 2-3 weeks Trivia Boy has developed one of those ridiculous school boy crushes on The Rebel. It’s almost painful to watch at times. He made me swear secrecy that I wouldn’t tell her, although I know that she knows. I swear I feel like I’m trapped inside a middle schoolers life. I already know that if he asks her out she’ll say no, so maybe it’s a good thing he doesn’t actually ask. She’s got a long distance guy that things are starting to heat up with, she lights up every time he calls and she has a policy against going out on dates when she’s kind of already seeing someone (that’s my policy too!). So that’s it for the Trivia Boy update.

Bar Exam Realization

2009-07-19T23:09:00.002-06:00

Useless Law is kind of notorious in the city because for the past few years we've had a low bar passage rate for first time takers, it usually hovers right around 65-70%. Meanwhile the higher ranked cheaper state school up the road tends to have a pass rate in the 80's. Ever since before my first day at Useless Law when I went to admitted students day there has been a level of tension and worry about the bar passage rate that only those who have seen it can really even describe. Thanks to that I was scared out of my mind for the bar exam before I even knew that I should be scared of my notorious property professor.

My school has done all kinds of stuff in the time that I have been a student to try and increase the bar passage rate. The most notable being that Useless Law offers a free bar prep supplemental program to their alums. Basically professors volunteer to help students learn the essay writing skills throughout the summer and they've provided us with 4 mock bar exams that have covered a mix of topics and have given us all the chance to do performance tests, essays, and MBEs under timed conditions. For the entire summer the supplemental program has been pushing us to memorize memorize memorize. The thought of trying to memorize every single bit of law that they say is essential to passing the bar really is mind boggling, it makes me want to puke. The performance tests for some reason have always just been an afterthought. The mutual feeling among a majority of the students and the professors is that performance tests are nothing to worry about because it really doesn't take much to get an average score and that time is better spent studying for the essay topics and refining the essay writing skills.

For some reason today over lunch I pulled up the exam calculator for the Feb '09 exam for my state and started running some numbers. I about fell out of my chair when I realized that if you do about 10 points above the average score on both performance tests (useless state has 2 PTs) it is possible to be way below the average on every essay question and PASS the bar with a pretty decent cushion assuming an average scaled MBE score of 140 points. Even better, if you manage to get double than the average points on each performance test then you can mathematically pass the bar getting just an average of 2 points per essay with a scaled score of 140.

Now I know getting double than the average points on both performance tests is highly unlikely, after all the average score is an average for a reason. However, it is absolutely feasible that with a little work, practice, and effort you could score better than average on both PTs. And with the way the PTs appear to be weighted the more points you score there the less you need to actually score on the essays. Another mind boggling fact is that typically at least 2 of the 8 essays on Useless State's exam (we use the MEE here) are on MBE topics. The MBE scaled score is added to the score from the writing day in Useless State to get a total exam score. While there's no minimum MBE score required to pass the whole barzam it almost doesn't make sense to study the essay only topics in depth at all. If you're totally solid on the MBE topics to do well on the MBE itself and then get 2 essays that are on MBE topics and do above average on both PTs then you should theoretically (and mathematically) pass easily without ever having to know an ounce of secured transactions or commercial paper.

Now I'm starting to wonder why I have worked myself into a frenzy trying to learn those essay topics!! Am I crazy for focusing mostly on PTs and MBE subjects (with MBE practice of course) for my final week of bar studying? I still plan to review the essay only subjects enough to be able to write down a few things and hopefully score a couple of points on those essays. It just seems more prudent to focus where the points are, I'm just surprised that none of us in my study/support group have figured out just how much of a gold mine the PTs really are, which is making me wonder if maybe we have totally misinterpreted the math and are hopelessly optimistic for no good reason at all.

Secured Transactions for Dummies

2009-07-15T20:08:00.003-06:00

After a totally gruelling day of PMBR (which I'm not entirely convinced was worth it, but I guess it's always good to have your butt kicked by hard questions so you don't get complacent) I decided that I had to buckle down and spend some quality time with Secured Transactions. I'm not a business person. I don't like numbers and the only money I like is the kind that buys shiny happy things that I don't have to worry about once I have spent it. Needless to say Secured Transactions is Latin to me. After beating my head against the wall for a solid 2 hours trying to wrap my head around the subject Big Wig saved the day with this summation of the subject:

Secured transactions boils down to this: Bubba wants to buy shiny car. Bubba has no money. Bank agrees to give Bubba money to get shiny car. To make sure that Bubba pays Bank back the Bank gets to say that if Bubba doesn't pay Bank gets to take away the shiny car. Basically it's the law of making sure people pay you back or else you get their shit. Plain and simple.

If only I could just write that as my explanation for a secured transactions essay on the barzam and pass. *Sigh*

Bar Exam Confidential

2009-07-15T06:30:00.001-06:00

Shout out to Law School Ninja who blogged yesterday about the ubiquitous pre-law read, Law School Confidential. While she is at the beginning of her 3 year law journey, I had totally forgotten that there is a chapter at the very end of that book that talks about the barzam. After reading her post I went to my bookshelf and found the dusty copy at the back of one of the bottom shelves. I haven't opened it since a few weeks before my own law journey began. I don't even remember what I thought of the book when I read it before law school, but I was somewhat relieved to read the bar exam chapter. It definitely put things in perspective, and it was nice to read in black and white ink the very thing I have been trying to tell myself all summer: that it will all be fine.

"Try to remember that the bar exam is designed to be a minimum-proficiency exam. If you do the recommended studying you should pass. Try to relax. Lots of people who are not that smart pass this exam. . . Think about this: For every person sitting in your bar review class, there is a hapless person who decided that he could review old outlines from classes to prepare for the bar exam, or an even more hapless person who decided that the summer after third year of law school was the last bit of free time he would have, and chose to spend that time traveling around and cramming for the bar exam in the last week instead of studying two months like you will. . . Essentially, it comes down to this: The people who work diligently and put forward a legitimate effort usually pass."

Law School Confidential, by Robert H. Miller, pg. 386-387.

Toxic

2009-07-14T22:10:00.003-06:00

Ms. Fabulous and I have been studying for the bar together. While I adore her and am so glad that she is one of my friends, I came to the conclusion this afternoon that for the next two weeks I've got to cut the ties. She's been stressed from the very beginning. She seems to be going back and forth between super pissed off and freaked out about the bar to super apathetic (like in a don't give a crap let's get drunk kind of way). After enduring yet another hour long conversation today in which she went on and on about how she didn't have a clue about secured transactions, kept interrupting me while I was trying to figure out commercial paper on my own, and rambled about boy drama I finally decided that this is where it has to end. I got up, told her I wasn't feeling well and went home. It was at that moment that I realized that the last 4 days have been spent with me trying to ignore her moods, her distractions, and her time wasting conversations. Each of those days has started with me getting to school by 8am and getting 2 solid hours of work in before Ms. Fabulous rolled in and then the rest of the day went downhill from there. 4 valuable days that I won't get back in my bar studies.

Needless to say I'm looking at the calendar, there's less than 2 weeks at this point and I feel like I have to climb an impossibly tall mountain to get to where I need to be to pass this beast. Problem is that while I know I can tell her nicely that I really just need to study by myself from here on out, I know she won't take it well, or she'll promise that she'll stop distracting me which will last for about 2 hours. What to do what to do? I really wish I could find a great place to study where I'm not totally alone (I really don't like being totally isolated from the world and actually prefer background noise and activity going on around me) but somewhere that's not in the law building near all of the other barzamers who are slowly but surely becoming total nut cases. I'd go to a coffee shop or something except none of them in the Useless area have adequate tables for the many books and charts and note cards that I need to immerse myself in. *sigh* Maybe that's what I'll do when this whole lawyer thing doesn't work out. Open a coffee shop with free wifi, huge tables, comfy chairs, cozy lamps, good coffee, and the smell of old books in the Useless University area.

As a side note are any of you barzamers out there doing the Kaplan 3 day? Or have you already done it? I have the practice exam tomorrow morning and I'm really not sure at this point whether or not I should even show up to the review, at this point I feel like I have some serious ground to make up on the essay subjects and don't really need to focus all that much on the MBEs.

Barzam Madness

2009-07-11T21:44:00.004-06:00

I've spent a grand total of 14 hours at Useless Law School today, and my motivation to study has finally returned thanks in part to the Pirates of the Caribbean soundtrack doing the trick once again. The barzam is scary close on the calendar. I have a mountain of things I still have to learn. But it's okay, because I still have 2 weeks, and this is not impossible. Just keep plugging.

So far that mantra and mindset has worked, I've managed to avoid a massive freak-out. Meanwhile everyone else around me is slowly spinning out of control. So many people at Useless Law have been whipping themselves into an absolute frenzy with keeping track of how many practice MBE questions they've done, how many practice essays they've done, how many note cards they've made, it's just ridiculous. Ms. Fabulous even arranged her entire schedule for the next two weeks around ensuring that she hit the 2000 mark for practice MBEs the Saturday before the barzam. While I definitely plan to hit the MBEs daily in the next two weeks, I certainly don't have a magic number. As I proclaimed earlier today on Twitter, I've only done about 480 MBE questions and I just don't care. It's not the quantity that matters at the end of the day, it's the quality. Frankly, at this point I'm much more worried about the essays subjects, it doesn't even seem prudent to keep doing MBE questions to try and get to some "magic" number.

Right around hitting hour #9 of studying today Trivia Boy had quite a remarkable realization:

"I just wish I knew if the general grasp I have on all of the subjects is enough to pass, cause if it is then I'd say it's time to go home, hit the pool, and grab an ice cold beer."

How do you know when you've studied enough for this monster? I certainly don't feel like I would pass if I had to take the exam tomorrow. But it is a minimum competence exam and you don't have to know everything inside and out, so is there a point at which you know that you've studied enough?

To Tan or Not To Tan?

2009-07-11T00:35:00.002-06:00

Forget the Barzam for the moment, in 5 weeks I'll be relaxing with Fashionista on a beautiful white sand beach in Tulum, Mexico, with one drink in each hand. I simply cannot wait! However, seeing as how I've been cooped up inside since the end of May studying for the bar, and I'm pretty fair skinned, I look like like snowman. When I manage to get sun I tan pretty nicely, and I'd like to have a little color before heading south of the border, but I'm going to be inside until July 29 and then that just leaves a week to get in some sun time before I leave on vacay. I know that tanning beds aren't exactly safe ("cancer coffins"). However, I also know that tanning outside really isn't much safer, so if indoor tanning is a quick way to get the result then I'm more than willing.

