Spring Break

March 3, 2013 No comments

It's finally spring break! I'm excited to have a week without classes, even if it's not a total vacation week. I am going to meet S in the middle (we're going to my old undergrad stomping grounds) for a couple days. That should be a nice break, but I have a feeling I'm going to bring up the same old problem we've been having about the marriage problem. We both want to get married – that isn't the issue. The issue is geography. And the fact that neither one of us is willing to say "you move for me." I know I won't because I'm afraid of the outcome. But I'm also 26 years old. I want to get married soon. Not three years from now. Not some indeterminate amount of time from now. But (really) I want to get getting married now. Which clearly isn't going to happen.

I'm feeling a little burned out and panicky. Spring break isn't that far from graduation. Graduation isn't far from the bar. And after the bar…. it's just job. A job that I don't have yet. It's freaking me out. I don't want to panic. But I can't help it. I'm also starting to look at my budget a little closer for next year. Loans are going to kick in.  :!:   :!:   :!:

…And now that I've freaked myself out, I'm going to curl up and cry in a corner.

 

 

Whirlwind Life

February 19, 2013 No comments

Two updates in one month?! This is crazy talk. I'm actually going to try to update this a little more now that I'm closing in on graduation and real life. I need some place that I can get my thoughts out there, even if just to keep myself sane (well, more sane).

This week is absolutely crazy. I don't know why I do this to myself. I'm just counting down until Sunday, when things get less busy.

Monday was the least busy day. I had class – but just my three usual Monday classes. I had a meeting in the between my first and second classes about the review session that I handled that night for the 1L class that I TA for. And I was distributing the papers for the 2L class that TA for.

Today wasn't necessarily more hectic than normal. I was interning, as per usual. But today was the first time I was actually in court (in the upper court, no less) handling cases for the first time in a long time. Since around August, I think. I was nervous, even though they were just traffic appeals, but less nervous than I was when I was first getting started trying cases this summer. I even managed to get a trial in today. :D

Tomorrow is probably the most stressful day. I have class in the morning, then journal stuff that will take me around an hour and a half. After journal stuff I have to drive out to the state capital – about an hour away – for a job interview! I'm not super excited about the job itself (though I wouldn't be totally bored doing it) but I really want the stability of having a job before law school ends. If the prosecutor's office could just hire me life would be great… But sadly, not a possibility. :(

Thursday is a more "normal" intern day for me. I'll actually be back in court, but I won't be the one handling the cases, I'll basically be there because I know everything about the case. Photographic memory can really come in handy sometimes. ;) And then I'll just be doing my regular thing at my internship, working on whatever someone hands me to do.

Friday is another intern today. But then I'll have more cases to try in our higher court. Thankfully most of them are simple, but one is likely to be a misdemeanor trial. Which is fun. Once I'm done in court, I have to come back to school for journal symposium. At least the topic this year sounds comprehensible, as opposed to last year's symposium. The symposium will take up my entire afternoon.

Saturday is the second half of the symposium. At least it's only a half day, but its still not going to be super exciting. I'll probably end up spending the second half of Saturday finishing all of the school work I've neglected this week (since I missed two of my six class sessions) and getting ahead for next week.

Which brings me to glorious Sunday. I'm really really excited for Sunday. Just because it's the first day where I have actual chunks of time where I don't have stuff planned. Don't get me wrong, I've got a meeting and a lunch planned. But Sunday will be relaxing …hopefully.  :p

So… Good Talk?

February 7, 2013 No comments

It's been a while (again). I'm currently 94 days from graduation! That still hasn't really set in. Ninety four days from now I will be a Law. School. GRADUATE. It's exciting and terrifying at the same time. Once I graduate, I'm going to be studying for the bar exam. I'm going to be staying here, in the same state where my law school is. I'm happy about that. Even though the law here is a bit… different, it's good. I feel like I've learned some of it, particularly this semester.

