FRIDAY'S FEAST SUNDAY'S SPREAD - APRIL 28, 2006

Well that whole "do work and catch up on blogging" with two very small children totally did not work out. I had a feeling about that. Someone remind me never to have children that close together in age. I was totally wiped after babysitting.

Now I find that I still have to do two dumb CLE assignments this week. I have actual class Monday and Tuesday night and Wednesday is my interview, which leaves Thursday night to do both. [sigh] It's going to be a long week.

Appetizer
On a scale of 1 to 10 with 10 being highest, how polite are you?
It completely depends on the situation. I can be amazingly polite if the situation calls for it and I am so inclined. When I feel the situation calls for it I can be very abrasive, others might refer to this as rude, however sometimes the situation calls for it.

Soup
What was the last thing that made you laugh out loud?
Something I read on a blog Friday night.

Salad
Who is your favorite cartoon character?
Marvin the Martian hands down!

Main Course
Tell about the funniest teacher you ever had.
My HS calculus teacher was awesome. He made an intense subject fun. I recall one lesson he was rather infamous for each year. It involved him licking the chalk board. I have to give honorable mention to my ethics prof in law school, who bounced a tennis ball against the wall with a racket one day and serenaded the class on another to illustrate his point.

Dessert
Complete this sentence: I strongly believe that ______________________.
everything happens for a reason

TIRED UPDATE

Friday's Feast will be up sometime tomorrow, this week it will just have to be "Saturday's Spread" instead. Right now I am beat. It's not even 9 o'clock yet and I am seriously considering bed. It has been a long week. I might post more on that later tomorrow. The shining star of the week was that I got a call for an interview next week. I was beginning to think I had leprosy. Now everyone cross your fingers for me please. I'm not going to say any more about it now, lest I jinx it.

I need a real job for a gazillion reasons, the most pressing at the moment is that I have one hell of a cavity that is apparently working its way towards a root canal - oh fun. A job would provide the benefits I need to take care of it. [And the $$$ to pay my loans, get a newer car, get an apt, blah blah blah, I am making myself ill with this mantra now.]

Tomorrow I agreed to babysit a 2 year old and a newborn. I adore my friends. It's a damn good thing too or I never would have agreed to this. I will be bringing my laptop in hopes of catching up on email and getting my stupid CLE homework done - yea I know, I don't think it's going to happen either.

Tomorrow night is supposed to be poker and hot tubbing, let's cross our fingers on that too. I could use it.

OK my bed is calling me ..... damn I wish I could sleep in tomorrow.

FOR THE GEEK IN US ALL - A COOL GADGET

This is so cool! I don't know why. I don't really need it, but I kinda want one.

See it in action on the sidebar, here.

MYSPACE BECOMING ADSPACE?

For all the MySpace junkies, check out this article from the New York Times.

UPDATE: Legal Eagles, check out a new "MySpace" type site just for lawyers.
Via Jeremy Blachman.

I'm a Mandarin!

In the mid-90s, in articles in The Atlantic and Time Magazine, Nicholas Lemann introduced the idea of three paths to success in American society -- that of Talents, Lifers, and Mandarins. He later went on to write a book, The Big Test, about the SAT as the Mandarin path to success.

You're an intellectual, and you've worked hard to get where you are now. You're a strong believer in education, and you think many of the world's problems could be solved if people were more informed and more rational. You have no tolerance for sloppy or lazy thinking. It frustrates you when people who are ignorant or dishonest rise to positions of power. You believe that people can make a difference in the world, and you're determined to try.

Talent: 44%
Lifer: 26%
Mandarin: 67%

Take the Talent, Lifer, or Mandarin quiz.

67197 people have taken the Are You a Talent, a Lifer, or a Mandarin?
(Version 2.0) personality test

Here are the results so far:

Talents: 33951 (51%)
Lifers: 22426 (33%)
Mandarins: 10820 (16%)

Hat tip to Confessions of an Exhausted Mind.

THREE FOR THREE

This post from Overheard in New York explains a lot:

But Dating a Gemini Doubles Your Chances

Guy #1: The thing is, dating gets so much harder as we get older.
Guy #2: Yeah, especially if you're intelligent.
Guy #1: It's not like you can just look at a woman and tell if she's smart enough to date.
Guy #2: True.
Guy #1: I'd never date an Aries though.

--in line at MOMA

I'm older, intelligent AND an Aries. I guess there's no hope for me.

