New Stuff

Bwahaha! I have emerged from my school stupor that made me forget that I have a blog! And now in my forced idleness I shall send out into the world of cyberspace a never-ending succession of posts!

In all reality I'll probably update this about once a month.

So... what's new? Well I'll tell you what's new.
1. I got married
2. I graduated from law school
3. I took the bar exam (results come out tomorrow)
4. I am unemployed
5. I have rediscovered reading and Mario Kart

The above are not in chronological order. First I graduated in May. Well, even before that I got engaged about an hour before April Fool's. It was really fun on April 1 to tell all my friends I was engaged. Most of them weren't quite sure whether to believe us or not. Because it could have been true, but we could just have been getting back at them for constantly pushing us to get married. (Side note: I will never EVER push someone when it's obvious that they've found the right person. Having so many people push you towards something that you're not quite sure about and is a big decision is the direct opposite of help.) So we set the wedding for August 6, just 10 days after the bar exam.

If you're really good at logic puzzles, you've probably figured out the order of events by now. I quit my job in May so I could focus on studying for the bar and planning a wedding. Which leads me to my married and unemployed status. That's when I rediscovered reading and Mario Kart. My current book is a biography of Fred Astaire. Not very well written as far as the story goes, but lots of interesting information.

In other news, I learned an important baking lesson today. If a recipe calls for shortening and butter or margarine you can use butter in place of the shortening, but you cannot use margarine in place of the shortening. I tried that when I discovered that I had no real butter or shortening in the middle of making cookies this evening. Result- cookie soup. The dough never really stiffened to the point that I could make cookies out of it. So I tossed it all in a casserole dish and made a cookie pie/cake. I haven't tasted it yet, having gorged myself on dough soup, but I plan to tomorrow. It's probably fine.

Speaking of tomorrow and results, the bar exam results come out tomorrow at 1pm. I honestly haven't been that nervous until just now. For whatever reason I've had no butterflies, no quavering stomach, no sweaty palms, or anything until now when it's way too late to do anything about it. I had kind of chalked the non-feeling about the bar exam up to do much to do (get married, move, honeymoon, get the apartment sorted out to a livable condition, insurance, dress preservation, etc.). But that really slowed down about a week and a half ago, so I don't know what was going on. I should have been nervous. I should have been all knotted up inside. But I wasn't. Even now it only comes in little bursts of strangled anticipation. I just hope that the morning goes by quickly so that the agony will end as soon as possible.

And I am looking for work. It's just that so is half my class. I really haven't found much yet but I'm sure that I will soon. I'm networking at maximum and doing my best to write good cover letters and follow up on leads. I'm sure that once I get an interview I'll be good to go. I just have to get that foot in the door. So wish me luck! And in the mean time I'll enjoy the down time and brush up on my kart driving skills.

New Direction

So I decided today while I was walking from my car to the law school that I would make this blog the repository for all of my random observations. Starting with this one- why is it that when I wander around a public location in my jeans and T-shirt, I feel like I'm dressed more casually than girls in Nike running shorts, Sperry's, and oversized fleece jackets? And just as a P.S. they all have the same hair-do. Messy with a side braid in front and low, off-center ponytail in back.

Terrible

I'm sorry sports fans. I actually forgot that I had this thing until I was sorting through my bookmarks today and found the link.

Well, I'm a 3L now and very, very ready to be done. More ready to be done with this than I've ever been ready to be done with something in my whole life. And typically I love school! Around the end of July I usually get all jazzed up because it's time to go back to school, but not this year. Oh, no. I dreaded the prospect. I was actually counting weeks at the beginning of the semester. I think the difference was that I worked full time this summer at a job that enjoyed and got paid decent, if not great, money to do it. Finding out that you're capable enough to fulfill a task and enjoy it are great motivators to not go back to school and study how to do the thing that you already know how to do. Really the third year of law school is a waste. We should do like they do in Turkey and apprentice out for a year instead. You learn the skills that you really need in practice and that way you'd be more likely to land a job when you were done because you'd've met people in the industry. Stupid American system.

I've been writing a paper comparing the roles of lawyers in the criminal justice systems of Saudi Arabia and Turkey. Thus the random Turkey comment. It's been pretty interesting if slow going. Turned in the rough draft yesterday. We'll see how I did.

Anyway that's about all the update that's worth updating in this public of a forum. Not exactly the kind of place that you want to go on about your dating prospects ya know? So we'll leave it at that and sign off for a while. Hopefully not another year, though.

Worse Than My Actual Journal

Apparently I'm worse at keeping up with this thing than writing in my actual journal. It at least has some entries between August and now. I'm such a lame-o-head.

