I keep thinking that I DO have enough time to read for classes. Not this half-ass, read-the-first-part-of-the-assignment crap I've been pulling so far, but really sitting down and reading the stuff and thinking about it so that I could participate in the classes where there are discussions.

I mean, I have no plans tonight, for example (though it seems pretty lame to spend Friday night reading, say, Evidence), and last night, instead of watching 4 hours of TV in Joiner's room (while she was at a party!), I could have read all of my Legal History assignment instead of the half I read this morning.

My theory is that even though each interview equals about 3-3.5 hours of work (all told: researching firm; getting showered, dressed, etc., walking over to the hotel, interviewing, chatting with associates afterward), the psychic toll of being cheerful and clever and just-playful-enough-but-not-disrespectful is the problem. Having to impress people.

As I mentioned to Mr. Def last week, I'm at the age now where my friends should be able to hire me. So this bright-eyed hopeful thing isn't fitting too well. I just want to tell the interviewers: "Let's cut the bullshit, Mr. Man! My transcript says I'm at the cut-off point for grades, I'm clearly able to dress and groom myself, and I can do the chit-chat well enough -- what else do you need? That's what I thought. Byee!"

In other, completely non sequitur news: this morning,I finally finished the Thai food left over from Student Org #1 training last Sunday. There was a huge container of it left, so I volunteered to bring it home (just as I volunteered to take the two ENTIRE pizzas left over from Student Org #1 interviews 2 weeks ago). Ugh. I will not be able to eat mango curry chicken for a long, long time.

THOUGHTS THROUGHOUT THE AFTERNOON

2 p.m.
Never has it been so clear to me the differences created by race and age. I go to these interviews and the vast majority of the interviewers are white men, usually middle-aged. I've had three female interviewers, one of whom was a minority. Two out of those three interviews were my best -- the first one, in which I had a real conversation about mediation with an M&A partner, and the one yesterday, in which I had an interesting, rapid-fire exchange about my resume.

I put on exactly the same performance today with a white, middle-aged man as I did last night with a black woman my age, and I have no reading on how I did. The disconnect is so huge. I have felt like that with all my white man interviews -- I felt I was myself and said fairly intelligent, honest things, things that I felt brought me closer to the black woman last night, but that brought me simply nods or polite smiles from the white men.

I walked back from the hotel last week with an Indian law student who said he clicked so well with his interviewer that the interviewer suggested they go into the "hospitality suite" (the Miighty Big Firms usually rent a large room in which associates float around, answering questions and assessing you while you eat their food and drink their drinks) and just hang out. I can't imagine two women doing that, or a male interviewer doing that with a female interviewee (or vice versa).

Joiner (who is courageously not doing the on-campus recruiting process -- hooray for principles!) said the other week that she was worried about Ferris, a young white fellow student, because he was a white male. There has been, I think, some thought and maybe some resentment about the treatment of black students here -- they are singled out by law firms who want to improve their diversity ratings -- because once you hit Crimson Law School, the thought goes, you really don't need much more help affirmative-action-wise. I think you do, though. Not just for black students, but for all students of color. Even for us "so-successful-we're-not-considered-minorities" Asians.

(Success report -- which may make you say "What the hell is she complaining about?": out of 7 interviews so far, have gotten call-backs for 5. Caveat: the market I'm looking into isn't very competitive.)

2:25 p.m.
A huge storm is going to blow through here -- the wind is tossing the trees about like crazy -- and I have a feeling it will start at the exact moment I step outside to go to my second interview today (and last one of the week!).

2:30 p.m. (while reading employment law book)
Damn. Kmart really IS that evil.

(Reading a case where a Kmart cashier was accused of stealing from a customer, had her pockets turned out, was made to search the area with others, had her register counted -- it came out perfect -- and finally, was strip searched. In front of the customer. Who said the cashier didn' t have to remove her underwear, since she could see right through it. For $20.)

2:39 p.m.
ANOTHER KMart case. Searching an employee's locker.

Okay, waking up at 5 or 6 am to read Evidence is not working out for me; I'm so tired the rest of the day, I can't concentrate very well and end up flitting from task to task. And I've stopped paying attention in Legal History. Must get back on track with classes. I DO have time -- didn't have to watch 45 minutes of Sex and the City last night. On the other hand, must decompress sometimes, else head with explode. And after all, mother did say: "Why are you so obsessed about getting As? Cs are fine!"

