One Final Done: Tax Shmax

I can't believe how quickly it sprung up on me. Finals started on Monday and I finished my first on Thursday afternoon. I was supposed to take it on Wednesday with the rest of my class but thanks to November throwing a few extra surprises at me, particularly at my right hand, accommodations were made. I was scheduled to take the final on Thursday instead, all by myself with some extra time to make up for my recent handicap as well as having spent the last four weeks completely wasted on a concoction of medications that I'm quite positive I wasn't supposed to take together (I met a lot of people that probably don't really exist during the month of November). These additional accommodations were very appreciated although they did not come without drama unfortunately; another topic for another day.

The first final was Federal Income Tax Law (several of you just fell asleep). I was crammed into a conference room all by myself for six straight hours with nothing but my laptop, a bag of granola bars, an apple, vitamin water, and every piece of paper I could find that had any information about tax law on it. I spread out and went at it . . . and at it . . . and at it, until it started to feel like I was going into a different day. The most depressing point was when I started worrying about time and I looked up at the clock and saw that I still had a good four hours to finish. The good news is that my hand seemed to hold up pretty well; minimal pain and decent accuracy--one day I will be whole again.

I started physical therapy this week, or as I like to call it "therapy." I was really excited to go in and talk about my problems with someone while they massaged my hand. I would be lying if I said I didn't picture physical therapy to take place in a white robe, cucumbers in my eyes, laying back while someone asked me "and how does that make you feel" as I complained about all my trials. Sort of a mixture between a spa, psychologist, and church I guess. Unfortunately physical therapy was painful and not very social. Plus it was earlier in the morning than I cared for. Not to mention, it was bizarrely cold in there. Quite the disappointment. Not at all the moral boost I was hoping to send me into my tax final.

And now here we are. My study group and I spent the last couple of days crammed into a small study room frantically attempting to learn an entire semester's worth of Evidence for our final tomorrow. Fingers crossed.

This was the room I took my tax final in. You'll notice I had my stuff spread all down the table. I stood for most of the test, walking around so I could consult every source known to man before responding to any questions.

Here's a somewhat blurry X-ray of my hand. You can see the four screws going down my bone: the latest additions to my body.

~It Just Gets Stranger

Just Another Surgery

By way of update . . .

Just when you thought things couldn't get any better, a few days after my last post I went to a hand specialist (they actually exist) so he could assess the injury. I had already come to find during the few days since the break had occurred that losing your dominant hand functions creates an entirely new lifestyle. In ways that I never imagined life suddenly became difficult and/or humiliating while attempting various tasks. I was relieved to find that an informal support group had formed in the hand specialist waiting room where patients with wrapped hands talked about the trials they face and the support they need. One guy talked about how he can't play baseball with his son anymore. A lady said how embarrassed she was every time she had to sign a receipt with her left hand at a store. One girl spoke up timidly and told the group that she was hesitant to say anything at all because her break happened on her non-dominant hand, to which an older southern woman loudly replied, "Oh honey! We don't judge here! Infirmities come in all shapes and sizes!" Luckily I was called back before they started singing girls camp songs together.

Unluckily the doctor told me that if we didn't do surgery soon, my ring finger would be permanently stuck pointing to the side, which would be great for my circus job, but bad for everything else.

48 hours later I was going under the knife. They drilled four screws into my bone and wrapped it up tight. Tomorrow they'll remove the cast to look at it. Hopefully by then my hand won't look like the Hulk anymore.

9 days until finals . . . anyone got an extra hand I can borrow? (warning: I have been known to break them).

~It Just Gets Stranger

Friday the 13th

So I got Swine Flu last Wednesday. On Friday, in the middle of the night, I got up while violently shaking, and passed out cold on the floor. This woke up my roommate who woke up our other roommate for help. Roommate number three then passed out (for reasons that are still a mystery to us all). Thankfully Annette came over several hours later to sanitize the apartment, force-feed me, and take me to the doctor for the second time in 24 hours so he could tell me I broke my hand when I fainted. Apart from being freaked out about this news, I was very interested in convincing the doctor that I wasn't a drug seeker while still ensuring the maximum amount of drug prescriptions. Because I was successful in this, I haven't been sober in four days (including now).

Overall a pretty crappy weekend. And yes, I did just type all that with my left hand. Good thing finals aren't coming up. Oh wait . . .

~It Just Gets Stranger

Catching Up

Miss me?

I apologize for the hiatus. Life has been jetting like a runaway train lately and something had to give. Of course I chose blogging and health. I'll tell you I've been busy despite the declaration from a friend who recently expressed via Facebook (the social network that tears people apart) that, essentially, those who don't have a wife and kids don't have a right to complain about being busy, as though wife and kids were thrust upon him as a curse from the heavens, rendering family the only legitimate use of time. No, I have been busy. And just like all of my married AND non-married friends, I have chosen the things that have kept me busy.

