Introducing...

Our new ride.

Suggestions on what we should name it?

New and improved...everything

Sometimes karma tosses you a bone. And while part of me is extremely grateful, the other part (the part you all know and love) is indignantly saying "It is about time." There is only one week standing between me and the bar exam and things are finally, finally, finally falling into place. Finally. I got a job offer today, and while I always saw myself going into non-profit or government work (really anything except private practice), I am actually excited about this opportunity to get out there, learn the ropes, and be a lawyer. Even better is the fact that I'll be able to start as soon as I get back from Europe, so there's an enormous weight off my mind, knowing I'll have a steady paycheck coming in before my loans go into repayment. Shudder. Loans. My soon-to-be new boss was even kind enough to reassure me that in the unlikely event that I don't pass the bar on the first try, I'll still be able to clerk for the firm until the next time the exam is administered. Why, thank you for that kind offer, but if I don't pass it on the first try, I think I'll try my hand at parachuteless skydiving instead. Scott has also been scoping out new employment in the Portland area, and the prognosis is good. Let's just say he's gotten way more hits on his resume than I ever got on mine. For some reason, inexperienced recent grad lawyers aren't exactly a hot ticket item in a recession. Go figure. Because our new jobs are or will be based in a new locale, Scott and I have taken particular delight in the fact that this means we finally get to move out of the glorious little ghetto we've called home for the last two and a half years. Resolving not to make the same mistake twice, we actually took our time and painstakingly researched our options before signing a new lease, because let's be honest, who wants to live next door to a fire station and a meth lab if they don't have to? We'll be moving into our new place at the end of August, right after we get back from Europe. I know, busy month. But we're thrilled. The location is great, the apartment is a major step up, and perhaps the best part of all? If we no longer live in Salem, there's no way we can continue to teach primary in our Salem ward. Terrible, right? Cram it, I don't care. A year and a half of indentured servitude in the ward daycare is an awfully long time for someone who isn't exactly the kid craving type. Also on the list of the new and improved is the possibility of a new vehicle. On Tuesday, after a full day of apartment hunting and job interviewing, the alternator on our car died on the way home, leaving us stranded in a ghetto even scarier than the one in which we live. How is that even possible? In true last straw fashion, we decided we've had it with dumping our funds into the black hole that is our mechanic's garage. Though it is somewhat comical in a "having come full circle" kind of way (broken starter on our honeymoon, anyone?), I think it's time to move on. We've already got our eye on a few possibilities, so hopefully we'll have a new ride to go with our new life. New, improved, exciting, and maybe just a little bit scary, but in a good way. That's the news in a nutshell and quite likely the final chapter of The Sanity Conundrum: Surviving Law School. Stay tuned for the thrilling sequel: The Sanity Conundrum: Rantings of a First Year Associate.

Top 20 things

I'd rather do right now instead of study for the bar:

20. Make cookies
19. Look for a new apartment
18. Clean the apartment in which I currently live
17. Ride a roller coaster
16. Hike a mountain
15. Go to the beach
14. Watch the world go by
13. Be hit in the face repeatedly with a blunt object
12. Find a job
11. Brush up on my Spanish skills
10: Get a pedicure
9: Go for a run
8: Watch a movie
7: Blog about something besides the bar
6: Stalk people on Facebook
5: Read a book for fun
4: Take a nap on the grass
3: Eat cookies
2: Daydream about Europe
1. Nothing

Every couple nights or so, you know you pop into my dreams

The bar exam is about a month away, and I can tell the tension is mounting because my brain is no longer respecting the natural bounds between study time and non-study time (i.e. sleep). I've had this happen to me before, usually towards the end of the second week of final exams. It's obnoxious. In the early hours of the morning, my brain will start having some variation of the following schizophrenic conversation with itself. Very loudly. "Hey...are you awake?" "It's 5am, what do you think?" "It's just that I've been having trouble remembering what the seventh way to terminate an easement is. Do you know?" "Are you serious? It's early! Go back to sleep! We have to go to bar review in a couple of hours and it's hard enough to stay awake in that class as it is." "I know, but it's really bothering me. I know there's estoppel, necessity ending, destruction of the servient parcel, condemnation, release, abandonment, merger, and...? " "You really want to talk about Property at 5 in the morning?" "Well, we could talk about Contracts if you want." "That's just it, I don't want to talk about anything even remotely related to the law. Not now, and to be honest, not ever. Go back to sleep!" "I can't. Not until I figure out the last way to extinguish an easement!" "Prescription, you idiot. The answer is prescription. Now can we go back to sleep? Please??" "Oh yeah, I knew that. Thanks for reminding me. But I also had a question about the admissibility of character evidence." At this point, the conversation has actually made sleep impossible, and I'm left with no choice but to lie awake in bed, dreading the start of another day and the dumping of more information into my already beleaguered brain. One more month, right? Just one more month.