3:15 p.m.
Did I call it, or what? It's horrible out there. It's raining sideways.

3:40 p.m. (I was in my interview, but just pretend with me)
Oh god. Two middle-aged white lawyers across from me, with their papers stacked neatly on white table cloth. This is the stuffiest, most formal and most suffocating interview yet. Ew. And oh no. Because this is one of the UK firms with the really global practice, and summer interns get to split their summers between 2 of three offices in NYC, London and Hong Kong. Damn.

4:15 p.m.
Ugh. Hospitality suite associates also annoying. Must forget this firm. But -- woo woo! Cute boy in one of my classes is here, looking like a million bucks in his dapper grey wool suit. And look, we're talking! Hooray for small joys.

6:59 p.m.
Wow. I understand what brilliance is now. Just came back from talk about education given by a professor from the place I ALMOST went to law school, in the Golden State. He talked about making a constitutional argument for equality of education between states. There's a huge disparity between the quality of education when you talk about states. He was looking at the 14th Amendment's equal protection clause as a possible way to argue it. Interesting, important, socially constructive, creative law. Who the hell knew? I so should have gone to Golden State Law School. Damn.

(It appears I like property, employment, and now maybe education law. I hate legal research and advocating. And all this equals...?)

Oh, and the brilliance comment -- just the way in which he broke complicated statistical evidence down into simple language, the way in which he talked, and the way in which he made connections between people's questions and drew on related examples so fluidly and eloquently... man, it was amazing.

It's always nice to see a brotha doing so well. I know that sounds a little funny coming from an Asian American. Joiner laughs at me whenever I see Sandra Oh on TV and say things like, "Yo, a sista! Holla," but honestly, I am really moved whenever I see peeps represented on TV shows or commercials, on billboards, and in magazine articles and ads. When hk was growing up, there wasn't much of that. I don't remember TV shows having any Asian characters (save Star Trek). I definitely don't remember Asians in commercials, which is almost the bigger deal -- if we can sell cars, insurance, banks, and fast food to middle America, we've made it.

And I've made it almost to the end of the week! No interviews for three days, just one class to deal with tomorrow, and the promise of a beer with the French King and Def and Stave on Saturday.

Oh gosh, and I should tell you: I had a talk with Friend last night, and I told him flat out that I had come to a resolution about us, and that I had concluded that we wouldn't work out. It's been tetchy lately because we sort of hooked up but not really in the first week of school, and then we were going to talk but he wasn't ready, and then I got extremely busy and didn't have time, so we finally talked last night. And I said, sorry dude, there's no chance for us. (Which I realized increasingly over this past month, after talking with Double M and going to Def and Stave's housewarming and seeing what a really different stage of life I was in.)

To which he asked, "Would it have made any difference if I'd decided I wanted to be with you at the beginning of the school year? Because I started leaning more that way after we came back from summer."

And hk said: NO.

And hk, upon thinking about it, is thoroughly disgusted with conflicted, indecisive Friends.

And hk told Friend that she didn't really want to see him for the next three weeks because she was annoyed at him in the way that you get annoyed with someone after you experience a big shift in emotions about them, but that it would probably go away and so why don't we just not hang out until after on-campus interviewing is over.

And hk is content she did right.

I was tired last week, but this week I am weary.

I got callbacks from all three Mighty Big Firms I interviewed with last week, which means that in a month I go down to New York and make nice for half a day with each of them. One sends most of its summer interns overseas. Hm.

The daily ritual of washing hair, blow-drying hair, putting on makeup, putting on suit, and walking over to the large hotel where most of the interviews take place is getting old. On days where I have only one interview it seems almost a waste -- I put more time into getting ready than actually interviewing!

The interviews range from fairly casual, to sort of stiff. The guy on Monday kept asking me: "So do you have any other questions?" and since the career services people tell you to never say no to that question, I kept coming up with things to ask. "Uh, tell me about the cases you work on." "Uh huh, and what do you think makes a successful and happy summer intern?" "That's interesting." "I see." "Of course." When I got out, I realized that it had gone on for 40 minutes -- apparently, there'd been no interviewee after me, so the guy had kept on going. No wonder I had to reach deep into my bag of questions -- usually it's only 20 minutes.

