Beastmomma

I am terrified about experiencing my New England winter; I am nervous about constantly being cold and breaking something when I fall.  A few weeks ago, we lost power for two hours during a heavy rainstorm.  Partner started freaking out and telling me to put on more layers.  Last winter, he lost power for a week during an ice storm.   Since he grew up in Buffalo, New York, his fear of the impending winter does not make me feel good about my chances of thriving.

Fortunately, our local city government sent a notice in the mail with their plan for handling the winter weather ahead.  It included instructions for how the city prepares for snow fall and then removes the snow.  The more I read, the calmer I felt.  Who would have thought that a city's plan would make me feel much better about facing winter?

Today, I had lunch with one of the women from the book club that I started in town.  She works near Back Bay station, so it was relatively easy for me to get to her from my internship location.  Over lunch I was complaining that I do not have enough work to do at one of my internships; I spend so much time surfing the Internet that I feel like I am running out of things to do/look at and that makes me feel miserable.  She commiserated.  When I got back from lunch, I had a meeting with one of the attorneys who had been on vacation when I started.  My plan was to ask him how he got to the department and what projects he works on; I was going to offer to help and then smile politely when he told me that he had nothing for me to do.  Instead in the first few minutes of our conversation, he said that he had thought of a few things that may be of interest to me.  I listened to the project ideas and then felt EXCITED! We set up a time to meet again on Monday, so that I can have more of road map. A supervisor who wants to check in with you about a project is really such a simple thing, but I have come to realize that the simplest things really can make a difference in the quality of an experience.

During my bridal shower in MD, one of the games we played was a "who knows the bride best." I had been given questions prior to the party and the guests had to guess my response.  One of the questions was "When I was little what did I want to be when I grew up?"  When I was answering the question, I could only remember when I was in day care and I went around declaring that I was going to be president.  I also remembered my mother teasing me about how I was busier than the president in high school.   When the question was asked, the responses reminded me of who I had aspired to be so long ago.  I felt excited at how well people remembered my aspirations and a little sad at how quickly I had forgotten what I once I aspired to become. 

Some of the answers were teacher, social worker, lawyer, and writer.  One funny person said that I wanted to be Partner's wife which made everyone laugh.  While I did become a lawyer (almost), I found myself wondering what my life would be like if I had chosen one of the other career paths.  When I was talking with Sonja the other night, she asked if it was hard for me to give up being a writer or becoming an English teacher.  I told her that it was not hard because in college I did not do well in my classes and I found public health which was a career I did not even know about until I started exploring more.  While I sometimes wish that I was making my living by doing creative writing, I am slowly coming to realize that I may be all the things I once thought about becoming.  As a lawyer, I do hope to be a force for good and work towards social justice.  Part of the way I intend to do that is to teach my clients about the law and how to navigate the legal system or to change the legal system to make it more user friendly.  In order to accomplish those things, I will be doing some writing. 

I finally figured out that I want to be a lawyer which is exciting! I only hope that the MPRE and future bar results second that  motion.