Tag: law school

Summer 2018 Part One: Adventures in Standards, Technology, and Maryland

It’s hard to believe it, but summer is drawing to an end. In less than two weeks, I’ll be starting my third and final year of law school (cue simultaneous terrified screaming and joyful dancing). But before I dive back into school, I want to talk about my summer. And what a summer it’s been.

Summer in law school is about four months long. That’s plenty of time to have a fulfilling internship and to take some time off. Or, if you’re like me, it gives you time to do two internships and squeeze in half a vacation where you can. I started working the Monday after finals ended, and I’m still working now. In fact, I’m continuing at this second internship through fall semester, so I’m never really stopping. A few people have commented, and I’ve made these comments myself, that I planned this poorly and should have built more of a break into my summer, but I’m really glad I did it this way. I wanted to get a lot of experience out of this summer, and that’s what I did.

I’m going to talk about my summer in three blog posts. Otherwise it would be one crazy long rather scattered blog post. In this post, I’m going to talk about my first internship at the Office of the Chief Counsel of the National Institute of Standards and Technology. In a few days, or next week, or whenever I get to it, I’m going to talk about my second internship at Analytical Space. I’m also going to talk about what exactly space law is in that post, because I know I’ve been promising that since I wrote this post a few months ago. Finally, in the third post,  I’m going to talk about how I overcame my writer’s block and my strategies for continuing to write once school starts again. That’s the plan, at least. So let’s get started.

Right after finals, I took a road trip down to Gaithersburg, Maryland to start my first internship at the National Institute of Standards and Technology, NIST. I had never heard of NIST before this year, and I was a little nervous about the whole thing. I’d had a hard time finding housing, too. All in all, I wasn’t looking forward to two months in what I saw as middle-of-nowhere Maryland, and thanks to my experiences in Italy, I hate commuting by bus. But it turned out to be a really great experience.

It was everything I could have wanted from an internship, and more.

First of all, I got to do some really cool legal work. There was the standard legal research and  memo writing, but it was on topics I found really interesting, like Europe’s new General Data Protection Regulation and how it impacted the federal government, or how different aspects of government function, like appropriations from congress and delegation of certain powers to federal agencies. I also got to do some things I’ve never done before. I wrote two pieces of draft statutory language to amend NIST’s authorization bill (the law that gives NIST power to do things), and those were presented to Congress for revising. What happens to them next is anyone’s guess. I also got to draft a response appealing the denial of a patent. Finally, I got to do some things that all the NIST lawyers get to do—reviewing policy directives and notices of opportunities for federal funding (basically notices for federal grants), and it was really interesting to see how that process worked. I did a lot of interesting legal work. I was challenged, and I learned a lot of new things. And if I wasn’t sure about my choice to go into space law, I was absolutely positively sure after working at NIST.

It wasn’t just all the cool legal stuff that made my experience great. I really liked the people I was working with, and there was a great office environment. People were busy, but it never felt stressful, and people were always laughing. Neutron made a lot of new friends, of course. He liked to camp out under my desk, but whenever someone was walking past in the hall, he stuck his head out the door and was like “Hey, hey, you forgot to pet me!” We also got to meet attorneys from other NIST offices, and we even got to have lunch with an attorney from NOAA, which is one of the jobs I’m applying for after law school (cross your fingers for me). I also got to take a tour of the Capitol with other legal interns from the Department of Commerce.

Yes, I was still in the middle-of-nowhere Maryland, and yes the bus system did leave something to be desired (I could get to work in the morning and from work in the afternoon, but that was all, and don’t get me started on the times when the system that announced the stops was broken), but I made it work. The other attorneys gave me rides if it was pouring rain so I didn’t have to get all wet getting to work. I was living with three housemates, so I wasn’t on my own on the weekends. There was a nice mile loop around my neighborhood where I could walk with Neutron in the evenings. I got a lot of writing done, and I mean a lot (more on that in part three of my summer).

And I finally sucked it up and got a Lyft account so I could venture out if I wanted to. This was actually a pretty big deal for me. I haven’t talked about it on here, but I’ve been pretty nervous about ridesharing services, because I’ve heard so many horror stories about what happens to people with guide dogs when they try to use them. Best case scenario, it seemed to me, the driver would simply drive away when they saw you: Worst case scenario, they’d get out of the car to yell at you that you can’t come with them and end up hitting you, or they’d take you in their car, but stop under a bridge somewhere, mug you, and leave you stranded god knows where. My philosophy on travel is that I want to get places on my own two feet, or using public transportation, even if it takes me longer. But in Gaithersburg, if I wanted to go anywhere on the weekends that wasn’t this mile loop around my neighborhood (and you can only go in circles so many times before you get dizzy), I needed to take a Lyft. And so I did. I met some friends from Kenyon at the Gaithersburg Book Festival, and I went to Silver Springs a couple times to have lunch with them and for a board game night. The worst that happened was a really awkward conversation in which a driver asked me a bunch of questions about being blind because she didn’t know anyone who “has the same problem as you.” But compared to being mugged or stranded, this was just fine. (Note, taking a Lyft has not been so easy in Boston.)