I went to the financial aid office today and a nice young woman there printed out all these sheets with numbers on them showing how much income I'd have after loans every month if I made $50K (upper end of low-level public interest), $100K (in-house counsel), or $125K (big firm in NYC). Crimson has a really good loan repayment program -- beow $38K, they pay all your loans for you, and then it's a sliding scale up to $64K or so (for people with about $74K in loans -- like me). I'll have to peruse the numbers and figure out what they really mean (NYC housing, for example, would eat up a lot of the $6K after taxes and loans per month as a big firm lawyer).

I'm going to drop Accounting -- fueled by the physical revulsion I felt every time I looked at the book, I consulted with the career services folks and public interest folks and was relieved to hear that dropping a 1-credit class isn't probably going to do much harm. The career service guy was especially helpful: "The only thing I'd say is that you want to figure out what your comfort level is with numbers, so you can decide what career path to try out. So read the Wall Street Journal, Money magazine, Kiplinger's -- get familiar with the terminology. Buy a book at Borders -- one of those 10 Week-MBA things. This class may not be for you, but don't let that scare you off from the field."

Okay, off I go to the gym and then another 20-minute interview, the reading for tomorrow hanging over my head. Oh, and researching firms for tomorrow too.

Am at training for Student Org #2. The same guy is here that was here last year, lecturing about the UN.

The thing about Student Org #2 is that most everyone involved is deeply, intensely involved in the topic. They are passionate and dedicated. They Believe.

I don't.

I mean, of course I believe in human rights. Who doesn't? (Well, for one, those soulless corporate law firms you'll be working for this summer, hk, who help companies finance projects that displace under-educated and poor natives without so much as a by-your-leave. That's who.) But I'm not particularly passionate about it, or dedicated. I don't believe I can have much of an effect. I don't Believe.

So I feel rather separate from all this, and would like to leave. But I can't.

Yesterday, I had two interviews with Mighty Big Firms. Both of my interviewers were middle-aged white men who struck me as nice -- as far as corporate law firm partners who are and have been totally removed from the rest of American society for 15 years can be -- but also arrogant and snobby. In my first interview, I mentioned that I was generally happy with law school, though I had my criticisms, including wishing that the curriculum was more practical. I said that Co-Intern this summer, who goes to a western state school, received a much more practically based education there, and Interviewer said: "At ... other schools ... that aren't Crimson, that may be the case. At a place like Crimson, they're not just turning out lawyers, they're turning out people who are going to be chief justices or CEOs of companies, or the head of the CIA." And this excuses the school from teaching us the practical skills that the vast majority of students will be using during their summers and for at least a couple years out of school? You can teach critical reasoning skills and still ensure that people know what they're doing. And what's with the attitude about non-Crimson schools?

A similar attitude marked my second interview, in which the interviewer clearly had not read my resume before that moment, because he read it OUT LOUD for the first 10 minutes (of a 20-minute interview). I asked him why he'd moved firms last year, and he busted out with a long explanation about the future of international law, listed a few US law firms that did do international work, paused, and then said: "But that's getting into --" and he made a motion with his hand indicating "bottom" -- "firms. Don't tell anyone I said that, though."

Reading over the last two paragraphs, I realize that the interviewers may not seem so bad as I make them out to be. And they aren't. But they are very much creatures of privilege and power and they take themselves very seriously, and whatever connection they had to normal people is long gone. They have More Important Things to Think About.

Shit, I'm going to be really unhappy this summer, aren't I?

I talked to someone in Student Org #2 half an hour ago who worked for a Mighty Big Firm this past summer, and she encouraged me to split the summer. I explained that I didn't think I'd get the full breadth of experience and would have to leave just when I was getting the the full view of corporate life, and she nodded. "I thought that too," she said, and that's why I didn't split, but I regret that now. You're going to see what it's like within a few weeks, and there ARE places that will hire you for 4 to 6 weeks at the end."

So... I dunno. I'll look into splitting -- which means I'll go through the on-campus process now and mention that I might be interested in splitting my summer, and then in the spring apply to a couple public interest places, I guess. I talked with my financial aid officer and discovered that almost all of what I make this summer will simply replace my grant from Crimson, so there's little financial incentive to spend the whole summer at a firm. I'd only be doing it to see what it's like -- and to keep my options open after graduation.

But this is all very tiresome.

Last night I went out for a drink with the female Destroyer from my workshop last year. They (the 2 Destroyers) have broken up, yet are still good friends (possible? I think not). I'm tempted to spell out the conversation we had, but I promised confidentiality, so I'll just say that I offered my theory of Destroyer-dom, and she found it most interesting.