FRIDAY'S FEAST - APRIL 21, 2006

Well, well here we are again, another week gone by. I need to post a little "update" about me generally, but don't fret, there is nothing exciting going on. In general it's just my escalating stress level over not having a job before my loan officer comes to my house and demands my eggs as payment.

On to the feast!

Appetizer
List 3 things you keep putting off.
Repacking all the half open boxes from my apartment. Once I moved back to Chez Parental I dumped everything in the basement and over time ended up ripping through a lot of them to get one thing or another that I needed. Now everything is a mess and I need to go and repack it all. I have a feeling I will be much more motivated to do this once I actually have a place to move TO. I did finally clean out my closet this week - although not by choice, ahh but that is another story for another day.

Soup
What do you feel is your greatest responsibility?
At this moment? Getting a job! In general I think making sure I never lose my intergrity.

Salad
If you could have starred in any movie, which one would you have wanted to be in and why?
Lara Croft:Tomb Raider - I want Angelina's body. [No, not like that! Dirty Bird!]

Main Course
What is an expectation you had as a child about being an adult and, now that you are grown up, you realize you were wrong?
I thought I would be married and very financially set by this age. I thought once you had a degree in hand someone would just hand you a job.

Dessert
When was the last time you had your car serviced?
Uhh, my dad changes the oil and stuff, I have no clue when. He is very meticulous so I generally don't keep track. It's a good thing too because I don't have a clue when it comes to cars. I can't even change a tire.

ONE HELL OF A REJECTION

Well, I've been sending out resumes at a decent clip. This also means that I have been getting quite a few rejection letters back. I've gotten the "we'll keep your resume on file for 6 months/one year", "we don't have any openings", for awhile I got quite a few "your credentials are quite impressive, however... " [it's always the however that gets you] and I was prepared for this. A polite acknowledgment that they received my resume is really all I can hope for. I appreciate the gratuitous mini compliments, I'd like to know that my resume garners at least fake accolades. One memorable letter told me that they were not interested in someone with my level of experience and that they wanted to make it clear that "no further consideration will be given to your resume". Well gee, thanks, I guess that clears that up.

The best had to be today's letter. First off the firm opened with "As I am sure you know we are a small firm". Sorry, I don't consider a firm with twenty lawyers and 4 locations "small". It's not huge, but it is certainly not small either. Then they went on to tell me that they don't hire annually, but on an "as needed" basis. Well shucks, ya think?! I knew that. I was hoping they might have a need right now. They don't. The next sentence was "we don't need anyone" and it was phrased just like that! A regular laureate I tell ya. If they were not hiring I expected a polite rejection letter [or in many cases no response at all].

Well I didn't get the polite, flowery language "thanks but no thanks" letter. I got the letter that sounded like it was written by an eighth grader. But it gets better! Included with the letter was my resume and cover letter!! They sent it BACK to me!! Nice. Real nice.

UNPUBLISHED OPINIONS GAIN CREDIBILITY

Well it's about time!
Check out this interesting article from law.com:

Supreme Court Votes to Allow Citation to Unpublished Opinions in Federal Courts

It might be a good idea to look into your jurisdiction's unpublished opinion reporting system. I cannot speak for everywhere, but NJ's courts have been allowing citation to unpublished opinions for quite some time [depending on the judge from what I understand]. Such cases are routinely found via the daily digest called the Daily Decision Alert, which is an offshoot of the New Jersey Law Journal. Secondarily, Garden Staters can check out the Daily Briefing from the New Jersey Lawyer. [The former is a paid service, but a subscription gets you access to the entire past database of case summaries, then of course you pay per page for copies of the cases, the latter emails the summaries daily for free as long as you are a member of the NJSBA, case texts are also charged per page.]

I can't help it, the little researcher inside me is screaming for some sunlight .... I know I'm a law nerd, it's OK.

LINK FOR THE LADIES

I think the page name says it all .... Don't Date Him Girl.

Search the database or post a horror story of your own diabolical dating disaster .....

GOOD FRIDAY'S FEAST - APRIL 14, 2006

Appetizer
What movie soundtracks do you own?
More like which ones don't I own. I love the eccletic mix on soundtracks. One day I was in my car and realized that in the space of an hour I had listened to Spanish from Fools Rush In [which I had to have imported from the UK], Hindi from Bend it Like Beckam and French from Something's Got to Give. Some other favorites are Pretty Woman, Phenomenon and Coyote Ugly.

