No, I’m not in Paris
April 7, 2009 at 7:33 am | In law school, the firm | 3 CommentsApparently, some people want to know where I have been. Am I not writing because I’ve run off on sabbatical and am now in Paris, typing this into my iPhone (because I bought one as soon as I ditched the firm-issued Blackberry) whilst sipping Cote du Rhone in a cafe on the Seine (with Little Buggy speaking fluent toddler French next to me)? Sadly, no. Well, sad that I’m not in Paris. Not sad that I’m not on a sabbatical (read on…).
A loyal blog reader (and friend) emailed me this morning to see what had happened to me now that I’ve disappeared from the Internet (as you might remember from last year, she is the friend who gave up Facebook for Lent. She has done so again this year, so she cannot keep tabs on me that way, either…) I sent her back a quick email and thought I’d post it here both in the interest of time and for a brief update:
Dear K,
25 random things, etc.
February 2, 2009 at 4:57 pm | In NYC, Starbucks, decor, law school, little bug, read this, running, tax law is sexy, wine, yoga | Leave a CommentTags: 25 Random Things, Facebook
Are you on Facebook? No? Then you are missing the internet craze of the month, the viral “25 Random Things About Me.” It’s wonderfully self-indulgent.
The instructions: Once you’ve been tagged, you are supposed to write a note with 25 random things, facts, habits, or goals about you. At the end, choose 25 people to be tagged. You have to tag the person who tagged you. If I tagged you, it’s because I want to know more about you.
(To do this, go to “notes” under tabs on your profile page, paste these instructions in the body of the note, type your 25 random things, tag 25 people (in the right hand corner of the app) then click publish.)
My list:
1. Waiting nine years after to college to go to law school — and then going to law school — was the best decision I have ever made.
2. Don’t think I’m crazy: I also loved law school, even when I missed five weeks of classes because I was too nauseous with morning sickness to drive to school.
3. I’m a far, far better (happier) person today than I was 5, 10, 15 years ago. As my mother would say (quoting “The Velveteen Rabbit”) I’ve been “rubbed real.”
4. In high school I wanted to be a U.S. Senator. Now I would like to someday be a speechwriter for a U.S. Senator.
5. This is probably because I have career ADD: I am currently on my 10th job since I graduated from college.
6. My daughter is named after my mother.
7. Speaking of my mother, she is the shining inspiration of my life.
8. I talk on the phone, or email, or both with my mother and my sisters every day.
9. And speaking of my sisters, they are without a doubt my best friends. I wish Erin would move back to Boston already.
10. My husband is one of nine children — he and his twin sister are #s 7 and 8.
11. Here is where I have lived since 1996: New York City; Ketchum, Idaho (Sun Valley); Los Angeles; Paris; Princeton, NJ; Boston.
12. Of the places listed above, I would move back to Ketchum, Paris, or LA in a heartbeat.
13. I am obsessed with interior design — blogs, magazines, etc. I fall asleep at night redecorating the rooms of my apartment in my head.
14. On average (even counting the three months or so I had to give them up while I was pregnant, meaning that there has been many a day when two were consumed), I most likely have had a Starbucks soy chai latte every day since the year 2000. I am, in fact, drinking one right now. (Oh, the money! The calories!)
15. I am a certified yoga instructor.
16. Sundays make me slightly blue, but I love our Sunday family dinners with just Tim, Little Buggy, and me eating spaghetti at meatballs at 5:30 p.m.
17. I don’t drink hard alcohol but make up for it in the amount of red wine I consume.
18. Oh yeah, when I lived in L.A. I worked at a wine store and took classes at UCLA to become a sommelier (did I mention my career ADD?)
19. I have run one marathon and two half-marathons.
20. I used to be a rather intense ashtanga practitioner (every morning at 6 a.m. for 2 years) and almost-vegan.
21. I have been to 29 countries and have: trekked in the Himalayas, visited Ankgor Wat and the Taj Mahal, sailed down the Mekong, seen the wailing wall in Jerusalem and Palmyra in Syria, sunned on the beaches of Rio, hiked the Swiss alps, watched the sun set over the Bosphorus in Istanbul. Those days are long gone, and I’m quite okay with it.
