Accountability, where did you go?

I am right 99% of the time. I don't say that to suggest that I am smarter than anyone else, or that I am always right, because I am not by any means. However, I do my best to be educated, informed, and responsible in the things I assert as the truth - in the things that I take the time to inform others about. I try extremely hard not to second-guess my instincts, especially when I know I am right, even if others might disagree. It is the disagreement that I struggle to accept - I don't like being told by others that I am wrong when I know I am right. Not only does it offend my intelligence, it hurts my feelings, and causes me to view the offender in a light I would prefer to remain ignorant of.

Today I was reminded, by more than one person whom I highly respect, that it doesn't matter if I am right. The politics of a given situation always trump the correctness of someone underfoot. The specific situation involves faculty members at my school. More than one member of the faculty informed me that they respect me, agree with me, know I am "right" and yet will not publicly agree or even suggest that they might agree by participating in a discussion because it is not their place to disagree with the teaching or grading of another member of the faculty. If not their job, then whose? One member of the faculty even told me that he hoped that this one bad experience with a professor does not affect my view of the school. It does not. I have had far too many good experiences with the other faculty to be offended by this one. However, what does affect my view of the school is a faculty who does not see it as their job to hold each other accountable. A faculty who is afraid to even suggest that a student might be right in the incorrectness of another professor. That, to me, is a shame. That a student would be willing to go through the trouble, the turmoil, and the judgment of the entire faculty in order to bring an injustice to light only to be told that those who should be most concerned by the situation, because it reflects on them as a whole, will not even entertain a discussion of the issue due to "politics" is the greatest injustice of all.

No one wants to be the first to suggest the indecency of a situation. No one wants to be the first to point the finger. Now I struggle to decide if it is even worth the indecency of a denial knowing that those I thought I respected most are not even willing to consider an injustice. And they call themselves professors of the law. Might it be true: those who cannot do, teach? Those who are unwilling to consider right and wrong, teach it instead, expecting us to learn, to question, to appeal, to represent the interest of those wronged and yet unwilling to consider us when we do what they teach if it means holding accountable one of their own.

Settled in... for now

We are completely out of our house in Granbury and it is on the market!! Thank goodness!! Now we just wait and hope that the house sells quickly. We are not pleased with our current realtor, so I am sure that we will have to look into changing realtors sometime this week as we move forward. We are all settled in to our 1 bedroom apartment. It is a little cramped and there are still boxes and such around, but our storage unit is SO full it might burst and we have a lot of stuff! We won't be here long anyway as we move into our new, 2-bedroom, super-nice apartment in an awesome neighborhood at the end of May.

Finals are fast approaching, with only one full week of class left, then dead week to study, then 2 full weeks of finals. While it is always hard to take finals back-to-back, I think it is harder to take them spread out. Mine start the first day of finals, and I have one on the last day of finals 2 weeks later. My other three are spread out evenly in between, so while I will have plenty of time to study for each test, I also realize I will be exhausted by the end of the two weeks!

Thankfully we have a wonderful vacation planned for right after finals - we are going on a cruise to Alaska with my grandparents and great-aunt and great-uncle. It will be such a great time to relax, enjoy some time off, regroup, and then come back and start summer school right away. (literally, classes start the day after we get back!)

I am still loving my job, though we had a hard week this week. I will try to post tomorrow about what losing a case is like after spending 6 weeks straight working on it non-stop. Until then, it is back to the books for this kid!

Moving is a LOT of work!

This week is Spring Break at school. I had planned to leave on Thursday with JB to go to Missouri to spend time with his family. I got sick and wasn't able to go, but he went anyway. I was really looking forward to the trip and spending time with his family, so I was pretty bummed Thursday and Friday that I wasn't able to go. Instead, I was stuck at home, feeling pretty awful, and packing boxes. 

At this point, I have the living room, spare bedroom, spare bathroom, and about 1/2 of the office packed and ready to move. Yesterday I went to Ft Worth and got a storage unit, a PO Box and dropped off a load of boxes at the storage unit. Today I continued to pack boxes, pack the office, get the business/jewelry stuff ready to move and got everything ready to start painting tomorrow. I picked out a really neutral color for all the walls called "cafe latte." I think it will look great with all the freshly painted, white trim. I killed my hand at Walmart putting the 5 gallon bucket in the cart (which almost made it worth it to pay the $30 more for the paint at Lowes because I know they would have put it in the cart for me and loaded it in my car). I also broke up about 100 strands of beads and put them away in my bead drawers and then taped them up so we can move them as well. Finally, I spent some time reading for classes this week as school is back on Monday and we are only about 6 week away from finals. I am so excited about what the next few months have in store for us as a family, but I am also entirely overwhelmed by all the work that is left to do and everything that must be done in the next two months. 