School is going well. I recently competed in two big competitions at the school and made it to finals of both (brag brag brag). The first was a trial advocacy competition similar to the one I did last year. It went five long rounds over a two week period and ended in utter defeat when we went up against a couple of 3Ls. The next week or two (ending just last Friday) I was doing appellate moot court arguments for a thirty page brief we had to write and submit in early October. This was also five grueling rounds that, also, ended in defeat. Nonetheless, I was proud of how I did. Both competitions were draining and dramatic (like most aspects of my life) and a really cool experience. Friday's judges were terrifying and intimidating; each of the three were appellate court judges, one from the Colorado Supreme Court.

So now I'm trying to catch Swine Flu and get caught up in my actual classes. Yes, I said "trying to catch Swine Flu." As you are well aware, there is a great incentivizing phenomenon accompanying the latest H1N1 strain. Recently the school sent out an email informing us all that Swine Flu was in our midst and that if anyone shows any flu-like symptoms, they should stay home in bed for several days. Additionally, the email let us know that the school has our backs and if anyone gets Swine Flu, the administration will do all in their power to take care us (as though they're the mafia) by talking to our professors and making sure we have everything we need.

So, now, we are all faced with two options: Option one: stay healthy and run yourself into mental insanity, or Option Two: catch Swine Flu and stay in bed for several days while the administration "takes care of you."

I understand that we are all interested in preventing the spread of this thing but I'm not exactly sure why. If the school really wanted us to stay away from each other, thus effectively quashing this undesired epidemic, they would start threatening each of us by requiring anyone who gets the virus to take failing grades in all their classes. I guarantee that this kind of tactic would have killed this thing when employers and administrations started incentivizing the flu earlier this summer. If only I were in charge.

~It Just Gets Stranger

Rejected?

The most dreaded part of my day anymore is when it's time to get the mail. This is because every day I have one or two rejection letters from firms I've applied to telling me that they would just die to have me even drive by their office and they are so impressed with my resume and unbelievable credentials, "However . . . blah blah blah . . . high number of applicants . . . blah blah blah . . . lowering the amount of summer associates . . . blah blah blah . . . you aren't nearly as impressive as all five million people that applied before you . . . blah blah blah . . . you should die . . . blah blah blah."

I always look forward to holidays now when mail is not delivered. I'm also usually relieved on the days when I don't get rejected from the firms whose names I've been doodling in my notebook with hearts and whose buildings I do drive-bys at nights just to see who's there. When those rejections come I usually spend the rest of my day having dramatic meltdowns and "my life is over speeches" that any 13 year old girl would be proud of. The comparison to middle school relationships is pretty accurate except instead of giving your giggly friends the "check-yes-or-no" note to pass along, you give it to the firms' recruiters to relay it to attorneys who then return their answer through the US postal service. And the meltdowns and rebounds that follow require just as much attention. Thank heavens for my friend Annette who was willing to bring me cheesecake during my worst episode last week.

But today something unusual happened; a firm that I applied to about a month ago sent a letter to my apartment addressed to "Ms. Eli McCann." I checked with my roommates who assured me that the BYU honor code prevents us from having any females live in the apartment. They also said they didn't know any Ms. Eli McCanns. So, despite the potential for committing a serious federal offense, I opened the letter. Unfortunately it seems that this California firm is not interested in Ms. McCann, "However, [they] are taking the liberty of keeping [her] resume in [their] file."

I feel really badly for this girl. But should I call the firm and see whether they're still interested in me? It's been a month and I haven't heard a single word.

~It Just Gets Stranger

Four Weeks In

Wrapping up my fourth week of school today . . . It's strange to think that I've only been back in school for four weeks. The double-scheduled meetings, the 30-pound case books, the journal editing, the classes, the paper writing, the relentless and often frustrating interviewing, the pressure to somehow retain some form of a social life, the competition, the tutoring . . . it all sort of makes four weeks seem like something much different.

And all of the pressure and anxiety lately has only made me think more about how different life was just a few months ago, hanging out on the streets in Moscow, comfortable, and relatively care-free. Every once in a while I get this flash-back of Kimberly, Acia, and I walking down this narrow street through the thick trees and concrete 20 story apartment complexes just outside of our office building. We've just finished work for the day and we have hours and hours of sunlight in a gorgeous, vibrant city. The possibilities are endless. We walk fast to get to metro because we have about 80 things we're trying to cram into our evening and we want to be able to do them all. Kimberly and I are teasing Acia about all the Russian boys we're going to find for her. She blushes and tells us in her cute Slavic accent to leave her alone. Eventually our conversation turns to vafly, which we've already eaten once or twice during the day. We pass the cheese roll stand where I buy my breakfast just after getting out of the metro every morning. And while that scene happened day-in, day-out for weeks, I never got tired of how happy I felt. I was somewhere that I really loved, experiencing something that I really loved.

