Whistle While You Work

My quote of the last two weeks? "It's on my to-do list." Want to know a secret?

I don't have a to-do list. Well, not REALLY. I have a running list in my head of things I need to do. Or rather, I have several lists of things that I need to do. Things for me (GET A HAIRCUT), Things for other people (MOW THE LAWN), Things for work (2 Petitions, Doc Request, Formal Letter, Motion to Consolidate, and these legal blogs). The lists keep crossing in my head, every which way, and I'm not really doing a great job staying focused. Oh, I know what I have to do, and even what order I need to do it in. But while I'm working diligently on one list, another list creeps in and takes over my mind. There I am, doing data entry and before I know it my mind has moved on without me. "I need to make that appointment, and I really need to talk to that one person, and didn't someone e-mail me that I need to respond to? Did I already respond to them? Dammit." It's getting frustrating. And there's too much going on to be making lists. Sigh.

So you can imagine how badly I needed to just walk away from everything for a little while. And that's how I ended up in Milwaukee, land of the hipsters.

Well, not really. You see, my aunt is moving back into the home she and my sisters lived in when they were growing up. She's been renovating for a couple months now, and while she's not done, I have to say it's going to be gorgeous. However, she's renting out her old house, incidentally to a friend of mine. We'll call this friend Sweatervest. (Because he wears sweatervests. And trench coats. And spent his time looking at Italian leather shoes during class.) He needs to move in on Wednesday, so I spent this weekend moving stuff into the new house and helping to clean the floors and whatnot of the old house. My calves are killing me because my aunt's new digs? Are on the second floor of a great big old house. (Let's be clear, Sweatervest. You owe me a drink. I'll be in town this weekend to redeem my well-deserved reward.)

Beyond that, I pretty much spent time with my aunts, parents, and cousins just doing what families do: Nothing and mocking each other. Because I really have nothing else to say, I'll just throw you some quotes from this weekend.

"You know, hipsters. Twenty somethings with huge ironic mustaches wearing at least two scarves?"

"You have no screens on your windows! You're not afraid of bugs?" "No, my bigger concern is squirrels."

"He's pimpin' my crib."

"Did you see that fox?!" "Butch, that was a cat. Did you see that elephant? Oh wait. No, that was a mailbox."

As you can see, there's no love lost between my family members. Because there wasn't much there to begin with. ZING! Just kidding. We like each other. Usually.

Till Wednesday, then. I still have to write about DUI's. I'ze gots to get paid.

Dvorak's New World Symphony (Going Home)

Lately, when I spend time at home it's just for a weekend or less. A short 36-hour period in which I spend time with my family, and maybe make a grocery run with my mom. But I've been back for almost three weeks now, and time travel happens often. For instance, I haven't mowed the lawn since early high school, because I was always careful to get a job which paid. But since doing odd jobs and chores is the only way I'm making cash these days, I'm spending lots of long hours on our riding mower cutting the grass on our three acre property. It makes me feel like I'm all of thirteen again. Except now I'm listening to my iPod instead of my super-cool, totally cutting-edge portable cd player. Oh, how times have changed.

Except that they haven't. Today in Meijer's with my mom, we decided to use the self-scan. One of our items wouldn't scan and we were buying alcohol, so we had to wait for the staff to come help us. We waited and waited and finally saw that the staff on duty for the self-checkout? Was a girl I knew from high school, who has lived down the street from me for 12 years, and made fun of me all the way through high school. (Admittedly, most of my peers made fun of me all the way through high school, so it's not like it was THAT big a deal.) When she finally came over, she was very distant and wouldn't meet my eyes or my mother's. It was odd. We made it a point to greet her. She didn't even acknowledge it. Come on, you spent seven years mocking every word that came out of my mouth! At least have the common courtesy to greet me. Clearly, she had no idea who we were. Surprising, but possible. I guess. She finished checking us out and we walked away. Or at least we started walking away.

"Amanda! Amanda!" I turned around. She was looking right at me. "You forgot your receipt."

So she DID know who I was. So the ignoring game was about what? Apparently for some people high school was the zenith of their life. And here I thought that was just something you said to twelve-year-olds to make them feel better about their sucky lives.

Mom and I laughed all the way home.

You'll Always B My Baby...

Dear Baby B:

I know I haven't written anything in two weeks. Between taking care of a puppy and starting a new internship I am le tired. But I took a nap, and now I'm ready to fire our....er....I'm ready to write a little bit.