<3

Passion Must Ever Sway the Heart of Man

I love my new job. I can't express how incredibly blessed I am to have found a job that 1) I enjoy doing, 2) my boss is awesome, and 3) I'm getting paid WAY more than I thought I would be (total *bonus*).
When I applied for law school, it was honestly on a whim because the job market was so awful at the time I was finishing college and with an English degree there was really no other option but to teach or go back to bar tending. Since I don't like large groups of children and I had already lived through one lifetime's worth of flirting for rent, law school seemed like a pretty good option. And I had pretty great grades, job history, etc. etc. etc.
After being accepted and offered a scholarship, I decided it was probably worth a shot. I'll be entirely honest and tell you that I was 5% excited and 95% terrified, but not for the reason most entering law students are afraid. I was never worried about being called on or grilled about a case or whatever like they show in movies (although I was the first person in my 1L class to be called on in class the first day), I was terrified because I wasn't sure I would even like the study of law, the way law school works, or anything about it. I wasn't one of those people whose dream it has always been to go to law school and become a lawyer. Daddy didn't demand I become a lawyer like him (he's not one anyway). And I never went through something and thought "that is so unjust, I think I'll become a lawyer so I can change the world!" No, I went to law school on a whim, and somehow I fell entirely in love along the way.
People complain way too often that they don't like school, don't like homework, don't like their job, and so forth. I have always believed and stood firm on the ground that if you aren't passionate about what you are doing, you should not be doing it. First of all, life is way too short to waste time or effort on something you have the ability to change, and second, you bring down everyone around you with your crappy attitude. Of course we all have days where we complain or whine or vent to a close friend - that's understandable and part of being human. I'm talking about people who are truly unhappy with where they are in life and yet are completely content to live in such unhappiness.
Which brings me back to my first point. I love my new job. After I started my brilliant love affair with law school, there was always this small fear in the back of my mind that the practice of law would not be anything like law school, and therefore there was still a chance I would be entering a profession that I would be doomed to exit as soon as I entered. After three weeks at my new job as a law clerk for a small Fort Worth firm, I can happily, joyfully even, admit that my love affair is far from over. In fact, I think I can easily see us living happily ever after together.
I was afraid I wouldn't like it, or that I wouldn't be good at it, or that I wouldn't know what I was supposed to be doing. And while I don't know what I am doing in the least, going back to my second point - I have an amazing boss. He is patient and understanding and takes the time to explain everything we are doing in the cases and why we are doing it. He shows me what I am doing wrong without making me feel stupid, along with taking time to tell me what I am doing right. While it is true - law school is nothing like the actual practice of law, I greatly appreciate that the things I have learned and am still learning in class come up multiple times a day at work while I am researching or drafting. It is such a turn on to make those connections and know that what I learn in class today will help me in practice tomorrow, and even the things I find most boring or insignificant will come up in cases in the future. (Which makes me realize I really should be paying close attention to them, regardless of how bored I am by them).
I am sure you are entirely bored by my rambling on and on of how much I love law so I'll close with this: "Whereas the law is passionless, passion must ever sway the heart of man." --Aristotle

Finding a Place to Call "Home"

I never imagined finding an apartment would be so difficult. When I was in college, I lucked out by 1) being ignorant of what to look for when viewing apartments and 2) I found an amazing apartment and an amazing roommate for 90% of the time I lived in an apartment in college. Since then I have lived with my husband in a house we bought together before we got married. I recently got a 1 bedroom apartment in Fort Worth so I wouldn't have to commute to school and work. After JB quit his job, we decided to try to make the big move to Fort Worth. So we are beginning the process of putting our house on the market (another discussion entirely) and trying to find the right place to move into until we figure out what direction our life will be headed when I graduate from Law School next year.
We have both spent hours online looking at apartment websites, apartment reviews, apartment ratings, sex offender websites, neighborhood websites, etc. etc. etc. I think I have finally narrowed the search to two complexes that I love in a neighborhood called "River Park" (guess I know why the complexes are called "River Park Apartments" and "Riverpark Place"). I haven't physically gone to either place yet, but both have 90% or higher rating reviews, zero sex offenders onsite and very few in the area. They are right down the road from the mall, shopping, restaurants, and both of us can jump on the nearest interstate a mile down the road to get to work/school. Now I just hope I actually like them when we go tour the property as well as have the floorplans we want available.

A little about me to start this off...

This year my New Year's Resolution was to write more. I have since written many reports, motions, orders, and emails, but have not written anything for myself up till now. So, seeing as how it is now March, I think is about time to do as I promised myself. So, to begin I will tell you a bit about where I am in life right now:
I am 23 years old, I am married to one of the most amazing men in the world, and I have the best dog anyone could ask for. I am a second year law student in Fort Worth. I started my own jewelry business, The Prairie Gypsies Jewelry, two years ago, which I primarily run online. I clerk two days a week at a law firm in Ft. Worth. One of my favorite things that I have done this past year is my job at school as an Academic Support TA for first year law students. My husband and I currently live in Granbury, but we are in the process of moving to Ft Worth to be closer to school and the city.
Long ago I wanted to be a writer, and I have been far too busy to pursue anything resembling creative writing for far too long. I hope that having this blog will give me the opportunity to spread my creative wings a bit, as well as provide a platform through which I can keep track of my crazy day-to-day life. Enjoy!