Land of the Living Dead November 21, 2009

(Side bar – There have been more developments regarding my son’s father which I will update on very soon, but for now my son and I are weathering the storm pretty well.)

I looked in the mirror earlier today and jumped at the reflection.  Who was the person looking back at me?!  She’s pale, exhausted, and quite frankly, looks like hell.

I’ve kicked into high gear trying to cram for my finals.  Staying up until 1:00 a.m. and getting up by 5:00 a.m. to head into work.  After work, I head to class, get home at 10:00 p.m. and continue the cycle.

Following this schedule is insane I know, but I think it’s helping, I’m making progress on my outlines at least.  It is starting to take its toll on me though. 

By Tuesday, I had given up on wearing my contacts and started wearing my glasses.  The benefit to wearing my glasses is that the frames hide the dark circles under my eyes.

By Wednesday, I added bronzer to my make-up routine to hide the pasty complexion, so that I don’t look like a complete zombie at work.

The only thing I can’t fix is how tired my eyes look.  I seriously think that any day now I’m going to get a call from HR demanding a random drug test because my eyes are so bloodshot from the lack of sleep, reading, and typing for hours on my laptop.

My diet has been mainly liquids:  coffee, red bull, gatorade, and water. 

On a positive note, I FINALLY got my property midterm back and  could not believe the grade, it was beyond my expectations considering my laptop crashed thirty minutes into it and I had to handwrite the exam.  Bonus, my prof said that if we do better on the final, that will be our final grade, but if we do worse, the midterm counts as 5o% of our final grade!  If I completely bomb future interests and RAP, I should get at least a C!  This good news has actually fueled my energy to continue to push myself in my cramming.

I am going to take a break tomorrow night though.  I have plans to go see a movie with some friends.  I’ll study during the day, head to the movie and then go straight to bed afterwards.  But for now, back to PR . . .

 

Freaking Out November 14, 2009

Uggghhhhh . . .

This has been the toughest semester ever. 

I took four classes this semester (compared to three last year) thinking I could handle it because I no longer had research and writing which took a huge chunk of time.  Additionally, part-time tuition at my law school is the same whether I take three classes or four and financially, it made more sense to do this.  I would rather get straight C’s with four classes than A’s and B’s with three each semester and graduate sooner with significantly less debt.

All I had to do was keep up with my readings and outlines and I should be fine going into finals . . . right?  I was so wrong.

I never factored in all of the other things that happened this semester.  The issues at work; friends that needed help; and all the crap going on with my son’s father.  All of these things have taken time away from my classes and studying and drained me physically and emotionally.

I’m looking at my outlines which are all a big mess right now.  How am I ever going to organize and trim these down and understand them over the next few weeks?!  I feel like I have no clue what has been going on in my classes this whole semester.  If asked right now, I don’t think I could recite one thing I’ve learned.

I am really freaking out.  I feel so overwhelmed right now.  My house is a mess, I’m way overdue for an oil change on my car and just realized I forgot to pay a dental bill that came in the mail 2 weeks ago. 

So before I hit the books tonight, I’m putting together a schedule to get myself on track over these next two weeks.  It’s the only thing I can think of that will help me get organized and feel a little less overwhelmed. 

Hopefully, it will help . . . because I am really terrified right now that I’m going to fail all my finals!

Thankful November 9, 2009

First off, thank you to everyone for your kind words, advice and support over my recent posts.  While I may never be able to thank you in person, know that your comments have really helped me this past week.

My son is doing really well, and is back to his normal, mischievous self and I will continue to have him go to counseling which seems to really be helping.

I did send out my email to his dad this week.  I laid out a heck of an IRAC on required information before future visitations.  My ‘demands’ were pretty simple:  I requested an itinerary of what the weekend would entail and who would be a part of any events; his girlfriend’s address, phone number, etc. since our son spends overnights there; a guarantee that our son would be sleeping in a bed (rather than the floor); a recap of the weekend (bedtime, injuries, illness, etc.); and a promise that our son would never be in the same vicinity of this kid that hurt him last weekend. 

