the ending of this chapter

since most of you have chosen to endure my endless complaints about law school, and have shown a tremendous amount of support through my days of misdirection and self-defeat, i feel it's only fair and right to let you know that the bar results are in.

i didn't pass.

and before you feel sad for me, or worry, you should know that i'm okay.  really.  i'm okay.  in fact, friday was overall a really great day for me.  my sister flew into town, i got off of work early, i went to see new moon, then went up to tahoe for the weekend.  it wasn't until about halfway between home and tahoe (at about 9:30pm) that i remembered the results were released.  i googled it on my crackberry, and lo and behold, i didn't pass.

it hasn't been, and sometimes still isn't, easy to articulate to people the reasons why not passing didn't wreck me last week.  my only explanation is that i had already dealt with it all.  personally, i think i was in a good place with whatever i was going to see when i clicked onto that pass list. 

shortly after the results went public, M., one of my closest law school friends, sent me an incredibly sweet email.  my response to her, copied below, may flesh out my reaction a bit more.

...Yes, it was incredibly difficult for me to come to terms with the fact that this path I chose was perhaps the wrong one for me, or at least it wasn't the right one, and admitting that to you all and to my family was worse.  But the only reason I could do it, and the only reason I got through it and am on my way to finding out what it is I really want to do is because I knew I'd get support.  I knew that you, B. and L. (not to mention N. and my family) would understand and support me, even when it was hard for me to understand and support myself.

Honestly, I'm actually surprised at my reaction to the Bar results.  I really did think I'd take it a lot harder than I did.  And don't get me wrong, I was disappointed.  But I was disappointed in the "I bet it would have been cool to be able to say I passed the California Bar Exam" way.  In the end though, I'd already come to terms with not passing, and with the fact that I essentially chose not to pass, hard as that was.  And, if I'm honest with myself, I think the largest part of the disappointment at not passing comes from my bruised ego; I didn't want to have you all know that I didn't pass (because maybe you'd think I wasn't as smart?).

But once I got past all of that, I realized that, for me, not passing is okay.

Because I still have the best friends ever.  Like you.  And you guys understand.

so this chapter of my life seems to be, for now at least, officially over.  i can't tell you how much i'm looking forward to the next one, whatever it may be.

overqualified much?

i just went on my first interview this morning.  yes, i said first.  and it's definitely not the ideal position (it's administrative, and i was an administrative assistant for four years in college), but as you can tell by my previous posts, it's not like there are tons of job offers out there.

the thing is, i'm not sure how the interview went.  i'm usually really great at interviews, but this one was hard to read.  and it was a different sort of interview than i'm used to.  the interviews i've been on have usually been lunch dates, with people just sort of chatting and feeling you out, not a sit down and have three people ask you questions in a conference room.  i was prepared for it, but it still wasn't the most comfortable of situations.  i did not feel like i rocked this one.  i felt tongue-tied a lot, and i mentioned something that i wish i hadn't even though i was able to spin a bad experience into a lesson-learned sort of thing.

plus, (and i've actually been worried about this recently) i think that the interviews think i'm overqualified for the position.

which i am.

but i still need a job.

i mean, the organization's executive director kept asking me about how i was going to stay interested in the work if it was so administrative in nature and i was so used to much more intellectually challenging work.  his words, not mine.  and it's true, admin work gets really tedious and boring after a while.  but it's not like my interests are much less boring.  i generally do legal research, for crying out loud.  it's not really the high-strung, fast-paced creative environment it's touted as, let me tell you.  and besides, what am i supposed to do?  i'm overqualified for the jobs i could get, i'm underqualified for the jobs i couldn't get, and the jobs i want are non-existent.

that doesn't leave me with much.

it's just frustrating i guess.  one more reason to wish i had re-thought going to law school.

in light of this, i want to pose a question to you all:  should i take the J.D. off of my resume (as some have suggested)?  would you?  how would i explain the huge gap in my life if i did?  if you leave it on there, what's your best answer for being asked how you think you'll stay interested in a job you are obviously overqualified for (but need desperately)?

on the eve of battle

you know those moments when your hair looks perfect, you don't feel overweight, you've got a great outfit on, you're about to be promoted at work, the love of your life has just proposed to you, you found the world's most comfortable pair of shoes on sale, and life is just generally one big tub of happy?

this is most definitely not one of those times.

actually, this is almost the exact opposite. because tomorrow morning i will start the three day nightmare that is the california bar exam. and if you just scroll down and read a few of my other posts you'll quickly realize that, for me, this exam is simply an exercise in humility. i don't want to be a lawyer. so why am i taking it? because this is just the type of person i am. i was too afraid to leave law school when i realized that i didn't want to practice (and i honestly enjoyed parts of it too much to stop). i was too invested and had gone through too much to give up when i could see the finish line right ahead of me. i was too wrapped up in what i thought was the only version of My Life Plan that i would ever have to pause before taking out a hefty bar loan and applying to for the test. and now i'm just...in too deep.

so i'll sit for the bar tomorrow and let whatever happens happen. because i'm not prepared, and i don't care that i'm not prepared. at least, not for me. does that make sense? what i mean is that, in regards to how i feel about most likely failing the bar, i'm okay. i've come to terms with it. i'm already looking to plan out the next stage of my life (because, let's face it, i'm a planner), find a job (side bar: it was quite an eye-opener when i realized yesterday that none of the jobs i envisioned myself having in the future required bar certification), live my life.

but i've been flip-flopping on my emotional stability lately because, while i'm okay with my own failure (in this case), i can't stand to have to tell my parents. i'm the type of person, as sad as it may seem (and believe me, it's sad), whose self-worth has almost always been wrapped up in my academic/professional achievement. it's crazy and completely unfounded, but a part of me feels that if i don't become this wealthy, successful lawyer, then i've failed my parents. they wanted me to be something, you know? and if i'm not this, then what am i?

so this is where my head has been at lately.

and then yesterday happened. getting back to those perfect moments i mentioned earlier, let me just say that, while my moment was definitely not perfect perfect, it was pretty incredible. there i was, sitting in the car with N. listening to NPR, thinking about failure and about "how can it be failure when it's not even something i want?" or "what am i going to do if/when i'm not a lawyer? how am i going to make a living?" and about disappointment and how my parents want so much for me and i worry that it's not what i want for me, or that my j.d. doesn't seem like much anymore (i think i actually thought having only a mere j.d. was a failure as well, so deep was i into my self-deprecating snowball) etc. etc. etc. just generally having a silent nervous breakdown there on the 580. and then i hear it.

it'll sound ridiculous when i say it, but i don't care. at that exact moment when the bar was indeed getting the better of me, NPR began to play j.k. rowling's harvard commencement address, entitled, "the fringe benefits of failure, and the importance of imagination."

while the entire speech is fantastic (which is why i'm posting the video in its entirety), it was the section on failure that forced me out of my whirlwind of insanity and gently requested that i stop, take a deep breath, and think. and while i'm still sitting to take a bar i don't want or need to pass tomorrow, the panic has receded, the breakdowns have come fewer and far in between, and i'm in a place where i can say: whatever happens...let it just happen quickly.

J.K. Rowling Speaks at Harvard Commencement from Harvard Magazine on Vimeo.