Co-Intern wrote about my relationship with Destroyers in an email recently, and I found that (as well as nearly everything she says and writes) to be so funny and cogent that I'll repeat it here: "I think you are probably the kind of person that drives destroyers crazy. 1) you can identify destroyers, 2) you understand their systematic destructive tactics, 3) you are not destroyable because you do not take on the role of destroyer or destroyee, and destroyers are powerless outside of that
relationship. You are like the Jane Goodall of destroyers. You observe, and you note characteristics. Maybe that is a good topic for your first novel??"

Hee!

The interviews for Student Org #1 are done and the trainees selected. Working with my co-director was a bit of a challenge at times, but no more togetherness until next semester.

Interviews for that are over, but now interviews for me have begun, so I have essentially given up on reading for class. I was so exhausted on Wednesday night that I decided to sleep as long as I could rather than wake up in 5 hours and read for class. I don't regret that.

What I do regret is going to class yesterday. Thinking, "oh, he called on me Tuesday, so surely he won't call on me today!" I slid into my seat, unread and unprepared. The prof started calling on people in my row, but not on my side. "Nah," I decided, "he won't call on me. He'll skip to another row."

Of course he called on me. Mind you, he's NEVER cold-called someone 2 days in a row before.

I clearly did not know what was going on. But the prof is a nice one despite his blustery ways, and just moved on to other students who raised their hands. After 5 minutes, he came back to me and asked me a straightforward question to which I had no answer -- I couldn't even guess. So I shook my head in that universal, "Beats me, dude" way and said, "I don't know." But the room is very large, and my voice very soft, so he didn't hear me, only saw me shake my head, and very nicely concluded that I had indicated an answer in the negative. Which was right. Were the gods with me in that classroom? Hm.

Yesterday I had my first on-campus interview with a Mighty Big Firm. A 20-minute cattle call. They do these things in hotel rooms, which is SO weird -- like, the bed is right there and everything. One of the people that our career services office had come in to talk to us, a funny Houstonite, said, "If there's 2 interviewers and 2 chairs and they make you sit on the bed -- DON'T WORK FOR THAT FIRM." (ba dum dum! audience laughs)

The scene in the hallway right before our time slots was hilarious -- six law students decked out in their somber best standing around holding their portfolios, waiting. At 2:40, we all looked at each other, shrugged, and knocked on our respective doors, one by one. The guy next to me didn't knock, and I stared at him: "Aren't you going to knock? Everyone else is knocking, shouldn't you be knocking too?" He then knocked. Hee.

I was the last one to be swallowed up by her hotel room, as my interviewer was behind schedule. We had a nice chat. It was fine. I didn't have to know anything about the firm.

But I'm still going to do a spot of research for my 2 interviews today. One of them had a reception last night, which was instructive, because it was so damn boring. Just the hiring dudes (all white, middle-aged men) surrounded by 5-6 law students pretending to listen attentively. I joined the circle around my interviewer for today, and wanted to run away -- he was answering someone's question and was either really into the topic or just socially inept, because it was clear that the other four people in the circle were falling asleep standing up.

Funny -- they had the caterers coming around with food, but no one ate anything while I was there. Until the hiring dude picked up a hors d'oeuvre, upon which four of the six groupies ate one too. I did not. And after hiring dude was finished with his, I excused myself and walked home, marveling at how stupifyingly dull it had been. I suspect it will not be the only night I marvel such things.

Swamped.

Interviews for Student Org #1 yesterday, today and tomorrow, from 6-10 pm. Joiner's birthday today. Firm interview on Thursday, 2 firms on Friday (must do research for all of them, and print resume and references on nice paper, BUY said nice paper, copy writing sample, and -- oh yes, get myself in that Eye of the Tiger mood so that I can cause my interviewers' heads to explode).

Have been trying to keep up with reading, but will soon have to make some choices, because I cannot go into my Thursday interview on 5 hours of sleep a night. My 1-credit accounting class is taking up mondo time. It's like I see the words on the paper and my mind automatically shuts off. The prof speaks, and I hear nothing, just see his lips moving.

The weekend provides no relief -- Friday night I must get ready for Student Org #2 Training on Saturday, because I am co-leading my group's session, and I am supposed to be teaching a module for Student Org #1 Training on Sunday, but I think I'll have to back out, because I'll have no time to review the training manual.

