Day Three

New York moments:

- I forgot to mention that on my first day this week, I opened a blue nylon satchel that was on my desk, sitting on the cardboard box containing my desk supplies, to find: a flashlight, a glowstick, one of those ultra thin astronaut blankets, a whistle, and a face mask. The usual post-9/11 emergency bag, I guess.

- I was reminded of that today when I was waiting for the 2/3 train and saw 8 cops file past me down the platform. A small part of my brain went on alert. I felt a little uneasy. But nothing happened, and the express arrived, and I got on.

Law firm moments:

- None of the summer associates seem very interesting (keeping in mind that I have a real attitude problem with this job) (also, they ARE, like, 12 years old), but some of the associates in the tax department, where I am housed, seem quite friendly and nice and ... I don't know, have personalities? But the male-female ratio is startling, both in the tax department and in the summers who started on Monday with me. Of the 50-odd folks who started this week, I would say that about 35 are men (and before you start singing that the odds are good, a good number of those are married, Jewish, way too young, or a combo of all three). And based on the number of people who showed up for the tax practice weekly luncheon yesterday, the men outnumber women 2:1 in the tax department. (And if the women were around but didn't go to the lunch, that would be bad too -- the networking can't happen if you don't show up.)

- So I was in the firm library until 9 pm and then in the Camp Bella* kitchen until 1 am last night trying to finish my paper for history class. I had planned to get up at 7 am to figure out where to move a problematic section, and do a final read-through, but somehow I woke up at 7, then woke up again and it was 8 am. With a 9 am training session waiting, I crammed my notes into a bag and rushed out. I figured I could work on it a little during the day, and I was right. I had some stuff to read, but had been told it could wait, so I spent an hour and a half completing the thing, and emailed it to the prof just before lunch with the partner who is my mentor this summer.

- I was lucky, because after lunch (which was nice -- the partner is only 6 years older than me and was pretty approachable, if a little rushed -- she like, gulped down her food), I got a call from one of the coordinating attorneys, who had another assignment for me. That was for a real estate department deal, and the associate wanted it done by the end of today. But then my other project roared to life, and THAT had to be done by the end of the day, so I got the okay to work on the real estate one tomorrow, and spent 3 hours drafting a price supplement for an equity derivative. Don't I sound very smart and important, having done that? Now, the actual financial instrument/process is rather ingenious, and I don't know if I fully understand it. But the actual thing I was doing? I'm telling you, trained monkeys could have done it. It was like the $140,000 corporate law version of Mad Libs -- fill in the blanks -- but even simpler than Mad Libs, because we fill in the blanks with terms that we receive from the client.

I don't know, people. I just don't know. It was really not bad (though I should wait till I get comments back tomorrow morning) -- sort of like editing, but way less challenging than the substantive editing I used to do for $50,000 a year (i.e., one third of the salary I'd be getting as a first year associate).

So, in summary: New York = memories, law firm = Place Where History Papers Get Finished, and summer associates = monkeys.

Also -- whee, I'm done with 2L year! And to celebrate, I will go to bed, and try to make up for yet another night of shortchanged sleep.

*Camp Bella is the home of the One-Armed Maggie and her bonny husband.

Confidential to bigbro and J1: AAAAAAAAAAAAGGGGGGGGGHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!