Before the storm

I know this post is a long time coming. But preparing for, then taking, and now recovering from a whirlwind Spring Break trip to Austin and El Paso has really stolen any time I would've had to sit down and write.

Fortunately, I've been getting all sorts of other important things done in the meantime. Most critically, while I left Cambridge with quite a lingering case of the New England Februaries, a week in the incomparable Texas sunshine has me feeling much more energized and ready to do what I need to in the last weeks of this semester.

Which is a lot. I fell behind in the readings for my Constitutional Law course leading up to the break (however entertaining the lectures were), so this weekend I've had to catch up in addition to reading for tomorrow's class. I can't let that happen again, or I'll wind up wasting time that I should spend studying for the exam just catching up. I also need to get started planning my final paper for Housing Law, but luckily I have an interesting topic in mind.

More immediately, this Tuesday will be my third workshop with the Boston teenagers I'm meeting through the RFK Children's Action Corps and my Community Action class. This is the single most exhausting thing I've got going this semester, but it's also the most fulfilling, so I hope to write a whole post about it sometime. For now, I'll just say that getting young people whose whole existence is so punitive just thinking and talking about ideas like justice can truly take your breath away, even if it's also a little like pulling teeth.

There's also work for TAP, which is steady and productive if sometimes disappointing. I'm ready to move on from a long-shot case that I recently assigned myself entirely out of sympathy for the delightful Haitian tenant, but (predictably, but no less regrettably) got word over the break that I'd lost. Lousy, but as in every case, I learned a lot and made someone feel supported in a difficult time, so I'm eager to try again.

Of course, all this - plus Corporations, my journal, and the first round of preparations to apply for judicial clerkships in the fall - has to wrap up in just over six weeks now! Luckily, in Austin I took care of one other big thing that was weighing on my mind: I found an apartment for the ten weeks I'll be there doing internships this summer. It's a kind of breezy one-bedroom in a cool neighborhood off North Lamar Boulevard, and it's making me long for summer even more (as if a dear friend's August wedding, in which I'll be a bridesmaid for the first time ever, weren't enough!)

Luckily, I think I have just enough steam to get there. Even with rain in the forecast through Wednesday.