I realize that I haven’t actually told you what NIST is or what it does. This was sort of deliberate, because I didn’t realize the full extent of NIST’s work until my second to last day, when I got to go on a tour. Since I was splitting my summer between two internships, I started and ended my work at NIST earlier than most other legal interns at the federal government, so I missed the tour for the legal interns from the department of Commerce. But I got to join a tour for a group of middle and high school science teachers who had won grants. It was a ton of fun.

NIST is a federal agency, part of the Department of Commerce. It’s basically a giant government lab. The science kind, not the wagging kind. There are scientists from all over the world inventing things (hence the patent project I worked on), or working inn new and better ways to standardize everything from peanut butter to plumbing components. One of my housemates was doing something with neutrons (the subatomic particle, not my doggy), and another roommate was working on how to 3D print metal. So lots of cool stuff.

I think the thing NIST is most famous for is the standard peanut butter.  I don’t mean that this is the peanut butter from which all peanut butters are born. I mean that NIST makes a jar of peanut butter, and using their super special scientific measuring tools, the NIST scientists figure out how much fat, how many carbohydrates, and how much other stuff is in the peanut butter. Then, they sell the standard peanut butter to companies who make peanut butter, and the peanut butter companies can use their super special scientific measurement tools to look at the NIST peanut butter. If they get the same results as NIST, they know their measurements are right, and they can measure their own peanut butter and put all the correct info on the labels. If they get different results, they know they have to recalibrate their super special scientific measurement machines. NIST doesn’t just do this for peanut butter. You name it, NIST standardizes it.  there was even standard air and standard water, used to test machines that measure pollution.

On the tour, we got a presentation from a scientist working in a lab where they did temperature and thermometer standards. It was a fascinating presentation, and I’m sorry to say that I don’t remember many of the finer points because it was about two months ago and I didn’t take notes. But the really cool thing was that all around this lab, there were these tubes containing different elements at their triple-point. They were keeping these tubes at precise temperatures and pressure, so that in each tube, at the same time, the element was in its solid, liquid, and gaseous state. They passed around the triple-point cells for water and tin. Jameyanne holding a triple-point cell for water, a glass cylinder containing solid ice, liquid water, and gaseous water vapor.The picture on the right is me holding the triple-point cell for water. It’s a glass tube, with ice at the bottom, water in the middle, and gas at the top. This was definitely one of those times when I was mourning the fact that I didn’t become a scientist, because soooo cooool!!!! But there’s plenty of time to become a scientist later if I want to, once I’ve paid off the law school student loans.

I spent eight weeks at NIST. I was so busy and I did so much that the time just flew by. It felt like one minute I was learning my way around the campus, and the next I was saying goodbye. This was hands-down the best legal internship I’ve had so far, and now I can’t wait to finish law school and start practicing science and space law.

What Disability Rights Mean to Me

I’ve talked to a lot of people about this already, but for those who don’t know, I’ve decided to pursue a career in space law after law school. When I tell people this, I get two different reactions.

 

Either: That sounds so cool! … What is it?

 

Or: What happened to disability rights? You’d be so good at that.

 

Let’s set aside the first reaction for now. I’ll come back to what space law is in a future post—I promise. Today, I want to talk about that second reaction. What happened to disability rights? And the follow-up comments that I’d be so good at that and it’s really important.

 

In true Jameyanne’s blog fashion, let’s back up. Believe it or not, I started thinking about law school about three-and-a-half years ago. I’d been in Italy for about a month, and I was already pretty sure that I didn’t want to be a teacher. I was invited to a dinner at the local chapter of the Lions Club, because this chapter was involved in fundraising for a guide dog school in Milan, and they’d heard about the blind girl walking around Assisi with her guide dog and wanted to see her in real life. So I went to this dinner, and when I successfully  cut up my own chicken, everyone at the table applauded. I kid you not. They applauded.

