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.