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ste_noniThis entry is going to be a random assortment of thoughts in my head the last few days:
1. It snowed today. Maybe 1/2 inch. People in North Carolina, at least in Chapel Hill, do not know how to drive in snow. When you drive 5 mph with your brakes on, you only make the road slipperier. I hope![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
smonsterbite does not ride her bike home today.
2. I just posted this on b.org, but I'm going to say it again here. I was driving home yesterday while Sen. Boxer was talking to Dr. Rice about Iraq. Normally, I absolutely hate interpersonal confrontation - especially when someone is saying what they really feel. But Sen. Boxer was so dead on that it was making me angry. I finally turned off the radio because I was just getting too angry. It's bad when the people you like are so right that you can't stand to listen to them.
3. My iPod is now on its way back to me. Actually, I think I'm getting a new one. The buttons quit working on my old one so all I could do was listen to my entire playlist over and over. [ETA: My new iPod is here - it was sitting outside freezing. This one is a new version of my old one, I was hoping they'd send the newest one, but oh well.]
4. Almost all law graduates take a 6 week bar review course before the bar exam. This year it starts May 23rd and goes until early July. I've been worried about this for 4 months because the course is $2K and I will certainly miss a bunch of it due to, you know, having a baby. I found out yesterday that you can get the materials, including the lectures on video, and it's actually slightly cheaper.
5. Finally, I think I have finally come to terms with what I want to do with my law degree and that is immigration law. I actually have a fair amount of experience here - I worked for the State Dept. issuing all types of visas, I handled an asylum case at the law clinic last year, and I spent the summer interning as what was basically a public defender for immigrants detained at the Immigration Detention Center. I speak Spanish and Portuguese and most importantly, I truly like working with immigrants. Immigration is an area where you can truly act as you think a law-abiding person would and still end up with big problems. More importantly, although I am not always the most sympathetic person, but I frequently mind myself motivated by a desire to help in these cases. When an American gets a DUI here, he/she may go to jail, etc., but for a non-citizen, they frequently serve their time and are then deported. Okay, I'm getting off track here.
So now that I have decided that this is what I want to do, I need to figure out how I'm going to do it. I have two options, both of which interest me. The first option is to work for some public interest immigration group. It would pay almost nothing, but as long as it covered child care and my student loans, that would be okay with me. Also, because my school has a loan repayment program, low pay might actually benefit me in qualifying for loan repayment. This option would get me lots of great experience with people who have truly challenging problems.
My second option is to work for some smaller immigration oriented firm. Truly, this is what I think I want to do long term, but I don't have to start now. This option would likely pay better, but I wouldn't qualify for loan repayment. Here, the clients would probably be a bit better off and I could use experience in that area since my of my clients in the past have been people with no financial resources. This would be more oriented to business and family reunification.
The only other issue for me is that I would really like to work from home two days a week. Any job I find, because of where we live, will probably involve a commute to Raleigh or Durham or Fayetteville. I'd be willing to work for $30K however, if it meant I didn't have to commute long distances every day.
So now that I've figured out what I want, I just have to figure out how I'm going to make that happen. With the baby coming, I don' t think the right time to start a new job will come until about January 1st, 2006. I can't practice law until after I know I've passed the bar exam (end of July) and Joe will be back in November. I want to spend some time with him when he gets back and no one wants to start a job in December, I don't think. So, January it is. Which means that I have from now until graduation (mid-May) to network, schmooze and impress the immigration law community of the Triangle Area.
Well, even if I don't know how I'm going to accomplish that, at least now I feel like I have a plan.
1. It snowed today. Maybe 1/2 inch. People in North Carolina, at least in Chapel Hill, do not know how to drive in snow. When you drive 5 mph with your brakes on, you only make the road slipperier. I hope
smonsterbite does not ride her bike home today.2. I just posted this on b.org, but I'm going to say it again here. I was driving home yesterday while Sen. Boxer was talking to Dr. Rice about Iraq. Normally, I absolutely hate interpersonal confrontation - especially when someone is saying what they really feel. But Sen. Boxer was so dead on that it was making me angry. I finally turned off the radio because I was just getting too angry. It's bad when the people you like are so right that you can't stand to listen to them.
3. My iPod is now on its way back to me. Actually, I think I'm getting a new one. The buttons quit working on my old one so all I could do was listen to my entire playlist over and over. [ETA: My new iPod is here - it was sitting outside freezing. This one is a new version of my old one, I was hoping they'd send the newest one, but oh well.]
4. Almost all law graduates take a 6 week bar review course before the bar exam. This year it starts May 23rd and goes until early July. I've been worried about this for 4 months because the course is $2K and I will certainly miss a bunch of it due to, you know, having a baby. I found out yesterday that you can get the materials, including the lectures on video, and it's actually slightly cheaper.
5. Finally, I think I have finally come to terms with what I want to do with my law degree and that is immigration law. I actually have a fair amount of experience here - I worked for the State Dept. issuing all types of visas, I handled an asylum case at the law clinic last year, and I spent the summer interning as what was basically a public defender for immigrants detained at the Immigration Detention Center. I speak Spanish and Portuguese and most importantly, I truly like working with immigrants. Immigration is an area where you can truly act as you think a law-abiding person would and still end up with big problems. More importantly, although I am not always the most sympathetic person, but I frequently mind myself motivated by a desire to help in these cases. When an American gets a DUI here, he/she may go to jail, etc., but for a non-citizen, they frequently serve their time and are then deported. Okay, I'm getting off track here.
So now that I have decided that this is what I want to do, I need to figure out how I'm going to do it. I have two options, both of which interest me. The first option is to work for some public interest immigration group. It would pay almost nothing, but as long as it covered child care and my student loans, that would be okay with me. Also, because my school has a loan repayment program, low pay might actually benefit me in qualifying for loan repayment. This option would get me lots of great experience with people who have truly challenging problems.
My second option is to work for some smaller immigration oriented firm. Truly, this is what I think I want to do long term, but I don't have to start now. This option would likely pay better, but I wouldn't qualify for loan repayment. Here, the clients would probably be a bit better off and I could use experience in that area since my of my clients in the past have been people with no financial resources. This would be more oriented to business and family reunification.
The only other issue for me is that I would really like to work from home two days a week. Any job I find, because of where we live, will probably involve a commute to Raleigh or Durham or Fayetteville. I'd be willing to work for $30K however, if it meant I didn't have to commute long distances every day.
So now that I've figured out what I want, I just have to figure out how I'm going to make that happen. With the baby coming, I don' t think the right time to start a new job will come until about January 1st, 2006. I can't practice law until after I know I've passed the bar exam (end of July) and Joe will be back in November. I want to spend some time with him when he gets back and no one wants to start a job in December, I don't think. So, January it is. Which means that I have from now until graduation (mid-May) to network, schmooze and impress the immigration law community of the Triangle Area.
Well, even if I don't know how I'm going to accomplish that, at least now I feel like I have a plan.