Now my life looks quite a bit different. It's not really better or worse, just different. Amid all the stress, I get to be with great friends with whom I share the opportunity to get an invaluable education. It comes at a cost of course; all good things do. Most of the time I'm convinced that I love it despite all the aspects that sometimes aren't so lovable. Sometimes I have to convince myself to love those not so lovable aspects in order to stay productive.

There's always this little battle going on. Do I learn to love what I'm doing because I know it's right or do I change what I'm doing, cued in that not loving it is evidence that it's not right? How much of it am I supposed to love to make the sacrifice all worth it?

I'm not about to dramatically change course. Law school has been good for me in a lot of ways. Occasionally, however, I have to stop and ask myself where it is I'm trying to get. I have to ask myself what kind of realistic destinations actually exist for me. Am I working 100 hours a week to get somewhere I'll hate being? Is working 100 hours a week just to keep my head above water keeping me from doing a thousand things that are much more fulfilling? Who knows? For now I'll just keep trucking along, barely keeping up, throwing more mediocre accomplishments onto my resume, believing that eventually everything will work itself out. It always does in our charmed lives.

~It Just Gets Stranger

To Those Who Say The First Year is the Hardest:

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LIARS!!!

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~It Just Gets Stran . . . harder . . .

Losing Friends Fast

This should probably be documented.

Every year the law school has an Olympic-themed event in the large moot court room at BYU where the members of the three different classes participate in three events, evaluated by judges from each of the classes and then awarded with gold, silver and bronze medals (in case you've never heard of the Olympics before). As exciting as this all sounds, I'm quite sure that whatever respect you had for law students would immediately and quickly go right out the window if you witnessed any piece of the glorious event.

Annette hosted it this year, looking totally trashy dressed up as Tonya Harding (Annette is the 2L class pres this year and probably the most popular girl in school!). Because of my connection with law school royalty, I was recruited to somehow involve myself in one of the three events.

My involvement was not in the first event, the javelin throw, done by spitting cotton swabs through straws at the audience (classy).

My involvement was not in the second event either, which was a hoola-hoop contest, completely owned by a 2L in high hills.

No no, my involvement was all about the third and final event. The synchronized swimming. Three girls in my class layed behind the bench in the moot court room with their legs up in the air, running through some ridiculous routine to the song "The Final Countdown" while I sprayed them with water and impromptu danced like an idiot wearing a swimming cap in front of several hundred people. The performance climaxed with me climbing on top of the bench and doing some odd and equally dramatic spins and poses while the girls did Jazz hands and other moves that any interpretive dancer would be proud of. When the final pose took place (I was on one foot, arms in the air, standing high on the judge's bench overlooking a crowd of impressed spectators, the sounds of motivational '80's rock music ringing in my ears, Annette several feet away in shiny gray pants and the world's trashiest blond wig), I looked to the back and spotted my conservative 60 year old Contracts professor (who I now work for), and I thought "Other than the banya, this might be the strangest moment of my life."

Taking one for the team paid back big time; we totally took the gold.

I'm so glad I feel like I have an hour to spend doing stuff like this.

Accepting the award. That's Annette on the very left.

Losing friends fast.

I think this was one of the more inspiring parts of the performance.

Practicing in the hall right before going on.

Seconds before the final pose. I can't figure out what my favorite part about this picture is. Probably the girl on the right.

On a side note, here are the same people one week earlier, looking professional as always.~It Just Gets Stranger

Summer Thoughts

Seven days ago I was sitting at the Mexico-United States border, waiting for about three hot stinky hours to be let back into our country to embark on another great adventure: 2L.

It's strange to think the summer has ended. A few months ago I was emailing dozens of strangers, thousands of miles away, praying that one of them would be willing to let me come and live with them in Moscow. A short time later I was in a gorgeous city, visiting churches, praising street bands, eating vafly, and helping work through legal issues for a world-wide organization in multiple eastern European countries. Then it was off to Ukraine to see some people and places that I have missed for several years. Back in the states I started working on a treatise for practitioners providing information on religious litigation. The job search for next summer began and took me to Washington DC. Shortly afterwards it was off to Mexico to see Uncle Will for a little over a week. And now, 2L has begun.