Text as delivered follows.
Copyright of JK Rowling, June 2008

President Faust, members of the Harvard Corporation and the Board of Overseers, members of the faculty, proud parents, and, above all, graduates.

The first thing I would like to say is ‘thank you.’ Not only has Harvard given me an extraordinary honour, but the weeks of fear and nausea I have endured at the thought of giving this commencement address have made me lose weight. A win-win situation! Now all I have to do is take deep breaths, squint at the red banners and convince myself that I am at the world’s largest Gryffindor reunion.

Delivering a commencement address is a great responsibility; or so I thought until I cast my mind back to my own graduation. The commencement speaker that day was the distinguished British philosopher Baroness Mary Warnock. Reflecting on her speech has helped me enormously in writing this one, because it turns out that I can’t remember a single word she said. This liberating discovery enables me to proceed without any fear that I might inadvertently influence you to abandon promising careers in business, the law or politics for the giddy delights of becoming a gay wizard.

You see? If all you remember in years to come is the ‘gay wizard’ joke, I’ve come out ahead of Baroness Mary Warnock. Achievable goals: the first step to self improvement.

Actually, I have wracked my mind and heart for what I ought to say to you today. I have asked myself what I wish I had known at my own graduation, and what important lessons I have learned in the 21 years that have expired between that day and this.

I have come up with two answers. On this wonderful day when we are gathered together to celebrate your academic success, I have decided to talk to you about the benefits of failure. And as you stand on the threshold of what is sometimes called ‘real life’, I want to extol the crucial importance of imagination.

These may seem quixotic or paradoxical choices, but please bear with me.

Looking back at the 21-year-old that I was at graduation, is a slightly uncomfortable experience for the 42-year-old that she has become. Half my lifetime ago, I was striking an uneasy balance between the ambition I had for myself, and what those closest to me expected of me.

I was convinced that the only thing I wanted to do, ever, was to write novels. However, my parents, both of whom came from impoverished backgrounds and neither of whom had been to college, took the view that my overactive imagination was an amusing personal quirk that would never pay a mortgage, or secure a pension. I know that the irony strikes with the force of a cartoon anvil, now.

So they hoped that I would take a vocational degree; I wanted to study English Literature. A compromise was reached that in retrospect satisfied nobody, and I went up to study Modern Languages. Hardly had my parents’ car rounded the corner at the end of the road than I ditched German and scuttled off down the Classics corridor.

I cannot remember telling my parents that I was studying Classics; they might well have found out for the first time on graduation day. Of all the subjects on this planet, I think they would have been hard put to name one less useful than Greek mythology when it came to securing the keys to an executive bathroom.

I would like to make it clear, in parenthesis, that I do not blame my parents for their point of view. There is an expiry date on blaming your parents for steering you in the wrong direction; the moment you are old enough to take the wheel, responsibility lies with you. What is more, I cannot criticise my parents for hoping that I would never experience poverty. They had been poor themselves, and I have since been poor, and I quite agree with them that it is not an ennobling experience. Poverty entails fear, and stress, and sometimes depression; it means a thousand petty humiliations and hardships. Climbing out of poverty by your own efforts, that is indeed something on which to pride yourself, but poverty itself is romanticised only by fools.

What I feared most for myself at your age was not poverty, but failure.

At your age, in spite of a distinct lack of motivation at university, where I had spent far too long in the coffee bar writing stories, and far too little time at lectures, I had a knack for passing examinations, and that, for years, had been the measure of success in my life and that of my peers.

I am not dull enough to suppose that because you are young, gifted and well-educated, you have never known hardship or heartbreak. Talent and intelligence never yet inoculated anyone against the caprice of the Fates, and I do not for a moment suppose that everyone here has enjoyed an existence of unruffled privilege and contentment.

However, the fact that you are graduating from Harvard suggests that you are not very well-acquainted with failure. You might be driven by a fear of failure quite as much as a desire for success. Indeed, your conception of failure might not be too far from the average person’s idea of success, so high have you already flown.

Ultimately, we all have to decide for ourselves what constitutes failure, but the world is quite eager to give you a set of criteria if you let it. So I think it fair to say that by any conventional measure, a mere seven years after my graduation day, I had failed on an epic scale. An exceptionally short-lived marriage had imploded, and I was jobless, a lone parent, and as poor as it is possible to be in modern Britain, without being homeless. The fears that my parents had had for me, and that I had had for myself, had both come to pass, and by every usual standard, I was the biggest failure I knew.

Now, I am not going to stand here and tell you that failure is fun. That period of my life was a dark one, and I had no idea that there was going to be what the press has since represented as a kind of fairy tale resolution. I had no idea then how far the tunnel extended, and for a long time, any light at the end of it was a hope rather than a reality.

So why do I talk about the benefits of failure? Simply because failure meant a stripping away of the inessential. I stopped pretending to myself that I was anything other than what I was, and began to direct all my energy into finishing the only work that mattered to me. Had I really succeeded at anything else, I might never have found the determination to succeed in the one arena I believed I truly belonged. I was set free, because my greatest fear had been realised, and I was still alive, and I still had a daughter whom I adored, and I had an old typewriter and a big idea. And so rock bottom became the solid foundation on which I rebuilt my life.

You might never fail on the scale I did, but some failure in life is inevitable. It is impossible to live without failing at something, unless you live so cautiously that you might as well not have lived at all – in which case, you fail by default.

Failure gave me an inner security that I had never attained by passing examinations. Failure taught me things about myself that I could have learned no other way. I discovered that I had a strong will, and more discipline than I had suspected; I also found out that I had friends whose value was truly above the price of rubies.

The knowledge that you have emerged wiser and stronger from setbacks means that you are, ever after, secure in your ability to survive. You will never truly know yourself, or the strength of your relationships, until both have been tested by adversity. Such knowledge is a true gift, for all that it is painfully won, and it has been worth more than any qualification I ever earned.

So given a Time Turner, I would tell my 21-year-old self that personal happiness lies in knowing that life is not a check-list of acquisition or achievement. Your qualifications, your CV, are not your life, though you will meet many people of my age and older who confuse the two. Life is difficult, and complicated, and beyond anyone’s total control, and the humility to know that will enable you to survive its vicissitudes.

Now you might think that I chose my second theme, the importance of imagination, because of the part it played in rebuilding my life, but that is not wholly so. Though I personally will defend the value of bedtime stories to my last gasp, I have learned to value imagination in a much broader sense. Imagination is not only the uniquely human capacity to envision that which is not, and therefore the fount of all invention and innovation. In its arguably most transformative and revelatory capacity, it is the power that enables us to empathise with humans whose experiences we have never shared.

One of the greatest formative experiences of my life preceded Harry Potter, though it informed much of what I subsequently wrote in those books. This revelation came in the form of one of my earliest day jobs. Though I was sloping off to write stories during my lunch hours, I paid the rent in my early 20s by working at the African research department at Amnesty International’s headquarters in London.

There in my little office I read hastily scribbled letters smuggled out of totalitarian regimes by men and women who were risking imprisonment to inform the outside world of what was happening to them. I saw photographs of those who had disappeared without trace, sent to Amnesty by their desperate families and friends. I read the testimony of torture victims and saw pictures of their injuries. I opened handwritten, eye-witness accounts of summary trials and executions, of kidnappings and rapes.

