rhymes with spoon

I know all of you out there are beside yourselves wondering, what will I get Sara for Christmas this year? So click here to check out my lengthy (and growing) Amazon Wishlist. (Can you tell I'm procrastinating on my outlines?!)

Well the semester is wrapping up and I'm starting to get scared. Lots to do with though energy levels are at a historic low. Since turning in the 1st draft of my article (overall disappointing debacle with a few paragraphs of triumph), I've struggled to recover my law school mojo....most days have been cold, grey, tedious, and just blah. I realize now that I know too much about my experience here and yet I'm still unwilling to accept things as they are and move on. Namely, I'm still nursing my old (and now dying) dreams of being big, bad-ass litigator at mega law firm...or even medium size one at that. But several rejection letters later, I'm realizing I gotta let that go. If there is a 'scarlet letter' in law school then I must have it on me somewhere. I've become an untouchable in the job market. *sigh.*

Still trying to convince myself that this will not result in me begging for change on the street and/or living under a free overpass eating beans out of a can. I realize now that I lack the "thick skin one needs to have to be in this business." I've been thinking about all the big, bad-ass litigators I know. And at worst, I can't stand them and at best, I can have polite conversation with them but I could hardly consider them as friends.

Frankly I've become a bit bitter and disenchanted as of late b/c when I think of the long list of people who've really let me down in the last year or just flat out wronged me (some in ways that I find damn near unforgiveable), almost everyone on the list is a lawyer. Go f***in' figure. It's a strange kind of emotional spring cleaning. A lot of people have exited my life in the last year, and yet I'd say mostly I've parted ways with people with little or no drama. No reason to delve into the precise details of the drama on a public forum, except to say that in times of hardship and/or crisis, I've decided mostly to rely on myself and beyond that, on just a trusted few. I've gone on too long naively believing that others would have my best interests at heart. Growing up has required letting go of a lot of things and a lot of people. Now with a lot less baggage, I just have figure out where I should go?

Well, since the library will be closed tomorrow (and Friday, gasp!) and since, then I will have go elsewhere for wireless (unlikely, at least tomorrow) I thought I'd throw out a Thanksgiving Day post before I march off to class and then on to SuperTarget for some much needed last minute provisions.

I'm still 24 hours away from the festivities but am already quite positive that this Thanksgiving will far surpass my uber-depressing, slightly paranoid/neurotic Thanksgiving of 2004, which included a very boring, impersonal Thanksgiving lunch with one of my lawschool classmates. Bleck. This year there will be lots of homemade baked goods plus lots of Whole Foods goodies. (As much as I think everyone should experience my famously delicious turkey, I don't think that I have the time or the energy mid-article to spend my day basting a giant bird for a mere three guests.)

So it's kinda lame, but I try very hard every year to member all the things I can be thankful for:

1. My family--they continue to be a source of inspiration for me
2. Jeff--the bestest boyfriend ever
3. Friends--for always reminding me that the world isn't such a lonely place
4. My car--having a 4-wheel drive little red subaru makes driving here an adventure rather than a chore
5. The majesty of Brahms symphonies--makes me think that perfectionism may sometimes actually pay off
6. Night and weekend cell phone minutes--and yet I still run over on my daytime minutes
7. Reference librarians--for helping me find some much needed research
8. Lactaid--for helping me to digest yummy organic milk
9. Artfully crafted mixed CDs--see also #2
10. Stress-related weigh loss--so I feel less guilty when I eat something decadent

And that list should just about tell you the state of affairs of my life currently. Happy Thanksgiving everyone!

Apologies for my long online absence but b/t a visit from Jeff, preparing for a massive Corporations final (which in spite of my efforts, resulted in utter failure), and mustering up the courage to go on a 72 hours bender to scratch out the first draft of my article, I've been too busy to do much else but react. My brains been full of thoughts (friends have seen the steam coming outta my ears) but I haven't been able to really process them let alone share them with others.

I still feel like someone who has been thrown from a horse and is trying to figure out how to get back on. 1L really destroyed whatever shard of self-confidence I might have had when I left DC and I've been trying to pick up the pieces ever since. And in the end, I'm just confused. I've heard everything from "hey, not everyone's good at law school, it's not for everyone, maybe you should quit" to "hey, at least you'll have a JD in a year and a half, maybe you'll be able to make a career out of that 10 years from now." If I accept the validity of either or those statements, the present and the next ten years look incredibly bleak.

I was talking to a friend this weekend about the usefulness of anger. In an ideal world, I guess I wouldn't be fueled by anger but in the absence of happiness, real passion, etc. it seems like the next best thing. And maybe that's been my problem here. I need to be really pissed about something...b/c that used to keep me working, hard, all the time. Now I just want to sleep, forget about everything around me, all the time.