And then next week contains 7 firm interviews, which means 7 hours of research. And then the second training session for Org #2, and then another week of interviews, and then the second training session for Org #1, and then another week of interviews, and then I collapse on my bed and stay there until call-back interviews (last week of October, roughly 1.5 weeks after my last on-campus interview). And then I really just stay in bed for the rest of the semester.

I think I may have to go back on cigs soon.

Did have a couple nice conversations with friends this past weekend, including Double M, who's having a bit of a hard time of late. She gave me some rather helpful advice re: Friend, though: "Steel your heart" [against his mixed messages of "I adore you and worship you!" and "I don't want to date you!"]. Apparently this sort of behavior isn't unique to Friend. I just haven't come across it before.

Upon hearing some of the kinds of things Friend says, Double M said she was angry on my behalf, which was echoed by Joiner last night. "I was getting angry on your behalf last year," Joiner said, and followed with: "I mean, who does he think he is? You could do so much better." Hee! I don't take Friend's behavior as a serious affront, but it does have a dampening effect on my life sometimes. Perhaps I should get up in arms. It'll have to wait until mid-October, though.

I found myself saying to someone yesterday, "I'm burned out, and it's only the first week of school."

"Well, actually it's the second week of school," he said, "but I understand."

And that's the way it goes. The days seem long and full of crap do to, and yet the weeks blow by quickly, and it's already mid-September.

While I was relatively calm earlier this past week, I became full of sturm and drang and discontent on Thursday night or so. After a successful open house for one of my orgs and a board meeting for my other student org, I suddenly felt tired and dragged down by all my duties.

The emailing! I get on for an hour in the middle of the day and while I'm responding to the 15 or so regarding upcoming applicant interviews and training, another 10 come into my inbox. It's insanity.

And Student Org #2 -- ech. I just don't want to do it. It's the human rights student org, and I can just tell from the board meeting that it is full of students who are extremely dedicated to The Cause, fiery advocates for justice, fighters for truth, and completely alien to me.

I discovered this summer two very important things about me and legal work: 1. I hate legal research with a passion, and 2. I don't like advocating. So I believe in Org #1, mediation, and I like doing things for it because I believe in the theory and the practice and I think it's important to have alternative ways to resolve conflict, but Org #2 just tires me out, because it's all about supplying research support to people who are advocating in the field.

So, okay, enough about the Orgs. Onto the interviews and Crimson's career services office, which alternates between being quite good and being quite stupid. Good: the headhunters who came to give us tips on various markets, the hiring partners who came to give us tips on interviews. Bad: the staffer who, when I asked about alternatives to litigation (where research and advocacy rule), said, "There are lots of jobs out there that you can do that aren't litigation." Uh, and what would those jobs be? Don't give me this generalized bullshit that my completely-cluesless-about-law mother could have told me, do your fucking job and tell me specifically what the hell jobs I can do, now that I've spelled out what I do and don't like.

God, I hate it when people don't do their fucking jobs. Like when I lost my $20 REI fleece on the plane to Tokyo, and when I called Air Canada, the dude was just like, "Yeah, it's not on the list at Narita." Silence. Um, maybe you could suggest what exactly I should do, then? Even if there is no possibility of me getting my fleece back, take my fucking address down and pretend like you care.

So I am going to do Student Org #2 and create a training program for the little 1Ls, and do my fucking job. And I will research firms before I interview with them on campus and go in with a big fucking smile and thus, do my fucking job. And I will somehow actually read for class too, and go in there prepared to answer Socratic questions, and thus, do my fucking job.

Now excuse me, I am going to go get my fucking laundry.

Have been mad busy the past few days trying to get my bids in for NYC firms this summer. They were due Monday at noon. I did some research on Saturday and then talked about the list with Def and Stave on Sunday. Of course, I was futzing with my resume and switching around the rankings until the last minute: this firm is more prestigious, but this firm has the office in Beijing... but this firm has west coast offices -- but wait, this firm has high associate satisfaction and would be cool to work for because it's a "Magic Circle" UK firm... and so on and so forth. My top five choices are prestigious, but rumoured to be good places to work, relatively. And then the rest are a mishmash of firms that do a lot of international work, or have offices in Asia, or both.

I find out on Thursday which firms I'll be interviewing with here -- the lottery for interviews is taking place now, in some computer somewhere on campus...

I've also been going a tad crazy with recruiting stuff for one of the student orgs I'm involved with, and dealing with setting up training for the other one. We just had the open house for the first org today, and I talked and talked with 1Ls. It's sort of pleasant to know something that other people don't. I like to think I'd be a very benevolent dictator.

