Lucky to be coming home again

I fell off the blogging wagon so long ago that I don't even know where to begin. So much has changed and so much seems to be on the horizon. I certainly don't want to jinx myself, but at the same time, I want to acknowledge how incredibly happy I am.

So, first off, Kris and I are a week away from our first wedding anniversary. Just writing that makes me giddy. It really feels incredible to have someone so close to me, every day. Someone who actually wants to be with me, to love me, to hold me, forever. There are times when it all seems to good to be true. Times when I look at this woman, sitting across from me on the couch and wonder, "what on earth did I do to deserve her?" I realize this sounds cheesy, but it's so true! [I can also picture Kris' reaction to this comment being something close to "whatever!"] Kris can roll her eyes and deny this all she wants, but that doesn't change it for me. I feel like I have gone through so much to get to where I am now. I never thought it was possible to find someone who understood me, who challenged me, who made me feel loved, and who pushed me to be a better person. And yet, Kris embodies all of those. The intensity with her has always been amazing - and it still is, even as we settle into married life. There is still that charge for me. That desire to just take her in my arms, touch her, and carry her away from everything that is weighing her down. Anyway.... ha. I'll finish those thoughts in my head. ;)

But really, I feel blessed to have her and honored that she chose to share her life, her world, her past, her future, with me.

The other good bit of news that definitely needs to be documented is that I PASSED THE BAR! The results came in on October 16th. I found out through my father, of all people. I had mentioned to him that they would be posting the results that week on a website and he went and found this site and began monitoring it all the time. So he called me at work the afternoon of the 16th and said "go check that website you told me about." I knew where he was going with this, but I played along. He was so excited and I think he felt like he'd won a prize for finding it, just as important as the prize of me passing. As soon as I found out I called Kris. She was so thrilled!! We were both just smiling from ear to ear, dumbfounded by the news. My dad had asked if he could call my mom and tell her and I let him have that, seeing as he was the one to discover the news first. :)

I was sworn in before the Supreme Court of Virginia on October 27th. Kris and I drove down to Richmond and the swearing in took place at the Convention Center. The whole thing took a few hours, since we had to sit through a couple of speeches, as well as everyone's name being individually announced. It was surreal, tho. All this hard work. Countless hours of studying. And in a moment, it was all over. I crossed the line and became a lawyer. Pretty crazy.

Here is a shot of me in front of the "photo op" they set up:

So really, life has been great. I get so much more time at home with Kris now that I'm not studying for the bar, or going to class. It's as if I am getting a whole new view of the world. What else could a girl want?

growing up

today was the first day where there was an actual chill in the air when i went to my car. i know its still early to hope that the weather is finally changing, but i figure this has got to be a good sign that we are getting close. i am looking forward to when kris and i can sleep with the windows open. we have been enjoying the illusion of having them open ever since we bought a noise machine that makes what i like to call "bug" noises, but are really more appropriately called something like "night sounds". its a symphony of crickets and cadydids (?) and miscellaneous chirping. as odd as it may sound, it really is soothing to listen to. it makes you feel like you are in the middle of the county, rather than in the city, surrounded by asphalt and congestion.

so far i am settling in quite nicely to my new office. i have hung some pictures and brought in some nicnacs from home to populate the shelves. i also have a new plant. her name is bella. i am trying not to kill her. she was an impulse purchase at ikea yesterday. im baffled as to how they keep any of their plants alive, considering they all live in the lower level of the building and dont seem to come anywhere near sunlight. im hoping that makes bella hardier and i will have a much more difficult time killing her.










what else?... lets see, the other day i participated in a workshop that was organized through equality maryland. i had originally thought that it was being run by them, but it turns out that it was being facilitated by a little, santa-ish looking member of the church congregation where the workshop was being held. so my initial belief that i would just be there to notarize things and maybe answer a few questions was erased when i walked into the room to see two chairs sitting at the front of the room - one for me and one for santa. eek! everything turned out fine, of course. i tend to do fairly well in situations like this. there ended up being about 20 people there and i answered alot of questions. afterwards people came up to me and thanked me and said i was extremely helpful. they congratulated me on graduating (which was announced when i was officially introduced!) and seemed very genuine.

just this week i was forwarded an email from equality maryland that the attorney in my office who sent me to the workshop had received. it was very nice - they loved having me and wanted to know if i'd be available to do another workshop in october! pretty nice! i like knowing that i did a good job. im definitely going to try to do more work with equality maryland - even tho i won't be licensed here, it will be nice to keep up strong connections.

in other news, my diploma arrived this week! i shall leave you with wonderful (and small) pictures of it's splendor. :) it really is nice to finally have proof of my hard work.

let's do this

so, tonight i am going to be part of a workshop that was scheduled by Equality Maryland. i'm supposed to be there to help answer questions about two new pieces of legislation that passed and went into effect on July 1, 2008. One has to do with a transfer recordation tax exemption for domestic partners and the other is health care visitation rights for domestic partners. i've spent the last week familiarizing myself with the legislation and the affidavits that have to be signed by folks wanting to take advantage of their new rights. it's all pretty interesting!

i'm nervous, but excited. i'm just hoping that it all goes well!

