this, that, and the other

I have a lot of posts running around in my head right now - thoughts on working in the Fall and what that means for me and my little family, thoughts about where this blog is going now that I'm done with school, thoughts on parenting, thoughts on politics and the election, thoughts on Austin and the choices and paths we take in life. I get lost in these thoughts while staring out my office window, with its beautiful view of my new city, and I have an almost irresistible need to write them down- to get them out. But I can't because (by design) there's no computer in my barbri study space. So I turn back to my Community Property or Agency and Partnership Outlines and press on- trying with only marginal success to clear my head of everything but Black Letter Law.

One of the many benefits of studying at The Firm this month has been reconnecting with the attorneys I met last summer. My first week was somewhat awkward- I looked quite a bit different than the last time I wandered those halls, 8 months pregnant and 12 days away from giving birth, and since the new associates don't start until September I wasn't on anyone's mind as someone who should be in the office. I'd pass people in the hall and smile hello, they'd say hi back, and we'd both walk past wondering if we were supposed to know each other. Of course there were lots who remembered me, but in a 100+ person office you can't get to know everyone during a 5 week internship. I've gotten better about reintroducing myself and it's been fun chatting with the corporate group on my study breaks. It's very reassuring to note that when I leave at 9:00 I am the only person in the office. I spent several hours there today and was alone the entire time. This is good. So the firm's people and its policies are just as friendly as they appeared when I was being wooed as a summer associate- it's what I expected, but it's nice to have it reaffirmed.

My progress through the essay topics has been going better than expected. In the past two days I've learned corporations, agency and partnership, family law, and community property. I've found that if I just read the barbri outline and then the CMR outline, slowly and carefully and think about what the law is saying, I can spit back most of the legal issues almost verbatim in my answers. That's why outlines and flash cards don't work for me- I memorize in paragraph form. Tomorrow I start Wills, which reminds me, JP and I need to make ours.

And because this post has almost no theme or coherence, I'll just throw in the fact that I spent what might have been my most delightful 20 minutes as a parent today with Landon. We have a new game where he crawls away really fast and you're supposed to chase him on your hands and knees. Every few yards he stops and turns around and when he sees you, he cracks up, and then continues on, only to stop and turn around again. If you chase him into a corner he falls over he's laughing so hard, and sometimes when he's crawling while laughing he stumbles onto his little shoulders because his hands weren't moving as fast as his legs. He finds this hilarious as well. Today he laughed so much he got the hiccups. It was pretty fantastic. He's also successfully transitioned to whole milk, so our grocery bills will go down by half now that we don't have to buy that hypoallergenic formula (I'm only slightly exaggerating). He's also using sippy cups for all his milk except the nighttime bottle. If he hadn't woken up in a state of hysteria this morning at 5:15 and refused to go back to sleep, I'd say he's pretty much the perfect child. (By the way, do you know how hard it is to memorize all the division of asset rules when you have already been awake for 14 hours at 7 pm and you only got 6 hours of sleep? Very Hard.)

So wow, deep thoughts, the Firm, the Bar, and a happy baby story - can you tell I'm tired and brain dead? I promise that better writing will come after July 31 when this horrible rite of passage is over.