 

I got back to my apartment at about two in the morning, exhausted and frustrated to the point of tears. It had been a long, difficult month, filled with countless incidents just like this. The people who screamed at me on the bus for having the nerve to leave my apartment by myself. The clerks who tried to stop me entering their stores. The head of the school for the blind who wouldn’t let me volunteer to help teach the students skills for independent daily living—like pouring liquid or getting toothpaste on the toothbrush without making a mess—because, and I quote, “they can’t do that.”

 

So here I am, at two in the morning, tired, homesick, definitely in culture shock, confused because I’m six months out of college and I don’t know what I’m doing with my life, and furious because I just want to cut up my chicken without people clapping. And I think to myself, you know, self, you could make a difference here, if you really want to. You could go to law school and become a disability rights lawyer and make a difference here, or back in America, or anywhere. You might wonder why law school was the first thing I came up with for a way to make a difference, but actually I’d been told by my parents and our family friend/my special education advocate, Eleanor, that I would make a great lawyer. And I’d actually been fighting against this idea for years. But here I was, seriously contemplating it.

 

Granted, I was seriously contemplating it at what was now 2:30 AM, so I took that contemplation with a large pinch of salt. But I couldn’t shake the idea, and the more I thought about it, the more I wanted to do it. So I spent the next year volunteering at the New Hampshire Disability Rights Center, which I loved, while I studied for the LSAT, took the LSAT, applied to law schools, got accepted to law schools, and decided where I wanted to go. And then I started law school.

 

Law school,  if you don’t know this already, is literally the worst. I have never worked so hard and felt so stupid. I’ve heard this from a lot of friends in grad school for other fields, so it may not be exclusively a law school thing. It took me less than two weeks to start questioning all my life choices and berating myself for letting my crazy 2:30 AM ideas get me into this mess. But I stuck with it, because everyone said there was a steep learning curve, and I’d only been doing this for two weeks. This was nothing like what I’d been doing at the DRC, but of course I had no legal training when I was there. What if the lawyers were spending all their time doing what I was doing in law school now? Could I do this for the rest of my life? So at some point, I asked my resident advisor if this was what it was like to be a lawyer. He said no, not really. Being a real lawyer was more like what we were doing in my legal research and writing course—applying cases and statutes to new problems—than what we were doing in my black letter law classes—reading a lot and analyzing a zillion cases that all said a zillion different things. This advice helped a lot, because I was enjoying my legal research and writing class better than anything else so far.

 

But I couldn’t shake the feeling that I wasn’t doing the right thing here. I just wasn’t totally happy with the idea of doing disability rights anymore. There were a lot of reasons for this.

 

First, I knew I didn’t want to litigate or work with individual clients. I was more interested in broader policy issues. I wanted to go into the federal government and make a bigger difference. But then the 2016 election happened. I don’t want to get political, but civil rights and the federal government became much less certain after that. Our teachers advised us not to give up on federal government work if that interested us, because the federal government was going to need good lawyers now more than ever. But the idea that, if you worked for the federal government, what you were defending or choosing not to defend, what policy you had to promote, could change so radically overnight, shook me. It seems obvious in retrospect, but it wasn’t obvious to me until I saw it happen. And I didn’t know what to do with it. If I didn’t want to work defending individual clients, and if I didn’t want to litigate, and if I wasn’t sure about working at the federal government, where did that leave me?

 

I spent most of second semester feeling like I had no clue what I was doing. I toyed with the idea of going into literary law and being some kind of literary agent/lawyer thing. And while that seemed like it would nicely tie everything I’d done up to this point together, I just couldn’t get really excited about it. When I got my internship at the U.S. Department of Education, Office for Civil Rights in Boston, I thought education law might be what I’m interested in. I was interested in education—why I’d decided to teach in Italy rather than research—and I’m passionate about all children getting an equal education. See any of my rants about Braille literacy and you’ll get the point. And the way the attorney who interviewed me described the Department of Ed, it seemed like a really good fit with my interests. But within the first few weeks at that internship, I knew that this, too wasn’t right. I wasn’t sure if education law was right for me or not—unfortunately I wasn’t doing much legal work because the office was so unclear about what it was supposed to be doing after the election—but I knew that in general this kind of federal enforcement office wasn’t for me. Basically, the Office for Civil Rights of the Department of Ed makes sure that any school receiving federal funds is following the federal antidiscrimination laws. So, if there’s alleged discrimination based on race, gender, sexuality, or disability, OCR does a review to make sure the school is complying with the federal laws. But, to give one example they used during orientation, if you have a really small rural school that’s receiving very little federal money, the school can just decide they don’t want the federal money and then they don’t have to comply with the federal laws. When I asked, “But where does that leave the student?” the attorney basically replied that, as sucky as it is, the Office for Civil Rights doesn’t have power to do anything about it if the school isn’t taking federal funds. And this really bothered me. I know I know, I’m a walking contradiction. I don’t want to litigate for individual clients, but when I’m working for the agency that’s making sure the law is upheld in a broader context, I’m upset by the idea that a hypothetical student could be discriminated against and there’s nothing we could do about it. And again, this left me… Where?