So, question for any of you out there with knowledge, should I splurge for some indoor tanning? What about the salon spray tan options? I don't want to be orange or streaky, and I don't want to look baked, but I'd also not like to be the only albino on the Mexican beach in August. Also, for those of you who have done the indoor tanning thing recently, are the fancy lotions they are always trying to push at those salons worth it? Do they really work? Thanks for the help :)

Motivation Where Art Thou?

2009-07-08T22:33:00.005-06:00

By this time 3 weeks from today I will be downtown in Useless City celebrating being DONE with the barzam with my friends. While the thought of being done in a little less than 3 short weeks is thrilling, the fact that there really isn't that much time left to study is terrifying. And yet, despite how close it is, I just can't seem to get motivated to study. I wasted all of yesterday vacation planning (Fashionista and I are headed to an all inclusive resort in the Cancun area come August-WOOT!). I wasted all of Monday doing literally nothing. My biggest accomplishment of the past 72 hours has been achieving a high score of 91,000 points on Facebook Bejeweled. I'm not comfortable with the essays, my MBE score is okay but not stellar, and yet I just can't seem to kick the procrastination. Maybe I do need to have a gigantic freak out. Maybe a total breakdown would get me in the mindset that I need to be in to crank all of this out. At this point I'm not sure if the reason I'm not motivated is because I'm really actually worried about how much I have to learn and it's overwhelming or if it really is just the usual apathy that seems to have plagued me for my entire law school career.

I've spent a pretty good chunk of time the last few days trying to figure out why I can't be productive and I can't seem to pinpoint it. I tried studying by myself. Didn't work, I just kept playing bejeweled. I tried hanging out in the journal office where two other totally focused and motivated people were doing barzam work. That didn't do anything for me either. I've tried different iTunes playlists ranging from classical to upbeat rock/pop. Still nothing. Even my usual "focus" music- which happens to be the soundtrack to the first Pirates of the Caribbean- didn't help, which is particularly disturbing because that soundtrack has done the trick every time since college. The roomie and I used to put that on whenever we had papers to write and for some reason it just made us finally write stuff down on the blank page. I literally cranked out a 15 page paper in 3 hours with that soundtrack on constant repeat, but apparently it just doesn't work for studying Wills and Trusts or Federal Civil Procedure :(

I think at this point the plan for tomorrow is going to have to include some Red Bull and a strict no internet rule, thank goodness Big Wig already offered to kick my ass if he caught me on Facebook tomorrow. *sigh*

In other news, I exchanged the Tiffany's graduation gift and now own the pendant that I have wanted since I was in high school:

And as far as other things totally unrelated to the bar go, I am totally psyched for Glee this Fall on Fox, the previews that were playing during So You Think You Can Dance tonight definitely brought out my inner nerd. Trivia Boy also recently introduced me to Weeds and Entourage and I'm totally hooked. Once I have a job with $$ I'm going to have to upgrade my Netflix account and figure out a way to hook up my computer to the TV so that I can get caught up on all of the seasons that I've missed.

Little Blue Box

2009-07-03T19:39:00.005-06:00

If diamonds are a girl's best friend, then the little blue box from Tiffany & Co. is the second best.

After a fairly relaxing day that did not include bar exam studying I went home to my parent's. When I arrived I noticed a box hanging out on the porch, so I picked it up figuring it was something my mom had ordered and had not been home to get when UPS showed up. I was confused when I read that the box was addressed to me. I hadn't ordered anything to be delivered at my parent's house. At first I thought my mom might have ordered something for me, so I didn't want to open it in case it was a surprise, although I had no idea what it could be because graduation is over and my birthday is a full 6 months away.

I asked my mom about it, she didn't know what it was either, so I opened it. I was floored when I saw that the tissue paper inside said "Tiffany & Co." I thought it was some kind of hoax. I opened up the little gift card and found that it was a belated graduation gift from my dad's cousin. AHHHHH A LITTLE BLUE BOX FROM TIFFANY!!!! I was literally bouncing off the walls!!! All you guys out there, take note: if you want to totally make a woman's day, bring her something in the little blue box, there's something about the perfect little white bow around the unmistakable greenish blue square box that's just so exciting, it's so pretty you almost don't want to open it.

So after several moments of OMG I GOT A BLUE BOX and admiring the packaging with my mom while my dad sat in the kitchen confused as to what all the fuss over the box was about, I untied the bow, took the lid off the box, and pulled out.............................

Yup, it's a pen. I felt like the biggest brat in the world for being slightly disappointed by it. I've never really been fond of fancy pens. Pens are things that I lose frequently. Pens are things that get thrown around without much care, lost in the depths of my purse and left strewn about my apartment/office/car/etc. Is it totally wrong if I exchange it for something else? Maybe put it towards a pendant or bracelet? I love jewelry and have worn my current Tiffany bracelet everyday for the last 3 years, so I would get a ton of use out of any jewelry I might pick out. The thought behind the gift is totally awesome, I was absolutely floored that I got something so thoughtful and nice from extended family, and the surprise factor totally made my whole weekend. But I just know that the pen will be something that will get stored away in some drawer and never used for fear that it'll end up getting lost with all the other pens that are fairly disposable in my life. Input on this is much appreciated!!

Not Your Normal July Barzam Freak Out

2009-07-02T21:32:00.004-06:00

I think I've figured out why I'm not exactly flipping out about the bar exam. It's because I'm really more scared of what comes after the bar. As much as studying sucks, and as much as I have actually missed working, the realization that in 3 short weeks there will be no more class, no more studying, no more mid afternoon coffee runs to the Starbucks across the street from Useless University with friends has really put me into a funk. The only thing I have done for the last 20 years of my life is go to school. The last 7 of those years have been at Useless University. Although law school was anything but fabulous and I'm not sure I would do it again, at the end of the day I really am going to miss being there. I'm going to miss the campus, and the people, and I might even miss some of the stress and headaches. I know that I need to be brave and just jump off the cliff into the "real world" but the thought of doing so really does make me want to puke.

Lately it's become increasingly difficult to fight the urge to check out other school options, like grad schools, or maybe even a Ph.D program. As an undergrad I was always astonished by the so called "professional students," I couldn't understand how anyone could be in school that long. At that time in my life I was having a blast in school, but I just assumed that school would eventually grow old. Law school definitely got old and I was definitely happy and eager to be done. But going to school itself still hasn't grown old. I'm starting to think it never will. That's not necessarily a bad thing, but it does make it hard for me to start that next chapter that I'm supposed to be moving onto once I have that law license in hand.

When I started the summer of bar prep, I thought that having at least a week and maybe more to relax and do nothing would be absolutely essential. And although I'm excited about the post bar celebration plans and some rest will be a good thing, having down time with potentially no job and nothing to keep me busy while I wait for bar results to be released could quite literally make me go nuts.

Oye, being an adult is so overrated. Where do I go to sign up for recess, finger painting, and PB&J with a Little Debbie Oatmeal Cream Pie for lunch?

The Calm Before the Storm

2009-06-30T22:56:00.002-06:00

I just got home from a fabulous night at trivia with the crew, after a long day of trying to teach myself Wills & Trusts for the Barzam it was definitely a great relaxing break. As I sat down at my computer to check my email one last time before turning in for the night an automatic reminder popped up reminding me to pay my rent tomorrow.

Crap.

That means tomorrow is July 1. That means that the big huge BARZAM label on my calendar is now staring me in the face. It means I have less than a month to put all of this crap together. It means that 4th of July weekend is actually here. It seems like an eternity ago all of us newly graduated JDs heard that July 4th weekend is where all of the s*it would hit the fan. Now it's literally here. Crap.

Strangely enough, the "crap" response, is not because I'm overwhelmed by the bar, not because I feel like I don't know what I'm doing, not because I feel like I'm going to fail, rather it's because I feel like I should be freaking out, like I should be more worried than I am at this point. Don't get me wrong, I'm not ready to take the bar and I know I have tons of work left. But I seem to have become the calm one of my group. Fashionista is about ready to lose it and I'm really worried about her, especially since she's pretty much all alone in her hometown studying by herself. Besides that, up to this point I've been the level headed one of the crew in Useless City, the one repeating the "it's going to be fine" mantra, the one not letting this damn exam get under my skin, it really is so unlike me. I usually freak out, I usually worry a lot, I usually doubt myself and work myself into an absolute frenzy before finally getting it together and putting my head back on straight. I'm starting to wonder what the hell is wrong with me, because this is arguably the biggest exam of my life and for the first time in my life I'm actually feeling fine.

I know that this could just be the calm before the storm. If that's the case, this could be one hell of a storm I'm about to face.

Project Blog Makeover

2009-06-28T22:15:00.003-06:00

As you can see, I've been procrastinating on my bar studies to put together a totally revamped blog design. It's finally up and running! I was growing tired of the old peach color and decided since law school is over that it was the perfect time to put together something new.

Other than the new blog look the last few days have been rather uneventful. Fashionista and I are still in the planning stages of the vacay adventure and our list of places to go and stay keeps growing longer and longer, the task for this week will definitely be to narrow it down. I've spent the last 3 days in the barbri 3 day MBE workshop. I didn't do so hot on the MBE, but judging what the rest of my friends and acquaintances got I think I'm right about average for this point in the game. I wasn't expecting the 2 day review to be helpful, and I was in fact looking forward to ditching it and having a weekend, but surprisingly it was very helpful and I think if I took another MBE tomorrow without studying anymore law I would improve my raw score by 10 points just off of the tips that we went over. So I suppose if it really does end up helping then giving up the entire weekend was worth it.

I'm also pretty sure I have "barzam elbow." It's similar to tennis elbow and occurs from overuse of my right hand/arm in writing notes, note cards, and filling in bubbles on MBEs. It really is surprising how much writing by hand hurts both my hand and my entire lower arm since I have been so accustomed to using my laptop almost exclusively for the past 3 years. Think studying for the bar counts as "work" for purposes of a worker's comp claim? Just a thought......

Let me know what you all think of the new digs- also I can only test the layout in Safari and Firefox, so if any of you Internet Explorer people out there encounter problems getting it to show up correctly let me know!!

Reality Bites

2009-06-25T15:32:00.002-06:00

A scene from Useless Law School, 2:30pm this afternoon, 3 girls, hundreds of note cards, random books stacked up everywhere, and not nearly enough caffeine to survive.

