New Kid on the Hallway

Second exam down

This one went better than my first - not because I have any confidence that I'll get a better grade on this exam than the first one (that's just out of my control), but today, at least, I had lots and LOTS of things to talk about. This time the problem was getting everything down in the time allowed, which I definitely didn't do; all I can do is hope that I managed to include enough of the most important things, or at least, more of them than enough other people did, to do decently in the class. 

I'd really like to do well in this class, because I enjoy the subject a lot, and the professor is one of my absolute favorites. If I could grow up to be as good at my job as she is at hers, I'd be a happy woman. (Seriously, the woman is amazing. I don't know anyone else who can make a subject crystal clear and yet simultaneously convey its utter complexity and ambiguity. She is also the absolutely perfect balance of terrifying and hysterical. One of my favorite moments of law school so far has been the zinger she delivered to one of my more, um, colorful classmates on the last day of class last spring. I'd share it, but anyone in the room that day would recognize her in an instant, and then I'd have to kill you.) But there's no point worrying about the grade, since I can't do anything about it now.

I did worry a little, mind you, when I ran into a BLIZZARD on the way to campus this morning. Always fun, when your commute looks like it might go kerplooey on the way to the exam. (I have the registrar's phone number in my cell phone for just such an emergency!) Thankfully, I had left early enough that I arrived in plenty of time. Still, I could have done without the snow. Still, again, I was better off than my classmate who went into the bathroom to barf right before the exam. 

On the way, because I was grumbly about being up so early, I got to thinking about my taxonomy of rising times, which looks something like this:

Getting up after 9 am: pure luxury, bordering on decadence
Getting up between 8 and 9 am: kind of late, nothing I could ever complain about having to do 
Getting up between 7 and 8 am: respectable - early enough to look virtuous, but still manageable without much pain
Getting up between 6 and 7 am: this is legitimately early. It requires enough effort to feel sorry for myself.
Getting up between 5 and 6 am: the buttcrack of dawn, which is painful. Yuck. I am hard done by indeed.
Getting up before 5 am: BEFORE the buttcrack of dawn. NO ONE should be up at this time. Alternately, why bother going to sleep? It is just AGAINST NATURE to have to be up at this time.

Conversely, going to bed before 9 pm is ridiculously early, between 9 and 10 pm is early but not unreasonably so, between 10 and 11 pm is a totally reasonable, between 11 and 12 pm is a little late but not irresponsible, between 12 and 1 am is legitimately late, and after 1 am is self-indulgent.

What about you - what's your sleep taxonomy look like?

(Oh, and by the way - it's SNOWING. AGAIN.)

Well, THAT sucked

First exam today. It was one of those tests where you know the major issues you're SUPPOSED to be addressing, but you really really really honestly can't find them in the facts presented to you. Whee. The only good thing is that while I don't discuss exams once they're done (take a hint, gaggle of 3L women who instantly started post-morteming the thing while still in the testing room - could you at least wait till you get outside?), my sense is that many of my classmates shared my bewilderment. I'm thinking, though, that this is one of the times I should be grateful for the curve (not because it's going to put me ahead of any of my classmates, but because I'm thinking my raw score would be about 60%, if I'm lucky).

So I stopped on the way home and bought bread, cheese, and chocolate. And I came home and ate it. And then I painted my nails with apple green tips and an iridescent top coat (I protest finals with non-lawyerly colors of nail polish). And I've accomplished nothing else today since. Rock on.

Probably won't be around here much till May 6th...

(courtesy of I Can Has Cheezburger)

 

I'm DONE! (partly) (well, a little)

Okay, the semester isn't over, I haven't taken any exams yet, and I still have to finish writing a seminar paper as well as finish my casenote. But my internship is FINISHED!!!!

Mind you, it was a very good experience, the people were really nice, and overall I liked it; I certainly learned a lot. (Not to be confused with alot.) But I worked two (full) days a week at it, and it is lovely to have that time freed up in my schedule. For the one week of the semester that remains before finals. Sigh. 

