Safe

Yes, I now have no outstanding conditions precedent to my impending matriculation -- my advisor gave me a big, fat A on my 3L paper, the script for a TV show about the thrilling lives of law students. Watch for it on a small screen near you!

So, it turns out that this semester was the best academically of the six -- one B+, two A-s, and two big, fat As. The A-s really should have been As, too, but apparently The Turtle counts class participation in the grading scheme, and that brought my grade down a third, which -- whatEVER. I put my heart into that clinical, and I know I deserved an A. The fact that The Turtle felt bad about giving me that minus? I don't care. He should feel bad. He knows what he did.

I found out that stuff about the grading today when I had my weekly check-in with The Turtle. We're both feeling discouraged about the lack of progress with the funding search. We put in an application last week to a local foundation, and if that doesn't come through, I think I'm going to throw in the towel. So I should know by the end of June, which is about as long as I can take the purgatory in which I am hanging.

I thought originally that I'd try to bargain with my firm about working 2 months this summer to earn what would be half of my salary for next year in this clinical fellowship, but I'm feeling pretty down about them too. Here's what happened there: I don't really know anyone at the office I'm going to, since I worked in two other offices last summer. So my only contact was the recruiting person. So I approached her and asked if I could talk to someone about funding for my project. She took it upon herself to ask some partners and came back with something about a "strict policy" about not funding such things, which, when I followed up with a phone call later, she admitted wasn't true -- there was no policy in place. She had just gotten the feeling that the partners weren't going for it. So I said, hey, I don't mind rejection, I just want to talk to someone directly, can you give me a name, and she responded, I will, just give me a chance to find out who you should speak to.

Nothing happened for a week, so I follow up with a gentle email reminder yesterday. Twenty minutes later, she writes back that she talked to the managing partner and that the firm decided they wouldn't fund my project.

I'm pretty pissed about this. When I'm asking for a favor, I want to be the one asking, not relying on an intermediary, for a number of reasons. It's not like she could have presented my project with any level of enthusiasm or information. More importantly, I want to be the one taking the responsibility of whether I fail or not, and of what kind of image others have of me. She completely stymied me in this because she asked me not to contact anyone until she got back to me. I realize there are some politics at stake here, but I feel disrespected and unheard, and that really ticks me off. God. The more I think about it, the angrier I get.

More evidence (as if you needed it) that sometimes? People just really, really suck.