My schedule for the fall is final now -- Evidence, Employment, Legal History, and Accounting. Ew, accounting. But I'm going to take it pass/fail, I think. I think the other three will be pretty interesting. I like Employment Law a lot already. It has the same feeling as Property did for me -- relevant and important to real, everyday life. I started daydreaming about working at the EEOC in class today... I don't even know what EEOC stands for, but I think it has to do with discrimination (very interesting) in the workplace (again, interesting).

Evidence is supposedly an easy class -- yay for that -- and I liked Crim, so hopefully I'll be able to 1. stay awake during class, and 2. keep up with the reading for class. The 8:45 classes slay me, because I like reading in the morning or afternoon before class, and that's impossible when you have two classes stacked on top of each other, starting at 8:45 and 10:30 respectively. Which reminds me, I've got to go read now. And I will, but for one last thought: I'm okay. I'm busy, but I like my dorm room 1,000 times more than last year's dorm, I'm doing my activities with some amount of interest and vigor, and I'm finding classes interesting. It might be the Diet Coke talking, but I might be happy this year. You never know.

Have just input my bids for the bloody sodding on-campus interviews. I had to rank firms and didn't know how and was overwhelmed, so just put them in random order, pretty much. All I know is that I want a big NYC law firm with a significant international presence.

It's great that the school makes it so easy for us to be fed into the corporate machinery. The law firms will descend upon Crimson City in hordes and take up lots of hotel space in which to make nice with us Crimson 2Ls because they want to say they've got so-and-so number of Crimson grads at their firm.

I went to a job fair last night and had a moderately bad time of it. Like, do you all take this seriously? Because it BLOWS -- you realize that, right? The fact that you work 80 hours a week and get screamed at and are slaves to your Blackberries -- that sucks. And then have to make nice to clueless 2Ls and sell the firm and all that? Lovely.

Def and Stave, so recently removed from the big C.I., have been trying to persuade me that I'll be unhappy there in New York, working for the big bad New York firms. Yes, I probably will.

It was very nice to see them in their bright, tidy apartment near the law school today -- went over for brunch and benefited from a car ride to Target and the grocery store. I'm so happy that they've moved here.

I've been here less than a week and have already fallen into old, bad habits with Friend. It was the firm reception and the two mojitos, I swear! But I am going to draw the line. I swear.

I should have been more organized about this whole job thing.

And I should have gotten back earlier to school so that I could spend precious time researching firms instead of setting up my room over the past five afternoons.

And I should probably not take Accounting, but I am, because I dropped Tax, and am taking Evidence and Accounting instead, and that will have to be that.

Now, I MUST to bed, because I'm not making sense.

First day of class over. I got up at 5:30 am to read for both classes, which were back to back, starting from 8:45 am. Tax prof is cool and a good teacher but the numbers scare the shit out of me. I might switch to Evidence. But Employment class was pretty interesting -- it had the same vibe as Property class did last year: important, relevant, real-world.

OCI (on-campus interviewing) stuff is stressing me out. Had long conversation with Mr. Stave tonight about the future and my plans for next summer which has me more confused than ever about being here, doing the corporate thing, doing it in New York next summer. Stave and Def should know, after all, both having lawyered in New York.

Went to a public interest summer job search talk tonight and heard one 3L say, "The firm was great. The managing partner would go in and talk to male attorneys about taking their paternity leave if they didn't take it. They had a childcare center in the building -- the only firm in City X to have one. But every morning when I woke up, I thought, 'Oh, man, I have to go to work.' And I found myself wanting to do the minimum work I could get away with doing. I usually overextend, not underextend. I want a job where I wake up in the morning and I want to go to work."

I heard her say that and I thought about being reluctant to go to work every day this summer, and doing the minimum I could get away with, and I thought, "I am not in the right field."

Am I doing the right thing? About Tax class, about the firm, about the firm in New York? About law school? I feel more adrift than ever.

I have to read for Legal History tonight so I can get up at 6 am to read for tax.

I'm sitting in my new dorm room for the year. It's a different building, and feels more like an apartment than a dorm room, thank you sweet Jesus. The single window faces State Name Street, and will be a bit noisy, but this is infinitely better than than the dorm-y dorm dorm that I lived in last year.

