booty booty booty booty rockin' everywhere

Just got back from marching in the Pride parade with my office. Good thing we were behind a hip hop radio station truck. We had music to get the crowd cheering and keep ourselves entertained. They played Ms. New Booty at least twice and the more extroverted in our group took the opportunity to get freaky with the audience.

Weekend has been fun and busy. Went to dinner with friends on Friday. Good times and good food. Tried to take my ripped pants back to JCrew Saturday but, some mark on the tag gave away the fact that they were factory not regular JCrew. A friend/ master sewer is trying to fix them now. Sigh. Also found another on sale multi use blazer which made me very happy.

Last night was a birthday party for my supervising attorney's husband at a bar where husband and I used to go all the time in college and while we were dating. Turns out supervising attorney and her husband also used to go their when they were dating. Very weird full circle kind of thing. The bartender remembers us all and was very happy to see us together. To celebrate, we did a round of peanut butter jelly shots. Yum. The BEST.

Now I feel like I need to collapse in front of the television for the rest of the day.

There are no words to describe...

...what should be done to this man. Sex with a four month old puppy???!!! Sick fucking bastard.

Bi-Lingo

Went home for the weekend. I love my family and all in all it was a good trip. But...there were the usual familial challenges. Especially my cousin's wife who I love but was annoying the shit out of me. She wouldn't stop talking about how much weight she'd lost and how good she looks and how she gets to buy all these cute clothes now. The highlight had to be when she drank too much and said in front of my mom and grandma that if she got pregnant she'd "just get rid of it" even though my cousin wants kids. I kept trying to help her out, being well versed in nervous around the in-laws, drinking too much and saying stupid shit. But, she never seemed to take my offers of salvation. In another patio session, my grandma (mom's side) and grandpa (dad's side) were talking about how I need to become fluent in "that Spanish" because no one will hire you if you're not "Bi-lingo."

Back to the grind today. My supervising attorney asked me to second chair her at a trial that starts tomorrow. Very excited about that!

"Cuz you had a (really) bad day"

I've now downloaded the Daniel Powter "Bad Day" song.

Work was challenging today. I saw a jury selection which was interesting, and other stuff happened that I'm too tired to talk about.

I rushed home on 2 buses and went to pick up dry cleaning. On my walk home I had to make a 9-1-1 call because a homeless person got assaulted by another homeless person. I was walking by when said homeless person was bloody and screaming standing next to a non-homeless guy trying to calm her down. Turns out another homeless person jumped out of a bush to attack her and another homeless person's dog bit her. When I talked to the officers, they said that the victim was a clean peace-maker in the area. Shit.

Came home to check a grade. ASSSHITFUCK. I didn't do badly, but I really expected more in that particular class. Still waiting for Civ Pro grade and can kiss top-fucking-25% and OCI good bye.

Why am I doing this??

Advice, especially for fpotus

I feel like I have arived blawg-wise. I got a comment asking for advice:

i'm from ok and about to be an 1L in PA. I would be interested in any advice you would give--maybe how you would have done that first year differently. I am also married and am interested in what you believe are the best ways to balance the husband and the law school.

First -- yay for being from OK! I lived on a farm there when I was younger and my grandfather still has a family farm there. I don't have all of my 1L grades yet, just full disclosure re: any academic advice I have. That said...

You have to put in the work and it will take a lot of time. But, there is a huge difference between putting in a ton of hours and actually studying. (The old work hard, not smart addage.) It's hard to know exactly what that means at first and I still don't have it down. What worked for me was actually reading all the cases, outlining from the beginning of the semester, and then condensing my outlines into smaller checklists around the end of the semester. Some people love study guides, and barely bother to read the cases. I found them extremely helpful for some classes, but thus far have the best grade in the class for which I used no study guide.

Sticking to a schedule that mirrored my husband's was crucial in terms of balancing. I worked 9-5 every week day. A lot of times that turned into 7-7. But, we had dinner (and wine!) together nearly every night. On the weekends, I tried to work from 10-5. But, when I needed a day off to spend time with husband, or friends, or on myself, I did it. If you don't you will just be too burned out (I was still pretty fried by the end of both semesters, but think it could have been much worse.) Keep doing things you like. You will have to give stuff up, and there will be things you can't do as often, but do not give up everything. Outlets are important.

Being married the first year can be tricky. For me it was also grounding and rewarding. I needed someone outside of law school to keep me in check and remind me that law school is a crazy bubble world. I needed someone who would listen to me blabbering and slobbering about how I couldn't do it anymore and how much I sucked, etc. We got into some fights because there was lots of stress for both of us. I needed a LOT from husband in the emotional support and work around the house areas. When you need those things, try to ask for them rather than expecting them and getting frustrated and yelling later (not that I did that or anything.) Law school can change you in some weird ways. As one of our 1L professor's said, don't bring your lawyer mind into your relationship. It can be hard not to, but when your spouse is telling you how they feel it is totally rude and unfair to look for the weakness in his/her argument rather than listening to what they are trying to tell you.

Back to the importance of scheduling: a key for me was NOT studying in the law school library. Of course, I would study there between classes. Otherwise, I did my work at home. It's hard enough without seeing all of your classmates doing X,Y,Z. Even though you don't need to do what they are doing, you will likely feel guilty that you're not and think that you should be doing what they are or doing more.

