Bye-Bye 2006

Here's a brief year-end retrospective for my 2006.

January: Welcomed the new year with S, N, J, N, and others in B-Town; Took my first law school exams; Decided not to look at my grades along with ABS; Went to Israel and fell in love with it; Began second semester older and wiser; Applied for summer jobs in a panic after realizing that I still had none.

February: Went on a few interviews for summer jobs and decided to stay in N-Town for the summer; Hated contracts, and tax, and didn't like property very much either.

March: Worked on moot court brief; Struggled in tax; Skipped contracts; Visited Austin, Texas with then-Boyfriend and lived with his brother and niece; Battled allergies.

April: Competed in negotiations competition with ABS; Crammed as much tax as possible into my head before final exams; Chose courses for next year; Was contemplative and thoughtful about future directions, etc.

May: Studied like crazy; Took second set of law school exams, including contracts on no sleep; Enjoyed one day of leisure by watching the X-Men movies with ABS; Had a Week from Hell and the Worst Day of My Life with the Law Review competition; Drove to N-Town; Recovered.

June: Began new life as fighter for justice; aka summer intern at prosecutor's office; Loved everything; Realized that law school taught me very few practical skills; Watched a ton of trials; Hung out with Boyfriend and visited wineries, watched movies, etc.; Made my appearance in court; Celebrated 26th birthday; Hung out with parents and picked strawberries; Continued not looking at my grades.

July: Went to Vermont with Boyfriend over 4th of July weekend; Got better at my summer job; Got closer to my co-interns; Helped in a trial which unfortunately ended with hung jury; Did not make Law Review; Was disappointed; Got over it.

August: Ended my summer job with a lot of wistfulness; Traveled to Gen Con and hung out with ABS and friends, with some unexpected but sweet victories; Traveled to Scandinavia and visited Sweden, Norway, Denmark, and Finland; Went on a cruise for the first time; Ate too much herring; Saw fjords; Missed Germany.

September: Returned to C-Town; Began new semester; Decided to take 5 courses; began RAing; Started bidding for firms for OCI, and started interviewing while classes were going on; Suffered from chronic sleep deprivation;

October: Interviewing reached crescendo; Chose my callbacks; RAed for Prof. M like crazy; Became very familiar with the late-night bus drivers; Went on exactly 3 callback interviews, and got 3 offers, before cancelling the 5 interviews for the rest of the flyout week; Broke up with Boyfriend; Was depresse and scared; Got (partially) over it.

November: Relationship drama; Career and life angst; Ridiculous sleep deprivation; More drama; More angst. More sleep deprivation. Ay, November was a crazy month, but at least I got to have dinner with Justice Scalia.

December: After much agonizing, decided to go with NY firm rather than DC firm; Fell in love; Final exams again, this time with much less preparaton; Battled with evil comparative con law exam, with outcome unclear; Had severe sleep problems; Got new beautiful black MacBook; Bought untold amount of J Crew clothes; Went to Puerto Rico on a whim; Tanned myself; Hung out with parents; Retrieved my stuff from ex-Boyfriend on the second to last day of the year; Pleased about the clean break.

Yes, my life is certainly not simple these days, but after all this, and perhaps because of all this, I'm still intact, hopeful, idealistic, and reasonably happy. I am happy I came to law school. I am glad I made the decisions I did. I think I can do what I want to do with my life, with a littel bit of focus and effort. And I'm keeping my fingers crossed, but my heart open, about those things I cannot control or change.

This is something.

Dear readers, thank you for sharing the past year with me. I hope that you will have, -- that we will all have, -- an amazing, fantastic, lovely, and wonderful New Year. See you in 2007.