So the internship is...interesting. I like the people I work with, and because it's a really small office I get to talk to all four people whenever I want. I've been learning data entry and how to write a proper letter to clients and colleagues. I'm really good at setting margins for letterhead. I'm also being trained to do intake interviews. The best question I got today was "Are there free lawyers for, like, copyright and stuff?" Uh...no. They get paid way too much to do that for free. Also, I don't know how many times I'm going to end up saying, "I'm not an attorney and there are no attorneys on our staff, so we're not equipped to answer legal questions..."

I think that this experience is going to be completely different from what a legal internship is supposed to be. I'm not in an office doing research. Instead I'm seeing the process of the law, starting at the intake, and ending at the guardianship hearing. Or mortgage foreclosure mediation. Or estate settlement.

I miss you much, Baby B, and I hope you're having fun in Chitown. Wish you were here!

Love,

Manda

Every Thorn Has Its Rose

It's been a whirlwind couple of days. My mom came to get me in Chicago, but got off on the wrong exit and ended up in the ghetto. West Jackson WAY past Malcom X University. In a great big shiny red truck. She finally got to me, we got everything loaded and we got it home. Of course, by the time we got home the basement was about to flood because it rained for about a week straight and the ground was super-saturated. And we have a psycho puppy. Who will kamikaze you. As in, you're sitting on the couch, he'll get a running start, jump on you, jump off, run back across the room and do it again. (He's awesome.)

Then yesterday while unpacking, I realized I was missing some clothes. Specifically undergarments. I left all of my bras except the one I was wearing and the sports bra that was in the laundry in a drawer in my apartment in Chicago. And the dorm I lived in informed me that everything that was left behind would be donated to charity. It was The Worst. At least the one I had been wearing is the newest one.

But I got to go shopping and get margaritas with my friend, the other Amanda. And when I woke up this morning, it was a gorgeous day of sunshineyness that's going to be in the 70s. So I put on shorts and a long-sleeve t-shirt and took Loki out for a walk/run. It was great. He may be mischievous, but his legs are so short that ten minutes of running has him sleeping on the floor by the time you get back. He'll be sedate and compliant the rest of the day. Which is just the way we like him. He's a good dog. He just gets excited about the weirdest things. But how can you NOT love a dog who loves chasing birds and butterflies and goes out of his way to stomp on dandelions? You would have to be dead inside.

I think I'm finally figuring out this relaxing thing. It's going to be awesome. For a week.

It's A Quarter after [3], I'm All Alone (and I'm Thirsty and Can't Sleep)

It's getting harder and harder to make the song titles relevant.

So it's over. Sweet Jesus, so awesome, it's over. I was listening to the 1L song, though, and the lyrics that stuck in my head were, "They say it gets better, but the damage is done. I bleed reasonableness and jurisdiction." I think I make some sort of legal joke EVERY DAY. The only difference is that no one is going to get my (admittedly bad) jokes all summer long. I'm going home.

First of all, because there's a puppy there, and I hear puppies and kittens are good for relaxing. Actually, it's a 3 month-old 40 pound yellow lab puppy. So it's a big puppy. But since I discovered today that I have no idea how to relax, I think a big puppy is just what I need. I really don't know how to not do anything anymore. After the criminal law final on Friday, I immediately picked up my contracts final. I worked on it for nine hours straight for three days in a row, and after a final edit Tuesday morning, I turned it in. I came home, sat down and watched one episode of Full House and immediately started packing. I wasn't supposed to leave Chicago until Thursday, but by 5 pm, I had packed everything I own, and decided to just go home Wednesday. And then, because I STILL had time to kill I started cleaning the apartment. So you see I'm not kidding. I do not know how to relax anymore. I'm working on it.

The second reason I'm going home is that after much (okay, not really) searching*, that's where I found my job for the summer. I use the term "job" loosely, since it's actually an unpaid internship. I contacted the Volunteer Lawyers' Program of Northeast Indiana over Spring Break back in March. I finally heard back from them at the beginning of May, had a phone interview Wednesday morning at the crack of dawn, and had a job with them by noon. What will I be doing you ask? I have no idea. I think I'm supposed to spend half my time at the VLPNEI office doing things like intake interviews and whatnot, and then I spend the other half my time with two of their attorneys helping them with whatever they're doing. It's all very vague, but I have an orientation on the 21st.