Soup
How much cash do you usually carry with you?
It depends, usually $40 or so [if I even have that much]

Salad
Are you more comfortable around men or women? Why?
Women, I don't know why. I'm self conscious I guess.

Main Course
What is the most mischievous thing you remember doing as a child?
By mistake I once spilled nail polish remover on my mother's dresser and it ruined the finish. On purpose, not much, unless you count smoking in the woods when I was a young teenager.

Dessert
Who is the funniest member of your family?
My brother, hands down.

UPDATE: I finally remembered some mischevious things I did as a child. Once when I was about four and my brother was two we decided to make homemade orange juice while my parents slept in. I gave my brother a very large butcher knife to cut up oranges. My poor mother almost had a fit when she saw us.

I also put my fist through the glass door in front of the house one day when my brother locked me out.

As you can see my "bad" moments usually involved my brother as either the catalyst or the accomplice. He got me back years later when he used my bunny slippers to buff his car!

THREE IS A MAGICAL NUMBER

A hearty and boisterous CONGRATULATIONS to two of my favorite blawgers, TAN and E. Spat, who both got jobs on the same day!!!

These things happen in threes right?? Can I be the third? Pretty please!

I MUST LOOK LIKE AN IDIOT

I must look like an idiot. It seems that way anyway. Today I was taught how to answer a phone while already on another call (ask the first party to hold, ya think?! Of course that would require getting a word in edgewise) and it was also explained to me how to type data onto a form template. (You mean you put the purchase order number where it says PO# ?? Well gosh darn!) At least these people are nice about it, except the owner who has the patience of a hummingbird on a meth/’roid cocktail. I really want to hand him a copy of my resume, especially after the comment about how he didn’t want me typing up the overseas shipping labels because it might be “too complicated” and required “attention to detail”. In all fairness he doesn’t know my background (nor does he care to know apparently) and as nice as everyone has been (sincerely they have been) I wouldn’t be happy anywhere unless it was in the legal field. I really must stop this whining. It is not getting me anywhere. Only a few more days to go, then I get to go visit friends in PA for the holiday weekend. Ahhhhhhh.

In other, non related, news I saw a truck on the highway after work. It had HUGE tires like a monster truck, a license plate frame that said “Eats RAMS and shits Chevies” (it was a Ford). It also had metallic flames on the front and back end and a front, fake plate that said “FATBOY”. I managed to be both in front of and behind this mammoth vehicle at different points of my trek. The piece de resistance (and I did a double take when I saw this) were the pair of silver, metallic testicles hanging from the back hitch.

Talk about a classy ride!

BEING OLD[er]

*sigh* and suddenly this month I am old[er]. I am trying not to dwell on the fact that I am this age and I still shack w/ the parentals and I am currently job hunting - again. Let's just try to focus on the positive shall we .... any gifts of gerbera daisies or diamonds are welcome. ;)

Your Birth Month is April

You are trustworthy and highly ethical in all facets of life. Helpful and steady, you are able to solve any problem. Your soul reflects: Bliss, playfulness, and curiosity Your gemstone: Diamond Your flower: Sweet Pea or Daisy Your colors: Yellow and red

What Does Your Birth Month Mean?

BACK IN THE SADDLE AT THE DESK AGAIN

Tonight I found myself sitting at a desk, laptop humming away, pen and highlighter at the ready; listening to a lecture on Family Law. Yes, CLE [Continuing Legal Education for the non legal eagles] has finally begun. Here in NJ the first three years are required and everything after that is “optional”. The first year is a series of lectures, 6 hours each on 6 different topics. I was actually on time, nay I was an hour EARLY for class. [Someone please give my law school roommate smelling salts after reading that, she is going to need them.] I had so looked forward to these lectures for the past year as they meant that I had finally passed the bar. However, now I have decidedly mixed feelings. I am grateful to have something legal going on in my mind, however it is also a HUGE reminder that I am not working in the legal field.

I found being in a classroom setting pleasantly familiar. There were 4 years of college, 3 yrs of law school and then the dreaded BAR/BRI summer and then my own self imposed study sessions the following summer. I am quite at home in that setting. Going to CLE was strangely relaxing since it was familiar and I didn’t have to worry that I was suddenly not going to know what to do or how to behave. It made me consider, ever so briefly, going back to school. Then I decided that was a ridiculous notion. I like “school” because it is familiar, but all I have to do is talk to a friend who is a 3L to remember the mayhem of classes and papers and exams that I was all too ready to leave behind when I graduated. My life has been so off track and tumultuous recently it is no wonder that I crave the calming familiarity of being a student, it is what I have done most of my life.

