Back to the Daily Grind

And we’re back into the swing of things already.

The new semester began two days ago. I’m here to tell you, I was N.O.T. ready to go back.

Back in the day, I was unemployed for several months. And I do mean unemployed—I couldn’t even get work waitressing. At first, having just left college after five years of working full-time (plus overtime, usually) while going to classes full-time, I was thrilled with the free time. It was like Heaven to sleep as late as I liked, watch TV or read for hours on end, go to the mall in the middle of the day, wear my PJs all day, and generally have no responsibility. For about a month, that is.

Money was part of the concern, but only part. I had saved a lot of money for the express purpose of making the interstate move that precipitated my unemployment. I knew that it might take awhile to find work—although I did NOT expect it to take three months—and had tried to prepare. The real problem here was that I was so bored I wanted to die. I taught myself to knit. I got a library card. I spent hours on end job hunting. But it simply wasn’t enough. By the time I finally did find work as a waitress (not, by the way, what I thought I would do with my degree), I was thrilled to death just to have something to do with my time. Of course, that exhilaration wore off somewhere around the time that my new boss spent 20 minutes screaming at me because I put the applesauce on the plate I was about to carry out of the kitchen before I picked the tray up from the window...

I am not at that point yet. I could use another week or two of sloth.

But here I am, dragging my sorry self out of bed by 6:30 (boo) and slogging my way through way more caselaw than I ever really wanted to read (boo). On the upside, this semester looks far more promising than last semester. I’ve had at least one class in each subject except my languages.

Copyright is looking good. The professor is just as good as I remember him from last year. His motto for our class is “We Rock.” This is because he likes to bring in movie and music clips for our examination.

Family Law is looking promising. LaPresidente says the professor is “cute”. Not as in hottie, as in pinch his little cheeks. He wears bowties and tells funny anecdotes. I’m withholding judgment until I decide if he’s funny or annoying. But I think it’ll be OK.

International Dispute Resolution, now that’s in a league all its own. It’s “hands-on”. There is a lot of role-playing involved. I’m not a huge fan of role-playing in class. But it could be good, I suppose. We did an exercise in negotiation that involved finding a win-win situation for two separate researchers, who need the same crop of fruit for major save-the-world-from-destruction projects. I had a great partner and we had a lot of fun with it, using crazy accents and inventing backstories for our characters. And we found the win-win solution, too (BONUS!), so that was successful. The problem is that there are an inordinate number of people in the class who I cannot stand. Including Skippy and International Law Girl. And there will be an insane about of group work. I’m verrrrry nervous about this.

Adoption Law will be very hard, both emotionally and academically. It’s taught by a professor I had last semester. I liked her very much, but would absolutely describe her as “One Tough Broad” (in the best possible sense of the phrase). When I got her exam, I wasn’t sure whether I should frame it as a work of are or cry because I could tell it was not going to go my way. And it totally didn’t—hello second “C” of my life!—but I absolutely earned that C. Mad Dog said about the exam that it was written in such a way that it showed an immense respect for both the subject matter and the students’ intellect. But damn, it was hard.

Anyway, Adoption Law is a seminar course, limited to 12 students and requiring the writing of a seminar paper. I need to come up with a topic for that pretty soon and am very worried about it. International adoption is out, because there is someone else in the class who already works in a firm doing that kind of work. There are lots of interesting areas, but most of it sounds like things that are going to be very difficult.

Readings and discussions are going to get my blood boiling almost every week. I have a very personal connection to these issues and I disagree with current case law in several respects. We began with readings on birth father rights, including the case of Baby Richard. I’m sorry, but as far as I’m concerned, the fact that the birth father was absent through no fault of his own (and it really wasn’t his fault—the birth mother basically defrauded him and hid the kid from him) becomes irrelevant once the poor kid was placed with an adoptive family and allowed to bond with them. The trauma to the poor thing must have been immense. Can you imagine being four years old and being taken away from the only family you’ve ever known? No matter how much the person raising you after that loves you, no matter how many times they tell you it wasn’t your fault, it must leave deep scars. But it’s definitely going to be interesting.

The only courses that I have left are the languages. Yes, that’s plural. Because as of yesterday, I am enrolled in Spanish For Lawyers! On top of that, I’ve got another semester of Swedish (which I am totally stoked about, of course). Both courses meet on Thursday and I have no other classes that day. I imagine it’s going to feel like going back to undergrad for a day: nothing taught in English, and classes where my hard work spawns both a sense of accomplishment AND actual improvement. I see good grades in my future...