My classes this semester are pretty awesome. I've got my state's Civ Pro, which is boring; a seminar on Problems in Criminal Justice, which is fantastic – I love the professor and my classmates, we're talking about interesting topics, and it's a paper class; Criminal Procedure II, which feels like I at least somewhat know what we're talking about every class; and White Collar Crime, which is taught by an attorney that I know and respect a lot.

We just finished journal editorial board selection. I was not impressed with the selection process. I think its mostly great, but I feel like my position ended up being the dumping ground for "people we want on the journal but that don't fit anywhere else." Look, I get it. We are at the bottom of the totem pole of people on the journal. BUT we have the MOST interaction with the 2L class-by far. They actually know who we are, what we're about, and we guide them through the process. And people were putting "committee dynamic" over ensuring that the 2Ls have good editors to make sure that they (a) enjoy journal and (b) put out a good writing sample. And yet we literally got the leftovers. It was frustrating.

Life Or Something Like It

December 10, 2012 No comments

Life has been crazy. Totally, absolutely bats**t crazy. Don't get me wrong, I love it. But I'm beginning to think I bit off more than I could chew this semester (but when don't I think that, right?).

I was feeling off kilter tonight. I don't really know why. But I decided to look back at my ex's ex-fiance's livejournal. The one that she had when he and I broke up on "good" terms (haha, yeah right). The one she had before she died. I went back to when they started dating — AKA when he dumped me for her (but left that part out of the information I received when we broke up, shocking I know). I also ended up at his livejournal, the one from when we broke up the first time. When I should have walked away and never looked back.

It brought back a lot of painful memories. And a LOT of missed warnings signs. I should have known that he was crazy. I should have known that he was a horrible person who would literally ruin my life if I let him. He was a jackass. A complete and total jackass. And I let him walk all over me. Sure, I was young and naïve. He was my first. My first kiss. The first boy who was allowed to drive me anywhere. The first boy that said he loved me. But looking back, this relationship had ALL of the warning signs of abuse written all over it from the very beginning. Out of the warning signs listed here, our relationship had 19 of them (and some of the ones that weren't present, well I didn't have a car and we went to the same school…). Pretty much from our first date. But I was young and stupid. And I've come a long way. But every so often I wonder if I haven't really. And it scares the f*ck out of me.

I know that I've dealt with what he did to me in the wrong ways, or at least not in the best ways. The easiest way to deal with the fact that he sexually abused me, was to externalize it. It was easy enough to talk about, because I never felt like it happened to me, it just was about me. A distinction without a difference to most people, but it was my strongest coping mechanism. If it didn't happen to me, it can't hurt me. He can't hurt me. The other way I've dealt with it is to forget what happened. Block the worst memories from my brain and be never the wiser. I didn't even know I did it, until the memories came back.

I have always consoled myself by saying that at least he never physically hit me. Or something along those lines. At least I never stayed after he physically abused me. Turns out, maybe that isn't as true as I once thought it was. Because a discussion about changing the laws on strangulation brought back a terrible night from around our first anniversary…

I was visiting him at school. We were fighting, like always. We were in his dorm room. He wanted to have sex; I didn't (I never did…). He was mad that I wasn't taking advantage of what "little time" we had together before I had to leave to go home. I was mad that he was being himself, although I didn't think of it in those terms. I just wanted some quiet time.

He and his roommates had bunk beds. We were on the top bunk (his bunk), sitting and arguing. I don't remember exactly what he said or what precipitated it, but he pushed me. Not a small, flirtatious push, the kind you see in movies as a couple walks down the street. He actually pushed me. Pushed me off the bed. The top bunk. I remember hitting the couch (thankfully) that was right next to the beds. I wasn't hurt (physically). But he wasn't done.

He jumped down. Not to see if I was alright, but to continue our fight. He tore up the bear he had given me — the "Someone at [College] loves me" bear. Ripped it limb from limb. Knowing I truly loved it, because it was a sweet gesture, a reminder of happier (happier?!) times we had (or at least I thought we had had…). He ripped my cross from my neck. He grabbed it and yanked. And he grabbed me by the throat.

