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Day 628: The curse of the English major
May. 20th, 2008 08:00 pmI love the fact that I was once an English major. I'm proud of it, no matter how much I sing "What do you do with a BA in English?" and make jokes about it. I love that I can construct a world of my own when I'm reading a book, that I can think outside the walls of normal conversation and hang around in those interstitial spaces, even if it's only in my head. I love that books are whole other universes to me and that I will never be alone so long as I have something good to read or something I want to write. Being an English major may not be useful, but it's liberating.
However, being an English major was also a curse. It first struck in law school when I discovered I had to memorize things again instead of being able to sprawl out on a sofa for five hours in the middle of the night with my unholy stash of European chocolate and write to my heart's content, to rant to friends and rave to roommates and agonize over the best place for a comma. The curse has struck again. I am, as I like to call myself, a free-range law clerk for the summer, which means I can work from home or the office. Generally, it's best if I'm in the office so I can have questions answered instantly (and by instantly I mean by hovering in Brad's doorway and attempting to project my will at him so he'll notice me and ask what it is I want). However, I cannot write for any length of time at work. Writing is intensely personal to me (despite me posting some writing on the internet) and I can't really do it in public, and I also just can't do it in a formal setting. To be able to think properly I need a comfortable place to sit, my music, some terrible junk food (if times are desperate enough, then yes, loads of chocolate) and no strangers or other people poking their heads into my office. (Yes, I have an office. I not only work in an office, I have an office. I'm an office drone, basically.) Legal writing this semester was a whole lot of me staying up till ungodly hours and basically being an English major all over again, though fretting over the Blue Book instead of MLA and wishing that South Carolina had clearer common law about equitable estoppel with regards to summary judgment on the basis of the an already-run statute of limitations. The project I'm doing now is basically a legal writing project. I'm writing litigation for my boss, and it's just like the writing I did in school, only the common law in Utah is even more unclear than South Carolina precedent and basically I'm asking a judge to do something he's never done before. I really don't think it's going to work, so that makes me scared. My parents think, in the office space my mother has set up for me at home, that I'm working on said litigation now. Not happening. It'll probably get done in the middle of the night, and then I'll drag myself into the office tomorrow looking sleep-deprived but with a finished response. I always loved being an English major because it was a wonderfully solitary, personal pursuit.
Apparently this is to my detriment as a law student and future lawyer as I have to be in the office to get things done. Somehow I don't think my future spouse will appreciate me turning our bed into an office like I do with my own bed.
After the floor, the bed is the biggest shelf in the house.
Gack.
Have I mentioned I rather dislike writing litigation? Just because I can do it doesn't mean I have to like it.
However, being an English major was also a curse. It first struck in law school when I discovered I had to memorize things again instead of being able to sprawl out on a sofa for five hours in the middle of the night with my unholy stash of European chocolate and write to my heart's content, to rant to friends and rave to roommates and agonize over the best place for a comma. The curse has struck again. I am, as I like to call myself, a free-range law clerk for the summer, which means I can work from home or the office. Generally, it's best if I'm in the office so I can have questions answered instantly (and by instantly I mean by hovering in Brad's doorway and attempting to project my will at him so he'll notice me and ask what it is I want). However, I cannot write for any length of time at work. Writing is intensely personal to me (despite me posting some writing on the internet) and I can't really do it in public, and I also just can't do it in a formal setting. To be able to think properly I need a comfortable place to sit, my music, some terrible junk food (if times are desperate enough, then yes, loads of chocolate) and no strangers or other people poking their heads into my office. (Yes, I have an office. I not only work in an office, I have an office. I'm an office drone, basically.) Legal writing this semester was a whole lot of me staying up till ungodly hours and basically being an English major all over again, though fretting over the Blue Book instead of MLA and wishing that South Carolina had clearer common law about equitable estoppel with regards to summary judgment on the basis of the an already-run statute of limitations. The project I'm doing now is basically a legal writing project. I'm writing litigation for my boss, and it's just like the writing I did in school, only the common law in Utah is even more unclear than South Carolina precedent and basically I'm asking a judge to do something he's never done before. I really don't think it's going to work, so that makes me scared. My parents think, in the office space my mother has set up for me at home, that I'm working on said litigation now. Not happening. It'll probably get done in the middle of the night, and then I'll drag myself into the office tomorrow looking sleep-deprived but with a finished response. I always loved being an English major because it was a wonderfully solitary, personal pursuit.
Apparently this is to my detriment as a law student and future lawyer as I have to be in the office to get things done. Somehow I don't think my future spouse will appreciate me turning our bed into an office like I do with my own bed.
After the floor, the bed is the biggest shelf in the house.
Gack.
Have I mentioned I rather dislike writing litigation? Just because I can do it doesn't mean I have to like it.
