There and Back Again: New York

Right now, as I am typing this, I am about 32,000 feet in the air. Specifically, on an American Airlines flight back to Chicago from New York. In less than a week, I will be on another American Airlines flight to New York; a day after that, I will be on a flight back to Chicago. The cause? Callback interviews.

I had a callback interview with a prominent New York firm earlier today. For those of you who do not speak law student, a "callback" interview is the second round of interviews for a summer firm job. Again, shades of sorority rush: after the first "round" of OCI interviews at the school, we minions will get invited (or not) by firms to interview again, this time in the specific office for which we applied, which for me was the New York office. All expenses paid, too. This, of course, is only if they liked you the first time around. Interestingly, the two (and so far only) callbacks I got were with the last two firms I interviewed with. So I guess, like a fine wine, I get better with time?

So, yesterday after my morning class, I headed over to the hell-place (also known as O'Hare International Airport), and got on a flight out to New York. Which was delayed. But since O'Hare is a vortex where timeliness goes to die, this was not unexpected. The flight was otherwise uneventful. Which is the best kind of flight, really. The one good thing about the lateness, though, was that I got to see a really cool sunset over the Manhattan skyline as we were landing. That was pretty sweet. I dunno-- just flying over New York and landing at the airport, seeing from the window all these things I had come to know this summer, I got really, really excited to be back. It was a very similar feeling to the one you get when you go home to see family after a long absence. So I think that says something about what I want, where I want to be. Also, thank god things in New York are open late. I was still able to get a real dinner. A city that never sleeps: My kind of town.

Also proving that my life actually is Groundhog Day, once in New York I found myself again in Times Square (seriously, why do I always end up in Times Square?), where the hotel was located (for a nostalgia connection, it was a hotel right across from the theatre where by boyfriend and I saw Porgy and Bess one of the times he came out to visit me while I was working in the city this summer). This was actually a logical placement, as the firm was located just off of Times Square, at 51st and 7th-- within walking distance.

The hotel was very nice-- très modern, suitably trendy. I wish I could say I got a decent night's sleep, but there was this really low like throbbing vibrating noise-- from whence it came I do not know-- that I could both hear AND feel in my bed. So that was weird. And prevented me from sleeping for a long while.

The actual interview was just OK. It got off to a kind of rocky start: I got to the building right on time, but then went to the wrong floor (the firm apparently takes up several floors, and when I saw this one guy get off at a lower floor with the firm signage, I assumed that was the floor. I was wrong, and ended up putzing on the wrong floor for several minutes, confusedly, until I was able to find someone to direct me upstairs. Needless to say, this made me a few minutes late to the interview, which is never a good way to start things out, and I felt like a putz. I wish there was a way to signal to people that my dingy-ness is really just confined to things like directions and mundane everyday life details, but doesn't translate into my work. When I am not in a focused "work" situation, I think I live in my head a lot, thinking about what I need to do, considering my work and obligations as I go about the day, and thus miss the everyday random life details. Like what floor to go to. Legally blonde, indeed.

Callback interviews are kind of like OCI interviews with a firm, on steroids. Instead of interviewing with one or two people at once, one time, you go through a succession of people-- in my case, four-- one at a time. The lawyers you meet with run the gamut from 2nd or 3rd year associates, all the way to partners. If you don't know what this means, don't worry, it is not really important. Seeing as how it seems unprofessional to go into details about the individual interviews on a blog (even an anonymous blog), all I will say is that I thought a couple of the interviews went well, a couple were a little more lukewarm. So we shall see how it all pans out. I am not really holding my breath, due to the wrong-floor snafu, but you never know. It's too bad too-- everyone I spoke with sung nothing but praises about the firm's work environment, like the fact that everyone cooperates with everyone and gets on with everyone, and are generally on friendly terms, not just professional terms. As one interviewer put it, there isn't really any "yelling." The cooperative and congenial atmosphere at Northwestern is something that I have really valued and benefited from as a student, and would love to work at a place that is similar. Alas.