 

So that’s my first reason for being uncertain about doing disability rights. I just wasn’t  sure I wanted to do it. I wasn’t sure I’d be happy doing it.

 

My second reason is tied pretty closely to my first reason, and that’s that it just seemed like it would be exhausting, particularly in today’s political climate. It felt like everywhere I turned, I was hearing about activist burnout. And let’s be honest, I face disability discrimination pretty often myself, almost on a daily basis, even here in America. If someone on the subway isn’t insisting he’ll pray for god to fix me, someone else is shouting “Oh my god, she’s blind!” If I’m not being stopped from entering a restaurant and asked to prove that Neutron is a service dog—illegal, by the way—then someone is seizing my arm and attempting to drag me and Neutron across a street when I didn’t want to go that way thanks very much. I’ve had cashiers in the law school cafeteria question whether Neutron is a service dog, for crying out loud. I’ve had people refuse to let me get on elevators with them because they’re afraid of my dog. And then there are all those pesky new airline policies about service dogs (there’s another post about emotional support dogs coming, let me tell you). And this might be a standard week for me. I try to be polite about it all, but I’m only human, and it’s frustrating. I swear the next time someone asks if Neutron is a guide dog is going to get the response, “Yes, I’m blind. I can take out my fake eye to prove it if you insist.” The idea of working forty hours a week on this sort of thing, and then having to live it myself is pretty unappealing. Reason number three really didn’t help with this either.

 

Reason number three is that from the moment I started law school, anyone who met me, whether at the law school or not, assumed I was going to do disability rights. Conversations invariably went like this: “Oh, you’re going to law school? And you’re blind? So you’re going to do disability rights, right?” And this drove me nuts. Just so you know, I absolutely hate it when people assume things about me just because I’m blind. For example, in sixth grade a friend told me I couldn’t learn to make those gimp lanyard things everyone was making because it was more of a “sighted person thing.” I would stop at nothing to learn how to do it. That’s the kind of person I am. When someone assumes I can’t do something or I will do something or anything like that, I immediately want to prove them wrong and I do the opposite. So yes, I went to law school wanting to do disability rights. But between discovering that I wasn’t really sure about that (reasons one and two), and the constant assumptions that I’m blind so of course that’s what I’m going to do, I was really unhappy with the idea of doing disability rights.

 

I know what you’re thinking, because I thought it myself for a while. I shouldn’t make decisions because of what some people say. I shouldn’t let people’s assumptions derail my career. But like I said, I had plenty of other reasons why I didn’t want to do it. Above all, I didn’t think I would be happy doing disability rights, which is ultimately what made my decision. Yes, part of the reason I wouldn’t be happy is that I couldn’t stand the way people were always trying to pigeonhole me into disability rights because I was blind. But the problem remains, I wouldn’t be happy.

 

If you’re still not convinced, let me relate some of the conversations I’ve had with family and friends. Some people try to comfort themselves and/or convince me to reconsider by asking what kind of pro bono work I can do for disability rights om the side. Some people insist I’m making the  wrong decision, because I would be really good at disability rights, and when I try to explain to them that I’m not happy for all of the reasons I’ve just explained to you, they counter by saying they’re just looking out for what’s best for me. There are layers of problems with that statement that I’m not going to dissect for you. But I think the fact that I felt I had to write a whole blog post justifying my decision and that I’m really nervous about how people will take it says a lot.

 

Which brings me to the last reason I decided not to go into disability rights: I found something I really want to do. Not many people know this about me, but I am a huge astronomy nerd. Like huge. So when my property teacher mentioned space law, I started looking into it, and I was totally fascinated. I even applied for an internship at NASA for my first law school summer—I didn’t get it, but that didn’t dampen my interest in space law. So at the end of my summer internship with the Department of Ed, when other interns and I were sitting on the floor of the file room, talking about what we would do if we could do anything in the world, and I said “I would be a space lawyer and work at NASA,” and another intern said, “Jameyanne, you go to Harvard Law, if you want to do that, you can,” I realized she was right. It’s a really niche field, and I don’t have much of a science background, but I decided to go for it. And I have been a lot happier since. My parents have said that I just light up when I talk about space law in a way they haven’t seen in a while, and friends have told me it’s just great to see me make this decision and go for it. And fun fact, two days after I made this decision, I met my Neutron Star, which pretty much made it official.

