It’s a Celebration, Snitches

Today, after six years of hard work and dedication in the midst of struggle…Tex is OFFICIALLY a B.S. in Computer Engineering from the formidable, rigorous, illustrious, world-renowned Georgia Institute of Technology! *cue applause, strobe lights & confetti*

My man is finally free of his mistress (also known as homework, lab & senior design) and we are one step closer to our happy ending. Or beginning, more like. He is as yet unemployed, but he had some interviews over the past few weeks that went well and hiring cycles are slow, so I remain hopeful. Plus, he now has more time to dedicate to job hunting and engineering is an in-demand field and a growing industry, even in this economy. I’ve been steadily praying over it and I know God has something for him! Tex has worked really hard and he truly has a passion for computer engineering. This is what he’s wanted to do since he was a kid and I’m so excited to see him live out his dreams.

Of course that begs the question, what is my dream? To be happy, I suppose. Honestly, I’m one of those Renaissance folks who was born in the wrong era (or maybe just born too poor, lol). If I were a billionaire I’d spend my days mastering all kinds of different things. Musical instruments, jazz performance, gourmet cooking, writing, traveling, mentoring black youth, lobbying for various causes on Capitol Hill…but since I’m a regular person who has to work for a living, I have to settle on something. I find myself increasingly drawn to the idea of education and education reform. Up until I began studying law, school was my favorite thing in the world. I remember vehemently debating the merits (or lack thereof) of the No Child Left Behind Act when it was first passed–I had to have been in the 8th or 9th grade then, but it was big deal and I combed the newspapers after my parents were through for news of it. I was in the Talented and Gifted program from the fourth grade on, which provided some of my most memorable educational experiences to date. Still, it was an imperfect solution to the limitations of public school. I’d love to teach at a charter or private school (like the Paideia School in Atlanta).

I’ve made up my mind to apply to Teach For America and see where that goes. I also might go ahead and take the GACE anyway and see if I can get hired through the alternative teacher certification process. In most states, if you have a degree in a subject area and had a decent GPA, you can teach without an education degree. My sister teaches music, and I think she has some study materials leftover from when she had to take the test. I’m eligible to get certified for history and political science, and I love those subjects anyway so I know passing the test wouldn’t be a problem. Incidentally, both of those are WAY cheaper than the bar exam. Popular opinion is split on whether people who don’t want to practice should take the bar anyway–some say it’s not worth it, others say it’s an indication of your ability to finish what you started. Aside from the fact that including prep classes, that’s a $4500 investment in something I’ve pretty much established I don’t want to do, it’s a beast of an exam. It’s been such a struggle getting through law school, that I don’t know if I can muster up the motivation a mere week after graduating to 12 hour days of intensive study for eight whole weeks. In law school, at least you have time to do other things you love. In order to pass the bar, you must make it your life. Eat with, sleep with, heck, marry your study materials or else you will be doing it all over again in six months!

My dad offered to front me half the cost. As of today, he’s only given me $150 which I can easily give back–it’s been sitting in my savings account for going on three months now as I’ve been stalling on whether or not to make my official deposit with Kaplan for the prep class. And the clock keeps on ticking…

…but that’s a question I’ll deal with tomorrow. Today, I will bask in the joy of the moment, try not to look stupid in front of my future in-laws & their extended family, and make sure Tex knows I’m incredibly proud of him.

 

The next step

So I was reading a post at Sincerely, Jess and as usual she dropped some knowledge that really made me think. Jess doesn’t believe in coincidences and I’m starting to think maybe she has it right.

It’s finals week here at law school and as usual for this time of year, I hate my life. I did better at actually paying attention in class this semester, and while I’m studying as hard as I can given the circumstances, I remember immersing myself much more during 1L fall and before that, in undergrad. I just don’t care. The best part of law school, to me, is everything OUTSIDE of class–like getting elected president of the Black Law Students Association. So I study just as much as I need to get a decent grade. My apathy really hit me in my exam yesterday. Normally I read and re-read my outlines until I have them damn near memorized. I didn’t do that much for my Domestic Relations final and there were a couple of questions where I thought, If I had studied harder I’d know this pat, but I just shrugged it off. The professor allowed us a one page cheat sheet and mine had plenty of white space on it because I used margins and refused to go lower than 9.5pt font–I wasn’t interesting in working that hard for an answer. My classmates had eliminated all margins and crammed an entire outline on one page in 5pt font O_O I looked at their notes and thought, Clearly I’m doing this wrong.

