shaking the blues away

life is back to normal.

i am back to normal.

my phrasing of sentences is back to normal.

all is good.

i have turned comments back on. i'm not going to be miserable about the exam -- there is too much to think about and plan for. if i start getting miserable again, i will need someone to slap me. i can't let the negativity overwhelm me. i need to seriously start thinking about where i go from here.

today's the first time since the race when i can actually walk without feeling pain in my leg muscles. and for the first time this week, i'm not too completely exhausted, either. that race was really just a fantastic time, exactly what i needed to distract myself over the weekend, and i just love hanging out with my best friend.

one thing i learned for the first time this weekend about my friend, despite having known her for seven years, is that whenever she says she is "sick," especially in the context of food or whatever, it does not have the conventional meaning of "sick" -- as in "nauseous" or "feeling faint."

rather, it means she needs to poo.

like, do a number two.

take a dump.

sit on the crapper.

it hit me on saturday that this is what she meant -- she kept saying she was "sick" and stuff. and i was concerned; i kept asking her if she needed to throw up or anything. then she would look embarassed and say "no." finally, i had a moment of clarity and realized what she meant -- and then i started giggling and asked her if she meant she had to do a number two. she got embarassed and meekly said, "yes," then started giggling, too, as if my bluntness had emancipated her from her sense of mormon decorum.

i then made sure to tease her non-stop about her terminology for the rest of the weekend.

but it is my friend's mormon, proper up-bringing coming through. the girl has a very liberal streak -- she cusses, drinks, has sex freely. and she really does prefer dating black guys -- the stereotype about size is quite true, she says with a wink. but there are some rather prim habits she just can't shake. talking about taking a dump is, apparently, one of them.

that is something i've noticed with my mormon friends, though. they seriously have the weirdest nicknames for the most basic and most necessary bodily functions.

anyway, in terms of short-term plans, there are, practically speaking, a number of options available to me:

1. take the bar exam again in july.
2. take the bar exam in another state -- but in february (the deadline for signing up to take the bar in the other states i've looked up appears to have lapsed for all of them)
3. forgo the bar exam altogether and accept admissions at the grad school.
4. stay on at this job.

i also have another option up my sleeve -- i haven't mentioned it before. but i'll delve into it, when i think it has become a viable alternative.

i haven't told my mom yet. about failing it again, i mean.

it is hard.

she has always been supportive of me -- knows that i don't like being told what to do (but nonetheless often tells me anyway). where this bar thing has been concerned, though, she has always put up an especially brave front. she's proud of me for doing law school and stuff, but of course, she would have liked for me to become an attorney by now. she has stood by me, though, when i kept putting it off and defends me against anyone who would talk shit about me because of it, including her own siblings.

i want to make her happy, though, and make her proud. so having to tell her that i failed it again . . . will be hard. i know i'll see the mask slip over her face and over her eyes, and then she will buck up and say, "who cares! you do it until you get it!"

see? my mom is super cool.

what hasn't been as super cool about her is that talking to her about grad school gets to be quite a downer. she's just not down with the idea of me going back to school. if i'm not going to be an attorney, she at least wants me to stay on at this job and keep making money. there are practical aspects to that which i do appreciate. but it is not enough for me. i'm a reader and a writer with a passion for ideas. the job i have does not satisfy my passions. like, at all.

my mom's really good, though. she knows i hate it when she starts raining on my parade about grad school -- and she knows i really like the idea of getting a ph.d -- so she'll resort to more unobtrusive, devious measures to make her disagreement with the notion known.

like, whenever i talk about the grad program i got into and the teaching assistantships that are offered, she'll ask about money.

"my entire tuition would be paid for," i tell her, "and i'd get a stipend. as a non-resident, my tuition would be $ 10,000 per semester, so a TA-ship would help!"

"would you get paid?" she'll ask.

"a stipend," i say.

"how much is the stipend?" she asks.

"$1,000 or so," i say reluctantly.

"a month?"

"um, no," i say, knowing where the conversation is going. "for the semester. it's a stipend, not a salary."

