Thoughts From the Road

Everything I own is packed into the back of my mom's minivan.  I'm sitting in the lobby of a hotel in some state I've never lived in (nor, for that matter, liked all that much) about two or three hours from my new apartment, which I can move into tomorrow.  We could have driven more tonight, but Mom was tired and as we get closer to my new home, I expect hotels to get more expensive.

We left yesterday and drove a whopping three hours.  We hadn't planned to, but it was hot and once we got the car packed up the idea of staying another night in my old apartment made me want to scream.  It's been a longer roadtrip than I planned, but I think that might be a good thing.  I think it might be a bit cathartic.

I'm excited, I'm relieved, I'm ready.  And yet?  I'm not ready.  I've spent the past few days getting rid of things, saying goodbyes, giving hugs, and alternating between grinning like and idiot and bawling my eyes out.  I lived there for six years.  My friends were my adopted family.  I'm glad to be moving on, glad to be moving forward, and yet?  I'm going to miss the life I'm leaving behind.

Mom and I have talked more than I expected, I've wanted to talk more than I expected.  I had planned to spend the drive reading and while I have managed about 75 pages, there seem to be more pressing concerns.  My relationship with my mother was rocky for a long time, but we've both changed tremendously in the past few years.  This is probably the most time we've spent together in a continuous stretch since I was in high school and it's actually really, really nice. 

In the next few days or weeks, I'll probably write about all my anxiety about what comes next.  I still have about 150 pages of orientation reading to do.  I have school stuff to buy and all of the details of my new life to get set up and organized, but right now, I think I need a few moments to be self-indulgent.  I need to reflect, maybe.

Also.  I don't own a TV, so I haven't been watching any Olympic coverage, but the TV's on here in the hotel lobby,  and can I just say?  Even with the volume down low, Ryan Seacrest is annoying.  Really annoying.

The Times They are A-Changin'

As of 5:31 yesterday, I'm officially unemployed.  This is a good thing, as I have a lot to do in the next two weeks, but it's bittersweet.  I liked my job, though I'll admit this summer has been mind-numbingly slow.  I liked the people, liked the physical space, and most of the time I even liked the work.

Going to work everyday also let me procrastinate (I'll clean when I'm unemployed and have time and don't come home exhausted from fighting traffic!), and it forced me to be social.  It also gave me a sense of stability.  Now, suddenly, the fact that I'm in a period of transition is incredibly real.

Starting to get Excited

In less than a month, I'll be in the middle of orientation week.  I realized tonight that I'm starting to let myself be Really Freaking Excited about this.  Oddly, it hit me while I was shopping.

Keeping Myself Honest

I've made progress on my to-do list, but I'm Keeping Myself Honest and posting an updated version.  (In other words, work is dead and I'm way too hyper to knit or read.  It seems that this is what happens when I get a full 9 hours of sleep.  I have too much energy to focus.)

A Weekend With my Adopted Family

My best friend, hereafter to be referred to as C, because "my best friend" takes a lot of effort to type eighty times and can get wordy, was in town this weekend and I spent much of the past few days driving her around to see her various family members. Every July 4th (or thereabouts), her dad's side of the family gets together for a golf tournament/potluck/barbeque/sing-along/game night.  The golf portion of the family tradition was called off this year due to no one wanting to be outside in 105° heat, but the rest of the family reunion was still very much on.

C's family is sort of my adopted family, and so I know the cast of characters pretty well.  Still, they're not my family, so we don't talk regularly and I haven't seen some of them since last year's gathering.  I haven't seen any of them since sending in my seat deposit and officially deciding that I'm Going To Law School Dammit.  Reactions this weekend alternated between amusing me, inspiring me, and filling me with confidence.  Some of the highlights are below the cut.

Women Are Never Quite So Happy As When They're Making Themselves A Little List

Five weeks from today, I'm moving into my new apartment and I've gone from kind of freaked out about it to full-on panic.  The source of my panic comes from two categories.  Category A involves the fact that I have a ton of stuff to do.  Category B involves the fact that I'm broke -- really broke -- until I get paid on July 11 or sell my car. 


Rather than sit and let the panic overwhelm me, I'm making a list of everything in Category A as a means of making it appear semi-manageable.

My to-do list can be found after the cut.

Is It August Yet?

Over the past few days, I've told a few friends that it's honestly not law school that I'm stressing over, it's the five-ish weeks until I move.  I've got a lot to do.  I have a car to sell.  I have stuff to pack.  I have friends to see and say goodbye to.  I need to go to the dentist, I need to get new glasses.  I need to talk to the HR lady at my work about the cost of COBRA-ing my current insurance so I can compare it to the cost of any school plan.  I need to get a new computer.

Questions That I Dread (Part 2)

In my last post, I said there are two questions that I dread.  I talked through my answer to "what kind of law do you want to practice?" but didn't get to "why law school?"

I think "why law school?" is the question I dread more, mostly because I have yet to figure out how to articulate my answer.

Questions That I Dread (Part 1)

There are two questions that I've come to dread, and inevitably one or both are asked whenever someone finds out that I'm going to law school.  They're related but distinct questions.  The first is "So what kind of law do you want to do?"  The second is "Why law school?"

The easy answer to "what kind of law?" is that I know enough to know that I don't know enough to know for certain.  By this I mean that I know where my interests lie, and I know what I geek out over, but I also know that I may discover that geeking out over something may not translate well into enjoying working in that field.  I also know that I may discover that I hate something I currently think that I love or that I love something that I don't have much interest in or, for that matter, that I don't even know exists.

Cleaning, Packing, Getting Ready To Move, and General Ramblings

I'm not the world's neatest person.  No, strike that.  I'm a slob.  Seriously.  What's more, I've spent the past three years living in a tiny, furnished studio with no surface space, counter space, or place to sit down and eat a meal.  What's more, I moved into my tiny studio from a 3,500 square foot house, so I have a lot of stuff.  I have too much stuff for my tiny studio, and way too much stuff for the apartment I'll be moving into in about, oh, nine weeks.

My Approach to 0L Prep

My job is dead during the summer months. Really dead. So dead that half of today was spent playing Trivial Pursuit with my coworkers. Three-to-four days a week, I can do pretty much whatever I want so long as I'm there from 9:30-5:30 and dressed in my employer's (very lax) definition of business casual. The other one-to-two days, I can do anything I want provided that I can look like I'm being productive if the Big Boss happens to walk by. (I.e., if it's on my crappy work computer, I can do it. If it involves a book or a my personal laptop, I can't.) It makes sense, then, to devote some of that time to 0L prep.

First Post

This blog is meant to be my attempt to blog my way through law school.  That having been said, I have a bad habit of starting and subsequently forgetting about blogs, so we'll see how this one goes.

I'm a non-traditional law student/applicant by which I mean I'm not twenty-two.  When I was twenty-two, I was managing a bar in corporate restaurant, a dropping out of community college, and preparing myself for a career in the restaurant industry.  By twenty-five, I knew I wanted more than that and went back to school.

While I did well in school when I went back, law schools look at all of your grades, so they're seeing a GPA that's pretty terrible.  Still, I had a fantastic LSAT score (objectively fantastic, not better-than-I-thought-I'd-do fantastic) and was accepted, with scholarship money, to all but two of the schools to which I applied.  I turned down a few better-ranked schools for a full scholarship at a school that I absolutely loved when I visited.

School starts in August.  It's almost June.  I'm starting to freak out.  Rather than bore my friends and family, I'm blogging.  We'll see how this lasts.