Tales of a Tree-Hugging (Almost) Attorney

PASSED on Round 2.

Words cannot express.

I laughed. I cried. I felt sick. (Still do, actually.)

I cannot wait until everyone I know is in this boat with me so we can all celebrate.

...36 hours.

omg.

waiting on results for two exams in two states that apparently have no sense of urgency is terrible. the stress is really starting to get out of control. i mean, can anyone blame me if i end up eating a dozen of these tonight?

in better (and more distracting!) news, i get to go to home state this weekend to attend my cousin's wedding. to celebrate, i put my mad imovie skills to the test in creating (what i consider to be) an adorable how-we-met-and-fell-in-love montage. as i was doing it, however, i realized two things:

1. i really love my cousin.
2. i drastically overpaid my videographer.

but...i guess it's nice to remember that i can be good at things. especially now.

6 days.

update: state 2 released results tonight. but, since i am sharing my mbe score from state 1, my result is being held. awesome. so, still 6 days. but i strangely feel like there has been progress.

* wearing pajamas ALL day
* listening to the 90s music station for hours
* watching day-time tv (especially Ellen)
* reading books (for fun!) with a bulldog curled up by my feet
* hot chocolate just because
* figuring out samurai sodoku
* catching up on the real housewives of nj and oc
* napping

(and the best part? all of those things cost $0!)

best part of ellen today:



today was good.

i still have almost two weeks to wait until bar results come out.

part of me is pissed because i want results now.

the other part of me hopes they never post them.

i took today off (i thought) from thinking about this freaking test.

i snuggled up with the bulldog and settled in to watch the most recent grey's anatomy.

and wouldn't you know it, the interns on the show are taking their boards.

and talking about how one test can make or break all of your hard work.

it made me want to throw up.

there are lots of good things coming up. weddings. trips. interns at work (which theoretically reduces the amount of cite checking i have to do!).

why is it so hard to just relax?

at every job there comes a moment when other people start looking to move up the ladder.

on to better (or at least different) things.

for the most part, it's a private thing. as an engineer, i never really knew someone was quitting until they gave their 2 weeks. and i definitely didn't know when people interviewed. because no one talked about it. it wasn't a "thing."

at the current job (and i'd imagine, for every lawyer) you know when people are looking because they start conflicting out of proceedings. because you can't (at least according to rules of ethics) be unbiased if you're interviewing with a firm involved in a case. fair enough.

so anyway, this guy i work with came up to me and commented about how there's a lot of movement in the office right now.

i laughed. mostly because i find conversations like that super awkward. and then i commented that i wasn't looking. at all. and would like to stay for awhile.

and, without missing a beat, he goes, "well of course you're not looking. you're not even licensed."

ouch?

it's comments like this that make me really miss the simplicity of engineering. when you could just go to work and not feel competition from your coworkers. where people don't throw failure in your face. i'm sure, as time goes on (and hopefully when i get favorable results) that i will have more of a sense of humor about this. or at least will have a thicker skin. but, in the interim, it just makes me miss math and spreadsheets.

and my liver is definitely wishing that the level of empathy was just a tad higher.

work has been busy. really busy.

i prefer being busy to being bored (makes the day go so much faster), but the job seems to be a case of feast or famine. surely there is a happy medium somewhere? all in all things are looking way up though. DH and i are happily living together, which is not only good for our hearts, but it's pretty good for our checkbooks, too. he also officially nailed a nice contractor gig through his current company that secures him in the DC area for at least a year. such a blessing.

anyway...a quick catch-up of the last month:

after the bar stopped sucking the fun out of life ended, some friends from law school flew to DC to surprise me for my 30th birthday. not only did they make it down here, but, with some coordination with DH, they managed to pull together a limo wine tour in virginia. how rad is that? and i feel like the word "rad" is really the best to describe the whole weekend - if only for the fact that our limo was straight out of the wedding singer. ok, it wasn't exactly like that. but it was close. we had fluorescent mood lighting, leopard carpeting, and an unlimited supply of wine glasses. it was freaking rad.

even though one of the girls opted out of this photo, it sums up the feel of the day:



it's weird because i've always wanted a group of women to hang out with who all liked each other. unfortunately this has never really worked out. mostly because i have met my friends at all different stages of life and the only common thread is me. having a group of people that all share something other than a willingness to allow me to put them in awkward situations was a delightful experience. (but, to those of you who were not involved in this charade, rest assured that i plan on making you succumb to many more awkward experiences - and one day we'll all live together on a culdesac and you'll like it.)