Many of my co-workers were ex-political prisoners, people who had been displaced from their homes, or fled into exile, because they had the temerity to speak against their governments. Visitors to our offices included those who had come to give information, or to try and find out what had happened to those they had left behind.

I shall never forget the African torture victim, a young man no older than I was at the time, who had become mentally ill after all he had endured in his homeland. He trembled uncontrollably as he spoke into a video camera about the brutality inflicted upon him. He was a foot taller than I was, and seemed as fragile as a child. I was given the job of escorting him back to the Underground Station afterwards, and this man whose life had been shattered by cruelty took my hand with exquisite courtesy, and wished me future happiness.

And as long as I live I shall remember walking along an empty corridor and suddenly hearing, from behind a closed door, a scream of pain and horror such as I have never heard since. The door opened, and the researcher poked out her head and told me to run and make a hot drink for the young man sitting with her. She had just had to give him the news that in retaliation for his own outspokenness against his country’s regime, his mother had been seized and executed.

Every day of my working week in my early 20s I was reminded how incredibly fortunate I was, to live in a country with a democratically elected government, where legal representation and a public trial were the rights of everyone.

Every day, I saw more evidence about the evils humankind will inflict on their fellow humans, to gain or maintain power. I began to have nightmares, literal nightmares, about some of the things I saw, heard, and read.

And yet I also learned more about human goodness at Amnesty International than I had ever known before.

Amnesty mobilises thousands of people who have never been tortured or imprisoned for their beliefs to act on behalf of those who have. The power of human empathy, leading to collective action, saves lives, and frees prisoners. Ordinary people, whose personal well-being and security are assured, join together in huge numbers to save people they do not know, and will never meet. My small participation in that process was one of the most humbling and inspiring experiences of my life.

Unlike any other creature on this planet, humans can learn and understand, without having experienced. They can think themselves into other people’s places.

Of course, this is a power, like my brand of fictional magic, that is morally neutral. One might use such an ability to manipulate, or control, just as much as to understand or sympathise.

And many prefer not to exercise their imaginations at all. They choose to remain comfortably within the bounds of their own experience, never troubling to wonder how it would feel to have been born other than they are. They can refuse to hear screams or to peer inside cages; they can close their minds and hearts to any suffering that does not touch them personally; they can refuse to know.

I might be tempted to envy people who can live that way, except that I do not think they have any fewer nightmares than I do. Choosing to live in narrow spaces leads to a form of mental agoraphobia, and that brings its own terrors. I think the wilfully unimaginative see more monsters. They are often more afraid.

What is more, those who choose not to empathise enable real monsters. For without ever committing an act of outright evil ourselves, we collude with it, through our own apathy.

One of the many things I learned at the end of that Classics corridor down which I ventured at the age of 18, in search of something I could not then define, was this, written by the Greek author Plutarch: What we achieve inwardly will change outer reality.

That is an astonishing statement and yet proven a thousand times every day of our lives. It expresses, in part, our inescapable connection with the outside world, the fact that we touch other people’s lives simply by existing.

But how much more are you, Harvard graduates of 2008, likely to touch other people’s lives? Your intelligence, your capacity for hard work, the education you have earned and received, give you unique status, and unique responsibilities. Even your nationality sets you apart. The great majority of you belong to the world’s only remaining superpower. The way you vote, the way you live, the way you protest, the pressure you bring to bear on your government, has an impact way beyond your borders. That is your privilege, and your burden.

If you choose to use your status and influence to raise your voice on behalf of those who have no voice; if you choose to identify not only with the powerful, but with the powerless; if you retain the ability to imagine yourself into the lives of those who do not have your advantages, then it will not only be your proud families who celebrate your existence, but thousands and millions of people whose reality you have helped change. We do not need magic to change the world, we carry all the power we need inside ourselves already: we have the power to imagine better.

I am nearly finished. I have one last hope for you, which is something that I already had at 21. The friends with whom I sat on graduation day have been my friends for life. They are my children’s godparents, the people to whom I’ve been able to turn in times of trouble, people who have been kind enough not to sue me when I took their names for Death Eaters. At our graduation we were bound by enormous affection, by our shared experience of a time that could never come again, and, of course, by the knowledge that we held certain photographic evidence that would be exceptionally valuable if any of us ran for Prime Minister.

So today, I wish you nothing better than similar friendships. And tomorrow, I hope that even if you remember not a single word of mine, you remember those of Seneca, another of those old Romans I met when I fled down the Classics corridor, in retreat from career ladders, in search of ancient wisdom:
As is a tale, so is life: not how long it is, but how good it is, is what matters.
I wish you all very good lives.
Thank you very much.

me v. the burnout

so, apparently, i've hit The Wall. my own personal, great big barbri wall i like to affectionately call, "kahea doesn't want to do s**t." it's like i know i should be studying day and night, night and day, but God help me i have the motivation of a small bag of rocks. none.

for the passed two weeks, i've barely spent any time outside of class studying for the upcoming bar (which, hahaha, is now less than a month away!). i go to class for 3-4 hours each day, then come home, stare at my outlines, and retain absolutely nothing.

and i know i should be worried. i should actually be freaking the eff out. any sane person would be. but i'm not. i think i've figured out why:

1. before barbri even began, i promised myself that i wouldn't let it beat me. this course, this exam, these 2 months of hell would not get the better of me. it would be over my dead body that law school would get one more nervous breakdown out of me. so here i am, doing whatever i think is healthiest for me. even if it's blowing off the california bar exam. i'll still try my hardest when push comes to shove, but i won't let it kill me in the mean time. i'll study when i study, and when the day draws nearer i know i'll buckle down because a part of me just hates to fail at academia, but i can't let myself get lost in this again. i whole-heartedly stand up and refuse.
2. but i'm also not freaking out because a part of me, and i don't know how big a part of me yet, just doesn't care all that much right now. i mean, the fact of the matter is that, comparatively, i almost have it easy. i don't need to pass the bar. unlike so many of my friends and fellow barbri students, i don't want to practice law, so any job i may get in the future isn't contingent on my passing. my driving force at this point is that i don't want to face the, well, embarrassment of not passing (particularly since, fyi, anyone and their mama can go online in the fall and find out who passed and who failed the bar exam). i don't do failure well, so the humiliation will be a hard pill to swallow should i not pull myself together soon.

but i have to admit that there are moments when the exam tries (and nearly manages) to get the better of me. i'm talking about those times when i hear the way others are coping with it. when i hear the guy behind me in class saying that he's going to be doing 1 essay and 1 hour of mbe's a day, along with reviewing and shortening his outlines, it makes me either want to kick myself or throw my book at him. when i hear friends freaking out because the answer they wrote for their practice essay wasn't exactly like the model answer, i want to put my head down, close my eyes, and scream. and when i see the exam getting the better of others, it makes me feel like i should let it get the better of me too, because maybe that's what it'll take to succeed.

but this happens less and less frequently now since i've learned to just pop my earphones in and blast music from the likes of paramore to van morrison to muse to jack's mannequin. that's how i'm coping with the burnout from three years of law school which felt like 10 years in prison. music, and shutting everything else out.