I concluded that I wasn’t denying parenting time, I was asking him to be accountable.  I also gave a deadline for the receipt of this information before he can take our son for his next parenting time.

His response was typical, he swore, personally attacked, and threatened me.  He didn’t respond to any of my questions or even ask how our son was doing.  I stuck to my guns and simply emailed back each time that he needed to get me the required info by the deadline.  His replies were the usual what a bitch I was and “I want you to know I never think about you anymore, you’re my biggest mistake”.  This actually almost caused me to laugh hysterically.  But the truth is it’s pretty sad that his first and only concern is trying to hurt me through his words.  He never during the email exchange asked about our son, express concern over the weekend incident or anything.

We’ll see what happens this week, but I will not let my son go with him next weekend.  And I know I’m well within my right to do this.

One thing I have learned this semester is that I really can go into family law.  That was my original goal when I started law school last year, but I worried that my personal experiences would make practicing family law difficult.  I was afraid that I wouldn’t be able to handle the emotional aspects of this area of practice because of everything I’m going through. 

I’m taking PR this semester which has really helped me look into the ethics of practicing law and I am more sure than ever that I can do this.  People can tell all the lawyer jokes they want, but we really are here to help people and my experiences give me even greater empathy and passion to advocate for my clients.

Again, thank you for all of your support during this difficult time!  I hope that I can return the favor some day!

Some Happy News November 7, 2009

Will update on other events later, but just wanted to share my happy news . . .

My little sis is at the hospital getting ready to have her baby! 

I am so excited!  Will post more soon!

Helpless November 3, 2009

I was at a friend’s house the other day and he had a magnet on his fridge that read, “If God leads you to it, he will see you through it”.  I keep thinking about that phrase right now because I just don’t know what to do.

As I’ve mentioned in past posts, my son’s father and I do not get along whatsoever.  It’s really quite sad.  He broke up with me when I was pregnant which was over seven years ago and still carries a very bitter torch for me.  He has been difficult, hostile, threatening, irrational and most uncooperative when it has come to issues regarding our son.  When I made the decision to move up to the metro area with my son over four years ago, he became even worse.

In recent months, his main focus is to try and remove some of his financial obligations, specifically, he no longer wants to carry our son under his health plan.  My employer’s health enrollment falls on opposite times of the year and I can only add my son with a court order.  I have tried to explain this multiple times and he refuses to accept it.  I am also not stupid enough to just put my son under my health plan without having our child support reviewed.  Instead of working with the system, he threatens me and is really angry that I just filed paperwork to have our child support reviewed in order to put our son under my health plan because he wanted me to just take over and remove his financial obligation.

He sent me an email the other week that said “don’t send me any more emails unless it is to tell me you put [our son's name] under your health plan”.  He then blocked my email.  Then my son started telling me that dad keeps telling him that I only take this ‘fortune’ that he’s giving me to spend on myself and not spending it on our son.

I spoke to my son’s father about this to which his response was to threaten me with taking our son away and moving to personal insults.

I am feeling so helpless right now because my son is the one suffering from all of this.  His dad uses him to hurt me, but it’s punishing my son in the process.  He tells our son all these awful things, and places guilt on my son.  He drags my son to his girlfriend’s house during the four nights a month he has him and makes him sleep on the floor. 

He had our son for Halloween this past weekend which is also his (dad’s) birthday and told our son that he thought our son was getting sick and couldn’t take him trick-or-treating so that he could be at his girlfriend’s house for the party she was having for him.  He put our son in a bedroom with two other children and had them watch a movie.  The older boy that was there choked my son and put a pillow over his face during some rough housing.  My son doesn’t have any physical marks so I can’t call the cops on this.  I did call the social worker at my son’s school this morning and told her what had happened and she had my son meet with her to discuss how he’s feeling. 

