Who is it??

Prime example of the exhaustion and mild insanity that has been the last few weeks of my life:

The other day I got off the elevator and wearily walked towards my apartment. I put my key in the door, turned, and....nothing. It wouldn't go. I tried it again. Jiggled it. Jiggled it again. Still nothing. What the hell?! Why won't my key work?

I took the key out and stood there for a second frustrated. Is this some sort of joke?

Then...

Wait.

Am I on the 5th floor?

Oh dear god. I'm on the 5th floor.

Oh dear god. I hope this person doesn't come to the door.

Must. Get. Away.

I ran down the hall. Yes I did.

Ran down the hall to the elevator and frantically pressed the door close button so that it would whisk me up to the 9th floor (where I actually live) before the 5th floor person could come running after me to see why I was trying to break into their apartment.

At work I take the elevator to the 5th floor. At home I take it to the 9th floor. That is, when I haven't lost my mind.

Good Times in Public Defense

Favorite quotes from today's research:

The government's evidence showed that on September 9, 1980, Brooks and three companions, Gilliam, Edmunson, and Mackenheimer engaged in an early morning indulgence in drugs and sex. - Brooks v. U.S., 536 A.2d 1091, 1092 (D.C.
1988)*

Sure beats early morning research.

Not really if you read the rest of the case, though.

Fourth, Butler argues that the trial court's exclusion of his explanation of why he struck Queen (namely, because Queen opened his eyes after being ordered to keep them shut) distorted his admission that he struck Queen because it left the jury with the impression that he was the sort of person who would attack someone else without reason. - Butler v. U.S., 614 A.2d 875, 883
(D.C. 1992)

Phew. Glad we cleared that one up.

And finally,

A party may not attempt to manufacture evidence by creating an impression in the minds of the jurors through questions that imply the existence of facts.
- Ali v. U.S., 520 A.2d 306, 313 (D.C. 1987).

Hmm...Clearly forgotten by the judge during yesterday's closing statements.

*Anyone who comments on my citations will get hit.

Hot Mess

Evacuation of the DC court house at 9:45 this morning.

I never saw anyone in custody. I sure as hell hope they don't just leave them in there.

And then you have to finally decide

Read a lot, finish the quilt that I started 5 years ago, do lots of yoga, start running again regularly, work out in the gym, cook scrumptious meals, blog more, keep in touch with friends better, practice the piano, maybe even do some writing.

These are all things that I thought were going to happen this summer - this time of respite from law school. So far, I was really off.

The relaxed 9-5:30 that I was working last summer looks more like 9-7:00 this summer, which is not bad. And I've even gotten off early a few times. It's not the work. It's the socializing.

I am socializing like crazy. I'm working at a firm this summer, but I've got a fellowship through them, which basically means that I'm working one half of the summer for a public defender office and one half of the summer at the firm. It also means that I have to work a little harder to get face time at the firm. So, I'm trying to balance the public defender work time with firm socializing time. I'm trying to make it back for lunches. I'm going to happy hours, joined the softball team, going to random networking things. I'm exhausted every night.

There's been no yoga, no running, no crafting, no writing. Blogging has been incredibly limited, as have reading, cooking, practicing the piano, and keeping up with friends.

To some extent it's about choices. I choose to sit on the couch for an hour or so in the evenings when I can with the babe, share work stories, and watch an episode of something good. I guess that's time that I could spend doing other things. I've never been good at picking and choosing. I remember a high school conversation with my dad where I told him that I wanted to be first chair of the flutes in band. He said I certainly could be if I made that my priority. But I also wanted to be on the academic bowl and in the beta club. And I wanted to make all As. And I wanted to hang out with my boyfriend and be in the youth choir at church.* And I wanted to keep taking piano lessons.

I wonder if I'll ever figure this part of life out. If I'll ever learn to be content with the things that are in my everyday life and not focused on the things that aren't.

*Yes, I was a nerdy goody twoshoes.

Brilliant

Go to this link. Enjoy.* You can thank me later.

If you've already seen it, watch it again.

*Peeing in your pants is a possibility, so be warned.

Tagged: Best and Worst

Laughing tagged me, and to thank her, I proceeded to fall of the face of the planet - as least as my blog was concerned.



I'm back, at least for the moment, and I won't make a bunch of excuses for my absence. I'll just say that I've been insanely busy. And a lot of it has been good. And some of it hasn't. And that leads us right into Laughing's tag - the best and worst of the first. Except for me it was the second.



I thought about it for a while - since she tagged me about 2 weeks ago, and I'm just posting now. What were the best and worst moments of Law School Year Two?



There were a zillion best and worst moments in my personal life, but I'll still with law school life here.



Best: I gave a presentation in my feminist legal theory class with my dear friend T. The topic was prostitution, and as we began our research, I became really interested in what was happening with young girls and the market for virgins. I was borderline obsessed, and I spent way more time researching than was necessarily merited. I watched documentaries and read blogs, and I think the babe got sort of tired of hearing about it. T and I talked about it all the time. And then we put together this totally kick-ass powerpoint presentation with documentary clips and quotes and numbers and pictures and all sorts of stuff. And we created an interactive portion of the presentation so that we could promote discussion about what it means to be a prostitute and whether people would or would not choose the job as compared to other jobs, like being a medical guinea pig or a porn actress or a secretary or a hired killer or a nude model. The presentation went amazingly and the other students were really interested in it. When we finished, one of them said that it was amazing, and I realized that, like me, they hadn't really known about a lot of this or thought about it before. It felt so wonderful to have shared all of that information - to have opened other people's eyes about what goes on with young girls in this country every day, to have really good discussion about the tension points between victimization and autonomy. It was one of the most proud moments I've had.



Worst: It's hard to pick out a worst moment - I think because the whole year sort of blends together in lots of really awful moments. It's easier to pick out a great moment from there. I'm aware that not everyone feels that way about law school. I envy those other people.* At any rate, I think what I'm going to single out as my worst moment was actually two days during reading week of second semester. I got a journal substantiation assignment, and it was the longest one I had ever had. I had been out of town the weekend before, so the only time to do it was the first couple days of reading week (which isn't actually a whole week). I really don't enjoy substantiation in the first place, but this took hours and hours and hours. Somewhere between 12 and 15 total, which maybe doesn't seem like that much. But when every moment I spent on it felt like a moment that I wasn't spending studying for the three exams that I had coming up, it felt very, very long. I finished it; the jury's still out on one of the exams. And the one that I didn't do so well on - well, I can't really say it was the journal's fault. I don't know. But it sure felt that way at the time.

Because I waited so freakin' long, I'm not going to tag anyone, but if anybody decides to do it, let me know.


*By envy, sometimes I mean hate.