After the interview, I went to a Starbucks and sat there for a couple hours doing work and taking a phone call for another project I am working on. After that, I had a couple hours to kill, so I putz'd around Hell's Kitchen for a while, checking out some of the indie shops. It wasn't a neighborhood I spent a lot of time in while I was in New York this summer, so it was nice to get to see a couple new things.

And now here I am, heading back to Chicago. We are in theory landing in like 40 minutes. Due to the nature of where I am seated and the internet on-board, I can't post pictures, but I did take some while I was walking around the city. When I get back to Chicago I will edit this post and add them. I have to say though, getting wifi on a plane is pretty baller. Even if I had to pay $10 for it.

Ah, New York City. Love to see you, hate to watch you go. Until next time... in about four days.

On a completely unrelated note, looking out my window to the left, I am seeing lightening over the horizon. This is not disconcerting at all...

Attack of the Moving Boxes

Moving officially sucks.

I imagine that this is not the most mind-blowing statement ever made, as I am pretty sure that every person at some point in their lives realizes this fact. But it is really, really unpleasant. I have moved before, but packing up a dorm room is very very different than packing up an apartment that includes all crap from said dorm room, plus many many other things picked up over the year that are needed for an apartment. Like furniture. And an entertainment system. And a piano/keyboard thing. Plus in addition to all of that, there is even more stuff, because we have all of my boyfriend's stuff as well. We have kind of been leisurely about packing (although I imagine that will change starting tomorrow, as D-Day is Thursday), so the apartment basically looks like a tornado went through it. Or a bomb. You get the picture. As someone who grew up in a very clean home, and tries to keep things at least somewhat orderly, I find this actually very distressing. It's like no matter what I do right now, I can't make the apartment look better. Or habitable. This for me is probably the worst part of moving.

And the packing just generally. Mostly because I am so sick of packing. Not two weeks ago, I had to pack up my dorm room in New York, including two boxes I had to ship ahead. Before that, I had packed, unpacked, and packed again to visit my parents in California. I feel like I spend my whole damn life packing and unpacking shit. And I am *so* over it. I suppose it is the nature of the point in my life that I am at, but this whole Bedouin-like existence of always being on the move is kind of getting old.

And yet I also miss being able to travel around. While the experience itself was kind of a mixed bag, one of the things I really miss about study abroad (I went to France during my junior year of college) was the fact that essentially, every other weekend I could hop on the high-speed train, and within a few hours, be somewhere entirely new. I didn't have to stay in one place; I could experience new fabulousness, new experiences so easily. This traveling and moving around though, is all kind of mundane. And just annoying. It's like I am settled in but not. It's funny-- right now I am going through OCI, which if I go down that path would both pay exceedingly well, but also really settle me in. Other than the fact that I haven't gotten any callbacks so I probably won't happen, if I do go down that road, I will be a long ways towards settling into a very stable life. Finally. But I am also not sure I want that kind of stable life at this point. When I came to law school, I did so with visions of working in a legal field that allowed me to go new places, experience new things, meet interesting and important people, engage in an active and worthwhile employment. I thought I'd spend my third year abroad, getting a joint degree from a foreign country's law school. All that seems kind of far away now. I guess I am feeling like I am too young to be boring. Curse you, Season 1 finale of How I Met Your Mother (my boyfriend has gotten me watching courtesy of his Netflix streaming account).

Well anyways, for now it is on to bigger and better things (and by that I mean a nicer apartment. With a ceiling fan, apparently). On an unrelated note, I am feeling really guilty that I haven't yet signed up for a PAWS volunteer session; but, I am moving... and OCI...so just, no. :( Also, I finally finished my last project from work (clocking in at 94 pages, bitches)!! So I can finally say I am a free woman...for about two weeks, until classes start. Oy.

Until the next update...