 

This year, I’m splitting my summer and interning at the National Institute of Standards and Technology, a federal government laboratory in Maryland, and Analytical Space, a private space company in Boston that’s building a network of satellites that use lasers to communicate. I’ve been at NIST for three weeks, and I’m having a blast. And who knows? Maybe one day I’ll go back to school and get that science degree I wish I had.

 

All this isn’t to say that disability rights aren’t important. It isn’t to say that I don’t care about them—of course I care about them—I need them. And it’s not to say that I won’t keep fighting for them in any way that I can. It just isn’t the right career for me.

 

The way I see it, there are two ways to fight for disability rights. One is to be a disability rights attorney. this is really important. We need good disability rights attorneys who care about the issues. But to me, disability rights means more than standing up in court to fight for someone’s right to read Braille, or use a service dog, or have financial independence or the right to vote or the right to not be abused and neglected. Disability rights means standing up and living the life I want to live, pursuing the career I want to pursue, regardless of my disability. It means showing people that I can do whatever I set my mind to, even if I’m blind. There is a lot of value in seeing someone with a disability doing something totally unrelated to their disability. And really, this is the point of disability rights: to let people do whatever they want to, with their disabilities, just like everybody else. As a disabilities rights lawyer, I felt like I would always be defined by my disability, and true or not, I don’t want that. As a space lawyer, well, not even the sky is the limit.

The Benefits of Reverse Zombification

This is my first post of 2017. Yes, I know, it’s April. Yes, I know, I haven’t posted since December. It’s been a long, hard semester. I’ve had weeks where I felt like I had to drag myself from one unending fifty page assignment to the next. It’s been a struggle to write fiction, let alone blog. And let’s be honest: you really don’t want to hear about my contracts class anyway.

 

But things are looking up. Boston finally seems to be considering springtime (or it was yesterday), my appellate brief is complete and I have my moot oral argument tonight, I have my final negotiation for my negotiations workshop on Saturday, and then there’s only two weeks of classes left. Two weeks where things are a little less crazy before we hit reading period and have to study nonstop for finals. I intend to use those two weeks wisely. Actually, now that I have a better sense of what law school finals are like and how to prepare for them, I’m going to use reading period wisely too. (We’ll see how this actually goes but I’m going to try.)

 

So since I never posted my goals for 2017—whatever those actually were—here’s my goal for the rest of 1L year and the summer: I don’t want to be a law student zombie anymore. I want to become a human being again. And here’s how I’m going to do it.

 

First, I’m tired of being a desk potato, so I want to get back in shape. I like feeling strong, and I miss moving. Added bonus: exercise isn’t just healthy. Whenever I actually get up in the morning and go to the gym, I feel great for the rest of the day. Yay endorphins!

 

Second, and along similar lines, I’m going to try to get myself onto a reasonable eating schedule. This means I need to stop eating dinner at 10:30 at night, even if the kitchen is busier earlier. I don’t think I need to explain why eating at a sane hour of the night is just overall better.

 

Third, I’m going to write more. Like really write, the way I was writing in college or in Italy, or as close to that as possible. I’m tired of feeling like a few paragraphs is a victory.

 

Fourth, I’m going to get back in touch with my inner extrovert and do fun things with friends. I feel like I live in my dorm room, and that just has to stop. The sun is shining. The grass is not quite green yet. We’re almost finished 1L. I have every reason to do social things.

 

I’ve already started on all of these goals. I’ve been exercising regularly and mostly eating around 8:00 at night, which is earlier but still not prime kitchen time. I’m also doing Camp NaNoWriMo this month, the full 50,000 words of it, to hopefully stretch my writing muscles and actually make some progress on revisions to my memory wiping academy novel. I’m participating in another twitter pitch slam this week for my middle grade fantasy novel, and I’m planning to take an online writing course this summer to give me some more structure. Finally, this past week I went to trivia and participated in a scavenger hunt, and had a blast at both. I have felt infinitely better this week than I have in a while, so I’m planning to keep it up. It’s something we were told over and over again during orientation, but apparently I didn’t really get it until now: self-care is really important.

 

It’s a good start, and I’m looking forward to keeping it up throughout the spring and summer. I’ll be working  in Boston this summer at the U.S. Department of education Office for Civil Rights, so this will be the perfect opportunity for me to actually get to know Boston better, and since I shouldn’t have homework outside work, I’ll be able to able to exercise and write and do fun social things and set a good routine for myself for the start of my 2L year.