It's not all clear. Parts of it are still blurry, even now that I remember more than I used to. Now that I remember the parts I didn't want to remember. I don't remember how the fight ended, how we ended up sitting (somewhat) calmly on the couch talking. But I remember the fear, the panic, the tears. I remember fearing that he could actually really hurt me. I remember his actions afterwards, how he couldn't not abuse me, even after such a terrible fight.

Most of all, I remember the spine-chilling coldness in his eyes and his voice. It's the same coldness that I heard when he "casually" remarked during one of our (too numerous to count) fights on the phone a couple years later that "if I was there right now, I would have slapped you across the face." The same cold voice that he used when he threatened to expose all of my deep dark secrets to the world if I didn't do exactly what he said, when he said it. If I wasn't his "perfect little housewife." His submissive, easy-to-abuse girlfriend.

And all of this misery and terrible-ness brings me to my *current* problem, one that is substantially less scary and hurtful and so much more of my own making. I don't know why the two are related (except for the one obvious reason, but…).

I want to get married. I want to have a pretty ring on my finger. I want to walk down the aisle (in Savannah) and get married to the love of my life and have everything be perfect. And I'm horribly, totally jealous every time someone on my facebook friends gets married/engaged. Especially if they haven't even known each other as long as S and I have been together. But I can't — I won't — force it. I just hate the jealousy. I want my happily ever after. Is that so much to ask?

There are bigger complications to this whole "getting married" thing than just "we've been together forever and I get jealous any time anyone else gets a ring." We currently live approximately 800 miles apart. I'm staying here, in the state of my law school. I love it here. The weather is fantastic (or at least, I think so). I've got a lot of contacts and a lot of possibilities for the future. I've currently applied for one job with a federal judge that I'm on the fence about. (I want job security — I want to know that I'm not going to be homeless come August and that I'll actually be contributing to the world. But it's not my "dream job," which would be to stay with the "big city" prosecutor's office that I'm still interning for — I love them!) Any way you slice it, I'm staying here. He is 800 miles and three states away. And will be for at least the next 3 years. And then who knows where he will be.

Someone is going to have to compromise. Someone is going to have to limit themselves geographically to wherever the other is. I want him to limit his (eventual) job search to here. But I don't think he will. He says he's OK with me staying here. But I know that deep down, he wants me to move up to him, take that state's bar, practice there for 3 years, then take another state's bar, wherever he ends up. I just don't want to do it. But I don't want to lose him. I love him dearly. He (quite possibly) is the love of my life. The person that truly completes me, who understands me better than anyone ever has or ever will. He accepts all of my crazy flaws, even the ones that are brought about by my super awful past. He gets me.

But I'm worried. I'm worried that we're going to be stuck in this holding pattern for three more years. Three LONG years. And then what? Where do we go from there? Three years from now, I'll be 29. I want to be married by the time I'm 28. I want to be done having my approximately 2.5 children by the time I'm 35. I can't get stuck in this holding pattern for another three years. I can't stay with him for three more years, only to find out that we're still having geography problems. That we're still in the same place we are now. I can't do it.

I'm scared to bring it up though. This is a discussion we need to have in person. Face-to-face. We're going on a trip around New Years. It will be the first time I've seen him since October. I'm super excited. We're going to our favorite beach in the whole world, then to Savannah, then to Charleston. I have a feeling he's going to propose, but I'm trying to suppress that feeling (and typically failing). I've had that feeling before and it only got my hopes up too high. But he suggested we go to where we had our "first meaningful date". He wanted to make sure we hit that beach…….. GAH! I can't think about it.

But I need to know our future. If we are going to be stuck in neutral, I can't do this. I love him more than anyone in this world and right now I can't imagine spending the rest of my life with someone else. But I can't wait forever. I don't want to give up the best shot I have of being a lawyer. I LOVE where I am right now. I don't see how we're going to make it work.

And that really scares me.

