I'm sorry that my most recent posts have been so emo and self-deprecating. Sometimes, I forget that I'm a 24 year old adult and not a whiny thirteen year old schoolgirl. Sometimes, even though I realize that's the way I'm coming across, I can't stop myself. It's like the whinyness comes from somewhere deep in my soul and I can't prevent the negativity.
This time, I assure you, my negativity won't be a problem because I have had a week that, although exhausting and stressful and entirely too long, made me feel like success may be possible at some point in my life before I am old and wrinkled and the joy of success has long since left my frozen, old maid soul. Tell me about your success, you say? As a matter of fact, I will. There are so many things I will make a list for your reading pleasure.
1. I am a memo-writing maniac. On Monday, Professor Umbridge sent me an email that left me chilled to the bone. "Katie, can you write a memo on the new file by Monday?" Great. Thanks, Dolores. As if I didn't already have enough to do, I will find time in my nonexistent free time to write a memo dealing with a TON of elements...by the end of the week. It's cool. I've got this. Luckily, I did. Between Tuesday night and this morning, I found the time to draft a 32 page memo. (See, a legal memo is not a "memo" in the way normal people think about it--it's not a couple sentences scrawled on a pink post-it--it's a description of a case, including factual history, law, a description of application of law to fact, etc.) I haven't gotten any feedback yet, but I am feeling very optimistic. I must say, it is the Mona Lisa of legal memos.
2. My clinic partner, Savannah, and I went to our first MDT meeting as counsel for a real, live client! It started off a bit rocky at first because Savannah was 15 minutes late and we were just taking the exit ramp a few minutes before our meeting was supposed to start. The MapQuest directions we had gotten were totally wrong and, before long, we were lost. Savannah started freaking out, which is usually my job. But for some reason, when Savannah freaks out, I stay calm. Well, I stayed mostly calm. As soon as she told me that the syllabus says that if we miss a hearing for a client, we get an F in the clinic, I lost my cool a little bit. I started thinking of what 7 credit hours worth of Fs would do to my GPA and it made me feel like my lungs were collapsing in on me. Still, I tried to think clearly. I told her to call Professor Umbridge and then our supervisor, who is awesome but I haven't thought of something clever to call her for the purposes of this blog yet. Umbridge was lost too and the Good Supervisor had no idea where we had turned wrong. While Savannah was on the phone with the Good Supervisor, I called 411 and, within minutes, had directions and had pulled into the parking lot of the office where we were supposed to be. We walked in to the meeting, right on time, were escorted in by the Assistant Prosecuting Attorney (more's the pity, though--not the one with the parking meter tickets) and seated... Umbridge was much later, coming in and interrupting the meeting. I smiled. It's nice to be the one who has it together. The MDT itself went well and our client was pleased. Successssssssss.
3. Also, we had a very successful meeting with another client and her children. The Good Supervisor told us afterwards that it sounded like we had a great dialogue going. She was very pleased that we were able to talk so easily with special needs children. Another success. We also got invited to go to one of the children's IEP meetings. The school was so intimidated that we're coming (I have to admit, I can be pretty intimidating at times) that they rescheduled it so that we could have it at a time where their lawyers could also be present. Yes, it's true, I inspire fear everywhere I go. I can't help it. Occupational hazard.
4. Maybe this should be number 1? In my weekly meeting with the Good Supervisor, she told me that Professor Umbridge told her that my cross-examination in clinic class was really good! Professor Umbridge generally hates me, so any compliment is a good compliment. Plus, the Good Supervisor says that, in our hearing that's coming up in November, I can be the person who gives the oral arguments to the court! How exciting! It's so nice to feel like she thinks I'm the right person to handle something, like I'm the best choice for the job. Any job.
5. I spoke to two other clinic students who are annoyed and frustrated by Professor Umbridge and how our clinic is run. They both said they were thinking of dropping. They said that they were planning on talking to the dean that one of the other clinic students had already spoken with and saying that, unless some serious changes are made, they were prepared to drop the clinic. It gives me some serious warm fuzzies. That brings the total number of students thinking about dropping to five. Out of eight. Maybe six. But definitely at least five.
Also, Thanksgiving break isn't so very far away. And after Thanksgiving, it's just a hop, skip and a jump until final exams. Why are you looking towards final exams, you may ask, and justifiably so. What kind of freak of nature looks forward to finals? The freak of nature who knows that what happens before finals is that CLASSES END and that, with the end of classes, comes the end of one traumatic semester of the child and family advocacy clinic.
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