On a totally different note, after talking about suits in my last post, three of you lovely people alerted me to a couple of recent posts around the web about women lawyers and clothes (one post at Jezebel (mostly description) and one post at Feministe (very much commentary); there's also the original post they're responding to over at Above the Law).  It seems that the Chicago Bar Association held a meeting last week that included a session about what lawyers should and shouldn't wear. And I know you will all be shocked, SHOCKED to hear that there were a lot more "don'ts" for women than for men.

I don't remotely have the energy to go into the details of the advice that the Chicago Bar panelists gave out, and really, if you think of the most traditionally stereotyped advice for "professional" or "business" dress, you're probably pretty close to what they said. 

Now, I don't have a problem, in theory, with providing guidance about what's appropriate work wear and what's inappropriate. Especially for people who grew up in families where people weren't working professional jobs, such advice can be useful. There's a lot class privilege and gatekeeping involved in judging people on their clothing, in expecting people just to know what business-wear looks like. And NLLDH and I have noted before how some young women in college would wear ever-so-slightly inappropriately sexy clothes to, say, awards ceremonies or paper presentations. It's understandable, since students know they have to dress up for such occasions, and for many 19-21 year-old women, "dress up" clothes are what you wear to go out. There were times we really wanted to say something to these young women.

But. BUT. I DO have a problem, a HUGE problem, with telling women that they shouldn't wear clothes that are too revealing or sexy to work because they'll be working with married men and shouldn't distract them. (Yes, someone on the panel said that.) Pardon my language, but FUCK that noise. It is NOT my obligation to cater to men's apparently over-sensitive libidos. Men's sexual desire is their own, and not something that can be blamed on the women around them -- MEN own that, and MEN control it. That is NOT on me, no matter what I do (or don't) wear. 

When we've wanted to advise young women on clothes, it has NOT been because they would "distract" the men they work with. It's been because we knew, and know, that dressing "sexy" makes a young woman look younger and unprofessional, like she doesn't fit in to a professional setting, and we wanted these wonderful, smart, compassionate, enthusiastic women to succeed, and not to do anything that might help the unenlightened dismiss them in any way.

And I ALSO have a huge problem with saying that if a woman job candidate has a big engagement ring, she shouldn't wear it, because the women interviewing her will get jealous and angry. WHAT?? What? I don't even have the words to begin to say how completely wrong this is. 

So, yeah. I was going to say that this is depressing reminder of how much more conservative law is than academia, but then I remembered all the times I've read advice saying that women professors shouldn't dress too "sexy" in class because they shouldn't distract their students. Maybe not as different as I thought...

Suit obsession

So, I've been a little bit obsessed with suits since I started law school. I think this is partly because they're a visual symbol of the difference between legal and academic culture (which is a bit of an exaggeration, since profs certainly CAN wear suits - though the only time I usually saw anyone do so was at conferences - and many lawyers only wear suits if they're going to court - out here, at least, which is a pretty casual part of the world). But it's also partly because I actually needed suits, for interviews if nothing else - and of course I didn't have any (not having been the kind of academic who wore them). So my first suit (inexpensive) was bought on short notice because holy crap, I had an interview and I needed a suit! And so I took what I could find, which is black (fine), and polyester (fine, although this is not an especially fine varietal of the fabric and is starting to look a bit shiny/rubbed along the seams) and fits okay (the jacket is quite cute, but the skirt is weirdly big in the waist and pulls across the hips, which is usually NOT a problem I have, but the problem bits are hidden by the jacket). But it has not an ounce of stretch in it, which I especially prefer in jackets (because they get so confining under the arms), and in warm weather it was like wearing armor.

And it always felt like the interview suit. The suit I only bought because I needed a suit, not because I saw it and liked it and wanted it. The suit that I only wore when I was dressing up because I had to.

(My second suit got bought much the same way - I bought a really inexpensive suit from the Jones New York outlet because I desperately wanted something with stretch that wasn't so heavy, and the first time I wore it I realized that because of the stretch, it bagged out and became shapeless after about an hour or so.)

