Update fail!

Hey, remember me? That friend/relative of yours who's in the middle of what's supposed to be the easiest year of law school? Yeah, about that...

I can't believe I'm saying this, but the past few weeks have been some of the craziest of my life! Not because anything incredibly major has happened, but because of the incredibly relentless stream of minor things that just keep cropping up. Once I realized I was three days away from going a whole month without posting here, I knew I had better clue y'all in on some of the hubbub. So here goes:

Winter term success. The extra three weeks in Austin this winter were amazing, and not only because I got to accompany my mom to both her latest MRI scan and the visit where her doctor announced there had been no growth in her tumor since surgery. No, the work was also fantastic - being back at my summer employer felt like starting right where I left off, even though the issue I worked on was different from before, and I got to help out with incredibly fun things like co-hosting a roundtable discussion with Elizabeth Warren and Holly Petraeus in San Antonio. I was ready to be back at Harvard with Russell and my cat by the end, but I couldn't have picked a better way to spend the term.

Snow like whoa. This is easily the snowiest winter since I came to law school - it's actually the most snow Cambridge has had in something like 15 years. At least a foot covers all the front yards, huge icicles are hanging off the buildings, and there are enormous person- and even two-person-high drifts in some of the places where the big, industrial snowblowers have cleared the sidewalks and driveways at Harvard. I think it's beautiful and mostly have no complaints - what an extravagant send-off for someone headed to Texas! But it is a little treacherous how it can hide ice on the ground. No real wipeouts yet, though - keep your fingers crossed.

Bar application blues. The postmark deadline for the Texas bar was today, so several friends and I have been scrambling to get our employers, character references, birth certificates, applications to law school, and everything else in line this week. It's exhausting and tense, so much more than it probably needs to be, because the instructions are as vague as possible and the website is positively archaic (truly, check it out yourself.) But we are finally done and can breathe a sigh of relief, at least until the fingerprinting cards come.

Last first week. Although the start of spring semester is never quite as exciting as fall, I'm so psyched about my classes that it still feels like the start of something momentous and special. It occurs to me that I never did post my schedule, so here it is now:

Monday

1-2:30 Race & Justice: The Wire with Charles Ogletree

5-7 Law & Mind Sciences with Jon Hanson

Tuesday

1-2:30 Race & Justice: The Wire

Wednesday

1:30-3 Law & Social Movements with Lani Guinier

5-7 Workshop on Law & Social Policy with Anne Alstott & Ben Sachs

7-9 Judicial Process in the Community Courts with Judge John Cratsley

Thursday

1:30-3 Law & Social Movements

Friday

1:30-2:30 Law & Social Movements

Of course, all that involves A LOT of reading, and even though I found all the assignments interesting, it was difficult not to fall behind the very first week! Add in the 15-page paper I had to write for my winter clinical - which was literally impossible to squeeze in with working full time during the term, so it all got done in the last week before the deadline, today - and I was about ready to start pulling my hair out.

Graduation around the corner. Did I mention this is my LAST year of law school, meaning I am going to GRADUATE in just a few short months??? I spent a good chunk of time in Austin, and a little more since I've been back here (with much more to come, I'm sure), juggling the travel and lodging plans of at least a dozen excited relatives I can't wait to see in May. This has been fun and, with some welcome help from my mom, pretty manageable. But between this and the bar application, the future is quickly becoming all too real.

Back in the fold. Well, hopefully just enough of all that is behind me now. The excitement of winter term and the craziness of this past week are over, I have an amazing semester of classes ahead, and life with Russell and the cat is lowering my blood pressure by the minute (and will do so even more once I clean up the disaster zone I made of the apartment while I was so busy). Granted, there is the usual ramp-up of responsibilities for Tenant Advocacy and my journal. But that's the regular (for Harvard Law School) amount of stress I feel confident I can handle, so I look forward to getting back to it very much.