divine angst

I’m feeling better about my resume now. Mr. Angst helped me retool it some, so that my experience resonates more from a corporate perspective–even though I have never really worked in a corporate environment. I’m suddenly using words like “revenue” and “initiative.” Me! Revenue? Initiative? I guess I tend not to think of my employment in those terms, even if those terms apply. I’m still too touchy-feely, I guess.

I also finished revising my writing sample. So now all that’s left is . . . cover letters. Argh! I think I’ll draft some of those this afternoon. Maybe by tomorrow I can have some things to put in the mail!

I don’t like that the 1L job search seems crafted to make you doubt your self-worth. In all the job searches I’ve done in my time, I have never felt, at the resume-and-cover-letter-stage, that I was in the position of a beggar. But now I do–I’ll take any crumb at all as a sign that I am worthy to be paid this summer, that I am valuable enough to be hireable. And that’s ridiculous!

I also wonder if ANY law school career services office has the time and resources to do anything useful for people like me, who are career-changers and need, perhaps, a little more coaching in the legal job search. Mr. Angst, not a lawyer, was able to give me better advice in five minutes of looking at my resume than my career services advisor could. And that’s absurd! Who is the expert being paid to help me write a resume? NOT Mr. Angst.

So the job search process is frustrating. I think the best thing for me at this point would be to send out some stuff and see what results. And keep revising and redirecting my approach.

If you have a moment, send waves to my brother, whose beloved and beautiful boxer passed away this evening. Boris was a good dog.

So I submitted my resume to our career services office for winter on-campus-interviews. I thought that might be a nice way to kick-start my job search, or at least get me off my ass as far as completing my resume. (It actually did that.) Of course, I didn’t get any interviews.

Part of the problem, I think, is that my experience has been entirely non-legal. I noticed that a lot of my classmates who got interviews were the ones who worked as paralegals before coming to law school. That’s kind of annoying. I think my experience gives me breadth and allows me to approach legal issues with a different perspective. But I also know that a lot of big law firms don’t really care about that breadth, and they want a lot of little them-clones who are easy to mold–and who will be totally OK with working 80-hour weeks for the bulk of their middle-20s.

No, I am not bitter. I promise. I am a little annoyed that the easy way of getting interviews didn’t work. I am curious if the career center included our grades in the information they provided to the employers, because my grades should have helped me get an interview. I wonder if anything in my background right now will help me get ANY sort of interview at this point.

So that’s where I stand right now. I had planned to spend the weekend working on my writing sample anyway; now I’ll have to work on cover letters and revising my resume also. And I have a meeting on Monday with my career services advisor, so maybe she can give me some insight into my lack of interviews. (Of course, I don’t know how helpful she’ll be with the actual mechanics of getting more interviews, since her advice on cover letters for judicial externships was the most unhelpful advice I’ve ever been given. And cover letters are important for getting interviews.)

Seriously, I hate this.

Dude. The weather is Crappy. Yes, crappy with a capital C. Crappy. I am currently watching a movie for my new class; I had to check it out from the library on reserve, so that means I have to go BACK out to return it on time this afternoon. Blech.

But the light at the end of the tunnel is that we’ll be having tortilla soup for dinner. So that makes it all better.

The bookstore snafu was no snafu at all, as it turns out. I did have to give them a copy of my drop slip, but they let me return my books with no problem at all. I am now $146 richer.

In other words, I decided to take my waitlist class and drop the other. People say, over and over, to “take the professor, not the class” and this advice is good advice. In all honesty, I was probably more interested in the subject matter of the other course–it’s stuff I might not get another chance to be exposed to while in law school–but I could tell I’d be miserable if I stayed in. The material wasn’t really presented accessibly and I was already worried about being able to absorb enough of the material to do well. I probably won’t be challenged as much in the new class, but for this semester, I don’t think that’s necessarily a bad thing.

Of course, I now have a totally free Tuesday, after my 8:45 am class, of course. I am therefore taking suggestions for what I should do with that time. Monday and Wednesdays I have a big gap, where I can do most of my reading and studying for the week, so I’m not sure I want to use Tuesday in that way also. So, give me suggestions–should I try to find an organization to volunteer with? If so, what kind of work do you think I should look for? Or should I do something just for me? If so, what?