"ohhhh," she'll say in a disappointed, long sound.

i swear i've had this same exact conversation with her three times by now. and it goes and ends the same way -- starting with asking about money and ending with that same long "ohhhhh."

she's doing it on purpose! she's sneaky like that!

and she does it like that because she doesn't want to get into an argument with me and have a direct confrontation. but pshaw -- i know what she's up to!!

it's not that i don't understand her point, though. i do. even if i never become an attorney and i stayed on at this job, i've currently got a mediocre but steady $ 52k/year salary -- with a promise of a pay bump in july (5%). after i get that 5%, i will be maxed out, salary-wise, within my particular job classification. so if i wanted to keep getting higher salaries, i would have to take an exam to be able to promote to the next higher job classification, where the same waiting game to get that next 5% increase continues.

seriously, the idea of doing that is so depressing to me. . . . it is a never-ending rat-race. bureaucracies are dull, uninteresting, unchallenging, uninspiring. i could play this game the rest of my life if i wanted to, if i had to.

but i'd like to think that there are more fun, more exciting options available to me as well. i'd like to think that i'm not quite done with exploring options and seeing what i can actually do with myself just yet.

:-T

speaking of this job, i still don't know, frankly, what the hell i'm doing here. i don't know why i was hired. i think i was just snatched up before i could get away (which i am totally grateful for, of course). but i think they're still figuring out what to do with me . . . .

so i'm still kinda just plodding along. i've been trying to get the few things that have been assigned to me done -- but i haven't been assigned anything of substance quite yet. and there are a LOT of slow days. like, a LOT. i don't feel very . . . important. and to tell the truth, with my bosses in and out of the office a lot, i think they are often quite surprised when they see me around. they have an expression on their face like, "OH! you're still here, are you?"

nonetheless, at the same time, a couple of days ago, the big cheese of the office invited me to a Very Important Event to be happening today: the next Head Honcho of this agency, a recent Governator-appointee, is stopping by and will be meeting with only Very Important Persons at my particular office. other than the big cheese's secretary, there are no lower level persons, other than me, who'll be attending -- not even laotian girl.

it's cool and all to be invited to such an event. . . .

pero porque? yo quiero saber. no lo comprendo. . . .

no estoy muy importante. . . . no he trabajado en proyectos importante. no he hablado con nadie. pues -- porque me invita?

hmmm. . . .

anyhow, if grad school is what i want to do, i have to think about whether i want to be going to that one particular program, out of eight, that has accepted me. from what i can gather, the program is pretty weak at the moment, has been for at least a couple of years now. a lot of the faculty have flocked away in recent years, and it sounds like the program has just been kind of plodding along.

however, they have hired new faculty who will be starting there over the course of the next couple of years, and they hope to make the program a more competitive one, like it used to be, as soon as they can.

a grad student i have been messaging has really been selling me on the program. like, the students i met in person when i visited were really cool but kind of downers -- they had as many negative things to say as they did the positives. but this other student, while still as candid as the others i met, has been painting a wholly different picture for me. he's only one year into the program, and he did confirm that there were aspects of the program that were weak -- but he was also enthused about the possibilities for the future, especially once the new faculty come on board.

so i am seriously considering grad school at this point. this guy has been a really great source -- i may need to owe him a coffee or something. :)

as for the bar exam . . . .

if i want to re-take again in july, california is my only option. it's too late to sign up in other states for the july exam.

i've only been looking in the western states for the february 2009 exam. i have a huge fear of going into the midwest and the american south. the beehive state is as far east as i am willing to go! and of course the upper east is out of the question -- i don't like larger cities, don't like being one of many small fish lost in a large sea of people. i'm totally assuming, to be clear, that if i pass a bar somewhere, i'll at least be trying to live in that particular state for at least year or so . . . .

in any case, i'm thinking maybe the golden state is not the place to be. 35% pass rate . . . . fuck.

what a way to make a girl feel like scum of the earth.

:-P

but it's like a glaring sign to me. my fortune, at least for the next few years, is not destined to be here at all. truly, i don't think so -- and it just confirms my sentiments for the past couple of years that i've been here.

i love being around my fam. i love the fact that i'm so much at home here, in a multi-cultural city where i can go out and get really good food of any type i want.

but i have been way too comfortable and way too stagnant here. i feel kinda oppressed sometimes. family expectations weigh heaviest when you're physically closer to your family. i still go out and do my own thing to a certain extent -- but i still have not felt as free as i did when i lived away from familial expectations and that kind of riff-raff.

so i really think it's an omen -- to just go.

:-T

anyhow . . . .

well, Head Honcho is about to arrive -- guess i should get ready . . . .