I never say anything bad about his dad to my son, but I also can’t stand seeing my son so hurt, defeated, and upset everytime he goes for parenting time.  Now it’s reached a dangerous level after this past weekend’s events and I don’t know what to do.  My son’s father plays it on the edge so that I can’t get him for neglect, physical abuse, or anything like that. 

I am in law school to try and address these issues that I am going through right now and be an advocate for other children and families and it really sucks that I can’t do more right now with this situation. 

My son loves his father but is starting to realize that his father isn’t all that great.  My son is too young (he’s seven) for all of this; he is realizing that his dad isn’t a good dad, but still desperately wants his dad to be like all of his friends’ dads – loving, involved and a part of his life.  My son is terrified that his dad will get into trouble for his lack of supervision this past weekend (because his dad keeps telling him not to say anything to me because then I won’t let our son see his dad).  Just like he didn’t want his dad to get in trouble for not feeding him, making him sleep on the floor at his girlfriend’s house, and in general not being there for him.  As a law student, I know that my hands are tied to a certain extent because nothing can be proven by evidence, it’s only my son’s word right now.

I haven’t slept much since all of this came up yesterday when I picked up my son from his dad’s and he told me what happened.  I just feel so completely helpless right now.  I skipped class tonight so that I could spend time with my son to help him feel safe, secure and happy again after his ordeal.  I made the right decision, my son was so happy to see me at home tonight and we had a wonderful time just hanging out.

Tomorrow I am going to take a huge risk that makes me very sick.  My son was born out-of-wedlock and as a result, we only have a child support agreement with the court.  Parenting time was decided between the dad and me.  I have sole physical custody.  I am going to email (through a non-blocked account) to my son’s father a list of requirements that need to be met before he can take our son for his next parenting time.  I shouldn’t be afraid because what I’m doing is right, but the stigma of past abuse from my son’s father still gets to me.  However, I will cling to the fact that I know what my rights are, and most importantly what my son’s best interests are and I need to stick to my guns. 

I just wish that my son’s father was a better person and it doesn’t need to come to this . . .

The wheel is spinning but the hamster is having a nervous breakdown October 25, 2009

True to form, I have hit my make it or break it moment that I had each semester last year in my first year.  Finals are 6 weeks away and I don’t know how I’m going to pass my finals.  I feel like I don’t know anything right now.  Freehold Estates?  Client Confidentiality?  Party Joinders?  Article 13?  Bring up any area that I have read through so far this semester and my first reaction is to curl up in the fetal position, suck my thumb and cry.

I can’t keep up.  I feel like I am running in place, like a hamster on the exercise wheel.  I’m not making any progress.  I spent every waking moment this weekend going over my outlines and trying to catch up on my reading and I feel like I have not moved forward at all. 

This feeling isn’t just with my law school studies but in all areas of my life.  I’m not making any progress at work, I go in every morning to the same “to do” list and because things come up, a week later, the same items are still not checked off.  At home, I wash the dishes and 2 minutes later, the sink is full again.  I do 5 loads of laundry only to find the hamper almost full 2 days later.

I really want to sit down and have a nervous breakdown, or at the very least a temper tantrum, but that I fear will just put me even further behind.

I keep reminding myself that I felt this way before all my finals last year, and I made it through my exams and I knew the stuff.  I just need to push past these feelings and carry on. 

Oddly enough, one of my other law school friends lamented this afternoon that she had hit a mammoth wall that she couldn’t get over no matter how hard she tried.  My advice to her was to hang a picture on it or re-paint it.  While I was joking at the time, I realize now that maybe I should take my own advice.

I think I need to try to approach my studies a little differently now that the semester is half over . . . it’s the only way I can stop this current spinning and get through my finals in December.

D(minus) Day?! October 23, 2009

The day that I have been dreading for the last several weeks is almost here.  My Property prof announced that we would be getting our midterms back this Tuesday.  I really do not want to see this graded exam (see Murphy’s Law post for the explanation).

While I now know that this grade most likely won’t count because I know I can do better on the December final than the flaming turd I turned in a few weeks ago, I’m still pretty nervous. 