I just found out I got into a class off the waitlist. The class seems a better fit for my strengths, but I’m not sure I want to jump into it. First, I’ve missed a week’s worth of class. Second, it meets on Monday and Wednesday afternoons at 3, which would leave me with an 8:45 am class on Tuesdays followed by . . . nothing. I’m not sure I like that for time reasons.

Also, I already have the books for my current class (Comparative Law), and I can’t return them. Why? Because of course the bookstore set the last day for returns to YESTERDAY. Why they can’t set the last day for returns to the same day as the last day for class drops is beyond me. But there it is–I’m free to drop Comparative until midnight tonight, but I can’t take the books back. And it’s not like they’ll be in high demand online, either.

So I’m going to both today. And I’ll make a decision sometime after that. What a pain, though!

Grades should be posted sometime today, as I understand it. I had been checking sort of obsessively, since Monday, when grades were due, until I stopped to think:

Do I really want to get my grades while I’m in class? Or near other people? Don’t I want to look at them when I am alone, and steeled for whatever might be revealed?

So I stopped obsessively checking. No more checking in class. No more checking right before class. No more checking when I’m sitting at a study table with a classmate. It’s better this way. After all, they are what they are and I can’t change them. So it’s best to absorb them when I am ready.

Update:

I’m sequestered away in the library, doing my Property reading. I’ve been intermittantly checking for grades. So far, two grades are in. One was no surprise–I had already calculated my legal writing grade. The other . . . well, given it was my last final (and I’m pretty sure I mixed up implied right of action and negligence per se on it), I’m pleased.

Update II:

All grades are in. I am not disappointed. And that’s all that I’m going to say about that.

THIS is why I hate my 8:45 am classes.

(Hat tip to my Con Law prof, who pointed out that she is one of those who need the maximum amount of time to reach full awakeness. I think I am too.)

I’m enjoying Scrubs back on TV, but I’m seriously disturbed by Turk’s new teeth.

Before

After

Sigh. First Hillary Duff, then real actors. Sigh.

I waaaaaaaant one!

A bit spendy, though.

Epiphany has come and gone (by a few days) so I took my Christmas tree down today. Then I vacuumed, spot treated a few places on our carpet (what sort of rental apartment has off-white carpet?), and hung a picture that’s been propped up against the wall for five months.

In keeping, then, with the “doing things that should have been done long ago” theme, Mr. Angst and I went out to grab a bite to eat. We’ve been here five months or so, and had only tried the restaurants south of us. We hadn’t gone north. And north lies a cute, upscale-ish, trendy-ish neighborhood. So north we went, to a pub with excellent Irish food, Stella on tap, and a regular with a beautiful golden retriever.

Mr. Angst has reading to do tonight; I’m pretty caught up on stuff (since my Comparative Law class hadn’t gotten to the reading I thought was for today, so I was actually ahead) so I’m going to kick off my shoes, read some blogs, and then (maybe) clean the kitchen. Heaven only knows when I’ll have the time to do it later.

Over the holidays, Mr. Angst and I discovered that one (well, two) of our friends are getting a divorce. It was a weird revelation. Before Mr. Angst and I started dating, he was in a close circle of friends that consisted of a couple and two other guys. Then he started dating me, and the other two guys started dating seriously, and, within a matter of months, we were a circle of four couples. A few years later, we all got engaged and then married, also all within a matter of months of each other. The divorcing couple was the first to get engaged and the first to get married. They’re quirky and fun and I always thought that each was probably the only person the other could ever be with. Their quirkinesses matched.

We visited Our Old City in October, and they were still quite happy. They’d been married just over two years. He was working on his degree and had a great internship. She was working in a good job and preparing to finish her own degree, once he was done. But a month later, they started talking about separating. And by Christmastime, they were talking divorce. (Very amicably, though–he’s still on her insurance, and he didn’t move out until after the new year.) Their interests, I guess, had just diverged too much. They had different friends, different goals. And I guess they felt that being married was only going to hold them back or keep them from growing.