And now its almost 3L…

July 28, 2012 No comments

So 2L came and went. Without much blogging, but that's life as a crazy person, I guess. Now would be a good time to recap, I guess:

Fall semester was busy. VERY busy. I ended up taking 17 credit hours, looking for a 2L job, and interning in DC – which is about 3 hours each way from here – every Friday. :o I wouldn't recommend it. I also took 17 credits in the spring, but that semester didn't seem as bad. Journal was not nearly as bad in the spring, even though I went out for ed board. I made Notes Editor! :) I'm excited to supervise the incoming 2Ls (although I'm hoping at least 1 writes on an interesting topic – I'm hoping criminal law!).

But enough about school. The real, important stuff is this summer. My CrimPro and Evidence professor (one person teaching two classes) convinced me that I couldn't knock prosecuting until I tried it. I had sort-of decided after 1L summer that I might like to work in criminal defense. My professor had been a federal prosecutor, and she told me that I shouldn't dismiss prosecuting. So I applied to a state prosecutor's office that is in the nearest "big city" (although it isn't really that big of a city), as well as the local one.

I ended up getting an internship with the "big city" prosecutor's office, and I'm so glad I did. I loved it. I have had such a good summer. I got to do so many different things this summer. I went with my supervisor to interview jailhouse witnesses and current defendants; called lay witnesses and police officers for cases; prepared answers and arguments in response to motions to suppress; and so many other things. I had such a good time. I tried my first real case! :o And my second (and a couple others).

I really feel like this summer helped me figure out what I want to do. I thought I didn't want to litigate cases; now I know that I do. I truly didn't believe I could do it. I didn't really believe that I could try a case. But actually trying a real case felt so… right. And natural. And only a *little* nerve-wracking. But the second one was much more comfortable. :D Yes, the defendant attorney wasn't terrible. She was very nice. But it wasn't about how easy it was. It was about actually being able to do it, something I didn't really think I could.

I can't believe this summer is almost over! I'm coming back to the office I'm interning with now in the fall as an intern. :) I can really see myself working in criminal law. I was so hard-core defense when I came in; now I think I like prosecuting more. It's just so. much. fun. And I know me. I have to enjoy what I do. And I think this is what I want to do.

2L? Kind of a Drag

September 24, 2011 No comments

I thought 1L year wasn't awful. I didn't hate it. 2L year? Terrible. I want to curl up and die most of the time. Although I don't know if it is so much 2L year as some of the people I've been dealing with.

I'm on the executive board of an organization at the law school. It's an organization I think has a good mission and does some good things. But I'm on the verge of quitting, which I hate to do. It's not because of the organization, or even most of the people. It's because of one person. Our president. I was actually friends with the president last year, we had a lot of classes together. This year she's been a bitch. I'm in charge of PR, which in this case just means paper PR. Frankly, I don't feel like it makes much of a difference in attendance at our events. We get email updates twice week that people actually check and we have a place where we can get paper flyers and such. Part of my assignment last year was to survey the school to see what gets the message to people and it's not the paper side. Most people don't even look at it because they know its in all of the email stuff. So I'm just the "fall back" person. For the people who don't check their emails very closely. She's emailed me twice to bitch me out about "not doing a good job". It's only September. The first time, it was clearly not my fault. We have member-only events, and we were hosting one in the second week. Apparently, I was supposed to advertise it to the whole school — which no one told me about until the end of the day Monday before the event happened (it was on a Thursday). So why exactly is it my fault that we didn't get flyers out until Tuesday? And why is it threatening my job?

The second time, she was pissed because I "misled her". I really wanted to bitch back at her on this one. First, no one sent me the language for the flyer until the weekend before. It's on a Wednesday. Second, I got sick that week. I was going to print it on Sunday and drop it on Monday, and then I got sick. I was hoping I felt better to drop it on Tuesday, but got up late that day — because I was sick. Maybe I should have emailed her, but she probably would have bitched about me waiting until the last minute to do it. I can't win.