That's all I can think of right now. A, B, others, advice to add??

Oh, and

Husband just got a letter from a 14 year old girl in the 4H. She wants him to be her date to the 4H fair or something to be auctioned off. He told me he'd rather buy the goat. Lovely mental image of the dog and a goat playing and eating our 500 square foot apartment...

Then he said he wanted the goat butchered for the meet. Can I get a collective blog-o-sphere EEEEWWW?

Wardrobe Malfunction to the Max

I was wearing one of my spiffy new suits. A great Navy pantsuit quickly on its way to becoming my favorite. At about 3pm I was bending over, crouching really, to move some boxes. What the fuck is going on, I thought, what's that noise? Oh holly shit bags. My pants have ripped in the bum. This seems bad. I quickly turned around and glued my ass to the desk. Lucky for me, a co-intern had been wearing a long sweater-jacket thing that could cover this up. Even luckier, it was brown which would almost work with the navy pants, white shell, camel shoes I had going. Another intern was in my office at the time so I asked her to go down the hall and get co-intern 1's sweater for me. She did. I covered up and ran to the bathroom to inspect the damage. The pants had ripped the entire way along the seam from the back of the waistband to mid crotch. With co-intern's sweater I managed to make it through the rest of the day. When I went into co-intern's office to thank her and negotiate keeping the jacket until tomorrow, her supervising attorney smiled at me and played the "You Had a Bad Day" song they played on American Idol when people were voted off. Brilliant. J-Crew will get a lovely piece of my mind and I will be demanding a refund or store credit of full purchase price. I will even exagerate the story if need be. Like: I was in court and this happened in front of the judge!!

yogi-OCD

I went to an amazing restorative yoga class tonight. Restorative yoga requires using lots of props. In true OCD fashion...I would not use the bolster that had a hole in the fabric. I lined all of my props up like this: 2 blocks of same size, 2 blankets of same color and pattern folded the same way, strap untwisted and in a straight line. When I put everything away, I would only carry the same types of props at a time and had to rearrange things so they were lined up correctly. I'm nuts.

Search and seizure

So much for not working on Fridays.

I was ordering priors on a case today when the intern coordinator walked in and asked: "What bull-shiiit are you working on?" He's really hilarious. I told him what I was doing and he said: "Well, that's really important. Everything we do around here is important. BUT, it's still buuull shiiit. Do you want to write a motion?" And I said: "Well, I would, but I'm only a first year and not certified." He looked at me and said: "Honey, we are (in air quotes) under-resourced. Which means, we can have people like you write the motions as long as they get written and make sense and a real attorney looks over it. But, you definitely cannot argue it. Come with me."

So, I take notes on everything I need to do and ask (momentarily forgetting where I work) when it's due.

"Tomorrow by noon."

Gulp. I wasn't planning on working on Fridays a) because I'm not getting paid and b) because I can get paid on the Fridays when I babysit. So, I said I normally didn't work on Fridays and asked if I could make a few phone calls. I made the needed calls, raced back upstairs (I'm sorry feet!) and said it would be done by then.

So, the internship continues to cost me money. But, I LOVE it. I love, love, love it. This is affirming since I don't heart law school.

::

In my 'hood, it is rarer to see someone wearing a suit at 7am and waiting for the bus than it is to see someone smoking crack or puking on the sidewalk. So, I get lots of random looks.

::

I ran my ass off between court and my office today finding random things and making copies. The benefit: my attorney's love me. The cost: my toes were bleeding profusely by noon. My office doesn't have support staff or a first aid kit. Luckily someone had their own stash and gladly shared the peroxide and band aids.

Day of Surprises

First full day of the internship was...hectic. But it's going to be so good. I got to watch parts of the closing arguments of a murder trial in addition to lots of time "working up" case files.

Came home determined to work out. Husband said to hurry because it was the "day of surprises." I came home to a scavenger hunt - 5 surprises hidden in duct taped paper bags around the house. Bags one and two contained two computer type cases that mother in law sent for me to use this summer. Bag three contained...uh, one of husband's dirty socks (yes, we have sick senses of humor.) Bag 4 was some trail mix he didn't like and gave to me. But, but, but in bag five was :: an IPOD NANO!!!!! Woo-hoo. He definitely gets a gold star fot that one.

This will make it much easier for me to start my new fitness goal -- the Couch to 5K program.

And, no freaking grades posted.

::

Still trying to decide how much I want to blog about my internship. I have some funny stories already, but...

So, for now I will say that the pace is frantic, the people seem awesome, and I have been encouraged to bring my laptop due to a "computer mishap, and by mishap, I mean huge fuck up."

The unpaid internship has officially put me over a grand in the hole because I found out I do need to wear a suit every day and scambled to purchase more professional garb today.

Dress Code Question

Orientation was mind boggling. In one part of my 750 page (exaggerating) handbook, it says "business attire expected, and a jacket expected in court." Another part of the handbook says: Women: Tailored suits, dresses, or skirts or slacks with jacket and appropriate blouse or sweater are allowed...Jackets may be removed while in your working office but must be worn at all other times." WTF does this mean??

Bummer

Conviction got cancelled. I think it had to be the time slot. Who watches TV on Friday nights? Well, okay, I do. But, I don't think that's common.