Weary and the Reasons Why

1. Too many days of interacting with people and concentrating: Friday was a 7-hour day of checking out the G-job, Saturday was a five-hour day of ethics for my upcoming lawyer ethics exam, Sunday was an 8-hour day of mediation training AND an exhausting pair of family phone calls, today was meetings and class from 9:30 til 7 pm, and so on and so forth.

2. Indecision, of course. Today I found out that it might be possible to get as much as $11K extra for the first two years of my G-job, if I got the right kind of fellowship from Crimson. It would all go into loan repayment -- if I don't get it, it would be impossible to put that kind of money towards my debt. But even with that, I calculated that I could put about 5 times as much toward loans with my firm job.

3. Lack of sleep. All last week, I slept about 4-5 hours a night because of the global thermonuclear device disguised as my heater, which would not turn off or stop pumping out heat even when set to zero. Thank the gods, facilities finally fixed it yesterday and turned it off completely in my room. However? I still woke up at 5 am. What is wrong with you, body?

4. Sadness. I had a couple sad moments on Sunday. One was bittersweet -- the last mediation training I'll ever take part in as a law student. For all that the coaching and feedback and being generally friendly exhausts me, I get energized by it and glad to be part of something with so many nice people. This was my sixth training session since I started law school, and my best -- I've got the friendly schmooze thing down, the coaching feedback, everything. I had a great time. I'll miss it.

The other sad moment was just down right depressing. I've been in "talks" with my aunt and uncle since October about graduation. First they weren't going to come. Then they were going to come, on the condition that they didn't have to see my father, and they were happy. Then I got upset about the conditioning and the emotional hostage-taking, and told them it was unfair. So then they weren't going to come, "to make it easier on [me]." So then I made peace with their anger and said, "Okay, I want you to come, but I can't guarantee you won't see my dad, but I think you should put it aside and come anyway, because I want you to be there." And still, they would not come. So I sort of make peace with that, and say, "Okay, if you really don't want to come, why don't you visit me during spring break, and I can show you around and you can see how I've been living here and stuff?" And at first they seemed receptive, but then -- then, on Sunday night, they said no.

Already tired, I kept asking them, "I don't understand. Why not? Why don't you want to come?" I couldn't help it. I felt like a little kid begging for attention. "What if I paid for your tickets?" I asked. No, they couldn't accept that. "I don't understand. I keep trying to share my life with you, but you don't want to be part of it. That's really upsetting to me." It's not that they didn't want to see me, it was just so far. They were old now, I had to understand that, and it was a long, hard trip.

My aunt and uncle pretty much set the values that bigbro and I hold dear in our adult lives. They shaped us with their working class standards of hard work, honesty, generosity, and kindness. I know they were stung by what they perceived to be our rejection of them, back when I was in Korea and living with my dad. I just thought they'd get over it someday. And I've been trying, trying so hard to get them to trust me again, to make them feel appreciated, to make them feel like yes, I do think of them as my second set of parents, the ones I trust above and beyond my biological parents.

I know a year and a half of weekly phone calls isn't that long, in the grand scheme of things, but ... I'm at a loss. I feel like I'll never regain their trust, never be able to prove that my forgiveness and acceptance of my father and his side of the family wasn't a rejection of them, it was a rounding out and filling up of a void that never should have existed in the first place, that existed only because people in the generation above me fought and fell out and hurt each other and crossed over onto their own sides of the canyon, never to meet again.

So. I don't know what feels worse. To try -- as I've never had to try before, because I've been either lucky in love or chilly in nature -- to bridge the gap and fail, or to ponder giving up. Just letting them be alone and aloof and hurt and old because of things I can't take back, and because of events that I never had control over.

There's a double acceptance I'm contemplating here. Last year, my aunt and uncle -- again, so repeatedly and so stupidly generous with my mother and my grandmother and my brother and me over so many years, with their time and their money and their house and their lives -- were in a car accident when they were visiting the dying sister of my uncle. While they sustained no serious injuries, it made them into old people. Afraid. Timid. Withdrawn. I've been trying to battle this too, but... I think it's a lost cause. I can't make them un-old. Just as I can't make them trust me, apparently. Not through my actions nor my words.

It's a terrible thing to feel that you've failed at family. For all the mediation skills I've learned, the communication skills, the patience, the maturity I've tried to gain, it all came to naught, you see.

