Day 1135: Uncomfortably Numb
I refer mostly to the middle finger on my right hand. It's weirdly numb in spots. This might be because I was sick all weekend and, during a Battlestar Galactica marathon (finished the series! Oh dear, not really an achievement) I made an entire Gryffindor scarf. For all of 80 bucks of yarn I have all the supplies I need to make Christmas gifts for 15 people, so as crazy as my methods may seem, they are cost-effective, and I maintain that there's something extra meaningful in a handmade gift.
Last week wasn't the best week. I started it off sick. On Monday I had to cover a hearing for my boss, and the end result was an attorney jumping down my throat, a judge yelling at me, and the same judge being unable to understand that I was, in fact, an attorney. When I mentioned it on Facebook, everyone wondered why the judge didn't think I was an attorney. I'm not sure why. Probably because I wasn't dressed for court because I had not anticipated court that day. Maybe I was too young. Too female. Too not-white. Probably a combination of all the above. But that went down in my profesional career as the worst hearing ever, and also I watched a poor woman get railroaded because she had no attorney.
I forget, sometimes, that even before law school I had training as a debater and an impromptu speaker, that when I was thrown into a situation with an opposing party I could marshall my faculties quickly and make my own case. I forget that most people don't have that training, and so going into court without an attorney or any real working knowledge of the legal system is pretty terrifying. I wanted to cry for that woman.
Cody was feeling sick the week before, so on Monday when I woke up feeling super queasy, I assumed it was because I'd caught the same thing as him. But as the week progressed, I felt better.
I have had been super stressed out about the protective orders on my docket, because I don't usually do them, and the majority of them were in front of a judge I don't regularly appear in front of, and everyone seems to agree she is terrifying. The other difficult part, of course, is that I'm dealing with allegations of sexual abuse, only the victims are either too young or too disabled to tell me what's really going on, and I have parents with massive agendas insisting something big and scary is going on, and it's difficult to know what the right choice is. I made it through those PO's because the judge was super nice (although apparently she has some kind of scarlet letter vendetta against one of my coworkers), and also I got lots of advice from my older, more experienced coworkers, so that really helped.
Thursday and Friday we had our annual GAL conference. The hotel they put us up in was nice. We had HR training the first day, which most resulted in us making inappropriate jokes about sexual harassment (Jenny, you missed the sexual harassment training, so now we can all sexually harass you and won't even realize it's happening!). We had sensitivity training for working with LGBTQ kids (I haven't had a client who has indicated such to me yet), and pretty much everything the lady told us I learned on Tumblr, but then I was apparently the only person in a room full of social welfare professionals who'd heard the terms "genderqueer" and "cisgender", so that was a little alarming.
The food at the entire thing was really good. We were in downtown SLC and took Trax en masse. Unbeknownst to me, there was all kinds of office politics going on during the dinner; I was in it for the food and the gum balls, really. After the dinner, Shelly the paralegal and I went to hang out in the hot tub and try out the heated pool, both of which were wonderfully fun.
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sarahtales posted the final installment of The Turn of the Story, and the third installment of the Lynburn Legacy comes out later this month, so I went back and reread the first two as something in the way of comfort food (not that I didn't also drink a lot of Sodalicious as comfort food as well last week). I cannot believe my husband does not reread books, but then I don't think my dad does either. My mum and I go back and reread our favorite books all the time. For me books are kind of like comfort food that way. If I'm feeling kinda lousy, I'll go back to a much-loved story and reread it.
I finally unlocked my old drawers of fiction, which has my awful writing from year 8 on up through my final year of university. It was painful to even attempt to reread the awful fanfiction I wrote in middle school. I am curious and want to dig through the old stuff I wrote in college, though. It was fun to see how my handwriting changed over the years, and also fun to see how my fandoms have evolved over time.
There was as SNAFU with my Netflix this weekend, which resulted in my mum giving us access to her Hulu account, which has way more and better anime than Netflix has, so maybe some of my old fandoms will come crawling back to life.
I was feeling better but went to to doctor at my mother's insistence on Wednesday. He said if I wasn't feeling better to get some meds, but on Friday I was feeling way worse, so I got the meds then and my office manager sent me home early. I spent most of the weekend drinking orange juice, watching Criminal Minds and Battlestar Galactice (and Wolf's Rain! Yay!) and crocheting Christmas scarves. I say crocheting, because it requires a crocheting hook, but the final visual effect is like knitting, so the scarves look knitted. I'm lousy at knitting and wouldn't be able to learn how in time to get the gifts done, so I am splitting the difference.
On Saturday night Cody and I went out for sushi to celebrate his birthday, and we chatted about the dieselpunk novel we're trying to write together. For all that I was ill all weekend and didn't get nearly enough done that I ought (I have a trial on Friday and am not prepared at all), my days have been good. It's nice, cuddling up with Cody and crafting while we watch some scifi.