I stayed at the French King's apartment last night (French King: formerly known as ABD, but he finished the D, so he's no longer AB, and hence, a name change was in order), a little oasis of calm after Labor Day family drama and just before 2L year hits. I went to sleep early, at 11, but am still operating on much debt, as I only slept 3 hours the night before arriving in Crimson City.

Ah, Crimson City. Ah, Crimson College Law School. Driving from the French King's apartment this morning, we had to stop at a gas station, because my stomach was churning. Okay, it was probably PMS, but I think it's significant that on my way back to school, I felt like throwing up.

Today I've got to register, go to a couple meetings about on-campus recruiting, buy my books for taxation and employment, and read for my first classes tomorrow. Which start at 8:45 am. Won't that be exciting.

I feel very disconnected just now. No one here really knows I'm here, and I sort of wish I could stay as disconnected as possible this year. I really regret now signing up for these semi-leadership roles in two organizations. I wish I could just go to class and quietly go home and do my own thing on the weekends (like volunteer at the local natural history museum, which I wanted to do last year). I don't want to be involved. It's the day before my second year at law school starts, and I've already checked out.

Went out to REI to return some stuff (that store is worse than crack) and saw the most magnificent thing: the sun lighting up the Chugach mountains like some huge spotlight, brilliantly illuminating them in yellows and roses. What a goodbye! Thanks, Anchorage.

Am just now waiting for laundry to dry, then will stuff in carry-on and be on way. Ran out of time to get that Alaskan Amber -- but hey! there's always the airport bar!

Of course, I kept finding things that I forgot about -- like my bathrobe, for example, which has been hanging out in the linen closet all summer because I didn't have to walk down a long hallway that might at any time be full of people chatting with each other. It's actually a pretty ratty bathrobe -- I think I've had it since college, which makes it... oooo, has it really been that long? Well, it'll be the first to go if my checked baggage exceeds the weight limit. Which I am terrifed about. I weighed both bags on my landlady's scale (which is in stone and kilogram because she bought it in Australia -- cool, innit?), and I think they're both under the 23 kilo limit, but no matter what, the airport scale always, ALways adds more weight. It's like being filmed, I guess -- both add 10 pounds?

Still, a kilo is 2.2 pounds -- surely my landlady's scale can't be that much off?

If it is, then I shall curse the Australians, dump my bathrobe and other sundries, and also mutter evil things about my landlady. A good and generous landlady she's been, but I'm currently a bit irritated, because she up and wrote my security deposit check to h "park" instead of hk! Agh. I know she's good for it, but 1. I could use that $200, and 2. I'll get it in Crimson City, where there are NO Citibanks and I'll have to mail in the check or something in order to deposit it. Citibank is in Seoul and Tokyo, but not Boston. Oh, good. NOT.

Am currently suffering from massive guilt over not taking the food that my grandmother sent with my dad in July. I just don't want to deal with it, and anyway, have little space to put it in. Oh, all RIGHT. I'll try to take some of it.

Time to check the dryer.

(10 minutes later)

All righty, everything is dry and it's time to shove off and hie myself to the house of the attorney who lent me the car, so that the cab can pick me up! And off I go, into the wild blue yonder, probably not to check in again until I get to Crimson City, on the 6th.

Farewell, Alaska!

Holy grizzly mamas, Batman! That Anchorage sure did put out a nice day today. Chugach Mountains were perfectly outlined to the east and the Coastal Trail never looked better. This, after a forecast of clouds and rain!

I ran about 2 miles along the trail, further than I've ever gone, and then walked the whole way back, snapping pictures with abandon. Everything has started to change color, or has already changed color, or has died. The pink fireweed flowers are all gone now, and hold only a few cottony seed puffs left. I think I saw one duckling in the lagoon; where the other 11 that I saw in the beginning of the summer have gone, I don't know.

I've got the laundry going now and am chowing down on one of the remaining tupperwares of food I have left: polenta and salmon-fried rice. I'm pretty sick of salmon now -- have eaten it for four meals straight. I think I can safely say I got my fill of it this summer.

Just a couple things to shove into my carry-on (and I pray, pray, pray that everything is under the weight limits), and I think I'll go out to the Beartooth for a final Alaskan Amber.

And now, apropos of nothing, except that ROSAG is one brilliant, creative missy and I stand in true awe of her, I present:

HIS MOST EXALTED CONEJISSIMO



To see him is to tremble before him.

Finished running my errands and was just outside to clean the Mighty Sube a bit when it struck me that it was chilly. It's about 60 degrees out there, and the sun is shining, but it feels like fall.