Now, she said thank you 5 times (which just sounds patronizing — I'm sorry), for putting up a flyer. But, I have to run the language by her first. WTF? Especially after she made big deal out of not wanting to be doing everything herself. Either I can do my job or I can't. I'm not going to submit everything to her. I added one sentence to the information I had so that people could actually understand what the event was about. Just listing who is on the panel isn't going to make anyone want to go to it. And I changed the title a little because the title they gave it was fucking stupid. Apparently I needed to send it to her first? No. Either I am in change or PR or I'm just your bitch runner. Pick one. And if it's option two, then I'm fucking done. (I don't like to cuss much, but she has pissed me off that much.)

Also, I've done significantly more than what was in my "job description". I redesigned our board, I came up with the idea of a calendar of upcoming events, putting up our next event on the board. I redesigned our flyer drops so that they are actually interesting to look at. So stop fucking telling me I'm not doing my job. Maybe I should just not get sick ever.

…And this is why my focus has been on the organization that actually appreciates me.

Check and mate

May 27, 2011 No comments

Finals? Done. Write On? Mercifully turned in. Job? Just finishing up my second week. I would say life is pretty good right now.

Finals were not nearly as bad this semester as they were last semester. Made me a little panic-y. I felt like I knew the material really well (except Contracts…) and didn't spend as much time studying as I did for the fall exams. Although, in the fall I spent a lot of time finishing my outlines, whereas this semester I managed to get them done on the last Friday of classes. Woot! :) So far it seems to be working out well. I got an A in Advanced Research I (the one-credit class required for doing research in the fall) and… an A+ in Property! :D :!: :D I never expected to do that well in any class (I hoped, of course), but especially not in Property. Don't get me wrong, I liked the subject and I felt good going into (and coming out of) the exam, but I figured that most people felt the same, so I was probably going to get an A-/B+ ish grade. I'm really excited by the A+ (probably the only one I'll get in law school, although I hope not) and I hope the rest of my grades don't look too horrible next to it. I feel pretty good about Con Law (so I'm hoping for an A/A-) and I feel mediocre about Contracts (so B+/B). Getting my Property grade does have one downfall, in that now I want the rest of them! :)

The job is going really well. I ended up taking the capital case internship and I love it. The cases are so fascinating and it feels like you can actually try to make a difference in someone's life, particularly someone that everyone else has written off. It's a tough battle here, apparently, to actually succeed, but I think its worth it. Everyone deserves good representation. I've added capital defense to my list of possible job search categories for next summer. I think right now I have 70 jobs I want to apply for. Some of them will probably get weeded out eventually, but 70 is a good place to start I guess. There is a mix of election law, media law, and capital defense, with a little bit of civil liberties mixed in. Just to keep things interesting. :wink:

It's been a while, huh?

April 21, 2011 No comments

I guess I've been a little busy. I haven't written a "real" post here in a while. Life has been a little crazy for me. School is winding down now, so its full-on panic study mode. I've got my Property outline completely done, my Con Law outline is through Equal Protection (so only Substantive Due Process left), and my Contracts outline… well, it at least has structure, right? It's hard to believe that I'm almost done with 1L year.  :o It's gone so fast! I'm on the cusp of being a 2L and being 1/3 done with this process. Although I've still got final exams, write-on, summer job….

I have a job offer now! :D :D :D I could work for a capital research project. It sounds like a lot of fun and I'm honestly surprised I got an offer (I interviewed over a month ago), but I'm waiting to hear back from a job my professor recommended me for. It's with a free radio NGO (so right up my alley) and is based in DC. I'm hoping he has a quick turnaround on my app, because I'm going to have to tell the cap. research project something fairly quickly. Either way I'm going to have to sublease somewhere for the summer  :( which I wanted to avoid. They are both too far for me to drive everyday. But at least I *know* I have a job this summer, which is a step up from before.

