Frequent Citations

Abandon Ship!

Only a few days remain before school starts again. Yes, everyone else started months ago. My school has schedule issues. Anyway, the point is this: summer is over and I am as stressed out as ever. I may be at the people-are-looking-at-me-funny level of stressed-outedness. Perhaps, I'm thinking, it would not be a bad idea to relax a wee bit before classes actually start, and never mind that I have class reading assignments already.

So I'm begging for an extension on my LR assignment, which I would need anyway, and heading over to my brother's house for a few days where I can sit in a hot tub, guzzle festive beverages, see my parents, and generally remember what it's like to be a person rather than an automaton. Posting may be light over the next few days.

I checked with my brother to see if he had adequate supplies of vodka. He informs me he's swimming in the stuff. We're good!

Poor, Sore Brain

Yesterday was Law Review Boot Camp, all day long. It was exhausting -- too much information, too many decisions to make (we picked cite checks). By the time it ended most of us were zombies. I went home and crashed for a couple of hours before I could even hold a conversation.

But I blew off the LR party (sorry, guys) and went to see Little Miss Sunshine with Boy and TFL. We loved it. TFL didn't sleep at all, even though we went to the late show, so that tells you a lot about how good it was.

And today has been lots of intensely detailed work for my summer job, and a certain amount of firm research for the upcoming fun and games known as OCI, heaven help us all.

So my brain hurts. A lot. I am now, however, going to take off to see my old band. Yay!

Rethinking OCI

I had lunch with a friend of mine who happens to be a BIGLAW partner. He said some interesting things, things I hadn't heard (or hadn't heard put as frankly) elsewhere.

So now I'm rethinking my OCI bids -- now that the schedule is set, and now that the only way to get a slot with some of these firms is to sign up in a brief window before the day they come, and now that some of them don't have any slots left anyway.

Although, people cancel. Slots open.

Anyway. My main concern is to get A Job, something to do next summer and, I hope, many years to come.

Apparently, I have the instincts of a litigator. I blame my brothers. I had to learn to defend myself early and often.

So One-Of-A-Kind Very Unique

Unique, pregnant, dead -- conditions not subject to gradations of degree.

I was told twice at the beginning of my interview that I'm unique. And I have a unique resume. Yes?

How do I respond? "Thank you" seems wrong. "Duh" seems rude. "I aim to please" seems... weird, very weird.

Here's the wrap-up from the mock-interview, besides the unique remark:

• I have to relax. All those years of my mother and grandmother yelling at me telling me sweetly to sit up straight -- all for naught. I am to sit back in my chair and look at ease.
• I have to be chattier. No terse answers. Elaborate!
• I have to be confident. I have to protray that I am tickled to be there and they are even more tickled to have the chance to interview me.

Yeah.

And I have to round up my references, which possibly means getting back in touch with one of my old bosses. Has anyone ever had a perhaps slightly ... odd... former boss? Who is a bit unpredictable? And could be the most charming and gracious reference in the world or could be a nightmare?

Right, y'all have several questions to answer now.

A Bad Dress Rehearsal Means . . .

After your electricity goes out, try not to reset your clocks by a watch that is running slow. About an hour and a half slow.

Instead of having time to walk the dog a few miles before doing a long and careful morning beauty routine I had barely enough time to shower, throw my hair back, slap on some foundation and grab my suit. I discovered that my suit has a spot on it and I'm not happy with the way the dry cleaner pressed it last time. This is not how I envisioned getting ready for my dress-rehearsal interview.

On the other hand, it's not all that atypical for me. I'm almost there, and yet so far from prepared.

"What's your greatest weakness?"

"General scattiness, for which I try to compensate by taking extremely quick showers and BS-ing my way through instead of fully preparing for anything."

Erm. Now that I'm here I have a few hours to catch my breath, get some tea, and work. The interview room is conveniently about five steps from my desk.

I may also spend some time admiring my new shoes. Shiny!

OCI Update: Interview List

Days ahead of schedule, they published the list of our interviews. I got nearly all of my bids -- this could be a problem. I definitely do NOT want to interview with that many firms!

Mostly the times look okay, and none of the interviews are back to back so that's good.

But if I cancelled those two that are late on Friday, I could get a long weekend...

The Self-Deprecator Of The Year Award Goes To...

Frequent Citations!

More like the Lifetime Achievement Award, apparently.