I have my other two serious exams tomorrow morning and Friday (both open book, but curved, and the rest of my Type A+++++ peers always do the most up to and Including cheating). Have I spent every waking moment cramming? NOPE. I briefed IP cases and highlighted important sections of my outline last night. I will be reviewing an Evidence outline and doing an IP practice exam later this afternoon and this evening. Other than that, I’m chilling. I woke up at 10:30am, worked out, vacuumed, watched The Devil’s Advocate on tv, put in a load of laundry and poked around Facebook and Google Reader and now I’m blogging. I just don’t have it in me. And unlike everyone else who is filling their 3L schedule with bar exam subjects and practice electives, I’m signed up for stuff like Therapeutic Jurisprudence and Comparative Law. Oh, and a four hour practicum so that’s less time I have to spend at school and one less final.

I take solace in reading–Game of Thrones, currently. The written word holds a neverending fascination for me. Writing & reading & learning have always been the things I loved to do more than anything else, but the practical side of me thought, I can always do that on the side but I need a “real” career to make money. 2/3 done with law school and I’m realizing that while I would make a good lawyer, I’m not at all excited to be one. Last night I thought, I will NEVER again do something just because it makes sense. A law degree will no doubt help me in whatever I choose to do, and I’ve learned a lot that is useful, but I’m not sure that will outweigh the three years I spend doing something that bores me. makes me realize that maybe that’s why I had to go to law school…to be forced to see that I’m meant to do something else.

So yes, I will finish law school but I’m not sure I even want to take the bar. I really want to apply to Teach for America. Education is something I really care about and I love to impart knowledge. And one day (sooner rather than later, I hope) I want to complete an MA program in creative writing. I know I have talent, but I’ve always wanted to immerse myself in creating poems, short stories, even novels. And writing is a craft you have to train for just like anything else. I know that everybody is going to look at me crazy, especially my father, but I don’t want to waste any more time than I have to being unhappy. YOLO.

 

Great Expectations

My parents can be so difficult.

I know everyone has their fair share of family drama. But at times I really wish I could trade some of mine out. I’m not going to get into all the details but one problem I have is with my dad. I feel like he expects too much from me. I called him tonight just to check in and he starts grilling me about how classes are going.

Me:Fine I guess. I’m in the lull right now.

Dad: Don’t you have another brief due?

Me: Yes, but it’s three weeks away. And I don’t want start writing it until next week when we finish going over the legal arguments stuff.

Dad: Well how did the first one go?

Me: It was good. I mean, he had some corrections because there’s always room for improvement. But it was mostly minor stuff, and he said I had a good narrative flow.

Dad: You know that’s what you’re going to be doing if you get a judicial clerkship. And you better get good at it.

Me: *thinks “Duh, I’m a law student so clearly I know what judicial clerks do* Yes, Dad. I’m working on it.

Dad: Well, work harder.

Me: *fumes silently*

Mind you, I went to his house for dinner Sunday and he went in for the umpteenth time about how I should have majored in Spanish and I need to brush up on it lest I be unemployed. Sigh. I wish I had taken more Spanish too, but I was trying to graduate in four years, build up my resume with leadership positions on campus, work a part time job & have some semblance of a social life. There just wasn’t time. I was always too burned out to take summer classes and my scholarships didn’t pay for study abroad so I couldn’t afford it. Obviously, being bilingual is a great skill to have but NOT being bilingual isn’t what’s keeping people unemployed–it’s the shitty economy.

I just resent his casual implication that it’s just so easy to do all these things. I don’t even like law school all that much (even though I daren’t tell my dad lest he accuse me of being a fickle child who can’t be trusted to run her own life) so the fact that I’m putting in enough effort to pull a B average is miraculous. I’m giving the most I can give at this point in life. After going hard since kindergarten I just want to sit down somewhere! Everybody else spent some part of their school years goofing off but I never did. And now, even the Law Review kids are struggling to find jobs/internships so what’s the point?