22. That being said, my dream is to live with my family abroad someday, preferably in Paris or London. Do you think they need tax lawyers there?
23. Despite my newest career, I still want to publish a novel. Maybe that will get me back to Paris.
24. I am in absolute awe of the fact that I found my husband, and that we made our incredible child.
25. I truly, truly believe in karma and that everything that happens to you in life — good or bad — leads you to where you are supposed to be.
Addiction
November 16, 2008 at 8:51 pm | In law school, the firm | 1 CommentTags: legal research, Lexis-Nexis, Westlaw
For those few readers who, fortunately for them, are not lawyers, here is some background: Lexis-Nexis and Westlaw the two legal research services out there. It’s hard to overstate how much you use them (and it’s difficult to comprehend the time when they weren’t on line — you had to go to the library and look up cases or subjects in an index and then cross-reference them in huge binders. Actually, I’m not even really sure what you had to do since, fortunately, I was in the law school section with the legal research professor who eschewed teaching us the “old-fashioned” way, as some professors still did. On a side note: my father always swore that it was his idea to put Lexis online but that he just never knew how to get it done. That would have been nice for us, no?)
Anyway, in law school, access to both of these services is free. You can search as much as you want for as long as you want. In addition, each service has representatives at every law school in the country, who set up tables almost daily in the lunch room or the student center, passing out water bottles, highlighters, and candy, or who lure you to free “training sessions” replete with pizza or Thai food. And when you’re a poor law student you tend to hit a lot of those trainings…
And now, as I sit here conducting a search which is getting me nowhere — so I know I need to both redefine my search terms and Shepardize anything I find (a little trick by which you look up cases that have themselves cited to the case you’re looking at) — I realize that Lexis and Westlaw are crack. They’re doled out for free in law school, along with all sorts of other fun gifts, in order to attract your loyalty to one brand or another (I’m a Lexis girl. In part because it’s Lexis-Nexis — Nexis is the journalistic equivalent of Lexis, to which every reporter becomes addicted, so I was indoctrinated a long time ago…). So then you’re hooked, and you search and search, and you get used to the high of always finding exactly what you’re looking for because you can go back and hone your search terms, and hit that “Shepardize” button. And then you get to your firm and learn that every search costs like $225 and every time you Shepardize it’s like another $85. So you sit at your keyboard, almost physically shaking from the withdrawal as you waiver: “Do I just do the search? Will the client get mad? I need that search! I NEED it!” And then you feel slightly guilty, but oh, so satisfied when you find your case…
Unemployed almost no more
September 12, 2008 at 3:14 pm | In Starbucks, law school | 2 CommentsTags: Boston Public Garden, duck pond, going back to work, Legally Blonde the musical, make way for ducklings statute
When I started this blog, I had hoped that I could provide some sort of relevant commentary on being a law student and mother and/or lawyer and mother. But as my days grow busier, I’m realizing that this is probably going to devolve into more of a journal-type blog, to be read mostly by people who know me and want to keep tabs on me. So this won’t be my book-deal making masterpiece — sigh — but at least it will keep me writing.
My last few days of relative stay-at-home-motherhood have been sweet — probably more sweet than they might otherwise be. Morning trips to the Duck Pond and Make Way for Ducklings statue (via Starbucks, of course). The Little Bug goes absolutely crazy for both, jumping up and down in her stroller as soon as she sees the gates of the Public Garden ahead of us. We’ve run into lots of moms and babies every day, and I always have to drag her home. If I were a more prepared mother — or had an iPhone! — I’d have snapped some cute pictures. As I’ve posted about before, I’m not very good at documenting Buggy’s baby-hood — we have a rarely used video cameras, there is no real baby book. I should post a picture of her new hair cut (she looks more and more like I did at that age, probably now due in very large part to the bowl-cut bangs…but what else can you do with a squirmy one-year-old?). I should order pictures for my office. Actually, I should upload our vacation pictures, too. Why is this one area of my otherwise relatively organized life that I’m so bad at keeping up-to-date? I keep telling myself that an iPhone will solve all these problems! (ha.)