As I mentioned yesterday, practice interviews began this week. I had my first one today and had mostly forgotten about it until half an hour before it was supposed to start. Urp! Rushed to the computer lab to print out resume and some writing sample options, gave a quick look at the questions I was supposed to be prepared to answer, and off I went.

Sit up straight! Don't fidget! Eye contact and a firm handshake! Yeah, yeah. I didn't even pick my nose. Nevertheless, I bombed. No, really -- I kept finding myself in the middle of an answer thinking "Nonononono that's SO not what I want to say!" But anyway.

The woman doing the mock-interview today knows me fairly well. We've talked a bunch of times, sometimes about law stuff and sometimes about random and interesting bits of life. So when we finished with the 10 minutes or so of mock-interviewing, she asked, "Citations, what happened to you? Where's your enthusiasm? Your power? Your confidence? I've heard you talk about this stuff before so I know you can do well -- you should be blowing this interview out of the water!"

Um, I'm trying so hard not to jiggle that I've slipped into a coma? I'm clueless how to answer some of these questions and it takes me a few minutes to think of a BS answer? I forgot to put on my "I'm a machine-like lawyer" role?

Note to self: remember that I come from a long line of performers. Sharpen up those acting skills! I'm not a world-class successful lawyer, but I can play that role.*

Naval Gazing

Rosy-fingered dawn was smooth and heavily shaded with orange today. Beautiful, of course.

Practice interviews start this week. That means I have to print out the list of interview-type questions and actually think through some answers. I'd prefer to do something a little more fun, such as plucking every hair from my eyebrows, but I don't think that would get me very far in my interview preparations.

I wish I could go into the interviews and say,

"Look here. Yes I'm older than anybody else you're seeing. I'm also done having kids, so you won't have to worry about maternity leave or that I'll suddenly decide that fulfilling my destiny means staying at home and making cupcakes. Been there, done that, enjoyed it -- but it's time to move on. Being older also means that I know a thing or two about what working for a living is like. I don't expect fun and games, I don't think it's my god-given right to leave work at 5:00 every day, and I won't freak out at the idea of working over a weekend.

"Do I have the stamina of a 24-year-old trixie? Probably not, but I won't be wasting what stamina I do have by staying out until 4 am on a work night. At least, not very often. Besides, I'm a work horse. I'll work my tail off for you and stamina or no stamina, I'm pretty darn efficient so what does it matter?

"So ignore my age. (Ignore my first quarter grades too, please, and just feast your eyes on Property. Thanks.) Don't assume that I want a cushy job for the next few years and then I'll retire to do good works or knit or something. I don't need to retire to do those things. I have no intention of retiring until I'm really really old, and I come from a long-lived family."

And if they have the nerve to ask me to describe myself in three words, perhaps I'll just borrow TFL's response:

I. Kick. Ass.

Wanted: Housekeeper

Here we go again -- mad football schedule and two out of three people in the house working full time means nothing, but nothing, gets done.

My big plan is to get French cds and listen to them while fussing about in the kitchen every day. I'll either make dinner or clean it up and brush up my French at the same time. I have about two and a half weeks to regain some conversational ability before OCI starts - hahahaha.

Seriously, we're going to get creamed. It doesn't matter how organized I am (and for all my good intentions I'm not all that organized about my home life) whatever efforts I make in that direction can get torpedoed by uncooperative family members in less time than you can say "Fire!" Which we had the other day, by the way. Just a small one. TFL put some bread under the broiler and wandered back outside without setting the timer. So we know the smoke alarm works.

Okay, I guess that's enough stream-of-consciousness blathering for one day. I have to get my blasted topic proposal done, which keeps trying to morph into something else. It might be nice to get a little work done today too.

How To Interpret Firm Websites

One of the (many) ways we're supposed to figure out which firms to list for our interview bids is looking at the websites. On the one hand, duh! You always want to know what a potential employer says about itself. On the other hand, they all say they're fabulous places to work with fabulous people and fabulous clients. And we're supposed to get from this what?

Then it occurred to me: law firm websites are in code, exactly the same way real estate ads are. When you're house-hunting, "charming" means "not enough room to swing a cat." When a firm says it looks for "intelligence, creativity, energy, pride, and commitment" it wants the top of the class and will work them like galley slaves -- bottom level galley slaves at that. Does the firm expect "singular dedication" from you? Sweatshop!

See, not so hard. Feel free to suggest more translations.