No time to think

I had such high hopes of blogging my way through my bar review experience. I really did. The problem I've developed is that, by the end of the day, I am so tired and worn out that I don't have the energy to recap my day. What it comes down to is that I don't really want to think about my day, once it's over. I do so much and yet I feel like I am nowhere near where I should be. Everybody gives you a conflicting story too. Bar/Bri has this strict "Paced Program" to follow. It basically tells you everything you should be doing every day of the week. I like the structure it provides. I basically take what they give me and fill up my day planner with small blocks of time devoted to each assignment. PMBR, on the other hand, makes it sound like I should be doing 50 MBE questions IN ADDITION to everything else. Now, to do 50 MBEs, I have to devote an hour and a half just to take the test, and then another hour and a half to review the answers. That's three hours in addition to the 4 hours I'm in class, the 3 hours it takes to review and summarize the notes from class, the hour it takes to do the MBE questions assigned by Bar/Bri, the hour it takes to do the sample essay questions, and the roughly 2 hours it takes for me to travel to and from class. Oh, and the time that's needed to eat meals, shower, and speak with my wife. God forbid I try to make time for that!

I dunno. I've just felt depressed lately. It's affecting my ability to study properly, eat properly and think positively.

Just over a month to go. I have to keep chanting that to myself!

the cost of pain

i've gotten back my postcard from the virginia board of bar examiners. i've got it tucked away now in a folder for safe-keeping. not that i ever think i'll have to present it to anyone, but you never know.

this morning i registered for the 6 day pmbr course that starts the day after graduation. so much for having a break between the end of my job and the start of bar/bri. as it stands right now, my last day of work will be may 9th, graduation is on may 11th and pmbr starts on the 12th. the class goes from 9:00 am to 3:30 pm and runs until saturday the 17th. bar/bri starts on the 19th. sigh. it's going to be a rough summer - i can see it now.

throughout everything i have done to prepare for taking the bar, i have been amazed at how expensive things are. places like bar/bri and pmbr capitalize on the fears of all the law students and end up charging gobs of money for these preparatory classes. i swear it's a conspiracy. sigh.

outta my hands

okay, i did it. it's been sent by certified mail with return receipt. i included a postcard for them to datestamp too. when it comes to this shit, i'm not taking any chances!

time to hit up the post office

So I’ve completed my bar application and the character and fitness questionnaire. It’s sitting on the corner of my desk. I haven’t sealed the envelope because I have this horrible fear that I’ve filled everything out wrong and that I’ve somehow managed to leave out a pile of uber important documents that needed to go with it.

Sigh.

I am 99.9% sure that I have everything I need in that envelope, but that last .01% is causing a lot of anxiety! Sheesh.

I’ve just got to do it. Tape it shut. Walk it to the friggin post office and let it go. I have to keep telling myself that if there is anything wrong with it, or anything missing from it, I still have time to correct things.

In addition to the panicking and stress related to the application, I have also been worried a lot about the whole “dress code” thing. I wish I could just know whether or not they would have a problem with me wearing a suit – I’d leave off the tie if that would make things easier. I just worry since Virginia is such a conservative state that their dress code warning of “men in suits and women in skirts or pants” is meant to be strictly adhered to. What about us butch women!? There must be some butch, somewhere, who has taken the Virginia bar exam and can guide me through this. I don’t want to have to buy a woman’s suit just to wear that day. But I also don’t want to push my luck and wear what I would consider to be my normal court attire and be asked to leave the bar exam.

That would suck.

In other news, I am a little nervous about this so-called job offer that my boss was talking to me about a few months ago. It seems less of a sure thing that I thought it was. There are four partners in the firm and the one I primarily work for (a 60 yo lesbian attorney) was the one who had started talking to me about how she thinks I could come back after the bar exam and be a law clerk and then transition into being an associate. It seems that she might be the only one who had this grand idea, though. Yesterday I was talking to one of the other partners and she was asking what I was going to do after the exam (ie. hang out my own shingle, interview at big firms, etc) and when I told her that I’d love to stay here, she made a comment to the effect of: we don’t need you. Or maybe she was trying to say “we don’t need a Virginia lawyer,” or maybe “we just don’t want another attorney, let alone you.” So here I’ve been, pretty confident that I had the whole job thing taken care of, when really, there is nothing set.

What irks me the most is that my boss would actually plant this seed of hope within me when she hasn’t talked to the other partners about it. They might all veto the idea and now I’ve lost out on months of job searching. I’m having lunch with my boss tomorrow to try to sort things out. She said she would poll the partners soon so that I could know one way or the other.

At this point I just want to know. If I need to plan for months of unemployment, then I need to know this as soon as possible. Blah.

i have almost all of the virginia bar application completed. right now i think there are just a couple blanks i still need to fill in - mostly related to my student loan balances. i also need to get my passport photos taken, so i have to find the time to leave work for a little bit and head over to a shop nearby to have them done. it's not that big a deal, but it's just a hassle.