In walks Big Wig:

Big Wig: Check it out, I bought note cards! (he holds up a package of 100 blank index cards)
Me: That's cool, why'd you buy those?
Big Wig: Well I figure I should maybe make flashcards for the bar after all.
Me: Oh okay
Big Wig: You think 1 package is going to be enough?
Me: For what subject?
Big Wig: all of them.
Me: ALL of them??
Big Wig: yeah, just for like the major rules and stuff.
Me: For every subject on the MBE?
Big Wig: uhhhhh yeah
Me: Here, take these (hand him another pack of 100 cards out of my stack of about 1000), you're going to need at least 200

Vacation All I Ever Wanted

2009-06-25T00:13:00.004-06:00

Post Bar Vacay HERE I COME!!!!!

I've thought about a vacation after the bar exam since first year of law school. As of this morning I still didn't have any plans because BFF has been totally non-committal on the subject for the last 9 months. She promised last summer that we would absolutely do something but once January rolled around and I started doing some serious research on the options she totally backed down and kept giving me bullshit excuses as to why she couldn't discuss the possibilities or commit to anything. So today when I found a killer deal to Cancun in August I gave her one last chance. She has a job, she lives with her parents and essentially has no expenses and tons of money saved up. I on the other hand have an apartment that I'm not sure I'll be able to keep when my lease is up at the end of August, I don't have a permanent job offer for after the bar and depending on the feeling of the DA come August I may or may not have a paying intern job for the two months between the bar and results. Regardless of how irresponsible spending $ on vacation might be at this point for me, fuck it. I've put up with 3 years of hell, worked my ass off to achieve mere mediocrity, and have the rest of my damn life to work 60 hour weeks, I might as well take a 5 day vacay while I still can. BFF gave me the usual non committal response again today after stringing me along for about an hour talking about how good the deal I found was, etc. So I put my foot down.

Enter Fashionista. She moved back to her hometown right after graduation, but she's itching to come back and see all of her friends in Useless City. And as luck would have it, Useless City just happens to be the layover stop for all of the affordable flights down to Cancun. So after wasting an entire afternoon playing travel agent instead of studying property we've got it worked out PERFECTLY. Fashionista is flying in to spend a few days in Useless City, most importantly to spend an evening of ridiculous fun with the trivia crew, then we're flying down to Cancun for 3-4 nights of awesomeness and relaxation on the beach before returning to Useless City and then she'll continue on home. HOORAY! We aren't going until about 2 weeks after the bar because of various scheduling reasons. While it would be nice to skip town immediately after the exam ends, having time to put my life back in order, figure out the living/job situation and start packing up my apartment if necessary will be good.

SO EXCITED!!!! Now I just need to cross the bar exam off my to do list, which I suppose means i should get back to focusing on studying property instead of studying vacation outfit possibilities. *sigh*

It's Official

2009-06-22T23:00:00.004-06:00

I've officially earned my J.D. I got the last of the grades today and it was WAY better than I was expecting- a great surprise and a for sure GPA saver. My GPA isn't great and my class rank is rather pathetic, but I managed to escape law school with a higher final GPA than my GPA in my chemistry minor was in college, so I'll consider than an accomplishment :)

Speaking of chemistry, I absolutely would prefer to relearn and retake an entire year of college organic chemistry instead of trying to figure out Property. I hated property first year, never learned it, and now that barzam season has rolled around I've discovered that I hate it even more the second time around.

In keeping with the chemistry theme (but onto a totally different subject), my friends have been absolutely relentless in the last week about Trivia Boy. Last week after spending a good 5 hours in a classroom with Ms. Fabulous and the Rebel making flashcards and quizzing the hell out of contracts and con law we all parted ways to head home. About an hour after I got home Trivia Boy called to invite me to go see The Hangover with some other people, he had already invited the Rebel and told me to give Ms. Fabulous a call. Rebel caved at the last minute, Ms. Fabulous never returned my call and his other friend got caught at work taking care of some kind of disaster so it ended up just being the two of us. Nothing awkward about it, just a couple of friends hanging out (and the movie was hilarious!!). Apparently as we were walking out of the theater, Ms. Fabulous and one of her other friends were in line for popcorn before heading into see the later showing of the same movie. I didn't see her, and apparently didn't hear her when she yelled my name since i was on the other side of the lobby. When I arrived at BarBri the following morning I got grilled about the "details" of my movie "date" since she had seen me leaving with Trivia Boy.

It really is quite exhausting. Even if we were dating, or even if there was a possibility that it could be leading to that, I don't want to be interrogated every single day for all of the insignificant none of your business kinds of details my friends seem to be trying to illicit. It's also somewhat of a sticky situation since if I tell them the truth and say there's nothing going on they don't believe me and if I say I'm just refusing to discuss that subject at all they assume that there is actually something going on (and that's when rumors- even unintentional ones will start to fly). Why are girls so dramatic? Don't get me wrong, I love my girlfriends, I don't know how I would be getting through the barzam without them. But YIKES!!!

All in all thank goodness for the BFF. She really has been fabulous since the summer barzam madness began. She's up for movies, shopping, eating delicious crap if I need a break and she totally understands when I tell her I don't have time to catch up or can't firm up plans until I know for sure how the rest of the study madness is going to fall together for that particular week. Oh, and she wouldn't dare question me daily on every tiny detail of my every interaction with Trivia Boy. We have far more important things to worry and gossip about, like our mutual friend who is engaged for the 3rd time in 5 years and the hideous dresses she's going to try and make her bridesmaids wear and how we are going to avoid getting asked to be bridesmaids for this go around :-)

Finally

2009-06-16T22:51:00.003-06:00

It took a full flipping month after graduation, but Useless law finally got around to posting 75% of my final semester grades yesterday. They aren't great, I have definitely done better and my overall GPA will for sure take a big hit. But good news is, I for sure graduated. The last grade I'm waiting on is a fairly safe one, and the class I was worried I may not have legitimately passed didn't end up being the one I got the lowest grade in, so all is good.

It really is a great feeling to know that I will never ever ever for any reason have to worry about law school grades or law school finals ever again. In fact, it occurred to me today that if I ever decide to do a masters or Ph.D program, I may never have to see a grade as low as a C ever again. Not sure if it's normal, but at least at Useless University getting anything less than a B in any grad school program besides law is absolutely unheard of.

Now the only thing I'm worried about for the next 6 weeks is 281. That's the magic number (scaled score) that I need to put the final nail in this whole law coffin.

Useless Cast of Characters

2009-06-14T15:50:00.000-06:00

When I started blogging back in August of 2006 I didn't have any method of how I was going to identify the people who make up my useless life that I sometimes write about. Recently I've decided that it would be much easier to write and keep things straight if I gave everyone a bloggy name (cause if I'm anonymous they should be to). So without further ado I present:

[Useless] Cast of Characters

BFF: my best friend for the last seven years, we met in undergrad and have been causing problems/taking on the world in somewhat ridiculously fun fashion ever since. She's was smarter than me and didn't go to law school. She's loud, kinda snobby, loves to talk, and highly entertaining. Life would look so different with out her.

Little Sis: my younger sister is the one who got all of the artistic talent of the family. She also might be a genius, literally, but sometimes she lacks basic common sense. For example, she thought I was talking about a "bull" when I was telling a joke about "smoking a bowl." But we love her anyways.

Fashionista: one of my two closest friends from law school. She's a brat and moved back to her hometown two hours after graduation. We got through law school by eating a lot of pizza, consuming a lot of nachos, and oh yeah our biggest accomplishment of our 3 year adventure was finishing beer tour at the local trivia bar. She has rocking shoes and pulls off fashion looks I will never even attempt, oh and she loves fashion magazines, hence the name Fashionista.

Ms. Fabulous: the other one of my two closest friends from law school. She's nothing like Fashionista but she is truly fabulous. We interned for the same office during law school, we'd both like to be prosecutors after the bar, and we manage to find all kinds of fun and trouble to get into.

LMS (Little Miss Sunshine): everyone has to have at least one super sweet but totally naive and a little bit flaky friend. She's mine. No matter what life throws her way she manages to be an optimist at the end of the day. But sometimes I really do wonder how she manages to keep it all together because of the naive and flaky factor.

Trivia Boy: he was friends with Fashionista first and joined our trivia group a few months before graduation. He's been a part of the gang ever since and has become one of my good friends in the process. Some of my friends think he should be more than that, but that's just weird and totally awkward.

Roomie: my only roomie to date, we were roomies for 2 years in undergrad. She's smart, way more responsible than me, takes school very seriously, and went to law school on the opposite side of the country. She's becoming a bona-fide adult pretty fast, she already lined up a federal government job and recently got engaged to a fabulous guy. It'll be the first time in my young life that I'll actually be excited to attend a wedding of a good friend, but it does make me wonder sometimes if maybe I should eventually start thinking about doing the whole "adult" thing as well.

Best Buddy: my best friend from high school. We're still good friends but life has taken us in very different directions so we don't see each other or chat very often. She's married and thinking about starting a family, so it's hard sometimes because it feels like we don't have as much in common to talk and chat about anymore.

Ms. Realist: another member of the trivia crew, she's from the south and isn't afraid to tell it like it is. Her knack for humor is insane, she really should be a stand up comedian. If I ever thought about starting my own law firm someday I'd want her on my team because she really does just keep it all real.

The Rebel: she looks all sweet and innocent but once you get to know her you discover that she really is a rebel at heart. We were in the same section first year and she hung out with Fashionista and myself, but I didn't' really get to know her until she joined up with the trivia crew. She's the glue of the trivia crew and keeps us all in line, despite her rebel tendencies.

Big Wig: he was the EIC of the journal, I was his right hand gal serving in the #2 board position. Together we managed to not royally screw up the journal operation while having tons and tons of fun. He's a great guy who is perhaps a little too much of a frat boy at times, but he's going to make one hell of an attorney.

There's more people that I've left off that list for various reason, mostly because they conceivably won't come up in many stories, and when they do I can just throw something in on the fly. I'll update this from time to time, cause frankly it's kind of fun and I know that the cast of characters in my crazy life will continue changing with every new corner that I turn.

Last Updated: June 14, 2009

Not Sure What to Make of It

2009-06-13T20:05:00.002-06:00

At the beginning of the final semester of law school, my Law School BFF and I started going to trivia at one of the local restaurants/bars near useless law school. At first it was just the two of us, blowing off some steam and making friends with the regular bartenders. Over the course of the semester we put together a pretty regular small group of people, and we have tons of fun. Law School BFF moved out of Useless state right after graduation because she has a job back in her hometown. Those of us who are left still go to trivia every week, we've found that it's a great and much needed break from barzam prep. One of the regulars, we'll call him trivia team boy (because I think I've already used that name in at least one other post) has become a pretty good friend and we talk and hang out outside of weekly trivia. Last week another one of my law school gal pals commented to me that she thought me and trivia team boy should get together, I laughed cause it was absurd. I told him about it later that night at trivia and he also thought it was hilarious and absurd. Seriously, it would be WEIRD. Then two days ago trivia boy told me that several of his friends have made similar comments to him in the last week or so. Again, we laughed and brushed it off as absurd.

