preparation

We're on the telephone talking about the plans we have for the week. I have an interview the next day; he has a position to run for in the sailing team elections. I am tired but positive about the impending trip to another firm for another hour's tentative chat.

"I hope you get it." I say, after we've discussed what answers he'll give some silly questions they're going to ask.
"So do I. But I'd happily not take it if it meant you got the job."
And then my heart exploded.

every little

Just had an e-mail from law college reminding us that Tesco are running a mock assessment centre next month. They have received very few applications so we're being urged to apply.

The reason no-one has applied is that this is a really, really stupid idea. I'm meant to waste my time filling out a moronic form for a MOCK interview? I'm supposed to compete for a PRETEND JOB? As if making applications for real training contracts wasn't time-consuming and tiring enough.

Morons.

bed

Three and a half hour exams are quite a killer. Too many numbers and a drafting question that didn't require you to draft anything. Perhaps didn't go as well as it might.

It's just gone eight but I'm going to take my make up off and go to bed. Really looking forward to a gym session tomorrow.

still

Another rejection from another job today.

Most times I'm fine with this I really am just not, today.

It's exam time and I've got a cold and I'm unhappy and FUCK.

Each rejection makes you stronger, blah.

forecast

One of my recent history websites on Firefox is the BBC weather page. I am praying for good weather in Paris one week today; one week today I will be on the Eurostar with my boyfriend, hopefully slightly fuzzy from wine and the elation of exams being DONE.

In lawyerly news:
Some stuff got decided about assisted suicide today and now it's all supposed to make sense and so on but I'm not sure making motive the "key" helps in any way. I will write more about this but I'm really drinking too much wine in the evenings lately and it doesn't really help the clarity of writing.

listen

I like the Radio Four Saturday play. I like a lot of Radio Four actually. Not the news (prefer to read it) or the drivelly comment shows or the programmes about wildlife, but the comedy and drama are pretty diverting. And The Archers, of course.*

Anyway. The last Saturday play was about Craig Murray. I didn't know who he was until I listened to the play, if I'm honest. He was a British ambassador to Uzbekistan before we invaded Iraq, where he came across some terrible abuses of human rights. He took it upon himself to help people. In the process he exposed the British government's complicity (the spell check thinks that's a word but I'm not sure) in the gathering of intelligence by torturing people. There's a lawyer in the play who actually defends this behaviour.

Now, it may be legally possible for the government to pass over their involvement. But the lawyer who allows that; how can he sleep? The law is cruel and clever, and those in a position of power can always manipulate it to avoid its devastation. But I could never do that. To support such awful illegality of anyone, let alone the group charged with leading this country, by telling them that it's okay, do what you want because the law lets you avoid morality; I couldn't do that.

This is incoherent, I realise, and I am going to attempt to work it up into something more. If nothing else it's helping me find a way to the kind of lawyer I want to be.

Saturday play here.

*I think that's a countryside thing. My Dad has always listened to it. It's more a reminder of home than anything.

hope

Listening to two girls chat beside me in the awful dungeon of a cafe in college, talking about how they don't have time to do any job applications. Yet, bizarrely, neither of them have actually done the preparation for today's classes; what keeps them so busy, I wonder?

This course is not hard work. Watch a few hours of online lectures a week, read up on anything you're hazy about and make a stab at a basic prep task. Turn up to all your classes and you're in college for about ten hours a week.

If you can't cope with this, how on earth will you be a lawyer? Will you sulk when you're not allowed to go at half past five on the dot? Will you ignore the tasks your supervisor sets you in favour of the pub and then moan about what a bitch she is, how busy you are, doesn't she understand?

I know, I know, I'm arrogant. I'm struck equally by reassurance and fear; these girls aren't really competition in the job market, but then again I've met people just like them who are qualified lawyers.

Spanish class soon.

it's definitely nearly the end of term

Exchange between two of my favourite lawyer friends on facebook:

Italian Friend: better than fucking allotment and transfer of fucking shares! the whole class was hangovered from a late night at [name of nasty student club] and we got told off by head of department...yes!
...
excuse my French.
CW: excuse your English. Hangovered?!?
IF: sorry mate. It's street English, yo!
...
http://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=Hangovered
CW: http://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=bollocks
Me: :D

grr

So, for reasons unknown, I've been behaving like a total bitch recently. I thought it was exam stress, but, no, exams are done now. Overtired? Certainly, but that doesn't account for being a twat last night. Or on Friday, over a sodding dress. What the hell.

Just resolving to get on with it and stop being ridiculous. I think it's the change thing, sad all over again at a departure that isn't my own. (But it is, in a way, losing all connection to the city I love better than any other).

...

Working a law firm in Bristol for the week. Loved the first day, and I hadn't expected to. I was awake until gone five am worrying about it. See, ridiculous.

possibly submitted it in a drunken stupor

Just got an e-mail from a law firm thanking me for my application, and letting me know they'd be contacting me soon with a decision.

I do not remember submitting this application.

I wonder what was on it.

jibe-oh

Got a non-pfo (why not just say acceptance? who knows; I'm tired) the day after. Happiness ensued.

This weekend was the warmest so far this year. I squeeze my child-bearing hips (cheers, ma) through the window and we sit on the stone balcony. Bickering about schooling and commenting on the girls walking past the afternoon slips away and it seems seconds since I arrived.

I return to London with renewed enthusiasm and a shadowed shape of a plan.

pfo

...
I don't even want to be a lawyer.

Not surprised, but rather fed up.

where I am

I feel soulless. Not in the indulgent way I occasionally ignore any moral compass I may possess, but spineless, weightless. A grey uneasy rest.

I do not love the law. I will never love the law. I cannot do this for the rest of my life.
I do not think I can do this at all.

A phone call; I say what has been building in my throat for days I despise that I let myself do this.

I cannot bear the drudgery. Discussion of statute is not debate, application of rules and attempting to sidestep difficult tax issues is not intellectual or exciting or anything but work any person willing to push solidly through these pages of bullet points could do.

Fuck, let's hope I'm as fickle as usual and change my mind by morning.