I feel like dropping out of the rat race altogether. As long as I can make ends meet I can live without a fancy title. I guess that’s why teaching is so appealing to me. Your not evaluated by the amount of money you bring in, or how many high profile clients you snag, or being judged for your lack of a designer suit. I would still love to work at a nonprofit but until I know where Tex will be working, I have no idea what organizations to be looking at whereas I can teach anywhere. Recently I’ve gotten back to creative writing, poetry & playing my viola. Those activities remind me that I am more than a reluctant law student, and that despite what the news tells you there is still beauty in the world…

 

 

The morning after

I’ve been alternating between feelings of freedom and confusion.

The last 10 years of my life I’ve been on a plan–go to college, go to grad school, start a brilliant & fulfilling career. Now I’m in law school but have little to no desire to be a lawyer, or anything like being a lawyer. The realization just washed over me in a quiet moment one day…and it came to me that I should be a teacher.

The loved ones that I’ve told are understandably skeptical. My sister wants me to know what I would be getting myself into–apathetic students, absent parents, incompetent administration and tons of bureaucracy are a reality in public schools. Still, of all the complaints she has about her job very few of them are about teaching. Sissy teaches middle school orchestra & general music, and also gives private lessons on the side. Her private lessons are the highlight of her week, and there are always a few kids each year whose musical potential she gets excited over. No job is perfect, but if you can find joy in it even when the setting isn’t ideal–you’re doing what you’re meant to do. I feel the opposite about law– I could enjoy it, but only in the most ideal setting.

Tex thinks I’m not cut out to be a teacher. I can’t really blame him for that because up until recently, I wasn’t sure I was either. I’m not a big fan of little kids–I don’t want to talk down to them, but I can’t exactly strike up a conversation about Troy Davis with an eight year old, ya know? That’s why I’d teach high school or middle school. But when he asked me what happens if I end up hating teaching, I was bothered. Because I didn’t have an answer but moreover, it felt like he didn’t believe in me.

I’m smart. But just because I can easily absorb facts and patterns doesn’t mean I know the answer to everything! My whole life I’ve felt like people expected me to be perfect. The truth is, I have just as much angst and uncertainty as anybody else, I just don’t like going around emoting all over people. I need to work things out internally and in the initial stages of a problem, getting opinions from everybody & their mama is super counterproductive. Still, just because I don’t talk about all of it doesn’t mean it never happens.

I’ve worked off lists and logic my entire life. Heck, it took a pro/con list for me to decide to let Tex be my boyfriend in the first place! I follow my intuition, but then again, it’s never been in opposition to the logical answer. I know that quitting law school, or even finishing law school and entering a teacher training program instead of taking the bar seems CRAZY! I feel a little bit crazy for thinking it! Then again, I’ve got folks (one of them my legal writing professor) telling me that if it doesn’t feel right. Follow your heart, Jess says. You’ll do the right thing, says Mr. C (my former US history teacher). Problem is, I don’t trust my heart when it comes to career stuff because I’ve always been told it was wrong to have so many different interests. The world is all about specializing these days; the generalists that were so emulated during the Renaissance are now considered mere dilettantes.

ARGH! *kicks trashcan* I’m not good at feelings. But you can’t force an epiphany and I trust the right answer will reveal itself in time. Meanwhile I guess I just have to wait. (Patience is a virtue–yeah, God, I get it.)

 

Success in Failure Pt. 2

They say that failures are the key to success, for without them you don’t learn anything.

I think I finally understand what that means. Law school wasn’t what I wanted it to be, but everything happens for a reason and I trust that it’s all part of God’s plan. I know law school wasn’t a mistake, because when I look back at the beginning there was nothing telling me “no, you should do something else”.  I knew at some point in life, I would come against a stumbling block because school has always been so easy for me. My family used to say that school was invented with me in mind. I was a straight-A student up until college, where I still made the Dean’s List for 7 out of the 8 semesters I was there. I read everything and had near photographic memory when it came to the subjects I enjoyed most- language arts and social studies. I was in the Talented and Gifted program and considered something of a wunderkind in my community. (I say all this not out of arrogance, but to give you some contextual background for my seemingly sudden change of heart about law school.)