Fast forward to last night, I had put in about 10 straight hours of barzam studying when trivia boy breezed into the classroom I was working in to see if I wanted to go grab food. I hadn't eaten in almost 7 hours at this point and was starving, so I packed up my stuff and went with him. We ended up arriving at one of the local useless bars around 8:00. I literally have no idea where the next 5 hours went, because all of the sudden I looked down at my watch and discovered it was 1:15am. We were so engrossed in conversations about literally everything under the sun that it certainly didn't seem like 5 hours had gone by (he did most of the talking- lots of baggage and emotional crap that he clearly just needed someone to listen to). I can't remember the last time that has happened. By the time I got home and got to bed it was after 2am. I had to be up at 7am to take a mock barzam at Useless Law this morning. That was certainly not fun on 5 hours of sleep. I looked like hell and almost fell asleep during the exam despite 4 shots of espresso in my venti latte.

After the exam was over two of my law school gal pals that were there with me asked what the hell was up. I told them I didn't get enough sleep. They asked why, so I told them I was out with trivia team boy, which at the time I said it didn't seem like a big deal that anyone should care about. They immediately jumped to conclusions though and started grilling me for the "juicy" details and didn't believe me when I said that there were none and that it was just dinner, nothing more. Their reaction, and the previous comments of my friends and his friends have been bothering me all afternoon today. I seriously don't see this going ANYWHERE in that direction. I'm absolutely not his "type" and he's got tons of emotional baggage that he needs to sort through before he even thinks about reentering the dating game. But it still bothers me that everyone else seems to think something different is going on, I'm not totally sure why it bothers me, I really shouldn't give a crap about what other people think. I guess I'm just a little uncomfortable that something about this whole situation seems all too familiar to me, seems like a road I've already been down once before. A road that didn't end well at all. *sigh*

Writing this post made me realize I really need to come up with blog names for people, it really would make story telling so much easier

Run Run as Fast as You Can

2009-06-08T18:28:00.002-06:00

Today Useless Law School was an LSAT testing site. Since the June LSAT exam is on a Monday afternoon (as opposed to the typical Saturday morning time slots of the other exams), when I got out of BarBri at at noon today there were tons of stressed people hanging out in the lobby of Useless Law anxiously anticipating/dreading the start of the exam. I had to fight the urge to yell "RUN AWAY NOW" at the top of my lungs right there in the middle of the lobby.

Seriously, I remember exactly where these folks are. I was there, 4 years ago, the summer of 2005. I was TERRIFIED of the LSAT, it was the hardest damn thing I'd really tried to do in my life at that point. I hadn't been scoring all that well on my practice exams and I was worried I wasn't going to get a score high enough to go to law school at all. I was going to be totally crushed if I wasn't able to go to law school. At that point I had no idea what law school was like, what being a lawyer is like, or what studying for the bar would be like. If I knew what I know now when I was sitting in that same position 4 years ago, I'm not sure I would have taken the LSAT at all. I probably would have at least waited a year or so after undergrad to make sure I really wanted to go to law school. Ironically, now as I suffer through barzam studying I would sign up to take the LSAT again in a heartbeat. I'd give anything to just have to take a 3.5 hour exam that doesn't require knowing any substantive law to get a law license.

@rogueclown responded to my tweet on the subject this afternoon and said "i'll help. as someone one year out of law school who does not want to practice law, i feel uniquely qualified to assist." What about the rest of you law school blogging peeps? If you had to do it all over again would you go ahead and take the LSAT? Would you still go to law school after finishing the LSAT? Would anyone rather take the LSAT again instead of the barzam?

Autobiography (oh how I love procrastinating!)

2009-06-07T16:00:00.000-06:00

Shamelessly taken from Silly Little Law Student, this is so much better than studying for the barzam!

MY AUTOBIOGRAPHY

Where did you take your Facebook profile picture? Backyard of my parent's house.

What exactly are you wearing right now? My favorite comfy pjs.

What is your current problem? Barzam and trying to figure out if I really want to be a lawyer when I "grow up."

What makes you happy most? Lazy fun days with friends, skiing, dancing, a really good book, fabulous music.

What song are you listening to at the moment? Glee cast version of "Don't Stop Belivin."

Ever sang in front of a large audience? If a 4th grade choir concert counts then yes.

Do you still watch kiddy movies or kiddy TV shows? Movies yes, TV shows no.

Do you speak any languages? I tried to get Spanish down, it never did work, so that leaves me with just English.

Has anyone you’ve been really close with passed away? Yup :(

What’s something that really annoys you? The bar exam, and before that law school.

Chapter 1:
===============
1. Middle name: Something that starts with J.

2. Nicknames: Nothing cleaver, just a shortened version of my full name.

3. Current location: Apartment in Useless City.

4. Eye color: Hazel

Chapter 2:
===============
1. Do you live with your parent(s)? No, but if I don't get a job or if I can't keep interning after the barzam then I may be forced to move back in with them :(

2. Do you get along with your parent(s)? Depends on the day.

3. Are your parents married/separated/divorced? Married..

4. Do you have any Siblings? Yup, little sis.

Chapter 3: Favorites
===============
1. Ice Cream: Ben and Jerry's seven layer coconut bar.

2. Season: Winter & Spring.

3. Shampoo/conditioner: Bumble and Bumble Creme de Coco.

Chapter 4: Do You..
===============
1. Dance in the shower? Ummm no, this doesn't really sound like something that is a good idea, it's slippery!

2. Do you write on your hand? Nope.

3. Call people back? Depends on who it is.

4. Believe in love? Sure.

6. Any bad habits? Too many to list here!

Chapter 5: Have You..
===============
1. Broken a bone: Never.

2. Sprained stuff: My ankles, more times than I can even remember.

3. Had physical therapy: Nope.

4. Gotten stitches: Nope.

5. Taken painkillers: Just Advil or Tylenol.

6. Gone scuba diving or snorkeling: Nope.

7. Been stung by a bee: Once, when I was 4, right on the top of my eyelid, OUCH.

8. Thrown up at the dentist: No.

9. Sworn in front of your parents: All the time, they swear with me!

10. Had detention: I got kicked out of class once in high school, but I never had to stay for detention.

Chapter 6: Who/What was the last
===============
1. Movie(s): Star Trek (and it was AWESOME!)

2. Person to text you: The BFF.

3. Person you called: My mom.

4. Person you hugged: Law school buddy.

5. Person you tackled: I'm not much of a tackler.

6. Person you talked to on AIM/iChat: Trivia team boy.

7. Thing you touched: Seeing as how I'm typing I suppose that would be the keyboard of my laptop.

8. Thing you ate: toast with butter and honey (my new FAVORITE snack).

9. Thing you drank: Pina Colada (YUM).

10. Thing you said: Talk to you later.

Chapter 7: Future
===============
1. Where do you see yourself in 5 years? Hopefully employed and not starving or living with my parents. Theoretically I'll be a lawyer, but who knows.

2. Where do you hope to live? Not sure anymore, lately I've been itching to head east, maybe D.C., but again, jobs are going to be the big factor, I'm perfectly content in Useless City though.

3. Do you want to be famous? Nope, I like being able to go out in public and have no one know who I am :)

Gentle request of my non-law friends and family

2009-06-06T22:56:00.004-06:00

I know that you are all trying to be supportive, but please, I am begging you, stop asking me about the bar exam! I don't want to detail for you what exactly I'm studying, what exactly is involved in bar prep, what exactly is on the exam, what exactly the practice exam that I took today entailed, or answer any other mundane questions you might think up for me about the bar between now and the end of July. When I actually have time to chat with you or meet up with you for lunch or dinner I want to think about anything BUT the bar exam. I want to gossip, talk about mindless TV shows, hear about work drama, etc. I do not for any reason want to discuss the bar. The problem with discussing the bar is that it not only stresses me out, but unless you are a law student or a lawyer you don't really get it and frankly you never will, no matter what or how much I explain.

My BFF just talked at me for the last 10 minutes about how she thinks it's great that the multiple choice part is the day after the essays because multiple choice in her mind requires less thought, creativity, and brain power. I told her that the bar exam multiple choice isn't like any multiple choice exam she's ever seen. When she didn't believe me I just gave up. I was just too tired and burnt out on it all to try and make her understand just how convoluted and hard the MBE questions are.

Interestingly enough, I don't mind talking about the bar with my law friends because they get it. Either they've already been through this hell, they're getting ready to go through this hell in the next 6-12 months, or they are currently in hell with me. Commiserating with comrades and colleagues is a great outlet of stress, but talking (or rather being forced to talk) about the bar with the rest of you isn't an outlet for stress at all, in fact it usually just ends up stressing me out even more.

I know you are all doing this because you care and because you are trying to be interested in what I'm spending the majority of my summer doing, but I just wish you would stop. I'm living and breathing the bar for the next 7.5 weeks for most, if not all, of each and every single damn day. So please, if you really care about how I'm doing with the barzam madness find something funny or interesting to talk to me about that doesn't have anything to do with the law or the bar exam. And if you really love me you'll start stocking up on the fun chick flicks and booze now so that when I finish this hell on July 29 I can get started on trying to forget any of this every happened.

The first of many Barzam WFT?

2009-06-06T17:31:00.006-06:00

WTF KaplanPMBR- I'm pretty sure you're answer to this practice question is wrong, and very frankly this question is just bad bad bad all the way around, WTF?

Here's the question (paraphrased slightly cause it's LONG:

J had a cat named M. Cat is worth $500. J's neighbor N hates cat. N saw M in his backyard eating his plant. N called J, told her to come get the cat or he would kill it. J immediately ran over to N's yard to get M. Meanwhile, N loaded shotgun and went outside. J saw N with the shotgun and said "please don't shoot my cat." N said "I'm sick and tired of her eating my plant." N pointed the rifle at the cat, J instinctively dove towards the cat to save her. At the same time N shot the rifle, grazing J's ear and wounding the cat. J was overcome with grief and became emotionally distraught.