Being in class was a little like being a 1L again. I’m not talking about the material, I’m talking about this irrational fear I had that someone wearing a black suit and dark shades, a la MIB, was going to find me in the halls and tell me that some mistake had been made. I was not supposed to be admitted. I refused to put my institution’s sticker on my car my entire 1L year for fear that I would be sent home because I didn’t belong or worse, flunk out. I didn’t want to jinx myself. I felt that way tonight. All I could think was that most of the people in that lecture had passed the bar exam on their first time, and that they were all blissfully working for firms now, while I am stuck temping. Could they see it in my eyes? Smell it on my clothes? Did they know I spent the day reading this book and answering phones for some non-descript company rather than steeped in legal issues and knee deep in lexis cases? I even went so far as to carefully select my outfit. I didn’t want to be overdressed and therefore uncomfortable for the three hours, but I also didn’t want anyone to realize I didn’t spend the day drafting motions and making court appearances. I picking a simple, yet tasteful blouse and pants. It was part of an outfit that you could wear on its own or throw a blazer on and be ready for court. Of course I didn’t remove the blazer from my closet this morning, there was no court appearance. I bet no one noticed or cared. I bet there was at least one other unemployed lawyer in that room. I hope so. Not that I wish ill will on anyone, I just don’t want to be all alone in my inadequacy.

It’s silly, but it’s also sad. I want so much to clear this final hurdle and do what I always dreamed I could. I am gun shy now after my most recent employment experience. I never, ever doubted that I would be a great lawyer someday. I feel like I have been groomed for it my entire life. Was I wrong all this time?

FRIDAY'S FEAST - APRIL 7, 2006

Appetizer
Name a trait you share with your parents or your children.
I can be stubborn and outspoken. I'm also a tad of a control freak.

Soup
List 3 qualities of a good leader, in your opinion.
Courage, intelligence and maturity.

Salad
Who is your favorite television chef?
That's a tough one. I like Rachael Ray because she is perky and Paula Deen because she seems warm and friendly [some of her recipes are fantastic, but really who wants to eat all that mayo and butter?!]. However, if we are going by recipes alone I have to say Ina Garten. I met her briefly once and she was not friendly at all, although it might have been because she had an unusually long day, but her recipes are excellent and her sense of style for a dinner party is to die for. Some other favorites are Giada De Laurentiis and Michael Chiarello. Can you tell I like the Food Network?!

Main Course
Share a story about a gift you received from someone you love.
My father gave me a tiny ring with a diamond chip in it and a dozen roses on the day I was born. He told my mother he wanted to be the very first man in my life to give me flowers and jewelry.

Dessert
How do you react under pressure?
It depends. Usually I cry [because I'm a crier] then I get ahold of myself and get the job done.

DO I SOUND ASIAN?

Someone from Malaysia found this blog using "bitchy chinese girl blog".

Bwahahahahahahahah!

For some reason I find this hysterical.

TEMPING IS ON HIATUS

Well, my uber annoying temp job ended last week. I was anxious for it to end because I thought I might have to throw that girl who was "training" me out the window. Things got really tense, but they did get a world better once she went off to her new position and left me to answering the phones and scanning documents all by my lonesome. I really thought I was going to lose it when she continually asked everyone in various departments if they had any "busy work" for "the temp". Keep in mind I was sitting right next to her and wanted to scream in her ear, "I have a NAME you stupid wench!", but I behaved.

My blood pressure also rose significantly when she explained to me in detail how to make a photocopy. "First you put this face down on the glass. Then you close the lid. Then you press the green button." I guess I'm lucky she didn't try to teach me my colors first so that I would know which button was the green one. I decided not to inform her that I had worked in very large law firms where they have huge machines the size of rooms that do everything from copy to collate to staple. I used one machine for awhile that I swear would have made me popcorn and knitted a sweater if I had known which buttons to push. In any event, I suppose I wouldn't have minded so much if she had not said EVERYTHING with smug condescention.