And of course, all of this includes blogging more. It’s been a really hard school year, but I’m finally starting to feel like I have the hang of this and I can take the time to have a bit more fun and take care of myself.

 

So happy almost maybe spring!

How I Conquered the World in 2016 and Other Stories

I’m still having trouble believing it, but 2016 is drawing to a close, which means it’s time for my annual round-up of the year. And what a year it has been.

 

Twelve months ago, I was working at the New Hampshire Disabilities Rights Center. I’d only been home from Italy for a few months, and Mopsy and I were still working through our nerves about other drivers while walking around town. I’d just submitted my final law school appplication—and I’d already been admitted to several fine schools. Now, I have just completed my first grueling semester at Harvard Law School, and when we aren’t studying, which isn’t that often, Mopsy and I are cruising around Boston like pros.

 

The only goal I set for myself this year was to not be afraid. I think I was mostly successful, though it was hard to keep that in perspective when I first realized I was going to have to do a lot more cooking than I originally anticipated, or when I was exhausted from studying for seven days straight and terrified I was going to fail my civil procedure exam, or when I woke up from my recurring hospital nightmare this morning feeling like I couldn’t breathe. Or when the election happened.

 

But with my signature optimism, when I look back at all the things I did this year—so many of them brand new—I have to give myself credit.

 

Everything I did at the DRC was totally new to me, from attending hearings to investigating voter accessibility. After I finished my internship, I went on a road trip to visit all the law schools I was still considering. When we were in New York visiting Columbia and NYU, my mom and I also went on two tours of Alexander Hamilton’s New York—one of the financial district and one of Washington Heights, Hamilton Heights, and Morningside Heights. They were fascinating. Then my Italian host parents, Stefania and Bruno, came to America for three weeks, and we visited Washington D.C., Pennsylvania, New York City, Boston, and of course New Hampshire with them. my older brother got married. I went to the National Convention of the National Federation of the Blind for the first time, where I tried ballroom dancing, swing, and 1Touch self-defense. Then I spent the summer learning my way around Harvard, Cambridge, and Boston.

 

And then I started at Harvard Law School, where every single thing I’ve done has been new. I’d never read a legal opinion before. Now I feel like I read nothing but legal opinions. I learned how to do legal research and how to write in legalese. I learned how to think in a completely new way that I’m still not used to and I can’t describe. For the first time, I took final exams with no indication of my grasp of the material—an experience I’d never like to have again but unfortunately I will have to repeat five more times. And right now I’m in the middle of my first ever job search, complete with cover letters. So many cover letters.

 

But I haven’t done only law stuff. I joined a book club with some of my amazing sectionmates. So far, we’ve read Kindred by Octavia Butler and Cinder by Marissa Meyer (the last one was my recommendation if you hadn’t guessed). Right now we’re reading The Dinner by Herman Koch (well, I haven’t started it yet). I also tried out for the law school a cappella group—I didn’t get in, but it was fun to try—and I also applied to write for the law school parody—didn’t make that either but it was both the first script and the first parody I’ve ever written.

 

I’ve also started becoming politically engaged this year. I’m not going to go into the election too much here, because it really isn’t what I want this blog to be about, but I have written about my feelings on the election,and of course you’ve seen my posts on Braille literacy and the Foundation Fighting Blindness’s #HowEyeSeeIt campaign. I was chosen as a section representative for HLS’s law and government program, and I’ve applied to volunteer for a 2017 gubernatorial campaign.

 

All along, I’ve kept writing. At the beginning of this year, I started queryingagents about my novel. I paused when law school hit, but I’m going to send out a new batch of queries in January.

 

My story “Dissonance” was published in Abyss and Apex in April. If you haven’t read it yet, you can read it right here. And over the summer, I wrote and revised three more stories in the Phoenix Song universe—what i’m calling the world where “Dissonance” is set. I also wrote a poem set in the same world, my first poem since tenth grade. With a lot of luck, you might see those some day ever.

 

Once law school started, while I did write less, I did keep writing. I made sure to find time to write at least a couple times a week, not only because I love it, but also because I’ve found if I don’t write, I become first cranky, then miserable, then practically nauseous. When I feel like I’m drowning in law, my stories keep me sane. I finally got back to revising my memory-wiping academy novel, and I succeeded at my summer writing goal of getting the number of projects I’m working on down to two. And in the last couple months, I’ve been trying new things with my writing too. I wrote my first ever 250-word flash fiction story. I usually have the problem that every short story I write turns into a novel, so I was convinced I wasn’t going to be able to do it, and I was pretty darn shocked when I actually did. And right now I’m almost finished with the first draft of my first ever science fiction story. This story was actually inspired by whatever happened with my left eye back in January when my vision went all dark and shimmery for a day. Funnily enough, that was the same incident that inspired my first blog post of the year, about my decision to be brave.