My poor sister has been in and out of hospital with a kidney stone. Hope she gets better.
...I may or may not be writing this while holed up in my Room of Requirement at the Courthouse.
Last week wasn't the best week. I started it off sick. On Monday I had to cover a hearing for my boss, and the end result was an attorney jumping down my throat, a judge yelling at me, and the same judge being unable to understand that I was, in fact, an attorney. When I mentioned it on Facebook, everyone wondered why the judge didn't think I was an attorney. I'm not sure why. Probably because I wasn't dressed for court because I had not anticipated court that day. Maybe I was too young. Too female. Too not-white. Probably a combination of all the above. But that went down in my profesional career as the worst hearing ever, and also I watched a poor woman get railroaded because she had no attorney.
I forget, sometimes, that even before law school I had training as a debater and an impromptu speaker, that when I was thrown into a situation with an opposing party I could marshall my faculties quickly and make my own case. I forget that most people don't have that training, and so going into court without an attorney or any real working knowledge of the legal system is pretty terrifying. I wanted to cry for that woman.
Cody was feeling sick the week before, so on Monday when I woke up feeling super queasy, I assumed it was because I'd caught the same thing as him. But as the week progressed, I felt better.
I have had been super stressed out about the protective orders on my docket, because I don't usually do them, and the majority of them were in front of a judge I don't regularly appear in front of, and everyone seems to agree she is terrifying. The other difficult part, of course, is that I'm dealing with allegations of sexual abuse, only the victims are either too young or too disabled to tell me what's really going on, and I have parents with massive agendas insisting something big and scary is going on, and it's difficult to know what the right choice is. I made it through those PO's because the judge was super nice (although apparently she has some kind of scarlet letter vendetta against one of my coworkers), and also I got lots of advice from my older, more experienced coworkers, so that really helped.
Thursday and Friday we had our annual GAL conference. The hotel they put us up in was nice. We had HR training the first day, which most resulted in us making inappropriate jokes about sexual harassment (Jenny, you missed the sexual harassment training, so now we can all sexually harass you and won't even realize it's happening!). We had sensitivity training for working with LGBTQ kids (I haven't had a client who has indicated such to me yet), and pretty much everything the lady told us I learned on Tumblr, but then I was apparently the only person in a room full of social welfare professionals who'd heard the terms "genderqueer" and "cisgender", so that was a little alarming.
The food at the entire thing was really good. We were in downtown SLC and took Trax en masse. Unbeknownst to me, there was all kinds of office politics going on during the dinner; I was in it for the food and the gum balls, really. After the dinner, Shelly the paralegal and I went to hang out in the hot tub and try out the heated pool, both of which were wonderfully fun.
sarahtales posted the final installment of The Turn of the Story, and the third installment of the Lynburn Legacy comes out later this month, so I went back and reread the first two as something in the way of comfort food (not that I didn't also drink a lot of Sodalicious as comfort food as well last week). I cannot believe my husband does not reread books, but then I don't think my dad does either. My mum and I go back and reread our favorite books all the time. For me books are kind of like comfort food that way. If I'm feeling kinda lousy, I'll go back to a much-loved story and reread it.I finally unlocked my old drawers of fiction, which has my awful writing from year 8 on up through my final year of university. It was painful to even attempt to reread the awful fanfiction I wrote in middle school. I am curious and want to dig through the old stuff I wrote in college, though. It was fun to see how my handwriting changed over the years, and also fun to see how my fandoms have evolved over time.
There was as SNAFU with my Netflix this weekend, which resulted in my mum giving us access to her Hulu account, which has way more and better anime than Netflix has, so maybe some of my old fandoms will come crawling back to life.
I was feeling better but went to to doctor at my mother's insistence on Wednesday. He said if I wasn't feeling better to get some meds, but on Friday I was feeling way worse, so I got the meds then and my office manager sent me home early. I spent most of the weekend drinking orange juice, watching Criminal Minds and Battlestar Galactice (and Wolf's Rain! Yay!) and crocheting Christmas scarves. I say crocheting, because it requires a crocheting hook, but the final visual effect is like knitting, so the scarves look knitted. I'm lousy at knitting and wouldn't be able to learn how in time to get the gifts done, so I am splitting the difference.
On Saturday night Cody and I went out for sushi to celebrate his birthday, and we chatted about the dieselpunk novel we're trying to write together. For all that I was ill all weekend and didn't get nearly enough done that I ought (I have a trial on Friday and am not prepared at all), my days have been good. It's nice, cuddling up with Cody and crafting while we watch some scifi.
My poor sister has been in and out of hospital with a kidney stone. Hope she gets better.
...I may or may not be writing this while holed up in my Room of Requirement at the Courthouse.