J brings suit to recover damages against N. Which of the following causes of action would afford J the maximum recovery?
A. Battery
B. Conversion
C. Trespass to chattels
D. Negligent infliction of emotional distress

Key with the question is that it's asking for the best way for the plaintiff to recover the maximum amount. Therefore I eliminated conversion and trespass to chattels because the most that the plaintiff would be able to recover for conversion would be $500 (the full value of the cat) and presumably trespass would be less than conversion. That left me with the choices for battery and negligent infliction of emotional distress. Seriously, WTF, how am I supposed to know based on the facts given which one would be more likely to get the plaintiff more $$? It's literally a wild guess. Based on the fact that plaintiff got SHOT by a RIFLE I picked battery cause that's definitely a harmful and offensive touching and there is definitely actual damage. Furthermore, in order to have a negligent infliction of emotional distress the plaintiff has to have physical manifestations (symptoms) from being put in physical danger (a "near miss" kinda thing). In this case it wasn't a near miss, it was an actual battery and facts only said plaintiff was emotionally distraught, not that she manifested any physical symptoms from being emotionally distraught.

So battery is the correct answer right?

WRONG

Correct answer was negligent infliction of emotional distress. PMBR has ZERO explanation as to why it's not battery. They simply say that NIED would yield more damages than either conversion or chattels because the maximum for conversion is $500 and trespass is less than $500.

SERIOUSLY??? WTF?

*sorry for spamming all of your blog readers with my edits on this post, stupid blogger didn't apply the spell checks I made and my spelling is embarrassingly bad when I get going on rant!*

To the Pointe

2009-06-04T20:43:00.004-06:00

When I was 4 years old my mom put me in a ballet/tap combo class for one hour every week. I immediately fell in love with the ballet part of it and have been dancing ever since. All through high school I was pretty serious about it, I did at least 3 hours of class a week and did the whole pointe shoe thing, but once college rolled around I didn't have time to make it to my regular studio and never really did find a studio near Useless University that I loved, so I stopped dancing on a regular basis. I picked up ballet classes again at my regular studio when law school started 3 years ago, but with the crazy schedule that I've had this past year I haven't been to a class in about 9 months.....

Until tonight :-)

I am sore all over and exhausted as all heck, but damn I feel good!!! Ballet seriously might just be the best workout on the planet. I've tried some of the more "trendy" workout things, yoga, zumba, etc., and while I enjoy yoga nothing beats a fabulous ballet class. I can relax, stretch, work up a sweat, and clear my head of all that BarBri nonsense that has been ruling my life these days.

I tried a new studio for tonight's class, my usual studio doesn't have a regular schedule in the summer because of the annual recital at the end of July. I'm always a little hesitant to try a new studio, I'm usually worried that I'm not going to like it, that the instructor won't be great, that not knowing anyone in the class will be awkward, that I won't be able to keep up, etc. But I went ahead and did it anyways.

Much to my surprise and joy the instructor gave the first warm up exercise and then put on the music for us and it just happened to be the CD that my most beloved late ballet teacher composed (and also plays the piano on). I mentioned to the instructor at the end of the class that I was trained by the woman who composed and performed the CD she had used all through class and the instructor was surprised to learn that the CD was by someone local. She commented that it was the first ballet CD that she can use for all levels, including her little kids, and that she had no idea who the composer was but decided very quickly after listening to it for the first time that she is brilliant. And that's the point at which I could feel the warm tinge of almost tears creeping into my eyes. Because she was brilliant. A brilliant dancer, former prima ballerina, musician, and composer. But beyond that she was absolutely the best teacher and mentor I have ever had at any point in my life and she was just a wonderful down to earth person who absolutely loved each new day that life brought her. She's been gone for almost four years now, but I still consider her to be one of the most important influences in my life. I was reminded this evening that I am so lucky because I had the privilege to know her and study with her for seven fabulous years, it's truly sad that it couldn't have been more.

Is astrology trying to tell me something?

2009-06-03T17:09:00.003-06:00

I've never been one to take horoscopes seriously, but my horoscope today is almost so spot on with how bar prep has been going for me this week that it's almost scary:

You might have mixed emotions about what you need to do at work today, yet you cannot put off your decision too much longer. Instead of making your choice based upon the current circumstances, it might be helpful for you to stand back and take a longer view of what you are doing and where you would like to go. Although there may be a growing concern this week that must be addressed, don't lose sight of the larger context in which these events are unfolding.

A Final Letter (hopefully!) to Useless Law

2009-06-01T07:36:00.003-06:00

Dear Useless Law School,

It's been 16 days since graduation for the class of 2009, and 18 days since final exams for the Spring 2009 semester ended. I know that posting grades in a timely manner has never been a forte of yours. The professors at Useless Law are rather lazy about grading, especially over the summer break, and sometimes it's July before we finally know how the spring semester turned out. However, something dawned on me today as I'm sitting here immersed in Contracts and Sales for that tiny little quiz I still have to take at the end of July. You must certify to Useless State Bar Examiners that I have indeed graduated before I sit for the July exam. Doing that will require that I at least passed all of my final semester classes with a D or better. Now granted, I've never gotten a D before, so it is unlikely that I would get anything lower than a D now, but still shouldn't the professors at Useless Law have to get grades for the graduated peeps in to you in a timely manner? I am going to be far beyond crabby if I find out 3-5 weeks from now, after already diving head first into bar prep, that I didn't in fact graduate and that I have to make up credits for a failed class this fall. Again, unlikely for me since I haven't gotten anything lower than a C so far in law school, but it would still be nice to know for sure that law school is in fact totally and officially over before I put too much more effort into these BarBri books. Even just 1 or 2 grades at this point would be nice. In fact, I'm really just looking for my grade from Corporations, that's the only class that would realistically keep me from graduating. So if you could be ever so kind as to light a fire under Useless Corporations Professor's Ass to get those grades in I'd really appreciate it.

Sincerely,

[Useless Dicta, J.D.]

Useless Book?

2009-05-30T22:39:00.002-06:00

I've had quite a few ideas for blog posts pop into my head over the last year or so, but it seems I never get around to writing them. Whenever I get an idea and actually remember it long enough I jot it down on a post it or in a running stream of consciousness document I save on my computer. The list of ideas is getting quite long. I sat down this afternoon to try and see if I could tackle a couple of the ideas and it became very clear very fast that the posts were going to be far too long (and consume far too much time on my last weekend of freedom until after the bar exam). And that's when a really crazy idea hit me. Should I end up as another unemployed lawyer out there in the huge sea of other unemployed professionals come this fall, would it be totally crazy to try and write a book? I have no idea if the musings in my head translate well to paper, or whether anyone would actually care to read those musings, let alone if anyone would be insane or stupid enough to publish such a project. But it's an interesting and intriguing thought nonetheless. Such a project wouldn't be any thing remotely resembling academic work, I'm not talking thought provoking, deep intellectual well-researched argument here, and it might be a rather useful creative outlet. Perhaps I've had one too many glasses of wine tonight. At any rate, the idea is at least worth mulling over as I finish off this most excellent pinot grigio on this lovely summer night, insight, thoughts, and comments as always are more than welcome.

Pool Fail

2009-05-29T08:25:00.002-06:00

I'm not much of a summer person, I actually far prefer winter because I love skiing and actually don't really mind the snow except for when it creates big drama on the morning or evening commute. And to top it off I absolutely hate the heat, so anything above about 80 degrees and I start to get crabby. So unlike many of my barzam friends, I don't really have too much of a problem motivating myself to stay in the nice cool air conditioned indoors with my stack of barbri books. But the past few days in Useless City have been absolutely gorgeous, not too hot, not too cold, just perfect. So when I saw the maintence guys at my apartment complex moving brand new patio furniture out to the pool three days ago I was excited because there are several brand new BIG tables with umbrellas that could theoretically be used for a change of scenery in my summer studies. After all, a mix of shade, sun and some iced tea really does sound great right about now. Too bad this sign was taped to the elevator this morning as I ventured out to get my usual morning latte:

Pool and pool deck closed until further notice for code upgrades. Sorry for the inconvenience.

BOO
Apparently that whole open the pool by memorial day and keep it open until labor day isn't happening this year, knowing the managment at my apartment complex it'll probably be closed until after the 4th of July.

Speaking of the 4th of July (and on a totally different note), barbri MPT workshop dude basically told us yesterday that the month of June isn't really too bad, that you're typically learning stuff, doing problems, and feeling a little bit of stress but not overwhelmed. Apparently that usually changes 4th of July weekend, and that's when most people have the huge freakout, meltdown, hysterical crisis that turns them into the people we're all scared of being around during barzam season. Given that I've also heard this from a few of last summer's barzamers, I'm thinking I really should just schedule said freakout in my handy dandy planner so that I'm sure to have plenty of wine on hand when that weekend finally rolls around.

Unsolicited Bar Advice

2009-05-28T09:00:00.003-06:00

Many of my friends who have already taken and passed the bar exam have offered up plenty of unsolicited advice to me in the past few weeks about how to approach bar exam studying, I thought I'd share their advice here for those of you who are interested.

(1) Barbri in Useless state recommends that we read the entire outline (from the books made out of legal sized paper) for each subject before coming to the lecture for that subject. Despite that recommended advice, all of my friends have said that doing this is a waste of time. The lectures focus in on exactly what from each subject you need to know for the bar exam, the outlines have a lot of extraneous information that there's no reason to spend time learning.

(2) In Useless state the bar exam is out a total score of 400 points. 200 for the MBE and 200 for the writing day (combination of performance tests and essays). Raw scores on each section are scaled and a passing score is a 276 scaled score. Barbri drills the 276 number into our heads, trying to get through to the gunners that there is no need to try and ace the exam, just get a 276 and you're good. However, this isn't exactly true. In Useless state, any score between a 276-280 is subject to an automatic regrade, if you fall below a 276 on the regrade then you fail the whole exam. So really, 281 is the magic number, cause no one wants to risk a regrade! Make sure to check your state's grading procedures and figure out where you're going to need to be on each portion to not necessarily ace the exam, but to pass without problems.

(3) Take at least one day off every week until after the 4th of July. Depending on how you feel after 4th of July weekend continue taking at least a day off, or start adding a few hours of studying to your normal "off" days. Rest/relaxation/breaks and a little bit of fun are as important during bar exam season as studying is, otherwise you'll be burned out before the exam actually happens.

(4) Just because all of your friends, study buddies, etc., are making thousands of flash cards for every bar subject doesn't mean you have to do that too. If flash cards have never worked for you before don't try to make them work for you now. Flash cards are not the key to passing the bar. You've spent many years up to this point discovering what study methods work and don't work, so don't try something totally new just because you feel like you have to be doing the exact same thing everyone else is doing to study for the bar.