For my eighth birthday, my father gave me a child’s biography of Martin Luther King, Jr. I grew up about 30 minutes from his hometown of Atlanta, GA. My birthday always falls during the long weekend celebration of his birth. I devoured the biography and watched his “I Have a Dream Speech” for the first time and it was then that I knew, I wanted my life to be about making the world a better place in any small way that I could. I was in Girl Scouts, I recycled, I volunteered at our church’s food bank ministry. I befriended the kids nobody else would talk to and stood up for anyone I saw being bullied or teased (and took hell for it, believe me I was not a popular kid). In undergrad, I didn’t join a sorority based on who had the hottest line jackets or the coolest strolls, I chose the one that gave precedence to community service above all the frivolity.

My dad has always teased me because as a child, every month I wanted a different career. First was civil rights activist, but since most of the causes needing protests had already been won that wasn’t very viable. I wanted to be a preacher, teacher, writer, international businesswoman, translator, lawyer, dentist, librarian, museum docent, professor, poet. . . . you name it, I wanted to be it. Choosing a major was hard for me and I decided on history in my sophomore eyar because I enjoyed it, and because it offered the largest number of free electives of any major at my school. I took classes in Spanish, economics, public policy, constitutional law, orchestra, jazz history, architecture, and loved it all.

Then came senior year. Much as I loved college, I saw no point in artificially extending my undergrad career and I wanted to go to grad school of some sort anyway. So I picked law school because I had some genuine interest in it, my dad went, and it was a credential that would open doors to many career paths. Sure, I could have gotten my teacher certification and gone into education then. But my sister was already a teacher, and I’d always gotten the sense that people just expected more out of me. They wanted me to argue in front of the Supreme Court, or run for President, or write a bestseller. I stopped saying I wanted to be a teacher or professor a long time ago because people would stare at me, seemingly confused, and say “Really? But you could do so much more.” Or, “I guess, but you could make more money doing XYZ.” Being considered the “genius” of the family, I knew everyone not-so-secretly expected me to be the one to make it big and become rich and/or famous somehow. How could I not, being so brilliant? Why hide that light under the bushel of the blighted public school system?

Thus, by the time I decided what to do after college, teaching had been relegated to a back-up plan. A last resort if all else failed. Even if I didn’t practice in a big law firm, surely I could get on with a non-profit and take the system down from the inside! Now don’t get me wrong, that idea was (and still is) very appealing to me. But it also feels fake somehow. As much as I want to be in Washington, lobbying for reproductive rights/education reform/health care reform, etc, learning about law has shown me that it is a very gradual vehicle for change. And the top down approach is a myth because it only occurs when there is massive pressure from the bottom up! Segregation didn’t get prohibited because SCOTUS thought it was the right thing to do. Plessy v. Ferguson makes some very strong Constitutional arguments in favor of “separate but equal”. Segregation got prohibited because the social unrest resulting from it was endangering the health of our nation as a whole. Believe me, if black folks hadn’t gotten sick and tired of being the proverbial dirt on the bottom of the white man’s shoe (and racist white folks hadn’t resorted to violence to keep us in our place) we’d still be drinking from separate water fountains.

The law has only ever created massive change when people have pushed it to do so. And almost every notable person has had a teacher or philosopher who inspired them to strive for greatness, and beauty, and justice. Somewhere along the way, someone planted a seed in them which said things don’t always have to be this way. I had one such teacher myself, and he is the reason why I have never completely given up on being a teacher. He didn’t just teach history, he taught life. Although we all passed the AP US History test and got through the entire text, we read plenty of outside material too. “History is written by the winners,” he told us. “Don’t ever take what you read for granted. Remember that the Constitution was written by rich white property owners–that perspective is still shaping the laws of our country.” He lifted the veil, so to speak. Suddenly, Hitler wasn’t just some evil bogeyman–he was an insecure but deeply manipulative man who practically brainwashed an entire country. That’s what I want to give to the world–curiosity, critical thinking, and the bravery to ask questions.

