Only Time Will Tell

There is something quite unsettling about unfinished business. So, here it goes. Where shall I go? Or shall I stay here, all warm, comfortable, and sandy? Shall or work or dabble? Work, most definitely. Shall I stay warm and southern, yet slightly isolated? Or, shall I move North, and bear the risk of job failure, noisy neighbors, slushy snow, and frosty winters with an uncertain direction? Or, shall I go West and face a similar fate as if I went North? All this moving about must end somewhere. Usually, I go where the pieces fall, as fate is usually determined by these. Time will reveal my destiny. 

Florida Tree Frogs Love to Stick to Windows, plants, and stay close to home

Florida, where I live, is a Beautiful Jungle

Jacksonville Beach is a strange paradise of few people

Geckos- These things are all over the place!

Prehistoria, Here I am

Hello Everyone,

So many things have happened since I last met with you. Perhaps this is why I haven't written! Too much going on, too much to say. I am now in Florida, enjoying the warm, humid weather and the fear of cockroaches and alligators alike. At night, sweating out a phone call as bugs zap in the electrical bug zapper and my eyes frantically scan the pleiostene-age vegetation for the glowing eyes of some prehistoric amphibian with a mouth full of teeth, I wonder just why it is that I am here. Really, it's because I am not somewhere else, say, humid, mucky and shopping mall-filled Chicagoland or San Francisco where law students go to die. Pardon my pessimism, but memories just tend to attach themselves to the places they were wrought, kind of like mold on bread left way too long in the pantry. 

On a more pleasant note, my ankle has healed well from the surgery, but still needs 6 weeks of physical therapy to get back to normal. On a darker note, my right ankle now seems to be exhibiting the same pre-surgery symptoms of my left ankle. 

My law firm website material is in it's last stages and needs a little motivation to spice it up (and finish it up)! 

I met this amazing Jewish lady at the pool today. She has all the energy and excitement of an undergraduate. Her normal talk of doctors, hospitals (my parents work at a hospital), parent occupations, sibling occupations and grades, and search for other Jewish individuals excited and enticed me. I'm not sure why yet, but nevertheless, I haven't met someone so inspiring in over two years! 

Oh yeah, I swim. It's fantastic. I started last summer, and kept it up at UCSF's outdoor swimming pool a few times throughout the year. It's not a running substitute, but it will have to do for now. My stretch goal is a triathalon within 2 years. Tomorrow the beautiful white sandy beaches of Jacksonville. 

The true business of my days has yet to be told, involving a rehauling of living, travel, and study plans. When we meet again, dear readers.

SFMOMA!

A Flurry of Events and A Collection of Good Memories

Hello,

Sorry for not posting earlier. So much has been going on lately. I am busy with my new law firm job at Hawbecker & Garver. I work remotely on their website content, FAQ and articles. They are a supportive and exciting young firm. They are a pleasure to work for. I just have to keep up with all of the  deadlines! Anyway, I enjoy this. This is a small price to pay for the job(s) and connections this could get me in the future. I am very positive about my experience. However, I seem to procrastinate excessively, which causes anxiety on my part. Some good advice: "Just do it!" and then you will get to enjoy the fact that it's finally done! Tomorrow I want to go to the annual post-fourth of July Folsom Street Fair. My treat for going will be a fully complete, printed, and mailed report due Monday. Then more due Wednesday, but for tomorrow evening, I hope to enjoy it and be free of anxieties. I have enjoyed a lot of events in San Francisco, including 4th fireworks, free day at SF MOMA and the SF Zoo, the various parks, SF Pride Parade, Sushi, Sunset, Ocean Beach, Fisherman's Wharf, the Cable Cars, a Movie, and a Union Square Flik, all while on crutches! I hope it goes well until the 12th when I depart for my brother's wedding. And then to Florida to see the fam. I would love to hear about others' firm jobs, but have yet to hear from others. Hope all is well. 

I am addicted to this sport, and I have only body-surfed!

Moving from Chicago to San Francisco

Wohooo! I met with some pretty cool lawyers today!

Hello. I had my first meeting with my employers today. They are two busy real estate lawyers in their thirties, who look like some of my classmates! They've been in real estate for four years and need someone to help them write articles for their website. It's kind of odd that since they've been in practice for four years, that they haven't yet set up their website, especially since they are in their thirties! They look like they got out of law school yesterday. Yet, their cars are Toyota Prius, and some other expensive one, and they rent space in the most expensive neighborhood in Chicago. You can't say they don't have a substantial edge. It's all about the networking. Surprisingly, they work together now because they happened to contact each other and live in the same city! Gosh..how things work out. They sat next to each other in Crim law in law school and now they are sitting next to each other, years later. One of the lawyers had taken several years to spend traveling to different countries. Ah! The choices! I wish this were me? Can it be? We'll see. This summer: reviewing first year (for bar prep), and doing well at my internship! Work hard. Work harder. Work hardest. Wait- work smarter! 