Is this what it means to be grown-up? To be an adult? Sometimes I feel so like a child, flustered and bewildered by the choices running around me like shiny pretty butterfly things. And sometimes I feel positively ancient, struggling with old folks who've abdicated their adulthood and refuse to come back, trying to convince them that they should turn around and act the way you want your elders to act.

I'm pretty pessimistic about the world and our ability to effect any change in it, but -- you've gotta try. That's the only thing you can do. And that's what I have to keep reminding myself here. You gotta try, hk. It's your duty. Think of all the swallowed pride, the words held back, the high roads taken, the holding of tongues to keep the peace that countless adults have done over countless of generations. Love means you try again, even when you feel like you've been slapped back. Family isn't a concept. It isn't a tidy basket of neatly wrapped interactions. It's messy and painful and you get ignored or condescended to or rejected at times. But you gotta try, is what I'm saying. You gotta try to hold it together, because you know what? Your friends'll get married, your lovers'll leave you, but your family is stuck with you and vice versa. You gotta try. That's all you can do.

But there's no denying it. Sometimes, it's just so weary.

Tempted by The Man

Got back from Our Nation's Capital late last night, exhausted by the 7-hour visit to the Labor Department and the number of people I talked with (12). La! It's a hard job, gathering information.

This is the working formula: Would the increase in life satisfaction justify the decrease in pay?

Let's take this one by one:

1. Decrease in pay. Firm job pays 160K (not including bonus), G-job pays $55,706. Man. Huge disparity. However, I would get an 11K raise each year for the next 4 years, plus loan repayment help from Crimson Law School. Still, there's no question I could pay off loans in 2-3 years at the firm, while it would take closer to 10 years working for The Man. Also, DC isn't THAT much less expensive than New York.

2. Increase in life satisfaction. For the 2/3 pay cut, I'd be working about half the hours of a New York firm job. The other young attorneys in the program were people I could definitely see working with very comfortably -- I really liked all six I met (there are only about a dozen in the honors program at a time). The work that the civil rights division does sounds pretty interesting, and because I was really, really frank about my likes and dislikes ("I hate case law research. Is that going to be a problem here?"), I got good answers about what the work entailed and how I might avoid case law research (regulatory work, which sounds kinda cool).

However, the offices are depressing (windowless cells) and the computers look like they're from the 1980s, and everyone to a man said that the bureaucracy was amazingly frustrating.

Intangibles: As one young attorney said, do I value my time more (G-job) or money (firm job)? Also, I'm far more likely to find something that interests me at the G-job than at the firm. On the other hand, there are international opportunities at the firm, and none at the G-job. And let's not forget -- I've lived in DC before, and New York sort of calls to me right now. Not to mention the higher concentration of good friends in New York, which was the whole reason I chose that city in the first place.

This, of course, doesn't even take into account the universe of creative possibilities: asking the firm to hold my offer open for a year, asking to go to the NY regional office of the Labor job, doing the G-job for 2 years and then going to a firm, etc., etc.

Oof. I'm so tired, I could pass out right here, onto my keyboard. I'm going to see the financial aid office on Tuesday to crunch the numbers, and then I'll have a better sense of the equation.

I'll leave you with this slip of wisom from Miss D, who urged me to "join the dark side":

money doesn't buy happiness, but it can buy you a balenciaga bag and a condo

Wah ha ha ha! She slays me, Miss D does.

Nothin' Much
(and yet, I manage to write so many words!)

Little to report from this here law school dorm. Made contact with a bunch of friends over the weekend, including someone I hadn't spoken to for over five years. It was lovely.

The Turtle* has been dropping broad hints to take the Labor Department job. Stuff like, "You know, you should re-read page 36-37 of The Good Black" (a description of the horrors of working at a firm) and "Hey, it's 4:45 and I'm leaving the office now. I can do that because I don't work at a firm!" Joiner is slightly horrified that The Turtle is being so partisan about my decision, but I kind of like it. Yes, The Turtle has an agenda -- he's a policy guy at heart and wants to improve legal services -- but he also (I believe) genuinely believes that I'll be happier in the government.