Sorority Rush for Grown-Ups

No, fearless readers, I am not dead. I know I haven't updated my blog in a while, but truth be told, once I touched down in Chicago last week, it has pretty much been 0-60 in about 3 seconds. From the moment I got home, I have been absorbed in sorting out the myriad of details pertaining to the move to the new apartment, which will be happening one week from today. Plus, I am *still* trying to finish my last project from this summer's work, which at this stage is clocking in at about 90 pages. And I feel like a tool that it is taking this long. And as of Tuesday, the one major ritual that all rising 2L law students go through has begun: On-Campus interviews, also known as OCI.

Ah, OCI. It's kind of like the sorting hat from Harry Potter in that the purpose of it is to place students in Summer Associate positions at various large firms next summer. So everyone interviews with between 15-25ish firms, and through a long process that takes several weeks of interviews and callback interviews, people are *hopefully* narrowed down to one (and not none, i.e. they can find a job). OCI is actually rather important, because the job a law student holds during their second summer, unless they suck really badly, often becomes the job offer they will have upon graduation and passage of the bar exam. So, it's kind of a big deal.

The OCI bit is what is going on now. OCI is basically sorority rush for grown-ups. I don't know how many of you all reading this have been in sororities and have gone through rush, but it is literally the same set-up in most aspects: over a week or two, students go interview with the firms that they received interviews with through a lottery bidding system. Every day there can be several interviews of 20 minutes, depending on your schedule. Reps from different firms are sitting in a bunch of different rooms, and students go from room to room, having many conversations. The major difference being that instead of rah-rah pants and matching T-Shirts, we are wearing suits. So, who knew the skill of being able to go around having short conversations with complete strangers multiple times a day would actually come in handy in the real world? And, also like the "rounds" of "parties" during sorority rush (excuse me, "recruitment"), if the shorter interview/conversations go well, and you meet their requirements, you will be "asked back" to a few firms for a larger, longer interview process at their office.

Over the next couple weeks, I will have interviews with 18 firms; so far, I have had 5 of those 18, with 3 more coming up today. The thing with OCI, however, is that you can't just go into it "blind;" it is expected that you actually researching the firm and your interviewers ahead of time, so it actually takes up more time than you might think. Plus, thank you notes. Anyway, it will be interesting to see what happens. About 2/3 of the firms I am interviewing with are located in NYC, the other 1/3 are DC firms. Unfortunately, I learned during one night of pre-OCI-induced insomnia, this whole process can take like 6 weeks, as firms are kind of on their own manyana man schedule about when they get back to people about any callbacks, and then about offers after callbacks. So I may not know what is going on for a while. But obviously, will post updates.

And so another spin of life's roulette wheel has been turned...

In other news, I started my volunteer work at PAWS Chicago, which is a no-kill animal rescue organization in Chicago. Had my second training session yesterday evening, so now I am ready to sign up for shifts, which I will be doing 2x/month. I probably won't be able to sign up for any shifts before September, however. Between OCI and moving, my August is pretty shot. But, I thought it would a good thing for me to have something going on that is in no way related to law school-- so I can have a well-rounded life. Plus, doggies make me less stressed as a person, and these animals really do need good homes; since at this stage in my life I can't adopt my own doggie, I am happy to do what I can to make sure that other doggies find their forever homes. The organization does really great work: since they started in 1997, they have reduced the number of euthanized dogs and cats from something disgusting like 47K in the Chicagoland area, to under 18K in 2010. Unfortunately, sometimes animals are too sick to save, but that is the vast minority of cases. Most animals that are killed, are done so just because of overcrowded shelters, which is just so sad and a real tragedy. So the other good thing that PAWS does, is provide education about spaying and neutering pets, which is really at the root of the problem. They also provide free and low-cost spay/neutering to people who can't afford it, including a mobile "spay van," which has really helped reduce the number of unwanted animals.

More information about PAWS Chicago can be found on their website. If you are considering getting an animal, whether you are in Chicago or elsewhere, please adopt from a shelter or rescue group. There are a lot of perfectly wonderful animals in need of a good home, and you will be helping to solve the problem, not encourage it through the use of puppy mills.

In honor of my new volunteer group, here are a couple cute animal videos (also since OCI really isn't conducive to the use of mixed media...)

So, that's basically been my week back in Chicago. More news as it comes.