Did I Never Tell You I Got A Job?

Wow! Yes. It was the happiest day of my life, the day I hung up the phone after a conversation with my soon-to-be employer. It was the happiest day of my entire summer to be correct! For about an hour, I was in a state of bliss only Gods enjoy. Then. I was back to my regular miserable self. But! But for 1 whole hour it was amazing. Suddenly, it clicked. I am outwardly dependent on outside events for my personal happiness! How incredibly shallow of me. Yet, it felt incredibly amazing to be "offered" a position with a credible law firm in my local area with only a hint of charisma on my part, borrowed polyester pants, and an afro-like frizz attack to my hair on that humid day, I managed to capture the spirit of the bold, charismatic, flexible, and talented law student that young lawyers want. Did I say young? Oh. I meant youthful. Boyish good looks, soft hands, pastel-colored shirts, timidity. Oh, you know the jive. Just the kind I crave. Timidity? Well, don't ask me. I don't know where that came from. 

Okay, back to more sobering issues. In a few short hours (since it really is starting to appear as if I never sleep, and chances are I've become a vampire), my sweet unadultered skin will start forming scar tissue, as a result of the sharp, unmerciful crude edge of a knife. I will never be the same after this. No matter how many words you want to say, "Oh, you'll be fine." Really and truly, I will never be the same again after this surgery, whether that means physically, chemically, mentally, or emotionally. Odds are in favor of changing all these things, if only for fractions of seconds, as a result of this destructive blunt-edged process. One day I'll change all of this. If not today. Well, I'll give you the opportunity to ponder the meaning of my words (think radiation surgery). 

Anyhow, very tired. Good night! Wish me courage and strength. 

Summer Warmth, Interviewing, Shopping Bliss, and Good Reads

Hello, I'm back again. Finally! Excited for who knows what reason! Maybe b/c I finally found something to wear for my interviews Monday, because I've accepted my potentially impending death from the up-coming ankle surgery, and because I've found some great buys on clothing at the Nordstrom Rack. A great place to get reduced-price quality clothing. However, I miss my friends from law school and college more than ever. Summer is here and so many people are moving on to new stages of their lives, including myself, yet, we only seem to grow further apart with our changes in life rather than closer. Words can only close so many gaps, when finally the absence of their physical presence results in a gap to wide to be crossed safely and as securely again. Yet, always moving to different states hundreds, sometimes thousands of miles away, we can only plan brief visits around our busy lives in an effort to retain our once sacred friendships. 

Oh yes. The interviews. It's not that I have exactly "gotten" an interview, so much as I am going to "impose" an interview upon my potential employers. It's always best to have the upper hand this way. They see your diligence and persistence at finding Them, and they get to see you at your best, when You have chosen to interview. This works especially well for me, since I am local, and most employers here appreciate hiring locals over others. Persistence is the key here. Confidence and persistence. As my Dad said, "There are many intelligent people out there, but the ones who get the jobs are not always the intelligent ones, but the persistent." I know this from personal experience. Despite my lack of experience in any of my previous positions my frequent calls and "drop-by" hellos resulting in many jobs for which I was qualified for, yet far from their "categorical choices", as you will see most employers have.  "Categorical choices" have included "friends of employees", "high school students", "working-class background", "cheery and stupid", "Jewish", "Cheery, bubbly, dumb type", "be-speckled English-major grammar Nazi type", "Corporate-demon-I'll-stab-you-with-my-high-heels-while-smiling-with red-frosted-lips type."

The last category, combined with the English major grammar Nazi is the one I'll most likely need for landing my legal internship. Confidence and clarity of voice, mind, and action, are key. No hesitation confidence. I know you'll love me confidence. You couldn't back down if you wanted to confidence. They know they want me.  

Well, enough of that for now. It's not that I think about law school ALL the time you know. It's really the theme of this blog, so it predominates here. My current reads include The Girls of Riyadh (inspiring me to write! The author published at 25, so, so can I!). Think by Simon Blackburn (a general review of "modern" philosophers and thought), I have the Right To Destroy Myself, Thai Cooking, and Learn Spanish in 30 Days. Ha. I have yet to finish the first page. And here, I thought I could discipline myself! These reads are good ones. Enjoy! P.S. Enjoy the weather too!

Coconut Cake, $8 Pool Admission, and My Cover Letter

One play directed and taped for Lis, one thesis paper written for Ellie, countless dinners made, and several National Geographic magazines and books on "How to Get The Legal Job of Your Dreams", frequent fits of nausea and "hick-town anxiety" later, and baking a Southern Coconut Layer Cake and learning belly dancing on tv to recover, and I'm very nearly no further to a productive summer than I was 2 weeks ago.  By the way, I'm doing all this because I'm getting ankle surgery in June, so I can't live my life in the city and take classes and work because the public transportation is inadequate and I usually bike to get around. So, I'm baking cakes in hicksville, USA. 