I admit that I don’t quite know what to think about it. As I said, I always thought they were really perfect for one another–I still think they match pretty well. For them to split up now, too, seems so strange, since things are going well for both of them. But instead of the bright future making their marriage stronger, it’s pulling them apart. Maybe they fell into together on the basis of shared angst, and without that angst, they don’t need each other anymore. But what about the other elements of a marriage? What about love, companionship, a shared life?

A lot of marriages fall apart when the going gets tough; it seems like this one did when things starting looking up. Something each of them thought was foundational to their relationship is different now and so the marriage doesn’t make sense to them anymore. And I have a hard time accepting that.

This isn’t a post about The Importance Of Fidelity And Loyalty In Marriage. I think divorce is too easy and an overused option, but heaven forbid I make any sweeping pronouncements about what reasons for divorce are Good and which ones are Bad. It doesn’t change the fact that I just don’t get it in this case. As a matter of comparison, another friend of mine got divorced a few years ago–interestingly, also right after the two-year mark. They had no change in financial circumstances and there was no adultery, but one of them did lose interest in intimacy (I believe it was pharmacological in origin). A basic assumption of their marriage had utterly changed. And while I didn’t necessarily think divorce was the best option in that case, either, I understood the decision.

Arguably, a change from dire financial straits to flushness could be a change in a basic assumption of my friends’ marriage, but what does that say about relationships today? I know that the thing most married couples fight about is money. That seems to extend even to improved finances. People are entering marriage because of shared dependency and, when they become less dependent on one another, they are walking away from it. And that’s a sad thing. Because what does that say about the emotional and psychological benefits of marriage, the love and companionship? That they are secondary? That they are unnecessary? Is a spouse fungible?

I wish my two friends the best, and I’m glad their breakup is amicable, if only for them. But it’s almost worse when a divorce is on good terms, because it suggests that other options might have been available and that divorce was simply the easiest means of solving whatever problems the marriage had.

So, they’re basically just making station wagons again.

Maybe I’m just out of practice, but last week’s reading for Comparative Law (that I’m catching up on) put me to sleep. It’s been a long time since any reading has bored me to that extent.

I’m still trying to decide if this bodes ill for the semester. After all, most of the reading for now is background–what is comparative law? what are the problems with comparative law? what methods should we use in comparative law? Still, it’s just really dull right now. I suppose it doesn’t help that my body clock is still completely out of whack from the two-and-a-half day jaunt to the West Coast and back (complete with absurdly early flights). And, of course, the reading right now is VERY academic–including a book written by a German in German and translated into English by an Oxford don. Oy.

So, the Rose Bowl.

Imagine, if you will, a crowd of 94,000, half in orange and white, half in red and yellow. Two bands, horns and drums shining; two teams, dressed out and keyed up. Competing fight songs mix in your ear, underlaid by the rumble of those 94,000 people.

And then, imagine the game is everything you hoped it would be. The teams are well-matched, the play is fast and sophisticated, and, despite some bad officiating and some sloppiness on the part of the players, it’s the best football you’ve seen in a while.

The environment on the orange side was subdued by the middle of the fourth quarter, though. Things had gone back and forth, the score varying by only one touchdown or field goal at any given time, until, suddenly, the score wasn’t so bright. But more than 6 minutes were left. The cheerleaders started up a rousing chant, the players raised and lowered their arms, telling the crowd, “Make some noise!” And I felt a whisper of hope.

From that point on, play after play went . . . right. First a field goal, and then, amazingly, a touchdown. The crowd exploded and we were completely enveloped by a bubble of euphoria. People leapt up–not from their seats, because no one had been sitting, not for the entire length of the game–and pumped their fists in the air, screaming and crying, laughing. My whole body shook. And for the next 19 seconds, I bounced, compulsively. If I’d been at home, watching on TV, I’d have been pacing.

When the clock ran down on that final, unsuccessful play by the other team, the stands erupted. I didn’t think the noise and jubilation could get bigger, but it did. Confetti burst out, players and coaches swarmed onto the field, and the other side of the stadium began to empty. I was still shaking. I shook for the next several minutes, laughing. People hugged and danced and screamed and I heard more than one person exclaim that they couldn’t believe it, and had it actually happened? Did we actually win?