But earlier this semester I got the Talbots spring catalog, and lo! there were suits! that I liked! and wanted! because they were pretty suits, not because I needed a suit then and there! (This was especially exciting because last year Talbots was going through a wanna-be haute couture phase and had maybe three suit-like items that were on the, um, interesting side.)

I drooled over various of those suits for a few weeks, doing the usual agonizing about mixing and matching (I love that jacket but they don't make the matching skirt in the color I like; I love that skirt but they don't have it in my size; I love that skirt but the jacket that matches is hideous) (as an aside, who on earth thinks patch pockets look good on a jacket?? the only thing that's worse is patch pockets on a skirt). But I finally made some choices.

The first jacket that arrived didn't work at all. Lovely color, lovely fabric, made me look like a barrel. So I gritted my teeth and tried again.

And now? Now I am the ecstatic owner of a beautiful navy suit. That fits me like it was made for me. And is made out of a natural material. And has a nice little leavening of spandex. And feels like clothing that I wear because I WANT too, not because I HAVE to. I feel like ME in this suit.

The only damper on my joy? It was a pants suit, which is actually lovely for wearing and feeling like me in, but if I have interviews in more conservative quarters, I'm happier wearing a skirt.

And then tonight, as I sat awake surfing (the downside of the 2 hour nap in the afternoon), I took one last tour through Talbots' webpage and figured out that, glory be! the skirt I thought came in putty, gray, or black, actually came in putty, gray, or NAVY!! (Note to self: don't trust tiny swatches on computer screens.)

It's probably not a good idea to get in the habit of Internet shopping at 1:30 am, but this time round I'm really glad I did so.

Which is all a long-winded way of saying that I know money can't buy you love/happiness, but that occasionally there are those moments when you buy something that just makes you feel good - secure, confident, prepared, comfortable, happy - like at least one of your problems has been solved.

What about you? What was the last thing you bought (clothes or not) that solved a problem and made you happy?

Random bullets of Wow, I've had way too much caffeine

• I got a good table at the coffeeshop! All to myself! Score!
• Turns out, two of the really nice baristas at the coffeeshop are married. That kind of makes me go, Awww..., but also kind of surprises me, because they seemed all counter-culture (in a coffeeshop kind of way), the kind of people who wouldn't do something as bourgeois as get married. (Not to hate on marriage, people - I am myself married. But I would have a hard time defending myself against a charge of being bourgeois.)
• Every time I type "coffeeshop," it comes out "coffeeship."
• I should not be in the coffeeship, of course; I should be in class right now. And then I should be in class after that class (which I will likewise not be attending, seeing as the coffeeship is a 45-minute commute to law school). But I'm not, because I've got a bunch of text to spew on the page for a paper draft and, yet again, I'm doing it at the last minute. Perhaps I need to rethink my plan to take seminars throughout law school because writing is one of my strengths. Writing IS one of my strengths; but if I don't give myself enough time to research a topic, or and hence don't have enough to say, it doesn't really matter how good a writer I am.
• Part of my problem is, I think, that I'm used to writing on topics that I've been studying for fifteen years. By the time I left academia, it wasn't that hard to grind out, say, a K'zoo paper pretty quickly, because I had just a whole crapload of information about the Middle Ages floating around my brain. It might not have been a great paper, but it would have had, you know, content. So I keep thinking I can grind out law school papers the same way. Except that I have usually less than a semester's worth of knowledge on my law school paper topics. Granted, I don't have any LESS information than anyone else in a given class, but I think my expectations for how much work I need to do are skewed compared to those of my non-recovering-academic peers. As in, they probably actually work on this stuff more than I do.
• The other problem is that I keep thinking I've worked out a schedule I can handle, and then I add ONE MORE THING to it, and everything goes to hell.
• However, it would be much more productive just to WRITE MY DAMN PAPER than to, you know, speculate about how exactly I dig myself into the holes I find myself in. 
• ....And I just got up to collect the breakfast bagel they made me, and sat down at the wrong table. Boy howdy, can't you just tell this paper's going to be a paragon of clarity?