And then, I feel like all this agonizing, the drama seems strangely unnecessary. That maybe I could actually do something I feel real passion about--not sure what that'd be but it sure as hell isn't law, anymore--or that in the grand scheme of things I don't have a ton to complain about in the "grand scheme of things." And in fact, maybe I don't, but that still doesn't leave me feeling any better. If anything I feel worse b/c I'm not as resilient as the rest of my friends (many of whom have been through a lot more the last couple of years) and b/c I just can't find my way out of what everyone else thinks is a seemingly easy funk.

I can't think of anything else to say is except that I don't see the big picture and to the extent that I might, it's looking pretty damn ugly.

Today was the last day of corporations and I have to admit to being a tiny bit sad. In a building full of miserable people making each other miserable it's really refreshing to see someone who loves their job, puts a lot of thought into teaching, and who really wants to see all his students succeed (even us lowly ones at the bottom of the GPA barrel).

The professor's parting words to us was (Scary, how he basically covered my first year in seven salient points):

Here are my top 7 reasons why you may get disillusioned with the law. (I'm sure all of you can think of ten just off the top of your heads, but here's my top 7.)

7. You've lost your self esteem.
(The entire premise of a legal education has been that your mind is mush and if you're lucky, I might mold it for you. I hope you haven't felt that way about this class, but whenever you feel discouraged, remember, you didn't get here on luck alone.)
6. You've lost your sense of humility.
(This may have something to do with the fact that lawyers often think they're God.)
5. You've lost your sense of humor.
(This is easy to do when you're up at 2 AM reading commas wondering why and how you got there in the first place. Although you do a lot of that here, with any luck, you'll get big bucks to do that down the road.)
4. You've lost touch with your friends and family.
(I'm sure that many of your friends and family can attest to how first year basically killed your ability to converse normally with other humans. But don't lose touch with your friends and family. They're also another big reason you made it here.)
3. You've lost your sense of faith.
(See point 6. But seriously, I try to get up every morning feeling very lucky and very thankful for everything I have and I know those things aren't all my own doing.)
2. You've lost my phone numbers/email address.
(Seriously, if you're in a jam with your career or with some legal puzzle, you should call or email me. Your success if my success. Sorry, that's my economic background talking but you should know by now that the whole world runs off of personal self interest.)
1. You've become a litigator.
(Well, I'm really sorry about that but there's nothing I can do for you there.)

Happy Birthday to me! Happy Birthday to me! Happy Birthday to me!

But I would be remiss in duties as a good older sister if I didn't also wish a happy birthday to my little brother who turns 20 today! Happy Birthday Tim!

I remember as a child always being puzzled by how much Garfield hated Mondays. And now I understand. Too well. I seem to have backed myself into a corner on all fronts. Job prospects--slim to none (you know things are bad when your former boss, a normally very chipper, upbeat guy, says he finds the updates on my job search depressing). Financial outlook--grim (I got rejected from a student loan that I'd assumed was going to come through). Grades/school--Oh, don't get me started (Corporations final less than two weeks away, an article due in three weeks that is in only its super early stages, and mountains more of reading to do).

I just want to quit so badly. Fill up the gas tank, abandon everything, and drive off into the sunset. I don't know when I became a quitter; this does not make me happy.

This week brought with it a series of minor but (at the time) catastrophic breakdowns followed by a couple of much needed (although poorly timed) nights off. Mostly brought on by chemical shifts, coping with a series of disappointments, plus that general "blah" feeling I always hit mid-fall semester when the days get shorter, beginning and ending with large swaths of darkness. Coming out the haze has been a bit cold and a bit sobering. I find that law school is very much like an extended exercise in treading water. Sometimes I get tired and fall beneath the surface, only to eventually come up gasping for air, and then to start treading once again. I can attribute my return (however brief) to sanity to some thoughtful insights from Mom and Jeff and a couple of much needed school-related extensions.
I have until the end of the month to write the first draft of my article. I need that time to think about how some new research is going to impact my initial thesis. My first final is about two weeks away and I've just about wrapped up my outlines and will begin reading statutes in earnest. I'm struggling to keep my renewed obsession with grades at bay so as to prevent anxiety to become all consuming. A hard lesson to relearn this fall: sometimes doing my best doesn't really turn out so well. But I had a scary moment last weekend when I passed out and landed straight on my right knee. (Now it's super black and blue.) Fortunately, someone found me right away and helped me back up, but that was a reminder that there must be something rattling on in my brain that I'm not really acknowledging on the surface when I'm running from class to class and breezing through countless reading assignments.
But overall, I can't complain as there are things to look forward to. I turn 26 next week. I have a big dinner with law school friends and then Jeff rolls into town for a few days! And though I have to run to Tax shortly, it's hard to be mad when I'm sitting here drinking coffee, eating frosted sugar cookies, and listening to Pizzicato Five.