(5) Although the bar is important and no one really wants to have to take it a second time, remember that this exam is not the be all end all of your entire life. It's just a test. Repeat, it's just a test. Plenty of fabulous attorneys have failed the bar on the first try. Many more have failed it multiple times. The bar is not an accurate measure of the kind of attorney you will be or how successful of a career you will have. It's just a hurdle. Nothing more, nothing less. With that in mind, it is something that requires attention, effort, and focus for 8-10 weeks, but it is not something that you should kill yourself over.

Feel free to share any other tidbits of advice that you've heard, learned, or discovered :)

The Official Start of Barbri

2009-05-27T20:13:00.004-06:00

The first day of barbri was a bit like the first day of school. It's been 2 weeks since graduation so there was a lot to catch up on with friends and there were lots of new faces, which I assume are students from the other Useless state law school, out of state students, or attorneys who are unlucky enough to not get reciprocity into Useless state. Also in the usual first day of school fashion, there really was no point to the day, no important information, no learning, bascially just a waste of time.

So what was the first day of bar prep then you ask? Well, Mr. Barbri dude lectured for 1.5 hours on the rules of barbri lectures (no video taping, make up policies, etc), lectured for 45 mins on the format of useless state bar exam, and spent the last hour lecturing on the general study schedule/strategy that barbri suggests we follow for the next 8 weeks. Ironically ALL of that information was given to us in a nicely typed 5 page handout. Yes, Mr. Barbri dude lectured for a total of 3 hours and 15 minutes from a 5 page packet that we all had read in its entirety during the first 10 minutes of the morning. Which means that my first offical day of bar prep was spent making pretty color coded tabs for my bar prep books, organizing my study schedule for the next 8 weeks and taking far too many of those silly Facebook quizzes.

Thankfully tomorrow is a performance test workshop, so hopefully that'll be more useful than today's lecture, stay tuned!

Train Wreck Part Two

2009-05-26T12:35:00.002-06:00

If I had bet $100 on my internship backtracking/changing the story from what they told me last week then I'd be $100 richer today.

In the days that followed the conversation with HR about not coming back after the bar because I wasn't getting a permanent offer I contacted my direct supervisor as well as the supervisor above her to inquire as to what had happened, why I wasn't being considered, etc, because I wanted to know specific reasons before starting the quest for another job. As many of my friends pointed out to me last week after all that crap initally went down, I gave them 2 years, and while I gained a ton of experience that ultimately benefits me at the end of the day, they also got a lot of benefit from me and spent a lot of time and money training/grooming me so at the very least I deserve a more specific explanation as to what happened. The response I got to those emails (which were very polite and professional) seeking an explanation were comical to say the very least. Within an hour of emailing my supervisors boss (who I had worked with a little bit) I got this response from HR director:

Hi Useless Dicta,

I was mistaken when I suggested you may not be offered a position or continued internship opportunities with our office. We will be contacting you soon to talk with you about your internship this summer, etc. Please let us know what is the best number for us to reach you at during the day.

Thanks!
HR Director

Okay seriously WTF???? HR director was "mistaken" by "suggesting" that I can't intern after the bar and won't be offered a position. Conversation I had on the phone last week was not a mere "suggestion", it was a blatant, flat out "we are not hiring you and you may not return as an intern" statement. If that was a mistake then fine, at least apologize for it. I've spent the last week on a roller coaster ranging from being upset and disappointed, to angry, to deciding that I'm cut out for much bigger adventures in life, I think the least HR Director could do would be to add an "I'm sorry for the confusion, etc" to that email.

At first I was going to cut some slack for the non apology. I emailed HR director back and gave my phone number. Rather than call me, I got a short (somewhat curt) email response that merely said "contact us in August after the bar about coming back as an intern."

So there's zero reassurance that I will have a job for a couple of months after the bar exam, I therefore have no idea if I should go ahead and schedule a post bar vacay because it doesn't seem prudent to spend money (even though I do have some saved up) on a vacay if I'm going to be unemployed. For now I'm proceeding as though I don't have a job, I'm turning in applications to several state court clerkships that just opened up last week and if I find something before August I'm not calling my internship office after the bar, I'm going to just move on and never look back. I'm sick of the bullshit this office has put me and others before me through.

Thanks to all of your supportive comments to my post last week, they definitely brightened my day. Also, if I'm being unreasonable with my reaction to today's events please let me know, I realize that I may not actually have the proper perspective on this whole situation.

Train Wreck

2009-05-21T18:55:00.002-06:00

So apparently that lunch meeting didn't go well. I got a call from the human resources director yesterday, my last day at work was last friday. The understanding at that time was that all of the interns would be back in August after the bar and then intern until bar results in October. Well apparently that's not the case, because human resources lady asked for my badges back and said that I can't come back and intern because they aren't going to hire me after bar results.

F*%^

No explanation, no reason, no nothing. It was like getting kicked in the stomach, it was literally out of the blue. She even told me "everyone who has worked with you just thinks the world of you and highly recommends you."

WTF?

I'm beyond bummed out and disappointed. My direct supervisor was shocked and dumbfounded but can't really do anything about it because she has no power and no say when it comes to hiring.

So now I have no idea what the hell to do. I know I need to pass the bar and just focus on that and worry about the rest later. But it is so hard to motivate myself to focus on the bar when everything I've worked for the past 2 years just got yanked out from underneath me.

The district I interned for has a reputation for screwing people over and also for changing their minds. Although at this point I'm not hoping that they change their mind and if they did change their mind I'm not sure I'd really want to go back. But I also have massive school debt and the thought of being totally unemployed after the bar exam (as opposed to having at least a 2 month cushion where I could intern and look for jobs) really makes me want to throw up.

Bright spot in all of this is that since all this crap went down yesterday I've realized that I really do have amazing friends and colleagues. I had so many phone calls and emails yesterday from people who were shocked and offering support, help, etc., that it really was remarkable, I had no idea that I had that many people around me who genuinely care, it was touching. And as one of my good friends of many years pointed out to me, things will work out eventually, they always have, and it'll work out this time too. So maybe that phone call from HR yesterday really is a blessing in disguise, maybe I'm meant to do something bigger and better.

But for now, it just sucks, I'm disappointed, bitter, pissed off, and out of wine.

Here Goes Nothing

2009-05-19T09:36:00.002-06:00

After a fabulous day off in which I slept in, cleaned my apartment that was starting to look more and more like a frat house on a daily basis, and watched 3 glorious hours of great TV (yes the Bachelorette qualifies as great TV), I decided I should start this whole bar prep thing that people keep twittering/talking/blogging about.

I signed up for KaplanPMBR for the MBE review. I'm not really sure I needed it, I was basically scared into it. When we signed up for PMBR at Useless Law it was basically advertised that the classes would be held at Useless Law just like the Bar/Bri classes that start next week will be. Big surprise came last week when PMBR finally decided to send out the schedule and notify us that we would have to trek downtown to some random hotel to take the 6 day foundation course. After finding out that the foundation course is just a timed test in the morning and watching a video reviewing the timed test in the afternoon I called PMBR and made them switch me to the online course so that I don't have to trek downtown just to watch a video that I can get online.

The PMBR course started yesterday, but since I have the freedom of doing the course when I want I took yesterday off and am not about 2 hours late getting started today. The bar totally freaks me out, and I only want to do this once, but I'm finding it really hard to get started. I'm almost ready to offer to do the law review write on that 1L sitting at the table next to me in lawbrary is doing if he'll agree to do my bar prep- sounds reasonable right? :)

Useless Dicta, J.D.

2009-05-18T10:02:00.003-06:00

Graduation was fun, exiting, and totally exhausting. I'm taking today off to get my chaotic life back in order, but bar prep starts bright and early tomorrow morning so I'm sure I'll have plenty of things to blog about once that begins :)

One Million Five Thousand Seventy Six Eight Hundred Minutes

2009-05-15T20:54:00.006-06:00

1,576,800 minutes.* That's how many minutes make up 3 years. It's a huge number. It seems like it should take a long time to get through that many minutes. 3 years ago I was finishing up my thesis, having fun with friends, and getting ready to graduate and head to law school. The end of law school wasn't in sight 1,576,800 minutes ago. 3 years seemed like an eternity when my first set of 1Ls finals were staring me down. But in retrospect those million plus minutes sure did go fast.

My last day at my internship was today. While I know that it is necessary that I take the next 2.5 months off to focus full time on studying for and passing useless state's bar exam, it was a little sad to be leaving. I didn't think it would be. I don't know if I have a full time offer yet, but I do know that I'll be going back to my internship in August. So I knew that today wasn't actually the end of something, and that's why I didn't think that today would be a big deal. But all the goodbyes, and well wishes, and hugs really got to me and as I was leaving I found that for some reason my eyes starting getting wet with tears as I was saying bye to my boss (who was also teary eyed herself- she really is kind of like a mom to me). It just doesn't seem real that somehow this is all over.**

Law school graduation is at 10am tomorrow morning, a mere 780 minutes away. When I started my last final this past Monday I had a grin from ear to ear, because I knew it was the very last time I'd ever be sitting down to battle a law school exam. When the final ended I practically ran from the exam room, I couldn't get out of there fast enough. But despite the exhilaration of finally finishing, for some reason the fact that I'm graduating tomorrow hasn't quite sunk in yet. Honestly it might not sink in until it's over. Or maybe it'll finally hit me when I'm forced to put on the hideous awful hat they are forcing us to wear tomorrow. Regardless of when it finally sinks in, one thing is certain, those million minutes sure did go fast.

* Not quite as catchy as 525,600 minutes, extra credit for naming that musical!
** I realized after writing this post that I seem to have a constant theme for the last two weeks of "I can't believe how fast it went." So apparently I still don't believe it and promise to find new blogging themes/materials when bar review starts on Monday

And then there were NONE

2009-05-11T20:50:00.003-06:00

Law school for this useless law student ended today at 11:01am :)

I had fair warning that the end of law school doesn't necessarily lead to a musical worthy grand finale, so I prepared by grabbing some celebratory beverages last night on my way home from the library. We didn't get too crazy this afternoon with the celebration, but popping the cork on some decent and well deserved bubbly was certainly great way to end law school.

Cheers to the class of 2009!!

I'm sure I'll have a more reflective thoughts to come in the next few days- stay tuned!

And Then There Was One

2009-05-09T08:41:00.002-06:00

Just one more exam left and I'll be done with law school forever. As much as I've hated law school at times, I'm not really sure that it's fully hit me yet that in T-minus 50.5 hours I'll be completely and totally done with law school. A lot has happened in the last 3 years, and yet I have no idea where the hell time went. It seems like yesterday I was finishing up that undergrad thesis and getting ready to embark on this crazy journey.