Comic relief

During the break time in bar review, the conversation turned to the topic of babies. More specifically, fellow law students who had decided to procreate during law school, and their experiences. Luckily for all of us non-parents out there who can't possibly appreciate all the intricate nuances of transmitting humanity, the makers of this gem of a website have broken down the do's and don'ts of newborn care. http://www.newbornbabyzone.com/baby-care/the-dos-and-donts-newborn-baby-care-pics/ Go. Look. Laugh.

Respect the rule of the headphones

Sometimes polite conversation is just awkward. Sometimes people really are purposely trying to avoid interacting. But no matter how obvious the signals they are projecting, it would appear that the urge to engage with another human being is just too powerful to resist, and you breach one of the self-executing rules of the highest order: When you encounter a person wearing headphones, the chances are good that they don't want to talk, so you should just move on. Or maybe this is just a self-executing rule in my world. If that is the case, I would really appreciate it if people would stop wandering into that world without first committing to obey the rules. I graduated from law school last week, go me. But just as that comment seems random and out of place, so does the fact that even though I am officially a law grad, each and every day I come back to this life force incinerator to attend perfectly mind numbing lectures and practice exams in preparation for the bar. After class is over, I make my way down to the student lounge, where there are couches next to a series of large windows where a person can at least feel the warmth from the sun, even though going out into it is not an option. I proceed to sit on said couches for about 4 hours while I do homework for the following day, and basically grapple with the fact that during the course of the last three years, I have managed to purge everything I've been taught. Wonderful. As I sit and study, people stream out of the building, mainly because it's summer, and who wants to spend their summer imprisoned in the law school? I don't have much of a choice because studying at home is not an option for me. Thank you, super loud unemployed neighbors. So I sit, and I study in the ever-increasingly empty building. Unfortunately for me, my favored study spot just happens to be by one of the entrances to the law school, so as people vacate, some are unable to resist the urge to comment on my inherent loser-ness. Or perhaps they want to offer me little affirmations in hopes of...what? Encouraging me to persevere? Former professors smile and tell me I'll pass the bar for sure if I keep studying this hard. The dean tells me I shouldn't stay here so late. The office manager at student services shakes her head and reassures me that it will all be over soon. I'm not sure what it is about me that projects to these people an aura of welcoming such unsolicited intrusions. I don't look up when people leave the building. I'm dutifully reviewing outlines and taking mental notes of concepts that I'm pretty sure I knew at one point. I'm staring lifelessly at my computer screen furiously taking notes while listening to a taped lecture on some obscure point of law that I'll probably never encounter in my life outside of the bar exam. I'm wearing headphones, for crying out loud!!!! HEADPHONES!!! Why don't people respect the rule of the headphones? If you try to say something to someone wearing headphones, it is entirely likely they don't hear what you say. This then leads to the awkward fumbling and the inevitable, "I'm sorry, what?" This is then followed by a repeat of the comment that didn't really need to be made in the first place, an exchange of courtesy laughter and polite smiles, and a completely derailed train of thought. If the headphones can't deter this kind of occurrence, then what can???

Tower of Terror

About two weeks ago, I came home from campus to find an obnoxiously large box, sitting innocuously on my doorstep. Upon opening the mystery package, I was at once annoyed and horrified to find "Law School, Reloaded." However, since I was still very much in law school at the time and facing down three exams, I put the bottomless box of misery in the spare room and resolved to look at it later. Well, it has been an entire week since I pressed the submit electronically button on the last law school exam I will ever take, and I am just now summoning the courage to dive back in. I am amazed at how quickly I was able to shake off student mode. I'm fairly certain I've spent 90% of the last week lounging around in my pajamas, planning a spectacular post-bar vacation, and trying my darndest to avoid the appearance of productivity. It has been quite glorious. But the nasty little reality of the underlying elation of graduating from law school is the fact that my shiny new degree means exactly nothing until I pass the bar exam. Yes, the last looming obstacle at the gates of reentry to the land of the living. This reality compels me to refrain from allowing myself to fully acclimate to post-student life. The bar exam is in 85 days. 85 days of living in exam prep mode. Does that photo depress you as much as it depresses me? The stack of books mocks me; daring me to open them, and realize just how much I have failed to retain. Suddenly I'm thinking I should have put off unloading that box for another couple of days...