There’s been a rumor floating around campus for the last week that she’s made comments about how disappointed she is in our responses and that at the law school she taught at last year, she had a minimum of 15 pages written by each of those students. 

WTF?!  It was a 2 hour exam, I hand wrote almost 10 pages, but maybe I should have done it in blood for better effect!  Of course, this could be a false rumor; by the time I heard the story it had been passed on through several people.

Ironically, my son just came home with his first ever math test and he got a smiley face and a sticker on it for getting an A+.  That made me wonder why law schools exams don’t have stickers.  Of course, I’ve never gotten an A+ on a law school exam, so if anyone reading this has, please let me know if your graded exam had stickers and smiley faces on it

Below is a picture of my son’s exam and one of my law school exams from last year, note the differences . . .

 

 

 

 

 

 

vs.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

In any event, I only hope that I get constructive criticism on what our prof expects for answers so that I know what to do in December.  Fingers crossed for Tuesday . . .

The Law School Crush and My Love/Hate Relationship with Facebook October 16, 2009

The other day I posted that Sam and I are over.  It’s not official so to speak as we haven’t verbally said “it’s done” to each other, but it is O-V-E-R.

It happened sometime in the last few weeks.  After my stressful week with the midterm, laptop crash, and hosting the baby shower, Sam finally texted me asking if he could call me because he hadn’t heard from me for a while.  He called me and here’s the synopsis:

Sam:  “How was your week?”

Me:  “It was awful”

Sam:  “What happened?”

Me: “You know, I don’t really want to talk about it anymore, it’s over and done, and I don’t want to revisit it, let’s talk about something else.”

Sam:  “Ah . . . ok . . . did you hear back on the job interview?”

Me:  “No, I didn’t and it’s been almost 2 weeks, so I’m pretty sure I didn’t make the second round.”

Sam:  “Right on” (this is his catch phrase for everything)

Me:  “No Sam, it’s NOT right on, I’m very disappointed that I didn’t hear back”

Sam:  “I didn’t realize that the job interview was on your list of ‘Don’t talk about it’, I have to go”

And I haven’t heard from him since.  Mutual friends tell me that he’s too scared to contact me because he’s afraid I’m going to officially end it with him, wtf?  Sorry, I was cranky when I talked to him, but I wasn’t rude, we had pleasantly chatted about some other stuff during this whole phone call, so it’s not like I was unreasonable. 

Anyways, rather than call me these past 2 weeks, he’s been giving the thumbs up ‘like’ on most of my facebook statuses and posting obscure statuses and comments regarding me.  “I lost something near (place where I live)”, “I still have a thing for black hair and brown eyes”, etc.  I’d dump him as a fb friend, but I’m a little trapped since his sister and her partner are both my fb friends and it would create major drama among the law school gang.  So needless to say, I have not been on fb much lately. 

The truth is, I need someone a lot stronger, someone who isn’t chicken to talk to me about how they feel and call me to the mat if I’m being difficult.

And now unfortunately, I think I have a crush on one of my classmates.  “Ed” started hanging out with the gang towards the end of our 1L year.  We became fb friends right before summer break and just before our fall semester he started texting me.  Now we sit next to each other for all of our classes, IM each other throughout the day at our respective jobs and IM throughout class.  We’ve had some deep conversations through all of this and I think I’ve developed feelings for him. 

Ick, I hate myself for even confessing all of this.  I do not want to have a crush on this guy.  Mainly because he is so out of my league.  I finally confessed my emotional confliction to Mike last night and he burst out laughing, “I knew this was going to happen”.  Mike had become friends with Ed last year and essentially brought Ed into our ‘gang’.   Mike agreed that this is not a good thing and I need to focus on something else.

I’m just going to chalk this up as a “law school crush”.  Apparently a lot of people have these.  I heard through friends and classmates last year that everyone develops some sort of ‘crush’ on someone or picks out ‘law school eye candy’ so that there’s something to admire from afar during school and doesn’t expect to ever have anything actually happen.  So I’m convincing myself that’s all Ed is right now, my law school crush.