I'm pretty excited. VLPNEI works with lower-income people who otherwise wouldn't have access to the judicial system. It mostly deals with things like family law and landlord/tenant law issues from what I understand, so I'm going to be doing good, down-to-earth work that has a real day-to-day effect. I'm sure it's going to be a challenge at times, and I'm going to make mistakes (hopefully just little ones), but it should be eye-opening at the very least. I'm happy that I get to put all these legal skills to use so they won't just collect dust this summer.

The best part, of course, is that for the first time in my whole life, my job is Monday-Friday, so I get weekends off. I will be spending my weekends at the lake, perpetratin' a tan.**

Anyway, goodbye ChiTown. I'll miss you, but I'll make sure to visit lots so you don't feel sad that I left you.

________________________

*Cut me some slack. By the time I realized I should be applying for things, a lot of application dates had passed.

**Yes, that was a "Gold digger" reference. Bonus points if you got it.

It's (apparently) Just Another Manic Monday

Apparently, if you put humans into a room and give them no sense of day or night, our natural circadian rhythm is naturally sets itself to a 25 hour day.* I think law students could tell you all about that. I'm apparently into my third week of studying for finals, and I have no idea WHEN it is.

I know my exam is due on a Tuesday, and that my exam is due tomorrow. Logic tells me that means tomorrow is Tuesday, and so today is Monday. And yet, every time I tell myself it's Monday, I don't believe it. At this point, the days have so blurred together that I can only tell you how many days away my next important engagement is. I cannot tell you WHEN it is in the future or even WHEN it is right now.

It's as if because my days have not been structured as they normally would, I don't know how the days of the week work. I just know that the nights separate the days from one another, and I sleep during the night. So when I wake up, the following day is here. Whenever that day is.

So the test that they should REALLY do to determine natural circadian rhythms is just to talk to law students during finals.

Or maybe I should just put a calendar on my wall.

____________

*Which may explain why I feel like I'm always an hour short of sleep.

All We Can Do Is Keep Breathing

Two Exams Down, One to Go!

But at this point I'm dragging on the ground. I wanted to watch the Betty White SNL tonight, but I don't think it's going to happen. It's 9:30 right now, and I can't imagine anything more amazing than just going to sleep. It sounds incredible. I think I'm going to do it.

I'm finding that finals are much more exhausting this time around. At this point last semester, I felt at least a little bit excited that I had almost survived and would be going home for Christmas. This semester all I want to do is drag my way through it and go to bed at night. I'm exhausted and I'm down to eating maybe twice a day because I'm too tired to make myself food. Yes, I am a barrel of laughs and joy.

But then have you SEEN our contracts exam? Question 3 is a killer.

You'd be exhausted too.

Danger Zone!

1 Exam down, 2 to go. Property was today. It feels good to have that out of the way, considering how much I hated it. The way I feel stress is funny. I woke up half an hour before my alarm this morning and was completely unable to go back to sleep. My mind wasn't racing or anything, I just was wide awake and ready for the day.

I got ready, packed my bag, and walked out the door. THEN the nerves started. Butterflies in my stomach, and being terrified of not making it to school, even though school is two blocks away. So when I saw a crazy guy walking down the street threatening to beat people up, all I could think was, "This guy is going to take me hostage, and then I won't get to my exam, and the Dean won't let me retake the exam, and I'm so screwed." Luckily, I didn't get taken hostage and I made it to school in plenty of time to eat breakfast.

During the final, everything was remarkably clear. I wasn't shaking or nervous. In the moment, I can completely keep my cool, as long as I don't think about what's happening. I even brought my bookstand so that flipping through my outline would be easier. Yes, I got made fun of, but it helped me stay completely calm, which is more important.

But it was after I left the room that I actually got nervous. The rush of adrenaline hit me post-challenge as it always does and I had to sit down. I was shaking so hard that the coffee I was drinking sloshed out of its cup and all over me.

It's weird that I can't feel the fear until after the big moment has passed. I think I would fail evolutionarily. Flight-or-Fight syndrome kicks in after I've decided to fight, and in the prehistoric days, something really big would have eaten me long before the fear hit me.

Good thing I'm a law student and not a cavewoman.

Let the Sun Shine In

It's a gorgeous day here in Chicago. It stormed last night, so it's 70 and sunny with no humidity. I won't be partaking in the pretty, though, since I'm in the second floor lounge watching the world's most inane six hour review online lecture. I think I focused through 20 minutes of the first hour, since the other 40 minutes were stupid jokes and the lecturer singing bad 90s pop songs. Not kidding.

So beautiful outside. Maybe I can get a run in this afternoon.