It's nice to feel like someone at this school cares about my happiness in the future. I suppose I could go talk to the career services people (here, the Office of Career Services means the people who help you get a job at a firm, which is separate from the office that helps you get a public interest job; I mean the public interest folks), but I don't need any help with the firm thing, and the public interest folks -- well, I've always felt that if you spend any time working at the firm, the nice folks over at the public interest office kind of look down on you. Which they shouldn't, in my case, because my god, people, I've worked at three different legal services centers, okay? I understand that you need to focus on the students who are trying to find jobs in the public sector right after school, but at the expense of alienating people who can't afford to do public interest right away but would sincerely like to and may do so a couple years later? That's just stupid. I hope you get explosive diarrhea, you close-minded public interest snobs!

Damn, hk. Some hidden anger, eh?

Yeah, I'm a little wacky right now, because I have been unable to sleep well for ... oh, the past 10 years, yes, but particularly the last couple nights, when my heater's been on overdrive and I've had to sleep with my door and window open to cool down the room. Not conducive to a good night's rest, I tell ya. To compensate, I've been drinking a lot of coffee, and the combination of fatigue and caffeine is not pretty.

Did I tell you I had my second career shrink sesson a few weeks ago? It didn't go so well; we only had half an hour, and we talked about Ethiopia for about 15 minutes of that. And then when I tried to talk about what I'd been thinking about, the shrink appeared to think I hadn't done enough thinking, or least enough specific thinking about what specifically I wanted to do. To which I say, isn't my whole problem that I don't know specifically what I want to do? That I have a vague sense that writing is my passion, and that I like traveling and people's stories and bridging gaps and helping people understand each other, but that this adds up to a ha'penny and a bright shiny pot of nothing at the end of the day? Help me, career shrink man!

Despite the loopy tiredness, I have a weird itch to exercise, and have been doing so pretty regularly. Over the weekend, I happened to bump into The Destroyer in the gym. Haven't seen him for months, right? Had that weird doomed souffle moment the last time I saw him, right? So I try to ignore him, I really do. But he sees me and says hi. And I have a five-year-old moment and say, "You're making me lose count." "What?" he says, justifiably. "Seventeen, eighteen..." I count out loud as I continue doing crunches. And he quite reasonably rolls his eyes and says, "Okay, bye."

Related to this (in the longest blog entry in the world where the topic is absolutely nothing), I have posted myself up on match.com. Yes, I even put down money for this ($19.99/month for 3 months). I feel that it is time. And do you know why I feel it is time? This is why: You know how there's always that weird, nerdy guy in school who's, like, way obsessed with RPG or Star Wars or something, and you sometimes think "dude is SAD," and then a couple years later, the dude's got himself a girlfriend and he suddenly knows how to interact with human beings and seems ... sort of ... normal? It's like he got socialized. And he needed a sig-oth to do it.

Well, I am that guy. I have become far too weird, and I need to be socialized. Sigh.

I am also falling asleep here, and must go pay the Sandman some of my sleep debt. Or collect on my sleep debt. Whatever. God, I really hope that sleep cures this insatiable need to babble on and on and on and ... zzzz.

* This is what Joiner calls my mentor here -- and I think it's okay to call him that, after describing him as "the only person at Crimson who ever made me feel like I could be a good lawyer AND be happy being a lawyer" for a year and a half -- because she says he looks like a turtle. I don't think so, but it's as good an appellation as any.

Decision time again

You know, it was all settled. I was going to go to New York. I was going to work for a big firm. I was going to help big businesses and banks make more money. I was going to work 100 hours a week, and I was going to hate it. But I was going to make a buttload of money. I was going to go in with an exit plan. I was going to get out -- even before I began.

And then I get a phone call. From the Department of Labor. In DC. And the dude sheepishly apologized for the long wait, blaming it on the government and budget uncertainties, and then he asked if he could call my references because I was a finalist for the Honors Program, and they did indeed call my references, because the Turtle (my clinical supervisor and sort-of mentor) told me last week he sang my praises, and then -- yeah.

They offered me a job.

In the government. In DC. For 1/3 of the salary I'd get in New York. Doing work that would be much more interesting than financial services -- keeping in mind, mind you, that I find all legal work dull, but financial services? That's like watching grass grow while having someone read obscure German philosophy at you. In German.

So the factors are what you'd think, but I'll outline them here, as much for myself as for anyone reading this.

1. Location. I've already worked in DC -- worked for the feds, in fact -- and going back there ... well, in the past couple months I've gotten used to the idea of moving to New York. I've always had a little bit of regret about not moving to New York after college, and while I feel great affection for DC -- dude, I've been there and done that.