However, one incident did give me pause. A member of the marketing team asked if I would mind proofreading something for an upcoming conference. She asked if I had any experience doing that sort of thing. I explained that I had edited law review articles and a textbook in law school so proofreading and copyediting was no problem. She was overjoyed. Miss Know It All chimed in "well if you need any spellchecking done, I got over 700 on my verbal SATs". That's when I decided to feel sorry for her. Initially I didn't know if her personality was due to some deeply hidden insecurity or if she was just a nasty person, however that comment exposed her. I don't know anyone who openly brags about their SAT scores, especially post college. Yet, that was all she had to offer up. I could have made a comment about my LSAT scores or my bar exam experience, but I let it go. I felt sorry for her after that. The position I was in was temporary and I hated it but I knew it was a finite exile from my dream job of being a lawyer. It dawned on me that my purgatory was her life. It was easier to deal with her after that. Don't get me wrong, being around her was still like nails on a chalkboard, but I wanted to pummel her less and pity her more.

I was so anxious to escape that assignment [despite everyone else I came in contact with being really great] that I failed to consider that once that assignment was over there might not be another one immediately available. Thus, I am completely jobless at the moment. One day last week the director of HR came to me and said that the good news was they found a permanent replacement, and the bad news was I was done temping for them. I expected that and I was appreciative of the fact that she came and told me personally. She told me that she thought it would be rude to just let me walk out and have the agency call me and tell me since over the phone, she was in the same building. And here is what really struck me; I was a temporary receptionist for a little over a week and a half and yet this woman who owed me nothing was more considerate and more professional towards me than Boss Man. How sad.

One other noteworthy item from that position. I purposely did not tell people in general that I am an attorney. I have found that reactions can be weird. Some people immediately assume you think you are better than they are, while others shun you completely. Other people gum onto you as if you have some innate power that they hope will rub off on them. I did mention it to a few people when it came up in conversation. Apparently I must have mentioned it to someone who was friendly with the CEO because he came striding over to me on my last day very purposefully. "You have been here over a week and I just now found out that you are an attorney!" I was amused. He acted like I was a secret agent and he had blown my cover. "Well I wasn't keeping it a secret." He looked flustered at this comment. I had tried, several times, to start conversations with him to no avail. He had either brushed me off or completely ignored me. It was more out of boredom than anything. I was looking for intellectual covnersation and I have never been one to cower in the presence of a big name partner, the president of the company or anyone else. We all put our pants on one leg at a time. But I digress ...

He responded to my comment with something along the lines of, "well, I guess that's my fault. I never really talk to you." Bingo buddy. However, now that he knew I had spent upteen years sitting in a classroom apparently I was worthy enough to be spoken to. His next comment was, "Let me get this straight, you went to four years of college, three years of law school and you passed the bar and now you are my temporary receptionist??" To which I replied with a cold stare, "Thank you SO much for rubbing it in. I really appreciate that."

Suddenly he became the nicest man. He said he knew some lawyers who were friends and I was to make sure to email him my resume immediately upon my return home. He reminded me of this several times throughout the day. One of the vice presidents [in a totally unrelated conversation] also found out I was an attorney and offered to pass along my credentials. I guess you never can tell about people.

I didn't make a big deal about it being my last day, after all I had only worked there a little over a week. I was surprised to find that some people thought I was the permanent replacement, while others remarked that they were sad to see me go. That was a nice feeling after the abrupt and stressful way I left my last position. I have to keep reminding myself that the small firm I was in was an odd situation. I have sought the honest input of friends, family and fellow attorneys. Everyone seems to agree that I didn't do anything wrong and that if I was deemed a wonderful employee one day and horrible the next then it could not have possibly been my fault that I was let go. [Hello TANGENT, how did we get here?? Oh well, nothing to do but run with it ...]

I really hope that if/when I start getting interviews I don't convey how tentative I feel right now. I've always thought I would be a great lawyer, and my skills, while in need of polishing, are pretty darn good [if I do say so myself], but my confidence is not running real high these days. I need to remember that I am a capable person and that, eventually, I will have an opportunity to convince someone else of that.

PERSONAL DNA

Well THIS was more enlightening than any other "quiz" I have found online. Below is a picture that represents my personal DNA. I've given you the full version, whereby you can scroll your mouse over each color to see what it represents. Apparently I have a high level of authoritarianisn and a slightly below average level of confidence - simply shocking. Not.

In any event, those of you who want to check out my results, feel free to go HERE.

Encouraging Experiencer

THANK YOU CAPTAIN OBVIOUS

I know I am a little late to the game in posting this article from the National Law Journal [via law.com], but it's noteworthy enough that it doesn't matter.

Bar Exam Failures are on the Rise

I think my favorite would have to be the closing line;

"The hardest part of passing is not worrying about it,"... YA THINK?!

OMG THAT'S ME!

Wow, I'm a law school archetype. I really cannot deny it, I'm a Lucy!