afternoon delight

When Tiff told the boys I was coming to visit, they asked if they knew me and if I was sarcastic.

To the second, a definite affirmative, as this title indicates.

I'm going, in about 20 minutes, to take my Con Law final - making it up from yesterday. My brain feels encased in cotton, though it's a little better now than a few hours ago (when I emailed about the job interview this morning to confirm, he responded asking at 7:40 if I could be there at 8:00 (two hours earlier than planned) ... showering was in a hurry, and brain was definitely in cotton then).

I hate afternoon exams - my body doesn't function well from about 2-4 pm. I've always known this and have frequently planned appropriately, but I don't have any control that ALL my finals this year (what my grades are entirely based upon) are during the very worst time of day for me.

Oh well. That's the least of my problems this time around. I guess I do know the content ok - I did study like a maniac on the airplane and when I would wake up at 4:30 am. I just didn't practice it enough - and that's what the test is all about. But, there's no guarantee I would have practiced it enough even if here, so oh well.

My biggest problem is that I don't explain well enough on the exam questions - I don't make everything explicit. I think it comes from teaching 8th graders, where I'm known to ramble on at length, but getting to the point quickly was definitely an asset in keeping their attention. They don't want you to get to the point on law exams, and rewiring my brain has been difficult, and I don't do it very well.

So, I do have a job lined up probably - as a part-time research assistant. It seems really perfect for me - I can travel quite a bit and get my pro bono hours out of the way and do other NOLA things, all while being able to write some legal experience on my resume. She seems a little scattered about what she wants, and she hired three of us, so I'm not really sure about a lot of things, but I'll go talk to her on Tuesday about it. The interview today was about a FT research assistantship - the pay for all of them is really, really bad. But I like the idea of not showing up in a suit every day and of having flexibility to do other things.

Especially a wake-up call after Carrie. I want to go to Gail's wedding, and Fred's. I want to visit my friends in Riverside and in Oregon and in Alaska, and that's my goal for the summer - legal profession be damned. I want to chop wood at the yurts until my arms ache unbearably (that will take about three minutes) and help them plant a garden.

Next summer I will be completely tied to a law job (hopefully!) and then once I start practicing, vacations are few and far between. I'll worry about my priorities then at that time. For now, I have a summer ahead and I want to play, mosquitoes be damned.