N. and i also just adopted a dog, which helps me slack off, but more on that later. :)

a girl can dream

i've found myself thinking of dream jobs lately, mostly because i've just graduated and am on the verge of having to find a job myself. barbri (which is a course you take in preparation for the bar exam) started just last week and i'm already wondering exactly what i was thinking when i signed on. why am i taking the california bar? no, let me rephrase: why am i taking the most difficult bar exam in the country when i'm not even sure if i want to be a lawyer?

because i'm scared i don't have any other options?

because i'm too stubborn to stray from the path i've already laid out for myself?

because i don't know what else i'd do?

how about a strange, mish-mash of all of the above.

i'm terrified that i don't have the skills to do any other job. this is lunacy, i realize that. i'm a lawyer for crying out loud. i've completed one of the most rigorous studies out there, and have work experience in both the public interest and private sector. my research and writing skills are pretty decent, and i can get great recommendations if and when i need them. all of this i know, but still i worry. am i too specialized? prior to law school, i was an administrative assistant for five years. other than being a lawyer and a receptionist, what can i do?

i also recognize that i may just be too stubborn to admit defeat. i mean, i decided to become a lawyer. i've made it through - maybe not so gracefully, but successfully at the least - the three years of hazing i often feel like law school is, have worked really hard and learned a lot, have incurred an obscene amount of debt, and am forcing myself through to the bar. my family has supported me, my friends have put up with me, and N. hasn't yet decided to drop me for greener pastures. so after all of that, there's a part of me that just wants to scream, "suck it UP already!" i'm almost at the finish line, you know? it's the deep breath, and i'm taking it. so why back down now? and yes, if i'm perfectly honest, there is a part of me that just doesn't want to disappoint my family, my colleagues, those who have put their time and energy into training me, and myself.

and finally there's the question of what else i'd even do were i not to become a lawyer. i can't think of a single rational, responsible thing to do with myself. i mean, yes, okay, i do have a dream job that you all probably already know about. in my ideal world, i'd be a writer. i'd spend my days working from my home office (which i now have! - will post about later), or on my mac laptop (which i will one day have again) in some cafe researching and writing. i'd be published, i'd be able to pay the bills, and i'd love every second of it. eventually, i'd use the money i earned to open a bookstore/cafe. i even have a name picked out, so much like an expectant mother, but i'll refrain myself from gushing. it just isn't reality, you know? how many people out there want to be published writers? millions. how many actually are? not millions.

i am a not million. i am a not million at my dream job.

but it won't always be that way.

so what about you? what's your dream job? are you doing it now? if yes, how's it going? is it everything you hoped it would be? if you're not working at your dream job right now, are you working towards it? or have you, like myself and so many others, almost resigned yourself to the fact that maybe the dream job was always supposed to be just that - a dream?

3 years in review

it's been a while since i last posted and i can honestly say, i've missed you blogger! but alas, final exams and papers that never ended got in the way, so here i am, a month later, feeling slightly awkward about blogging (though i do have a list i've been compiling in my absence of more than ten things i plan on writing about over the next two weeks), and trying to get back into the groove of things.

i think an appropriate place to start is with the fact that LAW SCHOOL IS OVER!!!

it is over. kaput. finito. accomplished. ended. stick a fork in me, my friend, because i am DONE!

and i can't say that i'm not ecstatic about it. it's almost shocking really, because there's no sense of...nostalgia accompanying this momentous occasion like there was when i graduation from high school or college. granted, i adored high school (as well as literally lived there since it was a boarding school), and couldn't ask for a better four years at college than i had, so maybe that has something to do with it. law school for me was...not like that. here's a short review (and if you want the long, drawn out story, simply click on my "law school" tag and it'll take you to all the blog posts in which i give you all the nitty-gritties)"

year one: 1L
i think i spent the entire first semester of law school wondering if i'd made the world's biggest mistake by going. what exactly did i sign up for? where did all of my straight-A's go? who are all these geniuses i'm surrounded with? what the hell is a tort? and, most importantly, did i even want to BE a lawyer? law school for me, right off the bat, meant re-prioritizing my life in large (and not always positive ways). N. and i fought constantly because aside from him i was now also dating these demanding and possessive dudes named contracts and crim, civ pro and property. first and second semester finals passed in a hysterical blur. but i did meet some amazing people. best law school friends a girl could ask for. i don't know what i would have done without them, and i still don't. if anything else, that year of constant self-assessing and second-guessing bonded us, and for that i'm grateful.

year two: 2L
i may have finally hit my stride here. sure, i over-committed myself to absolutely everything, but these were things i was learning to love, after all. i began working on a journal, and doing research for a professor who i will continue to work with after graduation. at last i was able to take those classes that were the reason i even came to law school in the first place (and yes, international human rights, you were a mixed bag for me), and i began writing an article which has - thus far - been one of my proudest achievements. but best of all? i wasn't a 1L anymore!

year three: 3L
i said it once and i'll say it again, whoever said that your third year is your easiest LIED. because for most people i know, myself included, this last year was definitely the hardest. maybe we did it to ourselves by expecting too much, by thinking we could intern full-time and take all those classes we wanted, by trying to get published, by doing too many clinics, by taking on too much extracurricular activities, whatever...it was still the worst. and my prize for it being over? barbri!

so now, all that i can say when it's done, is that i'm glad. i'm glad that i did it, i'm glad that i met the people i met, and i'm glad that it's over. there is no sadness for me. there is just the shining silver lining that is the end of law school, the fact that i have a whole new wonderful group of friends, and the fact that i now have a j.d.

so thank you law school for making me a stronger, smarter, different person than i once was. thank you for helping me to grow up. thank you for pointing out my passions and opening doors for me.

but i will not miss you. :)

from B.

taking cues from bartleby

today in my law and literature class (yes, i'm taking a class during my last semester of law school entitled "law and literature," in which we read books such as Oedipus, Saint Joan, Bleak House, and The Trial), we were discussing Bartleby the Scrivener by Melville, and the discussion took us to an interesting place i thought i'd share.

in this book, the attorney hires on bartleby as a scrivener in his office. things are going well for the first few days, and then, on the fourth day, the attorney asks bartleby to examine a document (which is the job of the scrivener) and bartley simply says, "i prefer not to."

the attorney is shocked and dismayed initially, but comes up with many varied reasons why bartleby would take such a departure from his usual head-in-the-books type of work ethic, and eventually just excuses him. unfortunately, this "i prefer not to" response becomes a trend to the point where bartleby is simply not working at all. the other scriveners in the office are getting upset, and the attorney finally attempts to fire bartleby and get him to vacate the offices. to this, bartleby says (predictably) "i prefer not to."

long story short, the attorney ends up moving his office to another location because bartleby (who has begun living in the office, and refuses the attorney's offer to come home with him) just won't leave, nor will he do any work. and when he still doesn't leave even after new tenants move in, the tenants call the police and have him arrested. the attorney visits bartleby in prison a few times and learns that he "prefers not" to eat anything, and eventually the attorney finds him dead by starvation. it's a lot...bleaker than how i'm describing it, but bartleby irritated me throughout the entire book so there you go.