This really was my greatest summer. I changed a lot and grew during these three or four months. I became more confident and sure than I've ever felt in my life. This summer put a lot of things in perspective for me; I've decided to not worry so much about so many things that aren't really important and start focusing on things that really are. I've decided to be more grateful and have more faith. I started the "charmed life" campaign a few months ago where anytime I start to feel stressed or overwhelmed I stop and say to myself, "you have a charmed life. Everything always works out the way it should." I then remind myself of all the reasons I have to be thankful for both the blessings and the trials. I encourage you all to adopt the campaign; it's worked wonders on my quality of life. While I think I have more now than ever before to feel anxious and worried about, I've never felt more positive in my adult life.

And now here we are; one week into school. One long long long week into school where I'm finding out what it means to overbook myself. And I'm really pretty happy.

~It Just Gets Stranger

Our Nation's Capital

After applying to some jobs in the Washington DC area for next summer I got an interview at a firm that I think would be my dream job. BYU had set up informational meetings with several firms and government offices during Monday and Tuesday last week as well so a group of my law school buddies and I made the trek east.

A few of us stayed with the parents of our friend Amanda (who was among the group going out there). On Saturday a bunch of us went kayaking on the Potomac river. Annette and I were in a two man kayak and were quite impressed with ourselves when we made it about 90 miles down the river with minimal effort in less than ten minutes (don't do the math please). Reality hit when we turned around and realized we had to go up stream the whole way back, which we did, unintentionally zigging and zagging back and forth the whole way. About every five minutes one of us would say in absolute despair, "Did we just lose ground? I swear we already passed that tree." Multiple times I layed down flat on the back of the kayak and waited for the buzzards to come get me. Annette didn't notice though because she was in the front paddling away. Come to think of it, my laying down several times may have been a big reason why it took us an eternity to make it back.

Saturday night we somehow all got roped into a group date, meeting at Amanda's parents house before it started, feeling like we were 16 all over again even though our average age was probably more like 28. We had a picnic and walked about 250 miles around several large monuments until we were all suffocating from the extreme humidity.

Sunday we did the church thing and met up with several friends.

Monday was our first day of meetings. It was our goal to go the whole day without getting drenched in sweat (because some of us had interviews the next day and only one suit). The meetings with the firms and the government offices were really interesting. Monday night we had a giant pool party with every breathing organism within a 100 mile radius.

Tuesday arrived and Annette and I camped out in a food court for a little over an hour before our interviews (we both had interviews at the same firm and they were back to back) drilling each other with intense interview questions. The interviews ended up being nothing like what we prepared for. They were very casual and comfortable and really an enjoyable experience. I absolutely love the firm and hope that it went well. And yes, I made it to the interview without getting sweaty! It's an August miracle.

After the interview Annette got us the hook-ups with a good friend of hers that works on Capital Hill. So we ran in our suits and in the heat from our interview to the Capital building to meet him where he took us on an amazing tour. We were able to go into rooms that are closed to the public. The building was absolutely gorgeous! If I can't get St. Basil's, I may buy the Capital for my summer home. We sat in Senate Chamber for a little while and watched two guys argue about spending 9 million dollars on getting wi-fi out to some farmers in Nebraska. Your government hard at work.

We finished the day with another meeting or two and then some more monuments before heading home and staying up way too late although I had an early flight the next day. I've got to say---I love DC!

The pictures below are from Annette (shocker: I was too lazy to bring my own camera).

Old Whitey (we're on a nick-name basis. Notice the man in black on the roof a little to the right of the center).

James, Annette, Me, Amanda in front of Lincoln (my favorite monument).

Bonnie, James, Amanda, Annette, and me. The Lincoln Memorial is off in the distance.
Me, Annette, Amanda, James, and Bonnie in front of the Washington Monument.

Elsa, Amanda, Me, James, Bonnie, Annette, and Matt in front of one of the DC firms we met with.

Me in front of the Capital Building. Sweaty.

This is Annette and I in front of a statue of Brigham Young in the capital building. Not really sure why Annette is touching his leg. I guess she feels close to him attending his school and all.

Me and Annette in the Capital Building.

In the Capital Building; this is where the Supreme Court used to meet a long long time ago. I know it's nerdy, but I was really excited to see this room.

Old Supreme Court room again; the three chairs closest to us are originals.

Annette and I just before our interviews on top of the old post office. That's Washington in the background.

Bonnie, Me, Annette, and Matt crammed in Annette's brother's car after kayaking. I'm sure we were smelling pretty good here.

Kayaking; Georgetown in the background. I'm not sure whether this was before or after I took a giant gulp of the tar black river. Just trying to feed my Russian parasite that I have named "Lohan."

Annette and I lookin' our best on the Potomac.

~It Just Gets Stranger