2. Lifestyle. The DC job wins out big time, obviously -- I'd actually have time to have a life, go to the gym, take classes, see friends. BUT. See #1 -- the DC lifestyle? Been there, done that.

3. Work. Yes, I find employment law the most interesting of all the types of law I've been exposed to. I have considerable clinical experience in employment discrimination law (ironically the one thing that DOL does NOT do -- that's the EEOC). It's hands down more interesting and bearable to me than financial services, which is what I'd be doing in New York. BUT. My plan for New York had been to make tons of money, pay off the loans, and get out of law. I can't do that in DC if I'm making 1/3 of the money I would be in New York. I still have to crunch the numbers, though -- it may be that the school's loan repayment program would make up a sizeable portion of what I'd lose.

4. Friends. This ties in with the lifestyle issue. In DC I might have time for friends, but the concentration of good friends in New York is much, much higher.

5. Money. Ah yes. One third of the salary. Is the work in DC going to be twice as much fun as the work in NY? Is the lifestyle twice as good? Is the prospect of paying off my loans over 10 years rather than 2-3 years really worth it for the lifestyle upgrade? Wouldn't I just be better off suffering for 2-3 years and getting it all over with? On the other hand, shouldn't I try the type of law I find the most interesting, with the idea that you gotta give it a fair try before giving up? Back to the first hand -- I ... I gotta admit, I want to make a lot of money. I want to see what it's like. Just once in my life!

Hm... doop dee doo ... These questions and more are brought to you by hk and the letters D.O.L. I'll be visiting them next week, and talking to some folks there, so the info-gathering stage is in full force.

And The Nephew says: "Auntie hk, I know how you feel. Sometimes I too feel -- how shall I say? Stymied. Immobilized. Brought up short by obstacles that may or may not be of my own making. Sometimes I feel there's something about me -- almost palpable in its presence and force -- that just prevents me from moving forward with the grace and freedom I yearn to master. Sigh. It's difficult. But I have faith that some day I shall be at liberty to act as I please, to control my destiny (and bowel movements) with confidence and certainty. You hang in there. It's bound (har har) to happen someday."

Working on the weekend

Student org #1 had its training this weekend, so I was on duty for 8 hours yestiddy, and then four hours today, and when I say on duty, I was ON DUTY, like playing roles in the skits, leading discussions, coaching, cheerleading, etc. So... I am a bit tired. Interacting with people is undoubtedly the most tiring activity I engage in. Give me a mountain to hike, and I feel good -- tired, but good. At peace. Give me 8 hours of having to talk and be lively and shit? Usually I'm brain dead and exhausted. Sometimes I'm energized, but it's a kind of strange, buzzy kind of energy, like my brain's on 10,000 espressos.

Fortunately, I also went to the gym both days, and so it's all good. My friend Natasha showed Joiner and me what she's been doing to lose (what seems like) half her body weight over the past year, and some of that shit is good, I tell you. Like that thing where you hang by your forearms and swing your legs up... and that other thing -- the one where you lean over and do sort of backward sit ups to strengthen your back. And the other thing too, the twisty ab torture machine -- god, you know, gym machines are really hard to describe. But they are very helpful in improving one's mental and emotional health.

I've been having IM conversations with my dad on Sunday evenings the past two weeks, ever since I saw him in SF and told him I do all my family talk on Sunday nights. My dad is so freakin' funny on IM. I can't really describe it. It's like the gym machines.

Brain dead, so I'll just leave you with some delicious pics of The Nephew.

The Nephew seems to often have this quizzical, troubled look on his face. My dad says it's because he knows there's suffering in the world, and that means The Nephew might be Buddha. Bwah ha ha ha HA!


But then there are those moments when he looks like a damn Anne Geddes card. And your heart goes "squelch!" and it's all goopy and squishy and fuzzy inside.

Obsession and class collide!

It's so nice when worlds collide.

For example, you know I'm obsessed with Firefly right now, to the point where I'm staying up til 1:30 on a school night (on the weekends I've gone til 3 am - d'oh!) watching Youtube videos about the show and the subsequent movie, Serenity. (Please god, let this obsession burn out soon? I have GOT to get some sleep.) Joss Whedon, who is as intellectually gifted as he is creatively blessed, created an intriguing vision of the future, the faint backdrop of which is a world in which the two superpowers, the U.S. and China, have merged into a mega-power. (Which appears to have started out with good intentions but then turns out to be fascist and sinister and evil and shit. You know the type.)