in class, we were presented with the obvious question of "what is bartleby trying to tell us?" and the suggestion was presented that he exemplifies moral choice in a world where we have become obsessed with procedure. more specifically (and personally for those of us in the class), bartleby is pointing out the attorney that he (the attorney) has lost all contact with humanity. his life is his job, and his job consists of procedure he oversees in offices which have windows facing brick walls or air vents. he totally cuts himself off from the rest of common humanity for his job. the people he employ are no longer people, but have become nicknames like "nappers" and "ginger nut". he comes to work, and goes home just to wait until he can come back the next morning. he never discusses family or hobbies or life really.

bartleby represents the anti-attorney. he represents the humanity we lose to our ambition, our jobs, our careers.

and this realization led our class to begin discussing what law school has "done" to all of us. how, after our first year of school we found it hard to hold normal conversations with people in social settings and not discuss civil procedure, or that crazy case we read in crim, or how our contracts professor may actually be crazy. our relationships suffered. and i mean suffered. and most interesting to me was that a girl spoke up about how, this past summer, she decided that she wasn't going to get a legal position. instead, she got an internship with her "dream job". and found that she had changed so much because of law school that she couldn't function outside of a legal position. she wanted to treat her supervisor with the calm, cool, competent collection we treat managing partners with. she can't tap in to her creativity and ends up writing things that are rule-based when there are no rules. she doesn't get along with her fellow interns because they don't speak the legal language she's so used to communicating in.

and it just struck me, i guess. first as sad, because it pointed out that a lot of us sitting around that classroom (and a lot of my friends in general) have a dream job. and that dream job is most often not a practicing attorney. it's usually something creative or flexible and less demanding. and when we put that aside (for what we think will only be a little while) to establish ourselves and make the money that seems to be so necessary in our society, according to bartleby we're actually losing ourselves as well. but this conversation also made me thankful. thankful that i blog and i write somewhat regularly. that i exercise my creative muscle. and that i've more or less realized (before embarking upon a career) that i don't want to be a practicing attorney. because this means that maybe i haven't lost it, you know?

or heck, maybe bartleby is just full of it.

old habits die...never.

i try not to overwhelm myself. i really do. and i would definitely never call myself an over-achiever. at least, not seriously.

but somehow i always manage to commit myself to a million different things all at once. and the semester hasn't even started yet! i'm just incapable of passing up a good opportunity. you know that saying, "take advantage of (insert whatever here)"? yeah, i took that to heart. i take advantage of everything, even when it can't possibly fit in to my schedule.

for example, during the spring semester of my first year of law school i hit full panic mode because my resume was absolute crap. i had no legal experience, only one actual job to list as work experience, and that was it. so what did i do? i applied for three internships that summer. i got all three internships that summer. i took all three internships that summer. and ever since then things have been sort of just...growing.

so now i'm simultaneously editing and publishing two articles, taking a full load of classes, working (probably), and planning a symposium at a law school i don't even go to.

it's really almost laughable, this thing that i do to myself. go ahead, you can laugh. it's ok.

and this isn't to say i'm not completed jazzed about all of this. it just leaves little time to do the things i wanted to do for myself as opposed to for my phantom future career. but i refuse to let those things fall on the wayside. i will do things for me this time around. i will not lose sight of myself again.

and just to prove it, i'm touring and joining a gym on wednesday.

no, no, you need a REAL job.

just some randomness tonight:

over break, my mother said something interesting to me. i tried talking to her about the fact that i'm not sure i still want to be a lawyer. i tried talking to a bunch of my family about that and got the same stunned disbelief from everyone. none of them can understand why i would pass up the opportunity to get such good paying jobs when i have them at my fingertips. i guess a part of me still understands that. it wasn't too long ago that my driving force was the fear of being poor again. it's not an easy life, and i can see why my family, my parents in particular, need to believe that i'll go through with becoming a lawyer. i'm the first college graduate in my family. i'm the first to go to law school. i'm the first to, in the most conventional senses of the word, "succeed." so for my mother, hearing me say that this career that i've worked so hard for may not be what i want must be terrifying.

i've never not known what i wanted. in fact, i may be the only one in my family who has ever set out to do something ambitious and followed through with it. it's what i'm known for. my stubborn ambitious drive. if i will something to happen, it'll happen simply because i refuse to accept anything less. i guess the fact that i wasn't a hot success at law school (aka, i'm not top 10% in case you're wondering) has kinda showed me what all that stubbornness has got me: not a whole lot.

i'm not happy. that's just the bottom line. i'm not happy.

and when i sit and think about what really makes me happy, i can think of things i'm interested in (indigenous rights and policy, environmental and wildlife conservation) and the things i'm passionate about (writing, travel). and so over break, i told my mother that i really want to write something. i want to write a book. now, this is a huge confession for me, to say this out loud and approach it, well, realistically.

and my mother says this: "well, maybe you need to do that. maybe you just need to get it out of your system before you get a real job."

i almost died on the spot.

how can my mother, this woman who loves me so much, who comforts me through any hardship, who knows me so well, actually know me so very little when it comes down to it?

sigh.

all this is just to say that i've started writing again. tonight. i've started writing for fun, for myself, and it feels like it's been forever since that last happened.

maybe i'll get it out of my system.

but i doubt it. this is me. this is who i am. and one day i'll let them see that, and they'll understand.

other than that, here's some fluff for you:

1. i'm obsessed with O.A.R.'s "shattered" at the moment. i predict it'll be on repeat for the next several days. but it's inspired me, so i'll just go with it, as usual.
2. if you're following me on twitter, you know i've become a fan of "the city". i wasn't huge on "laguna beach" or "the hills" but for the some reason, i love this spin-off. there's just something about it. maybe it was that whitney found an apartment in tonight's episode, and i'm desperate for an apartment at the moment. i need to move out. need. but if that's not it, then hot jay doesn't hurt either. incidentally, tonight's episode also had the best song placement that i've heard in a while. you tube it. the last scene with beyonce's "if i were a boy".
3. i've begun the ever-looming post-graduation job search. here's what i've got so far: i'm applying for an internship (another internship! will i never get a real job?) with penguin group, as well as a 1-year associate position at random house. yes, those are publishing houses. no, they have nothing to do with law. yes, they are in new york city. and yes, i do realize i'm in a long-term monogamous relationship with a high school teacher in the bay area. (we'll deal with this when/if the time comes). i'm also applying for a few fellowships, which are in fact legal in nature (including the one at the firm i'm currently at), a public policy publishing internship, and one internship position located in wellington, nz. yes, new zealand. SO, here's my plea to everyone out there (readers, commenters, lurkers alike), if you come across any interesting open positions in the fields of public interest law, public policy, indigenous rights, environmental rights/law/protection, wildlife conservation, publishing, editing, travel, writing, and/or research, please send them my way (mandyland67@gmail.com). lol. until the writing thing pans out, this is obviously my search for a REAL job.
   

first semester almost over!

is it just me, or does it feel like the end of the year, from around mid-november though december, comes in the biggest rush ever? i feel like just yesterday i was getting ready for thanksgiving, and now i'm stressed out over christmas presents and new years plans! where did all my time go?

i think this is a direct result of the mess i've been this semester. up until thanksgiving, i was a certifiable wreck. between class, work, relationship, not seeing my friends anymore, trial, research, future plans, etc., i just felt like i couldn't breathe. and then thanksgiving break came, when a majority of those things were finally done, and i could practically feel tension leaving my body in waves and shifts and floods.

that's when i started taking pages out of elizabeth gilbert's book, "eat, pray, love." i began asking myself, "what do you want to do right now, kahea?" so over thanksgiving break, i rested a lot. i slept a lot. i spent time with the bf. i even watched twilight again (and took N. with me. for the record, it is leaps and bounds better the second time around for some reason, and N. didn't think it was so bad either!). i listened to a lot of music.

and since then, things have been going okay.