I’m spending the entire day tomorrow with Mike and Jess, so I’m sure this topic will come up and maybe they can help me through it . . .

Blech October 9, 2009

Wow, I can honestly say the last 2 weeks have sucked!  And I feel I need to apologize with how depressing my recent posts have been. 

I just about had another mini meltdown right before class tonight.  I reigned it in and tried to focus on what was going on around me in the commons area and then I noticed something.  Everybody looked just like I did!

I looked at the calendar (yes I rarely know what day it is currently, I’m so overwhelmed that I have to check my smartphone every hour to see where I should be and what I should be doing) and realized that it’s early October and I recalled last year commenting to my coworkers how things change at law school in early October.

Its like a sense of doom descends on my law school’s campus.  We’re halfway through the semester and it feels like last week was mid-August.  Feelings of panic descend upon us and the most frequent comments heard are “I’m so far behind”, “Finals are only 2 months away”, “I’m so stressed out”, etc.

This year feels especially tough because I have had so many external things going on recently (I hopefully will have an update on work soon, today’s meeting was postponed by my boss b/c she had a sick kid).  Thank goodness next week is fall break.

I am so far behind in my outlines and readings.  I should be working on them right now but I’ve decided to not study.

Instead, I’m going to open a beer, watch last night’s The Office and play some Nintendo DS.  I need to decompress and that seems a little more important right now than freehold estates   Plus, I have some extra days next week to get caught up on everything.  I just need a break to recharge.

Crabby with a Touch of Bitterness October 8, 2009

I have been in a super moody funk for over a week.  I’m embarrassed to admit that I had a mini-meltdown yesterday after a team meeting at my job. 

Work has been a huge downer lately.  I am finding it harder and harder to stay positive and am super unmotivated.  A lot of this has to do with my boss whom I really like, I’m just frustrated with her right now. 

There’s a couple of people on my team who are only here for the paycheck and that’s it.  They’ve been bored lately and are always on facebook, taking long lunches, and making tons of personal phone calls during work hours.  My boss’s idea to solve this problem, wasn’t to talk to them regarding their behavior but to give them a couple of huge projects to keep them busy.  These were projects that I specifically asked to be in charge of because I wanted to take on new challenges.  When I asked my boss about this, her response was, “well they really need something to keep them busy, I see them online all the time and they need something to do”.  WTF?!  How does giving two huge projects to the two biggest slackers on our team make for a good business decision?  My boss also added, “I don’t want to spread you too thin because you’re pretty busy with school”.  Ok, I considered that a low blow and told her that I felt that was unfair because I do not let school get in the way of my work performance and I have outstanding results for the past year to prove this.  My boss did later apologize to me for that last comment, but still . . .

Yesterday, after sitting through our weekly team meeting where everyone was discussing their latest and greatest projects I got more and more upset because I have no new projects to work on, I’m only maintaining my current programs.  I bolted as soon as the meeting was done and went to my cube to regain my composure. 

I vented to my dearest work friend “Dan” who told me to focus on the big picture of getting my law degree.  He advised that I stop pushing myself to such high levels at work because it won’t get me anywhere and just put my time in and focus on school.   Dan’s been with my company a lot longer than I have and has officially become among the disenchanted.  I haven’t quite gotten there yet, but I’m getting close I fear.

The thing is, it’s against my very nature to maintain status quo, I am always looking for new ideas, ways to improve current programs, etc.  I put in extra hours and work really hard to contribute, I just don’t think I can come in to work and not care.  Of course, this passion has led to total disappointment in recent weeks since my efforts are rarely recognized, they’re taken for granted instead.

I need to consider Dan’s suggestion and figure out what I’m going to do for the next couple of years while finishing my law degree.  I have a 1-to-1 meeting with my boss tomorrow, so maybe that will help me decide what to do . . .