 

Success in Failure

So I was walking around in a funk yesterday and I thought to myself, what if I just quit law school and became a teacher?

I thought about it all night. I thought about it all this morning, and looked up alternative teacher certification programs. I IM’ed a couple of friends about it. And I’m 75% sure I want to drop out of law school. Due to financial reasons, I need to stay enrolled through 2L year but I’m just not sure it’s worth it to stay for my third year. Let’s be honest, I really didn’t enjoy my first year of law school. But I wasn’t ready to call it quits because almost everyone hates it. I figured things would improve dramatically this fall since I got to choose my own classes. But aside from Legal Writing (my professor is really funny and talks more about life than the actual subject), classes are just something to get through.

I hate to quit something in the middle but I also hate to waste time on something that I no longer see a point in doing. I majored in history, so I qualify for an alternative teacher certification. My favorite teachers always said that I would make an excellent one, but I don’t think I was ready before. Teachers don’t just explain reading, writing & arithmetic. They’re mentors and role models too, and I think the best teachers are called to the profession the same way people are called to the clergy. I just think I would get so much more fulfillment from impacting a young student than from reading these dry casebooks all day (which I don’t even do half the time because it’s boring). I know I’m not giving 100% to law school, and it’s because I’m not excited about it. Even when I was bored in undergrad, I still tried my hardest. I didn’t come to class consistently half prepared because I liked what I was doing. I said on this very blog that law school isn’t supposed to make your miserable, and maybe I need to take my own advice.

Money is obviously an issue. I can’t afford to make ends meet without my loan funds and stipend, so I have to finish this year at least. But knowing that I wouldn’t have to come back for 3L doesn’t upset me in the least. It actually makes me feel relieved that I could stop pretending to care about all of this. I don’t regret the time I’ve spent in law school, but I came here not to be a lawyer but for the love of learning. And I think I’ve gotten out of it as much as I’m going to get. On the other hand, I’ve always wanted to help people. Lately I’ve been hearing all these news stories about kids doing crazy stuff and corruption in the school systems…and I think, who’s going to try to reach those kids? Burnout is high in the profession (not much different from lawyers, but with substantially lower pay). I doubt that I will teach for the rest of my life, but for the next 5-10 years it could be very fulfilling I think. Then I would probably go back to school for an MPA/MPP and start my nonprofit, which is my ultimate dream.

Like I said, I still plan to finish 2L no matter what but what happens after that is anybody’s guess. My family will be shocked if I go through with this, to say the least…we’ll see what happens.

 

The Paradox of Adulthood

*Note: I was going through my blog drafts and came across this post. I wrote it around this time a year ago, but it still rings true & I decided to post it.*

When you’re a kid, being a grown up seems like a magical process that makes your every wish come true. You can do whatever you want, eat whatever you want, go wherever you want. You are privy to those mysteries that elude you because you’re “too young to understand”. You’ll have money, and a car, and sure you might have to have a job but those don’t take up ALL your time. There’s still the weekend. And if you’re a movie star/writer/airline pilot/musician, then you’re basically getting paid to have fun, right?!? Anything is possible! But what you don’t realize until later is that jobs, even ones you enjoy, get tiring sometimes and that in between cooking, cleaning up, running errands and sleeping, the weekends are not always the adventure that you want them to be.

I don’t mean to sound depressing. I’m actually living the dream right now. I love, love, LOVE having my own place and now I completely understand why some people prefer to live alone. I prefer to cook for an audience and I don’t like being the only one who takes out the trash and scrubs the toilet (what else are men for? LOL) but it’s soooo relaxing to be able to come home and just BE. Nobody is waking me up early on the weekends or forcing me to make idle conversation because it’s polite when I feel like mutely retiring to my bedroom for a nap. Even law school has yet to get me down. I went to the library after class and completed my first ever law school assignments (reading for Criminal Law and briefing Torts cases) and I’m still convinced that I’m going to enjoy it. I do, however, reserve the right to change my mind if Prof. Torts publicly rips my briefs to pieces. I’m just sayin’.