 

Finally, I added some new sections to the blog this year too. Now, in addition to links to my published short stories, you can also read the stories behind the stories to find out what I was thinking when I wrote the stories and why I made the choices I did, as well as other fun facts and even some of my own illustrations. I’ve also been having a ton of fun writing the posts from Mopsy’s point of view, and I hope you’ve had fun reading them, because there’s more to come.

 

And after I don’t know how many New Years resolutions, I finally learned to use Twitter. The secret was  linking my Twitter and Facebook accounts so I only had to worry about one. I also entered a couple Twitter pitch slams for my novel, which not only got me in touch with some agents but also got me into the habit of checking Twitter and tweeting—twelve hours of tweeting and constantly refreshing does that sometimes.

 

I didn’t really conquer the world in 2016. In fact, especially in the last few months, between the pressures of law school, the election results, and the feeling that I just wasn’t writing as much as I wanted to or moving forward with my writing career as fast as I thought I would, I’ve often felt like the world was doing a good job of trampling me into the dust. But looking back on all I’ve done and all the new things I’ve tried, I’d say all and all, 2016 was a reasonable success. Now that I have a handle on how law school works, I feel like I can balance things a little better second semester. We’ll see how well that actually goes, but after a few more good nights of sleep, I’m ready to hit the ground running in the new year.

 

So bring it on, 2017.

Doggy Law School

Our first semester of law school is drawing to a close. In a few hours, we will be taking our first ever law school exam. Well, when I say “we,” I really mean that my sidekick will be typing furiously, and I’ll be there to provide heroic cuddles when she inevitably realizes that she hasn’t talked about the Erie Doctrine so she must have missed something.

 

It’s been quite a semester, and not the most tail-wagging semester ever either. We know we haven’t posted a lot, but it was mostly studying studying studying, and I didn’t want to bore you because I’m bored.

 

We have had some exciting adventures in Boston and Cambridge though. My sidekick went kayaking on the Charles and to see fireworks, but she left me behind for both of those, which was probably a good idea because I don’t like water and it was a tippy kayak. We’ve explored Harvard Square some, and we went to see the tree lighting in Boston before Thanksgiving. Also, our section, which is the best section in the history of Harvard Law School sectiondom, won the 1L cup, which was like a bunch of contests like egg-toss and pie-eating contests (my sidekick would not let me participate in that one), and a three-legged race where my sidekick lost a fight with the ground and almost broke her leg. The ground has this sneaky sidekick called gravity.

 

And of course we’ve learned law. Lots and lots of law. I don’t pay attention to a lot of it, but I have picked up some useful doggy pointers.

 

For example, if I throw my bone at my person, with desire or purpose or knowledge with substantial certainty that the bone will hit her, then that is an intentional battery. And if I manage to hit the leg that almost broke in her fight with the ground, I am responsible for all the consequences, whatever they may be. On the other hand, if I throw my bone, even if I’m not trying to hit my sidekick, but it’s foreseeable that I hit her, and I do hit her, I was negligent. Good thing my sidekick loves me and would never ever sue me.

 

Also, finders keepers is an actual real thing. Sort of. Someone who finds something someone else lost can keep it. The finder has rights to possess the lost thing against everybody except the true owner. So if the true owner shows up and says “Hey that’s mine,” the finder does have to give it back, but otherwise it’s theirs. So if my person drops her cookie, and I get it, it’s mine. Unless she grabs me fast enough and tells me to spit it out. Then I have to listen. It’s the law.

 

Next, I learned that because I’m a super special service puppy, I get to ignore all the no-pets rules. I already knew that, but now I know how to interpret the laws that say I’m a super special service puppy. I can study the text, and Congress’s purpose, and I can even look at how the agency enacted specific regulation about the statute and whether they did that right.

 

And finally, when we learned about federal jurisdiction in civil procedure, I learned how to make a well-pleaded complaint.