As per cover letters, I'm just going to walk around the town and tell firms they'll be missing out on great legal services if they don't hire me ASAP. Who doesn't like free help? Busy people, probably. Anyway, it's the persistent that win the jobs, not the potentially successful. Potential is nothing if not activated. 

Reading The Girls of Riyadh. It's written by this 25 year old author from Lebanon. My first reaction was: if she can do this, I can certainly do this! And she's an endodontist (gum surgery doctor)! 

So, tomorrow is the march around the town providing charitable legal services to law firms. Any tips on how to do this successfully besides, "Wear a suit" and bring copies of your resume and cover letter? There was actually a time where I had an interviewer with an employer from town, and he walked into the diner where we met for breakfast and stopped dead in his tracks at the hostess' podium when he saw me. I really didn't know I was that ugly. I mean, my blouse was a stylish black one from Gap with a bit of decorative frill down the buttons. It was conservative, sharp, and rather cute. Okay, not it's not Armani, but it wasn't Terrible. I mean, I got Two Other Jobs in the same blouse, so there was no excuse for his gawking look. But in five seconds he wished he had never made the appointment to eat breakfast with me at the diner. And I felt awful having to go through with it. He should have just informed me that he was no longer interested in doing the interview instead of sitting down. It ended up being a whole lot less like an interview, and a lot more like advice on what NOT to do. 

I'll get back to you on that advice. It escapes me now. Getting charitable work at the animal shelter.

Resume Down, Cover Letters To Go

So, I've transported myself half-way across the country for a change of scenery and a supposedly reduced sense of academia-associated anxiety to Chicago. No island vacation this is, with hyper sugar and video-game induced children halting every thought once permitted to begin. It may look something like this: "Today I am supposed to..." It very nearly stopped there. The panting of a dog, the turning pages of someone reading, the rustling of a child jumping into bed and screaming for the return of a stolen chocolate bar, and the scraping of a chair accompanied by a booming voice requesting quiet, occupy all the space once available for thought. Tell me again, so why have I arrived? I suppose to keep the overwhelming boiler pot of anxiety from occupying all crevases of my mind as I await my internship rejection notices, usually arriving one month too late for me to have considered work at all. All these distractions in fact distract from the worst: fear of rejection. 

However, my renewed attempts to seek the most basic resources have given me some hope. Trying the things you thought you already tried. Taking a second look. It was always staring you in the face. But if you actually read it now, the words take on new meaning. They make SENSE. Billions of experiences, successful and unsuccessful have brought me to this place. Surely there is someone out there who is doing this right. So, I have asked 4 different people to review my resume. I get similar responses from all. Stick to punctuation. It counts (and I thought that was for elementary schoolers?). Use one of the formats provided by your Law Carreer Services Center. They look more professional, even if you thought yours was perfect already. Write your cover letter as if you were writing about someone you admire. Positive active verbs are as attractive to employers as your envied classmates or ambitious friends are to you. Try a new format. Paragraph format resumes may be more appropriate if your jobs are not all-inclusive in the title (and none of them are!). My fellow students are my best resource. They usually have more patience than the law career service people (because the career service center is bored of this and sees many resumes), and they have done this very recently themselves. There are more of them. They have a broader range of interests and ambitions than the career services center. Choose them because they may understand. Put it in PDF format if you employer will accept it. This ensures that the format on your computer that you see will be the same one that they get (trust me, this counts!). Employers spend on average 10 Seconds looking at your resume! What are you going to put on there to impress them? They are obviously looking for someone to impress them with clarity, brevity, and a sure sign of success. Law review, a prestigious legal internship, Honors, Scholarships, great GPAs. Now is the time to impress. 

If you are afraid you don't have these to impress? Don't worry, chances are you have done much more than you thought. Start with action verbs, throw in some numbers, (e.g. edited and complied bibliography for 900 page college textbook. Completed within publisher's deadlines ontime or early). Compare to: edited and compiled bibliography for textbook. Implicit in all your descriptions should be evidence of time-management, multi-tasking, precision, efficiency, and success. The numbers and specificity in this description say that. However, now is not the time to write an essay on your life experiences. Stick to the basics. Also, if you have many experiences, leave out those jobs with non-office related work, or other experiences in which there is little with which to impress. Although you may think that your job as a juggler in central park might tie into multi-tasking, err on the side of Not assuming the employer will immediately make this connection, and leave it out (unless you don't have any other job experiences). The jack-of-all trades resume is more sloppy and indecisive than professional and polished. Stick to the legal and office-related work and emphasize your law school extra-curriculars if your pre-law school jobs make you appear shifty. Once again, err on the side of less rather than more and selective and discretionary.