• i took my federal indian law final on monday. i almost laughed out loud during the exam. i mean, i pretty much threw up 15 pages of "well, you could argue this, but the court will probably say that, unless they think this, then they'll say that instead, unless you're here, in which case the court will probably follow that other thing..." you get the picture. i'm constantly astounded at how interesting and frustrating fed. indian law is. at how...malleable and subjective it is. and that's the way it should stay i think, at least while these particular nine are on the bench. because let's face it, this bench would screw over all indians if they had the opportunity. maybe not intentionally, but it would happen. it's happened before. facts of life, my friend.
  
• I PASSED THE MPRE! the MPRE is the multistatate professional responsiblity exam that you have to pass in california in order to be admitted to practice law. in essence, it's a component of the bar. and it's really not that difficult, but given both my state of mind at the time i took it, and the fact that i didn't study AT ALL, i'm amazed that i passed. i'm so glad i don't have to retake it. now i just have to take and pass the bar. which i think i've decided to do after all.
  
• i've only got one more thing to do before my break officially starts and i am hawaii-bound: my upper division writing requirement. which also doubles as the article i'm publishing with a law journal. it's due to both my professor and the journal editors on monday, which is fine by me, as i already have 30 pages of it complete. it's another really interesting topic (which i actually rambled on about for nearly 4 pages on my fed. indian law final): the jurisdictional gap in the criminal justice system when it comes to sexual violence against native american women. maybe i could figure out a way to post the article, or a link to it, once it's done....hmmm...
• we exchanged our secret santa gifts yesterday at our christmas lunch for work. which was also my last official day (though i'll probably continue to work next semester remotely and for PAY). i bring this up because i got a gift i absolutely love. i'd been talking to one of my coworkers about the gift-giving marathon N. and i have coming up over the next few months (christmas, 4-year anniversary in january, valentine's day, our birthday in march - yes, we have the same birthday), and how we make wishlists so that the other isn't guessing at gifts. (i also gave the same wishlist to my family for our secret santa as well). on that list, i'd said that i'd love to have people donate money to the world wildlife fund, which is an organization i donate to as much as possible. realistically though, i don't know many people who give to a charity instead of giving a tangible gift to someone, even when that someone says that's what they want. so i was banking on just donating all the money i was given for christmas to wwf's conservation efforts. but my secret santa at work made a donation for me! i think it's always a great idea to ask for donations to causes you find important, and see, it works! best gift EVER!

and speaking of wildlife, here's something to leave you all with. N. found this video and was literally like, "i saw this and realized that this would be your dream come true." he knows me too well. :)

hello, blog. i'm back

i've been absent lately, almost 2 weeks now, actually. and i have excuses to boot. but i guess that'll all be covered. i just know that a lot of what i've been thinking/feeling/seeing for the passed 14 days won't make it into this post, and that's a shame. but i won't remember it all, nor will i know how/where to fit it in so that i don't appear a mumbling mass of incoherent writer. so this post will be what it is. in absentia and all.

so my last post was on election night. there are no words to express what it is like watching history happen in front of your eyes. watching hope spring, i guess. i mean, it really is something amazing to see that simple and that complex of an emotion once you thought it dead. as sad as it is, i honestly thought hope was dead in americans. at least when it came to america. and to see it again was so encouraging. i mean, it's obvious (and the obama camp keeps saying it like a mantra) that our country is in a terrible state right now, and fixing it won't be easy, and it won't happen overnight. but the fact that americans are even hoping that it can happen at all says something in and of itself.

i'm going to admit now that i was on the fence for a while. i wanted hillary to be the democratic nominee. not because i didn't want it to be obama. but because obama didn't give me any reason not to want it to be hillary. and then when he won, i thought to myself, "okay, now show me. show me why you deserve my vote, not by default, but by policy." and on top of that, mccain has sound Indian policy, sound immigration policy, he's worked with Hawaii senators on issues for Native Hawaiians, and his history as a vet (though by now I think everyone's sick of it, but at the time...) did make an impression on me. but then palin happened. and, oh, she happened big.

i have never, in my life, been so afraid of the american people. i was terrified that they would vote her into office. now, i'm not the jon stewart type of girl, okay? i generally dislike when people make any kind of fun of others. and i really dislike when they make money off of it. does no one else find this rude and...unclassy? anyway, regardless of this personality quirk of mine, can i just say how tina fey became my overnight hero? those skits...wow. tina fey single-handedly immortalized the idiocy that was palin-for-vice-president.

and, i mean, come on! palin over biden?! really?! i love biden. i think he's going to be amazing. and that choice, in the end, is what solidified the obama vote for me. even over the palin-upchuck-reflex. for me, obama choosing biden said, "hey, this guy may not have experience, but he's smart enough to recognize his weaknesses and plan accordingly. he'll surround himself with people who's strengths he can play off of. he's already making great decisions."

and so obama got my vote. and i voted in what is undoubtedly the most historic presidential election our country has seen yet.

but in the midst of this amazing win for america's future (fingers crossed!), came the california prop 8 vote.

now, i'm not a california voter, and i was really glad i wasn't. because, and i know this may be hard for some to hear, but i'm not sure how i would have voted, and i probably would have left that box blank.

it's a really difficult position for me to be in. because on one hand, i'm the type of person who respects the law enough that i think legislating my religious beliefs on another is not acceptable. they are my beliefs, and not anyone elses. we have civil rights for a reason: because everyone, no matter what, should be treated equally. not allowing someone to marry because of who they are marrying is not equality.

but on the other hand, these are my beliefs. well, they should be. i grew up in a very christian family. my aunt and grandmother are pastors, for crying out loud. my step mother is ordained. whenever i come to my father with a problem, i can almost count on this being the first answer i hear: "well, you need to pray about it, baby. you know, only the lord knows the right answer." so it becomes difficult when faced with a decision that invokes all of these religious ties, and when you grow up learning that, from that perspective, this is wrong. and while no one should be able to legislate their beliefs on someone else, isn't that why we're a democracy? so that it's not one person's beliefs becoming law? but rather, it's the majority's opinion, religious or no. the problem, i guess, arises when so much of the country is of one religious persuasion.

so i guess i wanted to ask God what he believes is right. do we deny people their happiness? their opportunity to be just like the rest of us? is that what he wanted? and if so, why? why were people created in ways that would deny them their rights? what did He mean by doing this?