I’ve been to a lot of football games in my time, many of them big games with big teams and big crowds, But nothing, NOTHING, will ever equal Wednesday night. It was the most amazing thing I’ve ever experienced.

Y’all.

I am TOTALLY going to post about what was one of the most AMAZING experiences I’ve ever had–the noise, the passion, the energy, the NOISE. Wow.

But for now, I have 20 pages of reading to do tonight (and it’s 10:45, so that sucks) since I have class from 10:30 to 3:30, essentially, tomorrow. Eek! But I promise! A post will be written!

Classes start tomorrow.

But not for me. I mean, I have classes tomorrow, that I’m supposed to go to. But I won’t be going to them. Nor will I go to class on Wednesday or on Thursday. Instead, I will be enjoying a very special treat, courtesy of my dad. I will be in Pasadena, watching a football game.

The whole thought of missing so much class at the beginning of the semester made me a little nervous, back when we were deciding whether or not to make this trip. But law school is three years and this trip is once-in-a-lifetime. (Well, hopefully it’s not the last National Championship game my team goes to, but it’s the first in a while, and I’m jazzed about it.) I’ve told my professors I’ll be out, I’ve lined up classmates to get notes from, and I’ve even started the reading so I’m not too far behind. (I will be in class on Friday, too, so I have to get that reading done. Not that I officially know what it is, since only one of my professors has posted a syllabus and I don’t have her class on Friday.)

So Mr. Angst and I will be enjoying the West Coast for two-and-a-half days, with my dad, two of my brothers, and a favorite cousin. Football, family, and fun-in-the-sun. Hopefully I’ll come back energized and excited for the semester, because lazing around the house for the last five days hasn’t really put me in the school-going mood.

Today is the REAL first day of the new year, as far as I am concerned.

I spent much of yesterday either sleeping or being sick. This, obviously, ruined our grand breakfast plans–eggs Benedict, mimosas, fresh fruit and french press coffee. Instead, Mr. Angst had toast and cereal and, later, pizza; I had water, more water, and, later, some chicken broth and toast. I also managed to put down some plain pasta. (I am not counting the things I ate which did not stay down. I’d rather not think of them.)

So today is the first day of the new year; yesterday, as far as Mr. Angst and I are concerned, did not happen. Our grand breakfast was not diminished by having it a day later and, in fact, included the most perfectly poached eggs I’ve ever managed as well as a lovely Hollandaise.

Can I talk about Hollandaise for a moment here? Before moving here, every Hollandaise I’d tasted included either cayenne powder or a dash of pepper sauce. It also always had a nice lemony tang (since lemon juice is supposed to be included in the sauce). Yet every order of eggs Benedict I’ve ordered in Our New City has been served with the blandest Hollandaise I’ve ever tasted. It’s like Hollandaise here is made of only egg yolks and butter, with no other seasoning. There’s certainly no cayenne or pepper sauce (and I got a STRANGE look from a waitress when I requested my Hollandaise on the side with a bottle of Tabasco so I could mend it myself).

I find the aversion to the heat a little weird, because this is not exactly a city afraid of spice. Marinara sauce around here is usually spicy; Italian sausage is, too. Most of the Mexican food I’ve had has been picante as well. But the Hollandaise? Nope, not spicy. You know, even the traditional French sauce includes paprika or some other spice.

Needless to say, my Hollandaise had cayenne in it (perhaps a bit too much, due to a slip of the wrist while adding it). Also, the eggs were just barely runny and instead of Canadian bacon and English muffins, we used breakfast sausage and puff pastry. YUM! I think, at least around here, I’ll have to stop ordering eggs Benedict since I know I can make it so much better.

So Happy New Year to all! I think my lovely breakfast was very auspicious for my cooking in 2006. I hope your year has started off so brightly as well.

I’m sure I have other resolutions, but for right now, my main resolution is not to drink any more cheap Champagne, nor to take any tequila shots, even if I think it’s been long enough since my last bad experience with tequila shots to make it OK to take such a shot. Because, for me, it has never been long enough.

Off to find some food that will stay down.