Am about to go out for a final run on the Coastal Trail. A good long run, I hope, as I think I GAINED weight in Korea. So much for all that slimming Asian food.

So this is why I am dreading going back to school: I woke up at 10 am on my last day in Anchorage (I leave on a 1 am flight) and lay about for 30 minutes, inwardly moaning my impending departure. I got my laptop and turned it on, intending to whine about it externally on this blog, and (stupidly! stupidly!) checked my school email account, necessitating 45 minutes of responding to emails relating to my activities and generally wading through announcements about on-campus interviewing and first-day reading assignments (which I sure as hell won't have time to do as I'm arriving 30 hours before my first class).

And now it's 11:19 am and I haven't gotten out of bed yet. And it wasn't even all quality inward-whining time either!

Ugh.

I went out around 9:30 last night after spending 8 hours inside packing, and was dismayed to see that it was dark! Summer is really coming to an end here. I dropped off some clothing at a donation box, and returned some stuff to a store, and then rented "Bend it like Beckham" and watched it over some pan-seared salmon and jasmine rice. Mmm!

And now, a little external whining.

I am really going to miss this house, for several reasons. First, sleeping in this basement meant that: 1. very little light = no eyepatch necessary, and 2. suburban detached house = no earplugs necessary. Back to both of those accoutrements in a few days. Second, kick-ass European laundry machine and dryer! In the kitchen! Third, the kitchen. Fourth, the occasional company of a small, beautiful (literally) bichon frise (dog of the daughter of the house).

(About that dog: Had a very, very bizarre dream about it ast night, actually. Dreamt that he was owned by the Bush family, of all things, and that he was going to be killed soon because the Bushes didn't like him or he was retarded or annoying or something. In the dream, the dog cost, like, $225,000, and they all had shares in the dog. I learned this from one of the Bush twins, who told me sneeringly at some function that no, Roommate (who in real life did love the real life dog) could not have/buy the dream dog because he was so pricey. Gosh, she was bitchy. Jenna Bush, I mean. Or the other one, whose name I can't recall. Anyhoo.)

I am really going to miss Anchorage, because it's a small enough city that I got to know it fairly well. Not just the fun places, but a little bit of the ins and outs of the running of the place, through my internship. It makes it all the more real and urgent when you pass on your way to get lunch the welfare agencies you're battling. Or when the only shelter in town is the one you're planning to donate your leftover food and dishes to.

I am really going to miss Alaska, because it's been so freeing. I'm so glad I came here this summer -- it's as different of a place from Boston as another country. There's always been a little bit of a mystique around Alaska in my mind, and this summer's pierced that mystique a little, showing me a glimpse of what has drawn people here for many years. There are places that are still so wild! And the raw beauty of it all. It's not always a picturesque beauty (although Homer is one of the most spectacularly beautiful places I've ever seen). Sometimes it's a beauty that takes time to recognize, like the country beyond the Brooks Range up to Dead Horse and the Arctic Ocean: unearthly, stark, seemingly lifeless, but containing a delicate, unique ecosystem (not to mention a billion mosquitoes).

I can't say enough about Alaska in the summer, there aren't enough superlatives. Magnificent, awe-inspiring, sublime, profound, empty, scary, demanding of respect, challenging, independent are just a few that come to mind, but they don't even begin to touch the experience.

I am really going to miss this summer, because it's been so different from school, so relaxing and so challenging, both at work and at play. At the office, I succeeded in some things and failed in others, and tried some new things that I did neither well or poorly, but just did. I worked with smart people, some of whom were a little strange. And I gathered some great stories: wolfman, punch-out-Secretary-of-Defense's-teeth-out man, see-through top in court lady, axe murderer man, for starters.

At play, I was a bit more successful -- learned how to drive stick, how to check an engine, how to camp in bear country -- but I did fail at reading a topo map and being prepared enough to camp in the backcountry (i.e., failing to bring a compass!). Oh, but the trips I went on, thanks to friends! Up to the Arctic with The Ringleted One, hiking to an ice field with Double M, eating halibut in Homer with the fam, hiking to a glacier with Charm and co., kayaking with my dad, backcountry camping in bear country with Roommate and Dryfoot. It's been spectacular. Just spectacular.

And now, I really, really must get out of this bed in this house I will miss, in order to do my errands and finishing my packing, so that I can set off from Alaska, and be done with the summer.