So news... I got hooked on Bollywood movies thanks to some fun friends of mine. Shahrukh Khan you're my hero! Seriously though, he's a good actor. Probably better than a lot of the guys we see here in the states. He does everything from comedy to drama to sing-a-longs and crazy dance routines and is totally amazing in all of them. I recommend Rab Ne Bana Di Jodi for beginners followed by Veer-Zaara and Kal Ho Naa Ho. P.S. That's three of the four or five I've seen. So really I'm a beginner myself.

I know in August I said that I'd be losing some weight once fall started. Ha! I think I'm chunkier now than ever. Possibly back to just of the mission weight. But I'm back at the gym because I'm tired of the waistband on my pants cutting off the circulation to my legs.

And Christmas is coming! Oh boy! We put up all the decorations and lights on Saturday and the house looks AMAZING!!! My usual routine when I get in is to do the final lockup of the house which includes turning off all of the lights. Except now the Christmas Tree lights stay on to brighten my evening. And the lights that are wrapped around the banister. They're so pretty! And I need to start my shopping soon, too. Eep! But it'll be fun looking for gifts and finding that perfect thing.

Finals start next week. I think I'll be ready, but I'm having trouble being as motivated as I was my first couple of semesters. I think it's because I know the routine now and have far less to do. I've got two written finals, a paper to edit and develop a bit further and a title examination. So two and a half finals instead of four and a paper like I'm used to. And I've really been studying hard for a couple of weeks now. Last year I felt like I was barely keeping up with things and then cramming the two days before the final. None of that this time around. I've got a good grasp on the general concepts, the tests, and the analysis for the written finals. Now it's just filling in the details.

I think that about covers it. I'm looking forward to the next couple of weeks. Finals and a looser schedule than normal coupled with some super fun activities. Should be a good holiday lead-in!

Much Obliged

So a buddy of mine told me that it was time to update my blog. Probably right since the last time was when Spring grades came out. Since then I've taken Summer courses and held two jobs. Well, one was an unpaid internship that I did for about six weeks. The second is my current job as a paid intern in Edmond. Except for the drive, I really like it. I've gotten to write complaints, contracts, letters to lawyers and research everything from automatic stays to trusts to construction defects. A friend of mine told me the other day that he likes to hear about my day because it's always something new. And he's right. I never know what I'll be asked to tackle next. And that's the way that I like it. I tend to get bored with things after a while so new projects keep me sharp.

I've also gained a bit of weight. Ugh! I'm hoping that I'll get back in shape in the Fall when I've got a regular schedule and the gym is open later. I'm a night runner, like a 9pm runner, so the gym closing at 7:30pm doesn't do a lot for me. Soon, though, I shall take my revenge on the little pudgies that have taken up residence in my body. Die pudgies die! Bwahahaha!

Other than that it's mostly just trying to enjoy the end of the summer. Only two weeks of freedom left. I'm debating putting together a two day fun fling. Go to White Water one day and Frontier City the next, but I haven't really decided yet. Or maybe head to the Six Flags in Dallas. I dunno.

I think that about covers it for me. God is great, life is good, and people are crazy.

Woot!

I got the results from Spring semester in. I'm on the Dean's List! And I moved up in class rank! I may have a chance at continuing to get real lawyer jobs! WOOT!

And just as an update- I'm continuing my work for the firm in Edmond and really liking it. It's challenging and has enough variety to really keep me on my toes. I've gotten really familiar with the OU Law Library and with navigating community red tape, which is a lot of fun. The people I work with are nice and very understanding about my class schedule. Which reminds me- finals are coming! I also ended my internship with Legal Aid. It was great while it lasted, but with a paying gig and finals fast approaching it was just too much. So it's nice to have the time to devote to studying and working and a couple of recreational pursuits like I did at the beginning of the summer. I'm also working on editing my resume to look as impressive as possible, no mean feat.

For the fourth I'm headed to Cali to visit the good old Dad. We're definitely going to D-land and possibly a few of the old haunts like the Queen Mary or Exposition Park. Should be a fun trip and I'm looking forward to a bit of a break.

Adventures in Lawyer-dom

This is a bit silly and I realize it. But I got a real lawyer job today. I'm doing research for a firm up in Edmond. First off, yay money! and secondly, yay experience! I've been doing work for Legal Aid Services of Oklahoma, which I love, but this is a little more grown-up feeling. I spend most of my time at Legal Aid on the phones slogging through the quagmire of American justice and governmental agencies. Basically calling different departments to find out why horrible thing X happened to the client and what the policy is to appeal, repeal, or dispute it. Today, however, I was given the outline of some case facts and told to go find out if there's a cause of action. Oh, and call this person (a real witness!) to see if you can get some more information from her. Then they handed me one of those huge brown accordion file folders full of hearing transcripts and evidence and basically left me to my own devises. Pretty cool! Anyway, I just got off the phone with the witness and I feel like a grown up lawyer doing real lawyerly things. It's a good feeling. Like maybe I'm going to enjoy my profession. And maybe I did actually learn something over the last year.