Even though I really can't figure out how 3 years seemed to go by so fast, the next 2 days seem like they will never end. I have just barely 2 days to teach myself corporations (because go figure that I would choose to finish law school with a horrible 2 hour closed book exam for a 4 credit class that most graduating students avoid like the plague). But by 11:01am (or more like 11:10 because exams never start on time at useless law) I will be totally and completely done, and my friends and I are planning on going out with a bang, there will definitely be champagne and celebrating as soon as it's over :)

Money Freakout

2009-05-07T07:57:00.002-06:00

For some reason I decided I should check my student loan accounts. I about had a heart attack when I found that payments on my grad plus loans start NEXT FREAKING MONTH. Apparently there is no grace period on those. AHHHHHH.

Thankfully after some frantic calls I found out that a forbearance can be applied to the grad plus loans to align my first payment on those with my first payment on my stafford loans (ie: give me a 6 month grace period). All it took was some being nice to the crabby loan lady on the other end of the phone.

So crisis adverted for now. But come January 2010 I've got some serious $$$ due to uncle sam, and even if I have a job by that point it's still going to suck to fork it over.

Or Maybe it Should be 20 Words

2009-05-05T23:21:00.002-06:00

Friend of mine pointed out that 3 more words need to be added onto the 17 word description of law school:

Don't get caught.

Too bad passing corporations is going to take slightly more than 17 or 20 words.

Law School in 17 Words

2009-05-04T22:37:00.002-06:00

My little sis (who is a college freshman) summed up law school in 17 brilliant words when I explained to her that I had to relearn Constitutional Law, Criminal Law, Torts, and Contracts for my legal analysis final on Thursday:

Don't do bad stuff. Don't steal people's shit. Don't get injured. Don't make deals with stupid people.

Couldn't have said it better myself.

The end in numbers

2009-05-02T21:53:00.002-06:00

Total number of classes in final law school semester: 4
Number of exams completed so far: 2
Number of exams left: 2
Hours spent in library prepping for final semester exams: at least 30 at this point
Hours of prep still needed to get ready for remaining exams: at least 30
Number of lattes consumed: too many
Number of times I've jammed to Livin on a Prayer in the law library: 5
Number of times I've listened to Scheherazade all the way through: 10
Hours wasted procrastinating: at least 5
Average hours of sleep per night: 5.5
Number of times I've attended a party or celebration since classes ended: 3
Number of days until next exam: 5
Number of days until last exam: 9
How many days of work left: 6 :(
Number of days until GRADUATION: 13 :)

In other news, the big, huge, all important lunch meeting is on Monday, which means I'll be prepping for that tomorrow, YIKES!

Where the Story Ends Part II

2009-04-27T22:06:00.003-06:00

I officially finished my very last law school class ever about 3 hours ago. I promptly hit the local bar across the street from [Useless] Law to celebrate with friends who were also finally finished.

After returning to the library ever so slightly inebriated I've decided that library time would be much more enjoyable if I just always made it a habit to drink before coming to commence the "studying" process.

Despite the fact that I haven't studied a bit for my finals, don't have a job, and am terrified of the bar exam this summer, I am so relieved that law school itself is finally over. I will never again have to feel the dread of showing up to class not having done the reading and worrying about whether or not I'll get called on by a professor who delights in making ruthless attacks at unknowing law students.

But at the same time it's a little bittersweet. I really can't believe it's already over. It seems like yesterday I was sitting in my very first law school class ever, which was Torts, I had no idea what I was doing and I was so terrified that I was going to get called on. I didn't know anyone and I was desperately longing for my days in undergrad surrounded by friends, a time where I felt like I was actually smart. I've come a long way since then. I just argued a suppression motion today, and although it didn't go the way I would have liked it to, I felt like I actually knew what the hell I was doing, I felt like a "lawyer", and that's a feeling that I've had more frequently throughout the last 9 months or so. It's crazy. Law school has completely changed me, I'm not sure yet if that is a good or bad thing, I'm sure I'll have more thoughts on that later as I finally get the chance to digest everything that's happened the past 3 years.

But for now I have to focus on finals, must focus on finals. I may be done with classes, but I still haven't passed yet, and it would be a shame to not get that J.D. after the 3 years of ups and downs. But then again I wouldn't be me if I said I was getting started on studying right now. I think I'll wait for tomorrow. Or maybe the day after that.

I should not be allowed to write blog posts after consuming alcohol in the amount I have consumed it in celebration this evening

Full Circle

2009-04-20T23:13:00.002-06:00

If you had told me four years ago that the most major academic assignment I had ever worked on at that point in my life would one day possibly open the door to the job that I didn't even know I wanted as an undergrad I would have thought you had gone nuts. And yet, ironically, that is exactly what has happened.

A day after what I thought was a craptacular interview took place, I sent an email to the elected DA thanking her for her time meeting with me and I attached an electronic copy of my resume for her reference. Over the weekend she sent me an email asking me about my senior thesis from undergrad and wondering if I would share a copy of it with her. This kind of caught me by surprise. I've been asked about my thesis since going to law school because it is listed on my resume, but no one has ever asked to actually read it. I spent a good hour or so reading it over to make sure that there were no glaring or embarrassing errors. To my surprise, my thesis for the most part was pretty damn good. There are definitely some things that I would change if I was doing it all over again, and there is some editing that could be done to make it better, but overall it wasn't nearly as bad as I thought it would be. (I literally have not read a word of what I wrote since I turned my thesis in 3 years ago because the process of writing it was so draining that by the time I was done I couldn't spend one more moment looking at it for editing).

After reading it over I went ahead and sent a copy of it to the elected DA (who is pretty much the sole person responsible for hiring in my district). Within 30 minutes of me sending it to her today she emailed back, said that she was very interested in the topic, had been for some time, and would love to discuss it, along with several other more prosecutor related things over lunch if I was up for it.

OMG. This is a big deal. A HUGE deal. Countless previous interns have gone to "talk" or "interview" with the elected DA only to be given about 5-10 minutes of her time before being ushered out of the office with a laundry list of things they need to do to be considered for hiring. I suddenly landed a 2 hour slot on her calendar two weeks from now in a less formal more friendly type of setting and it's all because I apparently did something BEFORE law school that has sparked her interest. I find it totally ironic that the one project that I devoted almost 2 years of my pre-law school life to could possibly open the door to the job I'd love to have after the roller coaster 3 years of law school.

And so that's how everything has come full circle. The past 48 hours have been remarkable to say the least. Re-reading my thesis and mulling over the questions that have been posed to me in advance of the lunch in a couple of weeks has quite possibly been the best break from law school I've had since I first started. I was starting to think that I had lost all ability to engage in intelligent thought and conversation outside of the rigid structures that the law requires us to operate under. Even if I don't end up with a job offer at the end of all of this, I'm thankful that this process has at least reminded me that I am absolutely capable of intelligent thought in areas not defined by black letter rules and statutes.

Paying Off The Nasty Loans

2009-04-17T22:53:00.002-06:00

**Disclaimer, the advice contained within this post is most likely (okay totally NOT) legal***

Last weekend while we were interviewing the enthusiastic 1 and 2L students for next year's Journal Board, a fellow current board member decided all of us current board peeps should come up with a brilliant ponzi scheme, split the profits, and pay off our law school loans in 12 months flat. He's been valiantly trying to figure out how to start such a thing for the past 7 days now. (I'm only half kidding about this- he's very serious about this after a couple of beers).

While the ponzi scheme is intriguing to say the least, I think I came up with a better idea this evening. I need to create the next hot business that will make 100% of its profits by feeding off of people's fears and promising that for a price those fears can be overcome.

I got this brilliant idea when I begrudgingly handed over my VISA this evening to PMBR for the promise of a 90% chance of passing the bar. The bastard who thought up the idea of PMBR is one brilliant rich guy, that's for damn sure. Now if only I was both brilliant at business and a slime ball at the same time, I'd have my law school loans paid off in no time!!

Craptacular

2009-04-16T21:39:00.002-06:00

I basically had an interview today for the job that I desperately want after graduation. I took the advice of my supervisor and set up a meeting with the elected DA of my district. I assumed it would be a meeting more about chatting about the experience I had with the office and what I can do to improve my chances of getting a job as Deputy DA either in my current district or elsewhere, and that's exactly how my supervisor, who is very high up herself, told me to approach it. Instead I was bombarded with questions like "who is a leader that you admire and why?", "what's your favorite movie and why?", "what's the most profound event that you've experienced in your life?".

CRAP

I suck at interviews. I've been told before that I don't interview well. Granted, the interview I mentioned in that post over a year ago ended up resulting in my current internship. But still, I hate that I suck at interviews. I need to be better at them. I just don't know how. For some reason I feel fine going in, and everyone who knows me well is shocked to find out that I suck at interviewing. But when I get into an interview I totally stiffen up, clam up, shut down, whatever. I turn into a blundering idiot. It sucks.

Walking out of today's "interview" I didn't feel great about it, but I didn't feel horrible about it either. The more I keep replaying it in my head, the more terrible I feel about it.

Anyone know of any law jobs, or jobs in general for that matter, where I won't have to interview to get it?? UGH!

Conscience

2009-04-16T20:29:00.002-06:00

WillibaldoEa posed an interesting question to yesterdays post, how did us jaded law students get rid of the conscience that we had before we became law students?

When it comes to school work I'm not sure I really had much of a conscience about preparing for class by the time I hit my junior year of college. I prepared for the classes that I liked not because I felt a need to show up to class having done the reading, but because I actually liked the reading and would have done it on my own anyways. In law school, I prepared first semester of first year not because I liked the reading, but because I was pretty much scared sh*%less of being called on and ridiculed by a professor and I still gave a crap about what professors and classmates thought of me. After working harder than I ever worked in undergrad during that first semester of law school and getting mediocre grades I decided it just wasn't worth the stress and time it took to actually prepare for class, and that I suppose is where I lost my "conscience." It became clear to me that it was worth it to put time into my clinic and internship during second year because I actually liked the work, and that it was equally worth it to blow school off to have fun with my friends and keep up with the weekly drama on Grey's Anatomy, The Bachelor, and American Idol.

I suppose this really isn't an answer to WillibaldoEa's question, it's really just another useless rambling. But if I had to answer the question, I lost my "conscience" when I had finally been through enough of law school to become the jaded law student that I am today, the point at which that happens will probably vary for everyone.

Anyone else have any insight on this? When did you seasoned pros out there finally get fed up and stopped caring about law school (if you did)?

Corporations Part 2

2009-04-15T10:56:00.004-06:00

Apparently Mr. Corporations Professor didn't get the memo that I posted a couple of weeks ago.