Ultimately though, freedom isn’t free. Case in point: I decided to make an impromptu trip back to the A last weekend to get my hair done (and see Tex of course, because why spend money to travel just do the one thing?) My mistake was in telling my father, because he suggested that I spend the night. And then tossed in the fact that my sister was having a celebratory BBQ over there on Saturday.

*SIGH*

Suffice it say that a lowkey weekend ended up being a huge tangle of conflicting obligations. And that’s basically what adulthood is. You have obligations to yourself, your boss, your SO, your friends, your coworkers, your family, and the list goes on. Somehow you have to juggle all of these balls in the 24 hours of each day. And it gets harder when you have multiple groups of friends, and divorced parents who prefer not to be in the same room, and you’re a person who most of the time just wants to drink hot chocolate on the couch with her boyfriend and a fantasy book (preferably something involving dragons or werewolves. Yeah, I’m lame).

And so I’m brought back to my original point. I was discussing midlife crises with Tex today, and he countered  my claim that they were rather frivolous by reminding me that at midlife, half of your life has passed you by. And so all of a sudden you realize that some of the things you thought were possible, aren’t anymore. And he’s right. I had a rather sobering moment the other day when I was thinking about the three or four legal careers that I want to have–but then I remembered that I want to have a family too, and kids who aren’t mostly raised by daycare or a nanny. Which means that I have to give up one or two of my dreams in order not to give up a bigger one. It made me a little sad, to think that I may not get to be a hotshot defense attorney/erudite law professor/prize-winning writer/state senator/federal judge. Maybe I’ll just be a lawyer/mommy/PTA president.

But I’m sure that when I listen to my future son or daughter talk about their dreams, I won’t think that I made the wrong choice.

 

Confessions

Law school is…meh.

I don’t want to go so far as to say I don’t like it at all, since some of my classes (mainly in the first semester) were interesting and I have yet to take a class of my own choosing. What I do know is that in general, lawyers are a hypercompetitive, long-winded, uptight group of people whose behavior is rapidly diminishing what desire I had to join their ranks.

I know someone is going to comment and say “That’s a gross generalization! Lots of lawyers are perfectly nice people, and there are jerks in every profession!” True on both counts. However…the concentration of douchiness in the law profession particularly is more than I can bear. At least everyybody else doesn’t pretend to be a genius on some ideological high horse handing out nuggets of wisdom from Mt. Justice. The Nancy Graces of the world are faaaaaaar too prominent.

With that being said, I’m still glad to be earning a law degree. If money makes the world go round, then law is the cashier. Does that make any sense? Basically, learning how the law works and is manipulated (yes, I said it) is an invaluable knowledge & skill set to have in any walk of life. My internship has confirmed my desire to work in the nonprofit arena, and laws govern determine what kinds of services these agencies can and cannot provide; as well as how they get the money to do so.

Law school forced me out of my comfort zone, and I’m learning things about myself that I wouldn’t have in another graduate program. My core beliefs about society and politics are challenged on an almost daily basis, and my logic skills are being sharpened to a fine edge. I am more precise in my writing and speech (although I usually blog late at night or when I’m tired, so it may not show here, lol!). I am much more able to see the the world in shades of gray, even on issues that are black and white to me. It’s an experience that I am grateful for simply  because it has accelerated my personal growth in a tremendous way.

But despite all those positives. Going through it is still…meh.

 

Intern season

It’s been awhile so I guess it’s time to update my blog. I had two weeks off between final exams and starting my internship, so I did as close to nothing as I could get away with while being at home (because of course, everybody had to see me after my month-long finals sequestration). Anyway, this is my second week at the nonprofit and I like it. Once I finish my training next week, I’ll be the assistant legal advocate helping victims of domestic violence with crisis intervention, safety planning, and temporary stalking/protective orders. I won’t talk too much about work for confidentiality purposes. I know this blog is “anonymous” but you can never be too careful when it comes to confidentiality, especially when people’s lives and safety are at stake.

