Cutting back ...

Life needs to be simplified this month. So I'm not going to blog. And I'm going to do my very, very best to limit how much I read other's blogs. Which is going to be hard because I sincerely find many of you interesting, entertaining, and enlightening. I'll be back in November.

Brooke

A tale of woe ...

Hi friends,

I have a sad, sad story to tell you about moot court.

What is moot court you might ask? It's this really fabulous law school cocurricular activity. Not extracurricular like football (though I'm doing that this year, too ... the law school has one of the most dominating ladies flag teams around). Cocurricular like we'll give you school credit for doing something more fun than listening to a teacher lecture and you might actually learn to be a lawyer along the way. Moot court is something I've really looked forward to being part of. Something I worked really hard to get invited onto. And something I've been working very hard to do well at.

And then yesterday, I'm pretty sure I blew it. And I took it way harder than I expected. I realized that maybe my relationship with law school has become unhealthy. Unbalanced and life controlling perhaps?

So instead of telling you about the details, I think I'm just going to wrap this up and go find a life instead. Because seriously, I woke up REALLY happy this morning after some fabulous support and recovery from family last night when I realized things were going downhill fast. And because sleep is amazing and I didn't have to wake up to an alarm. And it's October and should be freezing, but it's sunny and beautiful and SO WARM!!! outside. And there's no class today. So I'm going to take a break from law school today and give it some distance. It will get all passive-aggressive on me when I return by giving me a list of double-duties tomorrow for my neglect. But I think the health of our relationship demands it. Maybe I'll go on a hike.

...

...

Right after I finish this edit and go to the hearing I promised to.

Law school is so needy.

On increase ...

Some food for thought at this back-to-school-time:

In the past 25 years, minimum wage increased 216 percent.

Tuition increased 400 percent.

Twenty-five years ago, more men graduated from college than women.

Today, more women graduate than men.

Just over twenty-five years ago, I did not exist.

Today, I do.

If I applied the logic some of my classmates try to use in class, it would mean that I am reasponsible for the increase in tuition, minimum wage, and the number of women earning college degrees.



You're welcome.




*I realize it's tangential to the point of this post, but I'd also love discussion on the tuition/wage increase issue as well as this article about how efforts to boost the status of women have worked (yay for lots of college degrees),but now maybe men need the boost back .... http://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2010/07/the-end-of-men/8135/. Link courtesy former professor at http://tedsword.blogspot.com. Thoughts???

On career options ...

The words left my mouth and I instantly knew they'd come out too hastily. I had snapped back at a classmate who, in her own frustration, accused me of talking to the one attorney in the clinic that night out of turn. I immediately tried to apologize but she was too worried about her client who had been sitting with no answer for at least 20 minutes. So I sighed, turned back to the attorney who was ignoring my classmate for the moment, and wrote down her instructions.

Every Tuesday I volunteer to offer legal help to domestic violence victims. The first week or so the questions were simple and basic. What form do I need for a protective order? Can I take my child out of the country if his dad has custody and refuses to sign his passport? Where is the courthouse? I was cocky enough after this experience that I actually told a friend it was somewhat frustrating to do all the work and have the supervising attorney take credit.

Hah.

This week was a doozy. And I realized just why being an attorney requires three years of intense study, bar certification, and a few years of practice in a firm or under a mentor before you're ready to go it on your own as a solo practitioner.

Because as a second year student, I had absolutely no idea that if your ex-husband got you to sign divorce papers under fraudulent pretenses the next step is to submit a motion to dismiss with a supporting affidavit. I also had no absolutely no idea what your client should tell the judge if your abusive husband has been deported and so you can't find him to serve him with divorce papers. And I definitely had absolutely no idea what to say when a woman my age, a stay-at-home mom with a 7-year-old and a 4-year-old and no education and only a few months work experience at Petsmart whose husband has all of their money in his name and cheated on her so she now has zero money and zero job prospects, looked at me with tears in her eyes and said, "This isn't how I thought marriage was going to be."

And that's when I also knew divorce law probably isn't going to be for me..

One field of law down, 100 to go. I'll figure out what I'm doing eventually.

On overcoming denial ...

Confessions:

I watch Dancing With the Stars while editing law journal articles.

I secretly wish I was on Dancing with the Stars.

I find Bristol Palin adorable and refreshing.

Congratulations American Broadcasting Corporation. You can take away my "I think I'm too smart for pop culture" award now. No one's been able to do that since Gilmore Girls ended. I miss Rory.