Ah, sorry for the novella. Got caught up in the details of what has truly been a revelatory experience for me. Obviously there is much more, but visuals and personal commentary is always recommended when writing the resume. 

Later, I will tell you about the beach, the euphoria from which has remained with me since May 15. This is even better than the latter! 

Night.

To the Lolly-gager in Us All

Dear Reader, 

The job hunt (albeit late) has begun (again), and the ambiguities of, "I have absolutely no idea where I am going to be in a few hours or days," begins as well. Summer comes only once per year. It's quite brief, about 10 weeks, and if you lolly-gag, you are sure to have spent it unproductively, and worse, if you plan absolutely nothing, you end up hating doing nothing, as well, since you will be bored out of your mind when all the opportunities pass you by. Yes, I am usually classified as one of the vegetable-like of the human species when it comes to summer because I am always one thing: indecisive. Indecisiveness may be worse than a bit of rash or impulsiveness, since at least the impulsive person is getting some experience or doing Something during their summer, whereas the indecisive person (like me) is usually spending those three months pan-cake flat on her back in the moist shade of some darkened basement or bedroom waiting for classes to begin again in the fall. It is such morbid imagery, in fact. I might as well take a course, go to Europe, or work. Well, why not? It should look a little better on a resume than, "Survived an especially humid summer; steam-meditated on my back for three months." So, plan early, plan now, or, if you plan late, at least plan for the fall.  As the saying goes, "If you don't change, life will change you." 

The Summer Internship

Hello Again. The 1L, now 2L still exists, just in a slightly different realm, the antithesis of not being a law student. Yes, for now, I'm the guilty beach/ tv bum procrastinating and hoping that job/ interview does not find me first. Alas, woe to me, I might be a bitter sadder without it. So, why do they make students get legal experience the summer after their first year? Oh yeah, because law school doesn't kill us enough already. And oh yeah, because a silly law school experience couldn't possibly prep the law student for the law firm. Then why the H. go to law school if we spend all of our other time trying to get the right experiences and contacts to actually get a full time paying position when we graduate? In this paranormal world they are twisting us every which way. And in this paranormal world the degree is only half of the pie. I abstain. I abstain from jobs and interviews and resumes and cover-letters and internships and suits and searching websites and job-sites and career centers and making contacts. I have done more than my share. Let us never work. I'll write scholarly journals in my room and spend my afternoons on the beach for the rest of my life. Who could ask for more? p.s. to be in the legal field in any way shape or form, good legal experiences are always required. Too bad law schools won't do it for us. Signed, your Bitter Legal Accomplice 

Finals are Finally Over

Yes, and with the end of finals comes that ambivalent feeling of, "What should I be feeling"? Bad because there are not any more opportunities to prove myself, or good because I have finally accomplished something great? Great is the question. Only time will tell if last minute, 4 a.m. study sessions were ultimately more productive than hours making outlines and chugging through class notes and book facts. Yes, the devil is in the details. So, I threw out the details and went with pre-made outlines, skimmed cases and lots of practice exams, a focus on blackletter law, and of course handy review questions from review sessions. These came in most handy as they were on the exam itself! Getting a specific average is integral to doing well, so going below would spell a subtle type of doom, beginning as a tingling of nausea and overtime evolving into self-loathing and ultimately either...okay, so why predict the worst? Let's move on. All the practicalities of real-life that I've ignored for the past three weeks await me. And, omg, it's summer! Yes, a real-live summer. And it's mine!

Hi, yeah, I'm back again! I just couldn't wait to write again in my new blog. In the back of my mind I am thinking, "I have so much more to write; so much black space to fill." I am tingling with excitement. Yes, this is my second first blog. Second, because it's the second time I've started a blog, the first with reservation, the second with slightly more knowledge than I had oh, say, five years ago. So, I have decided this will be a blog that will center around my law school experiences and remincenses, since my public self is a law student (no saying what a nonpublic self is because arguably they are the same, but for my purposes here, I'm going to call it my public self). I'll post when there's something more public to write. Adieu.

My First Post

Hello, this is my first post in "Something Random". It comes at 3 a.m., about 18 hours before my last final exam begins, and the tell-tale exam grading and tooth grinding begins as I await my final exam scores. In July, the month of the greatest number of suicides, my birthday, and the height of boredom, arrives the information that defines the rest of my legal carreer, or should I say life, if I don't have a legal career? Anyway, as a famous law school blogger once pledged, "I will not take law school too seriously." This was my one big mistake. Never take anything too seriously, seriously. It doesn't do anyone any well. (Just felt like playing with "well", since as you'll find it's one of my favorite words to use). Well, I should get back to, or should I say, starting my studying. Happy reading!