The wedding was absolutely gorgeous last weekend! It was great seeing my friends, hanging out with S, and getting all dressed up and dancing. My thighs were not happy on Sunday with all the dancing, but oh well. The flights, however, were not nearly as nice. I had to fly through Atlanta (because even the flight to hell has a layover there) because I live in the middle of nowhere and I was flying to the biggest city in the middle of nowhere. My plane out of Atlanta was delayed because of a bad storm in Charlotte (where the plane was coming from) so I got in late. At least I was able to go get tacos still, because the taco place is open until 11 (a shocker for where this is). Then we had to get up god-awful early on Sunday. S lives about an hour's drive away from the airport anyway, and my plane left of 6:40 a.m. Although I got home before noon (after sitting in traffic home from the airport because of two–2!–separate accidents less than 2 miles apart on the 13 miles of interstate I had to travel), it still was not fun. I may be a morning person, but 4:30 is not a time to be waking up. That is time I have gone to bed.

I guess this all I can get, since I need to get back to studying. If I can finish my Con Law outline tonight I won't feel like a failure tonight.

10 Days of Me: 9 Loves

April 7, 2011 No comments

Moving on to the next day (or week *cough*) of this meme!

1. Netflix Instant Streaming. This has gotten me through the beginning of studying for exams (and sometimes just weekends that I don't want to do anything). I <3 Doctor Who and Netflix has given me the opportunity to see all of the episodes (except the Matt Smith ones). Great to studying.

2. Sleeping in my own bed. While I love S a whole bunch and I miss him tons, it's really nice to sleep in my own bed with no one else. This is why we're getting a king bed in the future. :wink: It's nice to have that much space to sprawl. My bed has a little dip in the middle where I sleep every night.

3. All four seasons. I don't love them all equally (spring, I'm looking at you), but I love having all four seasons happen in a year. Until you've lived in a place where it is 95 and humid in April, you can't appreciate how nice having real winter (in a very mild sense) and spring and fall really is. Although spring is currently on my "things I hate a bunch" list at the moment, along with dogwoods…

4. Lazy Saturdays. I can't work seven days a week. I go a little stir crazy. It's amazing to spend a Saturday in my PJs, watching TV (or Doctor Who… seriously, I watched a whole season in less than three days), making chocolate chip pancakes and bacon for lunch. Sometimes I head to the local farmer's market (which I need to do soon… local honey will save me from my allergies) and just walk around in the beautiful downtown area.

5. Doctor Who. Since I've already mentioned it twice, I may as well add it to the list. I've always been intrigued by the idea of time travel, so this is right up my alley. Plus the Doctor is usually pretty to look at, at least in the new seasons. I haven't seen too much of Matt Smith, but I'm sure he will also meet that criteria. :)

6. Sports, particularly ice hockey. Even though my Flames won't be making the playoffs this year  :( , I still love the sport. There is something exhilarating about hockey. The hard hits, the beautiful saves (and goals, I guess)… I love it all. Don't get me wrong, football is awesome, too. But hockey is so much more fast-paced and full of action. It can change in 10 seconds or less.

7. Crunchtime Supplements. These things will be the savior of my Contracts grade. I've been floundering around trying to figure out how to structure my outline (let alone actually outlining anything), and these set me pretty straight. The flowcharts helped me set up the basic shell of my outline so that I can understand exactly how to answer a contracts question. Now if only I could actually sit down and outline that class…

8. Weddings. Even though I won't be getting married anytime soon, I absolutely love weddings. I'm going to a wedding in about a week for two of my best friends from college, and I can't wait. I watch wedding shows when I can catch them (My Fair Wedding, Bridezillas <3, Platinum Weddings). I can't wait to get married someday.

9. Con Law. Con Law is the bright spot in my law school day. I really dislike Contracts (probably because it is horribly organized) and I'm kind of indifferent towards Property, but I really enjoy Con Law. My professor is a-maz-ing. She makes it all make sense. I'm actually holding out on taking Admin for my 3L year because she isn't teaching it next year. I feel like I know what is coming in that class (which is so shocking).