one such friend sent me this lovely memento to celebrate being done with round 2 of the exam:



to answer your questions: (1) no she didn't make it, she actually hired a company to do it; (2) yes, that makes it better; (3) she is well aware that they used the wrong form of "your"; (4) yes, she was pissed about it; (5) nowhere in the package did the word "exam" appear, which means there is a strong likelihood that the person decorating this gem figured it was a really passive aggressive death threat; (6) and yes, it was so. freaking. tasty.

the next weekend i met a friend in chicago. she surprised me with the idea to belatedly celebrate my birthday. i hadn't been to chicago since 2006, so it was nice to go back. we did lots of cliche touristy awesome things. and it was nice because i felt like we reconnected. we also made friends with a couple during our awesome elevated architecture tour and i'm going to meet up with them when they're in DC next month. i consider that a major win considering what a reclusive state i had slipped into post-bar.



the following weekend marked the beginning of the cherry blossom festival. unfortunately, the "peak bloom" was way earlier than anticipated (due to climate change random rain) so we almost missed it. fortunately, the hubs and i have taken a liking to watching the morning news so we heard about the impending thunderstorms and were able to squeeze it in before the blossoms fell. along with the rest of the world. it was freaking packed. but it was every bit as beautiful as it looks in pictures. we also visited the mlk memorial. it was a traditional, fun, beautiful DC adventure.




not missing a beat, the next weekend we met friends in pittsburgh. they live in michigan, so pittsburgh was (strangely) the halfway point. we made it there in about 4 hours, which still weirds me out. feel free to judge me, but i had no idea it was so close until we moved here. what i find even weirder though is how much there actually is to do in pittsburgh! there were so many cool things. for one, we rode a historic cable car incline. we also visited the cathedral of learning, which was amazing. it's on the university of pittsburgh campus and houses 28 "nationality rooms." in 1926, the chancellor of the school invited nationalities that had a significant number of people in pittsburgh to design a room. and they did. and, for $3, we got to see them all. (if the thought appeals to you, they have a virtual tour online here). the picture below is of the austrian room. (isn't it awesome?!) we also ate at dor stop, which is a wonderful breakfast place that was featured on diners, drive ins and dives. banana chocolate chip pancakes = bliss.



still, the best part of the trip was visiting fallingwater, frank lloyd wright's masterpiece house that he built over a waterfall. it was absolutely stunning. inside and out.



suffice to say, DH and i have had some fun. i have felt really loved. this past weekend we stayed home and it was wonderful. we went to the national harbor and saw the awakening, which is a crazy-awesome sculpture. however, it was super mildly disconcerting to see the kids climbing all over it. i mean, you just don't expect a little kid to leap out of a statue's mouth, you know?



we rounded out our weekend by visiting great falls in virginia where we took our (surprisingly athletic) bulldog on an afternoon hike.



i am so irrevocably in love with spring.

*first state's bar results in about a month. clinging to optimism.

things are going well.

i just haven't had time to blog.

i haven't had a weekend at home since the bar exam. and during the week, i haven't felt like subjecting myself to more computer time. since, it turns out, the life of an energy almost-attorney involves lots of time with a computer screen.

in fact, i have been really enjoying spending my free time doing absolutely nothing.

i'm going to do an update soon. virginia wine trails. chicago. philly st. patrick's day.

but, for a few more days, i am going to continue to embrace not doing anything.

(ps: shout out to my sister-in-law. she just found out that she matched with GW for her residency!!! this means that not only did she get into her first choice, but also that DH and i are about to have family in the DC area. great on all accounts. so very excited.)

well, it's over.

i survived both exams.

however, while in the trenches, i got to meet dinei over at Nonsense and Frippery, which provided a bit of a reprieve. the funny slash horrifying thing was that the two people i sat between during the first round of the bar last july were there again. and i sat between them...again. we all did the appropriate, "man! sucks to see you here again!" thing. and then laughed. i'd be lying if i said it wasn't little comforting.

i would give more blog time to the exams here, but, honestly, i can't even remember sitting for them. maybe it's a defense mechanism, but my brain has already removed all key information. i just know that i didn't cry (score!) and i am still absurdly tired.

but i worked really hard and deserve to pass this time. and my name will be on that pass list.

anxiety and i are now officially BFFs. after hiding out with DH at the westin yesterday, i'm back at my mom's and waiting for d-day test time tomorrow. just did a test run in an attempt to stifle the need to puke gain confidence. i'm hoping to be tired enough in an hour to go to bed and get in a solid 7 hours before go-time.

sending lots of positivity to the thousands of us who will be enduring the bar exam this week.

if you're reading this - please take a moment and send us all some love.

WE GOT THIS.