But I’m ready. I think. I had drinks with Meg last night, who started work on Monday, and she was visibly excited and enthused about her new life as a lawyer. In fact, we also ran into her walking across the Garden to work, looking adorable in her suit. I’m excited to look adorable in my new suit.
But then, even as I ducked out solo to run some errands this afternoon, I saw a toddler being pushed in his stroller by his babysitter, and I had a pang of sadness. He was so cute, just as cute as my little Bug, who is going to spend more time with her babysitter than with me. I’m not going to rehash the Mommy Wars anymore — at least I’m going to try not to — but instead will approach Monday remembering two things my mother recently told me:
First, I walk out the door every day knowing I am providing a good life for my child. And she’s a happy child, and she’ll be just as happy when I’m working as she’d be if I weren’t.
Second, I am very, very lucky that I have a baby at home to miss. A healthy, happy baby who will keep me focused at work and who will continue — as she always has — to give my life purpose. So missing her is a good thing.
Nevertheless: check in with me Monday to see if I haven’t broken down and bought an iPhone (even though that will make me the woman who is checking her email on her work Blackberry and then on her iPhone!)
P.S. Random aside: my brother-in-law texted me today to see if I wanted him to get me a ticket for the musical Legally Blonde, which apparently is headed to Boston. I was like, “Um, do you have to ask? I am Legally Blonde!!!”
Why listening to Coldplay and drinking wine is not usually a good idea
September 10, 2008 at 8:53 am | In law school, little bug, music, wine | 1 CommentTags: Coldplay, starting work as an associate, white wine
I got uncharacteristically weepy last night. I spent the rainy afternoon indoors with the Little Bug, dancing to the Dixie Chicks and cooking dinner for us (Tim was coming home late, so she and I noshed on butternut squash ravioli and blueberries — doesn’t it sound like an In Style party re-cap?), while simultaneously trying to keep her away from the unprotected electrical socket and out of the toilet. The song “I Believe in Love” came on (by the Dixie Chicks — the Coldplay came later), a beautiful song made melancholy by its minor harmonies. I just held my Little Bug (and she let me, putting her little head on my shoulder) and wiped away the (my) tears. My time being home with her is almost over. For the past year, except for some crunch times around exams (and the bar), I’ve spent at least some part of every day with her, mostly in the afternoons, strolling around Boston or hanging out playing at home as we did today. I’m not second guessing my decision to be a full-time+ lawyer, but perhaps finally (and perhaps necessarily) I’m feeling acutely the close of this rather wonderous year.
After she went to bed, I opened the Sauv Blanc and put on Coldplay (a combination which just screams “Warning! Warning!”) and organized the kitchen cabinets (not kidding.) When I finished, I realized that I’m now also done with all of the reorganization/cleaning/redecorating/shopping I meant to do in my post-bar/pre-work hiatus. Now I just have to sit around until Monday. And, again, tears. This larger, three-year period of my life also is coming to a close. These three years when I moved out of my longtime holding pattern to what I knew my life always could and should be. I’m very much at peace — surprising for me — with where I am in my life. And, yet, I’m again a bit blue at this crossroads. I loved law school from the very first day; then I met Tim and pretty much loved him from the very first day; then, of course, there was the Little Bug. And in between, the intellectual stimulation of classes, the camaraderie of my classmates, and a deepening and strengthening of my existing friendships as I began to find my footing again. It was a whirlwind, and still it was incredibly grounding. And this interlude in my life is now over.
So, onward (although first I shall spend the next three days drinking wine at lunch, sleeping in, and reading every trashy magazine I can get my hands on!)
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