10 Days of Me: 10 Secrets

March 31, 2011 No comments

I've decided to join in on the 10 days meme (thanks to one of my favorite blogs), so here we go.

1. I'm surprisingly anti-social. I prefer small groups over large ones, and typically I prefer groups of 1-2 best. If I make plans with a group of people, I have to force myself to participate. And sometimes I fail at forcing myself, and I end up staying home and watching movies alone. While it sounds lonely and depressing, I'm usually very happy when I'm home alone.

2. I was abused by my ex-boyfriend. He only hit me once (he pushed me off a top bunk and shoved me against a wall), but I can still remember in the middle of one horrible fight on the phone the absolute terror he unleashed in my brain when he said, "If you were here, I would have hit you by now. Slapped you across the face." I don't remember any of what we were fighting about, what time of day it was, where I was sitting, if I was crying or not–but I remember the inflection in his voice and the exact words he said. I remember how quietly he said them, the only calm, rational sounding thing he said for hours was that he would have hit me had I been standing in front of him. That moment was when I knew with every fiber of my being I couldn't marry him (which, btw, was the plan at the time). After breaking up, other suppressed memories came back–things that had happened five years previously (with the same guy) that confirmed that I definitely made the right call in not marrying him.

3. I have an eidetic memory. I can remember pretty much everything I read, if I read it carefully and don't just skim, and most things I see. If I'm looking for something I've misplaced, I close my eyes and try to see where I last saw it. It usually works. I can still remember what my 11th-grade American history classroom looked like, the set up of the desks and the arrangement of the posters on the front wall.

4. Sometimes I feel completely and utterly unprepared for the real world. A lot of my classmates have worked in real jobs before (some as paralegals even) or are married/have kids. I feel like I'm so far behind them, since I went straight from high school to college to law school. My parents never made me work during high school and I never had a job during the college school year. I feel like I am way behind in these areas.

5. I love citations/style guides. I enjoy Bluebooking and I still check S's footnotes from time to time. It's just kind of soothing for me.

6. I don't like it when people think I'm smart. I think it goes along with being shy, but I really prefer if no one notices me in my life. I don't want people to think I'm dumb, but I don't want them thinking I'm really smart. This is why I don't emphasize my grades (or really tell all that many people what they are), and I tend to downplay what I know. I know I shouldn't dislike it when people think I'm smart, but its just always there. I prefer being unnoticed.

7. I have panic attacks when I have to do something outside my comfort zone. When I was a journalism major, I literally broke down crying and hyperventilating because I had to cold call people. Same goes for being assertive in my job search–panic attacks like whoa.

8. I feel out of place sometimes in law school. Most people seem to know *exactly* what they want to do (K wants to do environmental law; AV wants to work for the feds, AB wants to be a prosecutor… the list goes on). I have no clue whatsoever. I love the First Amendment, I love election law, I really like academic stuff… but what that means as far as a job? No clue. I know I want to do something where I get to make a difference in someone's life. I don't think I want to work in a big firm (or a law firm in general). Other than that… it's all a blur.

9. In addition to that general feeling of being lost as to my future, I keep having this gut feeling about that future. I just *know* that I'm going to graduate, get a job (hopefully), get married, have kids, and never use my law degree again. I don't know why, but that is just the recurring thought that runs through my head. It's not what I want per se (not that it would be horrible–I definitely want to get married and have kids sometime in the not-too-distant future), but I don't think I want to do all of this work and not get something out of it, you know?

10. I really, really dislike people who will do anything to get what they want. I think this is why I dislike politics so much. I just can't stand when people would cross so many lines just to get what they want. It's selfish, self-centered, and just completely rude. For example, I know someone who would accuse a classmate of being homophobic because the GLBT group didn't get "enough" money. There are so many things wrong with that, but the biggest thing that got me was how low it felt. To accuse someone of being homophobic because you didn't get enough money? Particularly when everyone's budget got cut? It's a horrible thing to accuse someone of anyway, but to do it over money is just despicable.

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