do you think we'll ever get our answers? isn't that what faith is? the belief that He's already given you the answers? am i just looking for an easy way out?

i told you i had some complicated things to write. :)

things have sort of finally settled down though, and i'm glad. i'm not sure how much more i could have taken. the reason i haven't blogged in a while was because i've been in trial mode. i had my culminating event for my trial practice class this passed weekend. that event was a three hour trial. i was on a firm of 3, defense-counsel, and for my part, i had to do 2 cross-exams of plaintiff's experts, one 776 exam of an adverse witness, and one direct examination.

i can say two things about this first trial experience of mine:

first, i was not cut out to be a trial lawyer. it's just honest-to-goodness not in me. i don't thrive in that kind of pressured environment. i dislike the subtle, underhanded hostility that goes on between plaintiff's counsel and defense counsel. you know that feeling that you're told you'll get? the adrenaline feeling that you'll crave after the first time you try it? yeah, i don't feel that. i feel slightly sick each time i think of having to ever go to trial. to ever stand in front of a bunch of strangers and convince them that i'm right, while someone else is trying to convince them that i'm wrong and i can't just turn to that person and say, "shove it!" the procedure of trials themselves are just mind-boggling. and the stress is quite frankly not worth it.

second, if i were ever going to do this again? i'd be a rockstar at cross-exams. they say that you can tell what kind of trial lawyering style you'd have after the very first time. they're right. i'm great at crosses because i can attack someone without seeming to attack them. my boyfriend watched me during the trial and said he felt pity for the people i crossed, because they didn't know what was coming. i just sweetly box them in, and box them in, and box them in, until i finally have them exactly where i want them, and then i ruin them. it's because i have a sweet and shy sort of personality (in front of strangers. i should make that clarification because my friends are laughing their asses off in disbelief right now.). the cross is sort of like lulling the witness into complacency, and then impeaching them. and it helps knowing that i know every single answer they're going to give me.

while gearing up for the trial, i found myself thinking one night on the commute home about how amazing the human body is. i mean, speaking of my body, i'm constantly amazed at how much it can endure. how much it can...stretch...to accommodate the crap i do to it. and not just the body like, the muscles or bones or tissues and stuff. but more specifically, the mind. i mean, i don't think it's a secret that i've felt like i'm being held together by fraying thread at the moment. and last week, i think i cried on nearly every commute home. most of the time because of the sheer exhaustion of having to think about a million things at once and not knowing what to do about any of them. and the fact that i was able to deal enough to do a trial just really made me appreciate my body and mind more. and made me wonder where my limits are. because if these aren't it, was i made to withstand more? am i going to have to?

there's this carrie underwood song where the lyrics say something about the mountain you've been climbing being just a grain of sand. what a thought.

and speaking of carrie underwood. i went to her concert saturday night as a "congratulations, you survived trial practice!" with M. it was great. i miss going to shows. B. and i are planning on making more time for them next semester. i'm glad. i feel like i'm making moves to reclaim the part of me that i regret losing at some point.

and i guess that's as good an update as any for the night! it feels good to get it all down again.

hello, blog. i missed you, too.



reminders for future posts:

favorite lines from songs
twilight movie review
sad/happy playlists

one way streets

i'm feeling sad again tonight for no good reason. i mean, i could think of a thousand reasons, but none of them are good enough. i think i'm just scraping the bottom of the barrel energy- and emotion-wise. i can feel myself on this one way street to burnout and i just can't make myself get off.

and in the midst of this, there's this irritating question lingering in the back of my mind that just refuses to go away: after i graduate from law school, if i choose not to take the bar and not to become a lawyer, what will i do?

it's terrifying, to say the least.

i'm one of those people that needs direction in life. i've built my future in my head already and it's all contingent on this next step. on graduating and getting a job. on being a lawyer. and lately i've been wondering if i even want that future anymore.

do you have any idea what it does to your head to question this much of who you are?

what do you do when your plan doesn't seem as good as it once did? do you cut and run? find another plan? find another future? realize that you're still young, you haven't signed a contract in blood, you can change?

or do you stick it out? say, "suck it up, you're getting everything you want!"? do you power through until [hopefully] the feeling of discontent and utter...sadness...passes?

i guess i thought i was done with the drastic changes. so stupid to think so, right? but i thought that i had it figured out (and those of you who really know me are rolling their eyes right now). i mean, i honest to goodness thought that i would want to do what i'm setting out to do, and i'd want to do it for the foreseeable future. and i'm one of those people who almost stubbornly clings to my decisions. which is why i'm where i am right now, i guess.

and it's not just the career part of my life. it's others. but i think those are still a little too scary of prospects for me to face. i'll have to soon. i know i will. but i don't think i can just this minute. call me a chicken, i don't care.

i don't know. i don't think i'm making sense. i'm going to stop, try to gather my thoughts, get some work done, and hopefully write a little later this week with a clearer picture for you all.



in other news, my happy music playlist is growing!

note: i'm feeling particularly whiny tonight

so i've decided that this entire semester has pretty much been finals week. at least it feels like it has.

where have the weekends gone? where have those long, lovely days of taking long drives out to the coast, or going to the lake for a picnic, or reading a book that had absolutely nothing to do with legal ethics, gone?!

i want them baaaack!

yes, i'm whiny. and yes, it irritates me as well.

*sigh* i know, i know, i really shouldn't complain. i mean, aren't i really lucky to be where i am right now? how many kids from tiny villages on the big island of hawaii (where you're more likely to get addicted to crack or pregnant than you are to go to college) can say that they're almost at the end of the dark tunnel known as law school? how can i possibly complain that i got to go to high school at a very rich private school for free, got to go to college at the university of washington (which, for out-of-staters isn't exactly small potatoes), got to study abroad, and then got to go to law school on full scholarship?!

where do i get off complaining?



but seriously? i want those days baaaaaaaack!!!

okay, okay, okay, i'm done with that mess for the night. i'm lucky. i'm lucky. i'm lucky....

so being the lucky girl that i am, i've been working pretty much all weekend, in case it wasn't obvious by the whinage. i have a legal ethics presentation to give on tuesday on the ethical dilemmas facing in-house counsel. it's both frustratingly complicated, and outrageously boring in equal parts. i want to just add that professional responsibility is not a joke in the legal field, despite what it may seem like. proof? i've also been spending my weekend studying for the MPRE (multistate professional responsibility exam), which is sort of part of the bar in california. i totally don't think i'd have to do this if i were taking the bar in washington, but that's neither here nor there at this point. the exam's in 2 weeks (count 'em, TWO) and this saturday was the first time i actually spent some meaningful hours studying. unfortunately, as a result of being inundated with all this ethical crap (haha), i have NOT finished my memo for work on sovereign immunity, nor have i read a thing for fed. indian law tomorrow, NOR have i finished reading my depositions for trial practice!

i know i say this a lot? (yes, i meant to make that sound like a question. isn't that so high school?) but there is never enough time.

the best thing about this weekend? i purchased albums from both Fair and City & Colour. go buy them. right now, drop everything you are doing, run to your nearest borders (i'm a borders nut, don't really like barnes for some weird reason), and buy them. soooo good.

