Day 1215: A remedy for all ills
Sep. 7th, 2015 11:59 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
nagi_schwarzThe remedy for all ills, my friend, is to take a swandive into an old, favored fandom.
Had training last week. Training in my line of work is a double-edged sword. On the one hand, being more informed means I do better for my kids. On the other hand, it means taking a good, long look at some of the horror in the world. I get it. My work is all about first world problems. I'm not dealing with refugees or epidemics or genocide. But I guess the most insidious thing about my work is that for me and people like me, its horrors can lurk around any corner, and with little warning.
We tried to cheer ourselves up the first day by playing Cards Against Humanity on our phones, which led to some snickering at really inopportune times. The trauma training was stuff I've heard before, and was as touchy-feely as ever. For the first time, we had decent training about how to deal with secondary trauma. Every supervisor in this line of work ever tells us to leave it at the office. But none of them ever tell us how. Finally someone told us how. That was nice. A bunch of us went out to dinner after the first day, and I met my friend Dan's girlfriend for the first time. Turns out I'd met her before in a professional capacity. I like her. And they're cute together. I hope things turn out well for them, however they turn out. Also, the food was super good. I bonded with the new girl a little bit, the new lawyer, and we watched a movie about families in the child welfare system. It was a good film. Sweet. Touching. It was beautifully done, but I couldn't help but be a bit cynical about it all. Didn't end how I expected, which was nice.
The second day training was some really awesome attorney skills, and also some guardian updates (training lasted for twelve hours the next day), and that was handy, but someone also thought it would be a good idea to put a presentation by an ME after lunch. Yes. Baby autopsy photos after lunch. That was bound to make us all feel better. So many grisly photos in that slide show, and at the end a photo of a cute puppy. It was an adorable puppy, but not really enough to banish the images of the healed-over fractures in a baby's rib-cage or a resected baby scalp so we could see what a subdural hematoma looks like inside when there's no visible external bruising.
Yeah. That was kind of tough.
Also, one of my own colleagues didn't even know I was a lawyer. That was super awkward.
Historical moment in my career, though: I got to see one of my own cases argued in front of the state supreme court. The appellant was not coming in from a strong position, but it was interesting to see what the judges asked. Some of them cut right to the heart of the matter, and there was a lot of hemming and hawing to get away from facing the issues as starkly as some of the justices framed them. The appellees were not nearly as polished as I thought they'd be, and I went a little bit insane in my seat when some of them fumbled questions that were really important. Everyone got bogged down by the issue of jurisdiction and remedy, and it seemed like a lot of the argument was tangled up in issues that weren't all that substantive in the end. Still, it was kind of amazing to see. Afterward I hung out with my girl Sei till it was time to go to lunch with friends, and that was pretty great.
Thursday I covered an adoption for a friend, and that was pleasant.
Friday was one of the shortest TPR trials ever. It kinda breaks my heart every time we do one, but it had to be done. Now all that's left on that case is to schedule an adoption.
We drove up to Idaho Friday night. Cody drove, and I read to keep him awake. I spent Friday night and three quarters of Saturday hunkered down and reading or sleeping because I had an awful headache (combination of odd weather and also reading in the car), but Sunday was spent hanging out with the grandparents and also reading. I read so much this weekend. I've been reading so much in my spare time. Doing nothing but reading and sleeping and hanging out with people was so worth it. I needed it to recharge.
I watched HBP and then the pensieve scene from DH Part Two. Aw man. All the Snape/Lily feels. Seriously. Biggest romance in the entire series.
I have some crazy prep to do for some of my upcoming trials, and Cody's birthday party is this weekend, but I think I'm ready to face it.
I think. Here goes.
Had training last week. Training in my line of work is a double-edged sword. On the one hand, being more informed means I do better for my kids. On the other hand, it means taking a good, long look at some of the horror in the world. I get it. My work is all about first world problems. I'm not dealing with refugees or epidemics or genocide. But I guess the most insidious thing about my work is that for me and people like me, its horrors can lurk around any corner, and with little warning.
We tried to cheer ourselves up the first day by playing Cards Against Humanity on our phones, which led to some snickering at really inopportune times. The trauma training was stuff I've heard before, and was as touchy-feely as ever. For the first time, we had decent training about how to deal with secondary trauma. Every supervisor in this line of work ever tells us to leave it at the office. But none of them ever tell us how. Finally someone told us how. That was nice. A bunch of us went out to dinner after the first day, and I met my friend Dan's girlfriend for the first time. Turns out I'd met her before in a professional capacity. I like her. And they're cute together. I hope things turn out well for them, however they turn out. Also, the food was super good. I bonded with the new girl a little bit, the new lawyer, and we watched a movie about families in the child welfare system. It was a good film. Sweet. Touching. It was beautifully done, but I couldn't help but be a bit cynical about it all. Didn't end how I expected, which was nice.
The second day training was some really awesome attorney skills, and also some guardian updates (training lasted for twelve hours the next day), and that was handy, but someone also thought it would be a good idea to put a presentation by an ME after lunch. Yes. Baby autopsy photos after lunch. That was bound to make us all feel better. So many grisly photos in that slide show, and at the end a photo of a cute puppy. It was an adorable puppy, but not really enough to banish the images of the healed-over fractures in a baby's rib-cage or a resected baby scalp so we could see what a subdural hematoma looks like inside when there's no visible external bruising.
Yeah. That was kind of tough.
Also, one of my own colleagues didn't even know I was a lawyer. That was super awkward.
Historical moment in my career, though: I got to see one of my own cases argued in front of the state supreme court. The appellant was not coming in from a strong position, but it was interesting to see what the judges asked. Some of them cut right to the heart of the matter, and there was a lot of hemming and hawing to get away from facing the issues as starkly as some of the justices framed them. The appellees were not nearly as polished as I thought they'd be, and I went a little bit insane in my seat when some of them fumbled questions that were really important. Everyone got bogged down by the issue of jurisdiction and remedy, and it seemed like a lot of the argument was tangled up in issues that weren't all that substantive in the end. Still, it was kind of amazing to see. Afterward I hung out with my girl Sei till it was time to go to lunch with friends, and that was pretty great.
Thursday I covered an adoption for a friend, and that was pleasant.
Friday was one of the shortest TPR trials ever. It kinda breaks my heart every time we do one, but it had to be done. Now all that's left on that case is to schedule an adoption.
We drove up to Idaho Friday night. Cody drove, and I read to keep him awake. I spent Friday night and three quarters of Saturday hunkered down and reading or sleeping because I had an awful headache (combination of odd weather and also reading in the car), but Sunday was spent hanging out with the grandparents and also reading. I read so much this weekend. I've been reading so much in my spare time. Doing nothing but reading and sleeping and hanging out with people was so worth it. I needed it to recharge.
I watched HBP and then the pensieve scene from DH Part Two. Aw man. All the Snape/Lily feels. Seriously. Biggest romance in the entire series.
I have some crazy prep to do for some of my upcoming trials, and Cody's birthday party is this weekend, but I think I'm ready to face it.
I think. Here goes.
