Lawyerish to Lawyerly

This is just the truthiest of truths for me, at the moment. A month ago, I had a whole update written 
about the job I had and taking the bar exam and all of my life changes. 
And a few days after I wrote aaaaaaaall of that out, my life changed again: 
I got a new job that looks to be long-lasting. I passed that bar exam (!!!). I started that new job.
So the Texas version of that well-used Gatsby quote: life started all over again when it got below 90° in the fall. 

A quick recap, because I hate to trash a decent blog draft:
Life got away from me again. But this time I have the best excuse ever: THE BAR EXAM.
(It is completely necessary to use all caps when referring to THE BAR EXAM. It's out of my hands.) 
It is, without a shadow of a doubt, the dumbest thing I have ever done in my entire life. 
I may end up recapping the full BAR EXAM experience in a future post,
but I still need some time to work through my PTSD. 

For now, I'm working a semi-lawyer job in the oil & gas industry.
Which, given my background, makes complete sense, right? 😐
Unfortunately, I don't get to wear a cute pink hardhat to work, but I'm now comfortable using oil & gas jargon in real life.

LOL oil, right?

I know where the major shale fields are located, people trust me to work on deals worth crazy amounts of money, and I don't immediately starting giggling when someone talks about the unit they're working on.
So I'm basically an adult. 
Also, I work in an office where half of the employees have "Make Oil and Gas Great Again" hats, 
so it's been a nice change of pace from the liberal hell of law school. 

However, I will always & forever assume "OG" means Original Gangster, and not Oil & Gas.
That's just who I am as a person. 


And now! Now I am a pirate. A pirate lawyer. A lawyer for pirates. A maritime attorney. Something like that.

I get to go on ships! I get to travel! I get to refer to people as Admiral! It's all very exciting. 
Eventually, I will maritime and admiralty with the best of them, but being a baby lawyer is exhausting and stressful 
and a very steep learning curve. 
For now, I do my research: Moby Dick, The Odyssey, Old Man & the Sea, Finding Nemo. 
All the greats, obviously. With rum in hand. 
No one ever accused me of not committing to the theme. 

"Am I Even Allowed Here?" Is the Title of My Biography

So...hi. It's been awhile. Weird how that happened. Am I even allowed back?

Let's all blame it on Obama and have a moment of silence for his failed presidency & final days in office (not that we're counting down or anything). 

And now let's refocus on me:

I start my final day of law school tomorrow. 

WHO LET THIS HAPPEN. 

Remember when I went to law school - on a whim - just to avoid having to be an adult?

Nobody told me it would go so quickly and adulthood would once again loom menacingly on the horizon!

Quick recap of the minuscule, teeny, so-slight-you-must-have-imagined-it time during which I neglected dear old blog (and the reason for the title of this post):

I spent a fair amount of the spring semester secluded in my journal office studying into the wee hours of the morning, repeatedly asking the security guard if it was okay for me to be there at such weird times. 

For the first half of the summer, I worked as a law clerk at a small firm, where I was treated horribly and given far more responsibility than I felt ready for. Weekly happy hour was spent checking that everyone else felt just as inadequate and not-at-all-prepared-for-real-life (misery loves company and whatnot.)

I interned in a court during the second half of the summer, and I got to sit with the bailiff during a capital murder trial. Naturally, I asked anyone who even remotely appeared to be a responsible adult if I should be there because aRE YOU KIDDING ME THERE WAS A MURDERER IN THE ROOM WITH ME I PROBABLY SHOULD HAVE CALLED MY MOM FOR PERMISSION.

In the fall, I took on far too many responsibilities and people kept coming to me for advice, so I learned the fine art of inwardly asking if I should even be here ("here" being law school, in a position of authority, adulthood, etc.). I also learned exactly how quickly I can finish an entire bottle of wine and still wake up in time to fight downtown Houston traffic. 

And now we are here. 

The start of my final semester. 

If you are wondering what spring semester of 3L looks like:

 And if you are wondering what spring semester of 3L feels like, it's a combination of:

and

The next few months of this blog will likely look eerily similar to the first few months of this blog - a desperate search for a job, figuring out what I want to do in life (this time focused on lawyerly stuff), and a lot of feigned-but-often-very-real apathy. 

My saving grace: remembering some of the folks who failed even harder than I did for even longer than I did. 

• Kristen Wiig: job-hopped (probably a barista, TBH) until SNL found her at age 32
• JK Rowling: unemployed & super depressed before HP was published when she was 31
• Andrea Bocelli: went to law school & worked as a lawyer for a year before being discovered AND LEFT THE LEGAL FIELD BEHIND TO JUST SING HIS LITTLE HEART OUT (obviously my personal fave)

Wish me luck! Or send wine. Whatever. 

Except now I'm 26. EXCEPT NOW I'M 26.