i've been trying to come up with a playlist that has my favorite mellow-introvertish-i-don't-want-to-call-it-depressing-because-it's-not songs on it (inspired by, and in response to, a fellow blogger who published a great list herself), but haven't had time. and i also feel that if i playlist those songs (did i just turn "playlist" into a verb?), then i should also playlist my favorite up-beat-listen-to-while-i'm-cleaning happy songs. and i definitely haven't had time for that. so alas, they'll have to wait for a bit. but go get Fair and City & Colour! i'm a fan!

oh, and finally i guess, i think i just had a complete blonde moment today. like, more so than any other day when i'm totally not with it. i was talking to a friend today and she mentioned how her favorite thing about the twilight books is how they model classical pieces of literature. now, i realized while reading the books that the characters often talked about the classics and critiqued the actions of those literary heroes or villains, etc., but i guess i just never realized that it was an overarching theme. it sort of makes the books cooler for me. so can someone tell me what the first book was? for twilight? because new moon = romeo and juliet, eclipse = wuthering heights, and i think breaking dawn = merchant of venice and midsummer night's dream. anyway, that was just a random thought.

is it just me or did i use an inordinate amount of parentheses in this post?

dark hour

**DISCLAIMER: i get like this every once in a while. it passes. like right now for example? i'm feeling pretty okay... so don't let this convince you that i'm dropping out of school. i am NOT dropping out of school, people!**

i actually think i touched on rock bottom yesterday.

mentally, at least.

i mean, on the way home from my night class, and from being "on" the entire day long dealing with these massive bouts of anxiety, i actually felt every ounce of adrenaline leaving my body. i was on BART and realized that i just had nothing left.

nothing.

and i got home and my brain just...quit. i didn't want to do anything anymore. i didn't want to study. i didn't want to take a shower. i didn't want to be a law student. i didn't want to change out of my school clothes and into home clothes. i didn't want to eat dinner. i didn't want to think about what i wanted to drink. i didn't want to work up the energy to care about the next day. i definitely didn't want to be a law student anymore. i didn't even want to be lawyer. i didn't want to take the bar. i didn't want to be in the bay area. i didn't want to be anywhere else. i didn't want to go to work or write memos or think about legal issues.

i mean, and i literally mean, that i just...stopped working.

and then i got up this morning and the feeling was still there. so i vaguely remember changing into my friday uniform of jeans i wore at some point that week, a tank, my uw hoodie from freshman year, no make-up, and my hair (unbrushed) in a pony tail. the only thing i could think to do was put on earrings, and that's just because they were already out on my dresser and i didn't have to actually choose them.

so i went to class in a blur, took a 3 HOUR exam in drafting, and went to lunch with M. and L. i felt like i was floating through the day on auto-pilot. you know, like when you're there but you're not really? i mean, i sat there, and i tried to talk, but i felt really...punchy. like everything i said was way more exaggerated than i meant it to be. it all sounded foreign coming out of my mouth, like my brain was slightly in the background just trying to cope with the day to day. like i was scraping the bottom of the barrel for energy to form sentences and get them out, and because i knew that i was trying to overcompensate and it all just came out...forced. and not only was everything i said overloud, but also negative, which usually isn't the case for me (at least i don't think it is). i couldn't get my self over the fact that i hated being here. i didn't want to go through another week or month or , God forbid, another entire semester. i just didn't have it in me to do it.

and i was angry that i was going to do it anyway.

i was thinking about that a lot today as i was listening to muse's "absolution," which is amazing btw.

i was thinking about why i'm here, trying to be a lawyer, and whether or not i still want to do it. or if i ever wanted to do it. it all comes down to your parents, doesn't it? i mean, my parents are amazing. they're great parents. and i can honestly say that if it wasnt' for them, specifically, i wouldn't be here. because i've seen too many childhood friends and neighbors, who were so similarly situated to me, go absolutely no where because they didn't have my parents.

i asked my dad when he visited how he and my mom managed to raise 3 fairly well-adjusted girls. and he said it worked because he and my mom almost had a silent agreement that one of them played the heavy while the other was more nurturing. and while i know that they both probably have some criticisms of each other and they way they parented us as individuals, i wish i could just tell that whatever they did worked. it may not seem that way sometimes, especially when you look at the problems in me and my sisters and you nit-pick at all the flaws, but everyone has flaws. we can't be perfect. but we're not bad. and that's because whatever they did worked.

but what i've noticed is that i whenever i get into moods like the one i'm in now, i tend to blame them. or my dad, i guess i should say, more specifically. i blamed him because, instead of fists in faces, he used the phrases, "i'm so disappointed in you," or, "you know that's unacceptable, right?" i guess he never realized that we probably would have preferred the fists.

but those words shaped us. me, most of all, out of my sisters. i couldn't stand hearing them, couldn't stomach it. and sometimes, even now when he hasn't said that in so many years, i still get shaky when i make myself hear his voice in my head biting out those five little words.

"i'm so disappointed in you."

"you know that's unacceptable, right?"

and it was mostly about grades. there was a time when i was in highschool, and my dad would call, when before even asking me how i was he'd ask how school was. that was the priority. school. me.

but i can't cast blame elsewhere anymore, and i don't really...haven't for a long time. i love my dad, he's one of my absolute favorite people in the world. and i can stand back and realize now that i was/am lucky to have him, and to have had him balanced out by my mother. because i have so much now that i wouldn't have without them. and i'm so lucky. so lucky.

i just bring this up now more as a criticism of myself than of him. because it think he's come to understand, if only a little, what these words did to us. maybe not to me, but i've fought for him to understand what they did to my little sister. and i hope that he's got that.

it was a little too late for me, i'd already come to internalize them. so when i was in college, and my grades were slipping, i'd hear that voice in my head.

"i'm so disappointed in you."

"you know that's unacceptable, right?"

and i'd pick those grades right back up. this mentality transferred over to different parts of my life as well, but i don't really want to get into that now. i'm trying to stay focused here.

anyway, then i got to lawschool. and his voice has become my voice, saying that i'm not going to disappoint anyone, i'm going to be something that they call be proud of. i'm going to be a lawyer. i'm going to go to school and be smart and get a good job.

even if i'm hating every single second of it. now that's work ethic. (N. calls it being the most stubborn person he's ever met).

but if i'm honest, then i'll admit that i'm not really hating every single second of law school. i love working for tribes. i find the work rewarding. but it's the thought of being "on" every single second of every single day for the foreseeable future that just has me feeling so trapped. because i have to stick this out. i've started. i'll finish. i have to stick it out.

i'm just not sure i want to. at least not right at this second, which is all i can really speak for since my moods have just been chaotic lately.

i tell myself that i need a vacation. it's true, but truth means so very little. my friends tell me i need sleep. can't i sleep when i'm dead? i tell myself that i won't take the bar, i'll take a year off instead and trying to just live normally and see if that works for me. but then i hear the voice and i chicken out.

i need to do something with my life.

i guess i just don't know what yet. and that's probably what terrifies me the most sometimes.

ulgh. what can i say, it's been a really bad couple of weeks.

i was thinking that most of my blogs just seem so...depressing. isn't that an indication of my life? or is it just that when life is good i'm out living it instead of blogging it? who knows.

this got way longer than i intended it to.