Anyway, my coworkers are really nice. I felt much more relaxed in the first week than I have at any other job. You may recall I had an internship at the city attorney’s office that fell through, but this has been a blessing in disguise in many ways. First, this is my first time working in an all female environment and the difference is noticeable. There are less than ten of us so that definitely contributes to the camaraderie, but not having men around does change my behavior in subtle ways. I find that I don’t worry so much about being perceived as juvenile or oversensitive, and I’m a lot more willing to ask questions without the fear of being perceived as incompetent. In addition, I’m glad that I will be able to provide direct services to clients. I won’t be doing as much explicitly legal work as some of my classmates in firms and judicial clerkships, but people skills translate across all fields and professions. The other little perk is getting to wear business casual, which is a big deal since I’m walking the mile to and from work every day until I get my car next month. I can’t imagine having to walk in 100 degree weather in a dark suit, or dragging a duffel bag of clothes to change into!

Overall, I’m very optimistic about this summer. Now I know without a doubt that I belong in the public sector. This work experience will be much more advantageous to my 3L job search than would working at a firm, and I’m really hoping that next summer I’ll be able to get on with a larger organization to do something a little different.

 

Time keeps on slippin’, into the future…

I made it through 1L without dying, somehow. Now I’m having a bit of trouble readjusting to life as a civilian. I was so stressed out and hyped up over finals that my mind is still going 10,000 miles a minute and even though I didn’t leave the house today, I still did far from nothing. I made out grocery lists for my next two trips, started organizing a database of recipes I’ve been meaning to try in Evernote; comparison shopped portable GPS systems for the car I’m getting this summer; and started a database of key info for the employers I’m bidding on in the Minority Job Fair that takes place this July. I think it’s going to take a couple more days for my adrenaline levels to get back down to normal!

Yesterday one of my cousins came to visit and I found out that my relatives are more dysfunctional than I thought. I always knew my aunt & uncle were a little crazy (who doesn’t have a little crazy in their family?) but the dynamic is downright toxic. My heart went out to my cousin and I will make it a point to do a better job of checking in on her going forward. She’s found a new church home and recently finished going through counseling, so she is coping much better with the situation. She said, “I know now that when they start acting crazy, I can walk away. I don’t have to own their problems.” The downside is that everyone else too busy being in denial of their own stuff and projecting it onto each other, to confront the problems they have. It made me sad, and also grateful for the support I have within my own family. We’re far from perfect, but the problems I’ve complained about having with my parents don’t even seem like problems compared to what she’s gone through. I’ve never been told that I was unwanted, or been unfavorably compared to my siblings. At the end of the day, my family is more than just family to me–on many levels, we’re friends.

All of a sudden life seems to be speeding up like a runaway freight train. 1L has come and gone in a flash, I start interning in two weeks and it’s already time to think about my 2L placement? Yeesh. There are a handful of public interest orgs and a whole lotta  firms on the bidding list for the job fair, and it’s a bit daunting. I can feel myself at the crossroads that many lawyers face. My dad really wants me to be an associate at one of the big firms in The City but that’s just not me. I went and combed through their websites, and they’re all looking for high achieving, ambitious law students who will thrive in a challenging, fast paced work environment. Some of them give the party line about work/life balance and reduced billable hour requirements, but a gilded cage is still a cage. The whole time I was looking, all I could picture was me running out the door at 7am, only to return exhausted at 7pm. I’d be obsessively checking my company Blackberry for updates on the case while Tex tried to kiss me. We’d end up ordering out for dinner because I burnt the chicken while trying to edit a brief, and I’d go to bed mad because Tex forgot to pick up the drycleaning and I needed my best suit to wear to an important client meeting the next day.

I know I paint a bleak picture of big firm life. A lot of people thrive under pressure and just because I don’t work at Whosit, Whatsit & Soandso doesn’t mean that work won’t ever be stressful. But I don’t want to be a cog in the wheel. I couldn’t care less about making partner. And frankly, I’m tired of being an overachiever. Just regular achievement is enough for me these days. I don’t regret coming to law school but the 1L experience confirmed for me that I have no business being a “typical” lawyer. I just need to be strong enough to create my own path, knowing that I know what’s best for me. Ignoring that lump in the pit of my stomach has never gotten me anywhere I enjoyed being….and I’m not going to put myself through all this trouble to end up with a life I hate.