I'm also taking a class on global governance this term, and had to read what was I found at first to be an extremely dull article on multilateralism. Once I got past some of the jargon, though, it occurred to me that the article -- which is highly academic and soars into the stratosphere of theory at times -- was really about the type of world envisioned in Firefly. "Little islands of alien sovereignty" (the individual nation-states just looking out for themselves, warily watching everyone else around them and jealously protecting their autonomy) have transformed over the past two centuries to bilateral arrangements (cautious and sometime reluctant treaties between 2 nations), and then on to multilateral arrangements (between 3 or more nations), which now feature permanent institutions that are in themselves semi-autonomous and independent actors differentiated from their constituent member states.

Damn. Just one theoretical article and look at the garbage coming out of my mouth. This is why I hate high academic theory -- it's so much more complex than it needs to be. By reading about the development of multilateral frameworks and nation states and all the rest, I was really reading about the world that's the backdrop of Star Trek and Star Wars, Firefly and most other sci fi out there, which is to say: countries merged, got all-powerful, and either became benevolent, cuddly love bunnies like the Federation in Star Trek, or monstrous faceless monoliths set on wiping out all naysayers, like in Star Wars and Firefly.

It was weird -- after I started getting past the 5-syllable words and technobabble, it was actually really interesting to think of this development of multilateralism as a possible precursor to the worlds that the sci fi writers foretell (or forewarn). So yeah -- the UN today, the Empire and its stormtroopers tomorrow? I don't know. But it made the reading for class a hell of a lot more interesting.

AGH. It's 1:45 am. Must. Stop. Being. Obsessed. Go away, Firefly! Go away, enviable brilliance that is Joss Whedon! Go away, hotness that is Nathan Fillion!

And to clear the mind, here is the baby pic of the day:
What he’s really thinking: "Ruggie’s hypothesis that multilateral international institutions such as the United Nations are creating their own, new forms of multilateral arrangements is less inspiring than it is deeply troubling and counter to the ideals of sovereignty and self-governance that democratic nations such as ours -- steeped as it is in a tradition of independent and idiosyncratic frontierism -- value. That is the whole point Joss is trying to make. Obviously. Now excuse me while I address the little island of alien sovereignty in my diaper.”

Brr

Mighty chilly here in Crimson City: -5 degrees tonight. Tomorrow's high is 26. Yikes! Why do people LIVE here?

It does not help that I'm taking a class at another graduate school which requires a 15-minute walk from the dorm. It's cold enough that any exposed skin hurts after you've been out a few minutes.

AND, the heat, which is usually set at thermonuclear levels, is not working well in my room. Which is why I'm wearing a wool sweater, hat and am huddled under a blanket.

Wah! And too much reading for admin! Which is Socratic! And my global governance class is all political theory! And Student Org #1 is causing me aggro, as well as Student Org #2! And I woke up at 3 am this morning and could NOT fall back asleep for two hours! WAH!

This is how I feel right now:













It's only because I yearn to sleep the sleep of the young and innocent:







Alas, those days are gone for me. Enjoy 'em while they last, Nephew!

Something in the water?

I continue to be strangely and unnervingly chipper about this semester. I must remind myself that it is always this way when I return from a break from things legal: the world looks fresh and new and full of hope -- and then the second week of the term starts.

But really -- my classes (all six of 'em I'm considering) look interesting, my clinical project (setting up a screening and referral system for potential employment discrimination plaintiffs) is kinda exciting, I'm working with The Turtle again, whom I adore, I just got wind of a new mediation project that I'd be involved with from the ground up, and I'm fairly relaxed and happy about it all.

Maybe it's the gym-going? But I've only been going for two days!

Or maybe it's the 2-3 hours of DVD-watching I do every day? (For research, OF COURSE.)

The perspective gained from going to a developing country and (separately) seeing The Nephew?

Or maybe, just maybe, I've finally figured out that the best and most important thing now is to be as happy as possible, which means not taking anything about law school seriously? Including but not limited to: really fucking annoying people, the seemingly important decisions that aren't really important at all, the metaphorically flatulent professors, the ridiculous Socratic method of teaching, the ludicrous self-important atmosphere, and so on?

Hm. Check in with me again next week.

Baby pic of the day:
Note the humorous attempt at mitigating diaper-changing-fatigue on The Nephew's shirt!