Today he polled our class to see how many of us are graduating 3Ls. 75% of the class raised their hands. We have exactly 2 weeks of class left as 3Ls, which means most of us have completely checked out. Mr. Corporations Professor noticed that lately no one has been participating in class discussion, most likely because none of us have bothered to do our reading. This prompted Mr. Corporations Professor to lecture and ridicule us for almost 10 minutes about the importance of coming to class prepared. I sit in the very last row, which is great because during this lecture I could see that most of the class was Twittering, Facebooking, emailing, or playing Tetris.

I don't know about the rest of my felow 3Ls, but I definitely didn't do the reading for today, definitely don't plan to prepare for the next two weeks of class, and love that Mr. Corporations Professor keeps giving me tidbits to blog about during class.

Awesome :-)

Easter

2009-04-12T07:08:00.002-06:00

When you're little you don't really get the point of Easter other than you know there's a bunny that brings eggs and baskets filled with goodies. But by the time you're 25 you get what it's about, and it's not all about the bunny anymore.

Funny thing is, my family is not religious, we never went to church growing up, and it's not that my parents are totally opposed to the idea of relgion, it's just that they didn't feel like they wanted to be a part of a church or raise my sister and I in a church. For the most part, we turned out fine. And yet, despite this fact, my mom still insists that we celebrate Easter, I'm starting to think she doesn't really get what Easter is all about and how absurd it is that she insists that we celebrate with a big family breakfast, meals, etc.

I'm particularly annoyed this year, because today was my one day to go skiing, it is the last day for several of the resorts here and as an end of the season present the snow gods left 6 inches of fresh powder on the slopes last night. I get that it's an excuse for a family day and that my mom is crazy about family days. I also get that she doesn't ski and can get lonely when the rest of us take off to the slopes and leave her behind. But seriously, is it really necessary to use Easter as the guise to get all of us non-religious peeps to stay home??

Bright spot of the day, I'm 25 and somehow mom still hasn't gotten the memo that I no longer need an easter basket. So I'll be eating my way through plenty of peanut butter eggs for the rest of the week :)

Say What?

2009-04-09T21:45:00.004-06:00

Every now and then I look up the recent phrases that have brought people to my little useless blog. Because I'd like to try to help out those that stumble upon my musings, here's some useless answers to those searches:

I hate law school

Yup I hate it too. I've got nothing inspriational or motivating to say other than despite what you might think at the moment, the three years really do end up flying by.

Law Professors are Useless

If they weren't useless they wouldn't be law professors, they'd be lawyers.

Hate law school professor

Hate them because they're useless or hate them because they called on you on a day you weren't prepared?

Pep talks for final exam week

I've got nothing. I don't do pep talks. I'm not an optimist. I like to complain.............a lot................and I'm bitter. I get through finals with lots of Starbucks and overly salty bad for me snacks.

My worst grade in law school

Your worst grade is probably still better than my worst grade. As long as you don't want a Big Law job your grades won't matter. I guess grades may also matter if you intend to become a useless law professor. I have plenty of friends with very good grades, all of whom sill don't have job offers, my attitude has always been that I should do the best I can without killing myself, so a couple of C's are really nothing to worry about.

Elevator Etiquette

2009-04-08T12:20:00.000-06:00

There are two days a week that I have class at 8:00am (it’s heinous). On those mornings, since I have to be up early anyways, I usually try to get to school around 6:30-7:00am to get some work done (totally heinous). There are usually very few people at Useless Law School at this time of the morning, which means that I can usually just get right on an elevator without waiting and zoom up to the 4th floor where I hide out in my journal office to work for an hour or so.

This morning, two completely obnoxious 1Ls who were gabbing and giggling at a volume unacceptable that early in the morning ran to catch the elevator I had hopped on and popped right in as the door was closing. This didn’t annoy me because I get annoyed when I just barely miss an elevator. However, when they got into the elevator they proceeded to talk at a totally unacceptable volume about the killer frat party they attended last night. Then one of them decided she needed to get off at floor 3 so she quickly pushed that button. Again, not annoyed by the extra stop- it’s to be expected when riding elevators and it’s a delay that isn’t even worth being upset about. But what wasn’t cool was that when the elevator stopped at the 3rd floor, the other girl was not getting off there but she wasn’t done with their “OMG HE DID NOT” conversation. So the girl getting off at floor 3 proceeded to stand in the middle of the door to keep it from closing so they could finish their conversation FOR ANOTHER 2.5 MINUTES! The elevator started buzzing because of the holdup. I got fed up and decided to just get off at 3 and take the stairs up to 4 and as I was exiting the elevator the girl blocking the door was like “oh- apparently you’re in a hurry.”

Note to bimbo 1L: no honey I wasn’t in a hurry, I was barely awake because I had only gotten about 1/8 into my morning latte. But I also have better things to do than to stand, trapped in an elevator, while you and your other bimbo friend recap every keg stand, every beer pong point, and every stolen glance at Mr. Hot Bimbo Sophomore Frat Boy.

Some people are so delusional.

Got Twitter?

2009-04-06T22:38:00.003-06:00

Over the past few weeks I've had multiple blog posts cluttering up my brain, many of them quite lengthy. Problem is, by the time I finally steal a few uninterrupted moments to actually bring those posts to life I'm just too tired to expend the energy necessary to make it happen.

I was bemoaning this fact to a friend of mine the other day who suggested that maybe I should de-clutter my life by limiting my ramblings and blogging activities to 140 characters or less. And so, I joined the ranks of twitterers (is that the proper term?)- check out my short ramblings over in the side bar.

In other news, I spent 4 days in DC about two weeks ago now, hence the last super short post, and I totally fell in love with that city. I had been there one other time before, as an undergrad, but there was something about being back there as an "almost" attorney that just made me appreciate the vibe of the city on a whole other level. I would almost consider moving there and looking for government work (which I hear is as hard, if not harder to find right now). My one hang up is how I would pay to live in a place like that. When I found out from a college friend of mine who lives there how much she is paying to live in a tiny little apartment 40 minutes outside of downtown DC I nearly had a heart attack. For what rent would cost there, I could have a very very nice house in Useless City, and I don't even have enough money right now in Useless City to even think about buying a house yet. *Sigh*

I've determined that my next task in life needs to be to figure out to grow money on trees. Think I could get a Nobel if I figure that out?

Useless Dicta in Fabulous City

2009-03-27T07:53:00.000-06:00

I absolutely love Washington DC!

Public Service Announcement

2009-03-23T20:54:00.003-06:00

Dear Mr. Corporations Professor,

I'm a 3L who hasn't given a crap about school for over a year, but wouldn't expect you to know this. It's also 1 month, 23 days until graduation, another fact I wouldn't expect you to know. However, I do assume that you know that this is the first Monday back after Spring Break. And I also assume that you are aware that your class is at 8:30am, that equals brutal in most people's books.

So, when you called on me at 8:45am for a case I of course didn't read, I didn't panic like some students, because I just don't care. Instead, I just politely told you that I was taking my "pass," which according to you I'm allowed to do once a semester. I'm not mad that after that you tried to grill me about why I hadn't read or that you tried to embarass me in front of 90 other students, or that you tried to make me feel guilty for not coming prepared to class, in fact I'm rather amused. Surely you noticed that more than 50% of the class was absent this morning, and surely you noticed that those of us who showed up weren't exactly paying attention, so surely you know that your little condesending lecture of me in class this morning didn't do a damn bit of good, but then again you seem pretty dense, so who knows for sure?

So consider this a public service announcement, I stopped caring about preparing for class over a year ago, and with a little over 6 weeks left to go I'm certainly not going to start preparing for class at this point. But please feel free to call on me next week, I guarantee I won't do the reading and I'll tell you I'm passing again. I also guarantee I will get the C that I need in your class to get my diploma, because after all class participation is only 5% of our final grade, which really means it doesn't count at all. I assure you that you will not be able to scare me into doing any of the reading that you assign, but if you really must stroke your own ego by belittling your students that's fine with me, just do us all a favor and spit out your gum before you start into your rant next time so that you avoid spraying the front two rows of the room with your unwanted spit.

Toodles,

Useless Dicta

Where Does the Story End?

2009-03-13T23:10:00.002-06:00

I used to think that law school is a really scary roller coaster with the hundred foot drops, multiple loops, speeds that reach 80 mph that goes both forwards and backwards through the track before finally coming to a screeching halt.

That screeching halt is very near, 2 months and 3 days to be precise, and yet somehow I think that law school may have just been the warm up ride for what lies ahead. The thought that at the end of 3 long years law school will have been nothing more than the kiddie coaster is a thought that truly scares me. And yet, I'm not scared because of the work that lies ahead after graduation day. Sure, I'm a little anxious about the impending summer of bar exam study, and I get nervous at the thought of doing a simple DUI jury trial, but that's not the stuff that really scares me.

What's been bothering me lately is the thought that after 3 years of hard work in school, 2 years of hard work at my internship, and hours of agony, I may come out of this on the other end with no job, massive debt, and facing the very real possibility that i may have to move back in with my parents. I want to be a prosecutor, so I guess at least I have direction in my life for once. I used to worry that I had no idea where I was going or what I wanted, but now I'm terrified that for the first time in my life I actually know what I want to be when I grow up. The idea that I may not get to be what I want to be is horrible. It's not that I don't think I can't get the job I want. It's just that I don't know if I actually will. There are 5 other interns, all of whom are fabulous, that I will be up against for a job. There's just no way to know if there will be spots for any of us, and if so, how many. Sure, I can always apply to other prosecutor's offices in my state, but most of those offices have their own interns who will be applying for jobs in those office, so at the end of the day it really is an all or nothing kind of scenario. I'm either going to get my dream job (and have to work long hours and do grunt work for at least 3 years before I get to do anything fun that actually makes me want to be a prosecutor), or I'm going to have to start my search from scratch. I'm not sure I can endure the second option. It took me so long to finally discover what I want out of my life, I'm not sure I will be able to bounce back from a rejection that takes its aim straight at those goals and dreams.

Living everyday in limbo is becoming both exhausting and excruciating. The ironic thing is that I envy my friends who have secure job offers after graduation, and yet it is abundantly clear that they are also scared. However, their fear is a different kind of fear. It's a fear of failing the bar. I have no idea why I'm envious of them, because I know that if I had a firm job offer, an offer for my "dream job," I would also be dealing with the same nagging fear of flunking the bar.

Is the end of the law school roller coaster supposed to be like this? Instead of relief and accomplishment waiting on the other side of the tunnel, does this story instead end with anxiety, fear, and possible failure?