Mopsy lying at Jameyanne's feet in civil procedure class. Mopsy looks sad, and text above her head reads "Please: No More Class!"
Photo by James Sasso

 

The problem, of course, is that once I received a judgment as a matter of law and class ended last week, my person became very stationary and very intense about all the studying. And now here we are, on the brink of exams, almost finished with our first semester. We’ve learned a lot and made some fabulous friends. We are very nervous about exams, but we’ve defeated worse villains. We are very much in need of sleep and a good wrestling match with my rope and some good walks that aren’t to classrooms or the library. And we will get them. For a bit anyway. But first, we need to go kick civil procedure’s butt. Wish us luck.

Fox-Hunting, Nose-Punching, and Turning Laundry Blue: Three Weeks a 1L

I should be taking advantage of finishing my reading before midnight and getting some sleep, but since my weekend has been swallowed by my first memo, I wanted to squeeze in a quick post about my first three-ish weeks of law school.

I say three-ish because the first week was orientation, and the last two weeks have not been full weeks of classes. Thank you Labor Day.

So, three weeks ago I arrived at Harvard. Orientation was crazy, particularly because on top of all the programming, we had lots of reading to do for our introductory classes. Gone are the days when we go over the syllabus in the first class, people. I’d say I read about a hundred pages, maybe more, during orientation. And it didn’t get easier once orientation ended, because now we had more classes.

I feel like I’ve been spending every spare minute I have reading cases as fast as I can. My fingers hurt. I want to read fiction. I want to write more than a paragraph. I want to draw. Also sleep. The only time I pause reading is to take notes, but as the week goes on, those have become more and more eratic. I started out the week briefing every case. Everything was so nice and organized and detailed. By Wednesday, my briefs turned into mushy summaries that didn’t distinguish between the facts and the legal reasoning or the issues and the holding (the court’s decision). By this point, all I’m writing is “This case is about timber, a fence, some blue paint, and adverse possession.”

Over the weekend, I was able to take one day completely off, which was a wonderful, wonderful decision. It helped me reset and recharge and I was able to attack this week’s readings with gusto. And a plan.

I was going to stay two days ahead of the readings on the theory that I could be a bit more relaxed about it all. It was a good theory, but that was about it. I was so tired, and I fell behind my plan, and then I was stressed about not being on top of things. Also, because I did the reading two days before the class, and because I didn’t have time to review my notes because I was reading for the class two days ahead, I found myself struggling to remember what the cases for each class were about, even when I looked at my notes. Everything was just blurring together. So obviously I need to rethink my strategy.

Since I’ve been doing all this reading, have I learned anything?

I think yes. I feel like my understanding of what I’m reading is definitely improving in week 2, but it’s also a function of my note taking. So as my notes become less detailed, my understanding goes down the tubes a bit. I totally get what’s going on in torts and legislation and regulation. I thought I had a decent grasp on civil procedure (and then today’s class happened and I’m totally lost). I’m just sort of stumbling along in my property professor’s wake. And I haven’t been too concerned with first year legal research and writing, except to be alarmed by the Bluebook, until we were assigned our first memo today. Also, because there’s so much reading, if I don’t get something, I can’t go back to reread and try to figure it out. There just isn’t time. It’s gotten to the point when I don’t even recognize if I don’t understand something anymore, which is probably bad.

My notes also become snarkier the later it gets at night, and looking back I see they are riddled with random Princess Bride and Winny the Pooh references.

But I can definitely tell you that whoever said “A rose is a rose is a rose” is totally wrong (my latent English major is attempting to poke her head out and being beaten back). When applied to torts, a punch on the nose is not a punch on the nose is not a punch on the nose.

And that’s not to say that there’s no art in the stuff I’m reading. In Pierson v. Post, a seminal property case, the dissenting judge called the fox-thief Post a “saucy intruder.” Make of that what you will.

Okay, seriously, I’ve learned a lot. I’m not going to try to list everything I’ve learned because (1) I don’t think I can and (2) I don’t want to bore the pants off you. I’m living and breathing this stuff; I’m not about to regurgitate it onto my blog. But speaking of pants, I finally learned how to work the laundry machines, but not without mishap. In my defense, it was totally not intuitive.

I knew 1L year was going to be hard. I just don’t think I appreciated what hard meant. These last three weeks have been busy, stressfull, and exhausting. On top of the schoolwork, I’m doing a lot more cooking than I anticipated, because the law school dining hall has weird hours, and I’ve also had to stay on top of my budget in a way I didn’t even really have to do in Italy. I feel like I was not only flung into grad school but also into adulthood with a lot less warning than I would have liked. It’s been quite a transition, and I’m not out of the woods yet.

The good news is I’m not alone. Everyone I’ve talked to in my section is feeling the exact same way I am, and since 80 of us can’t be doing everything wrong, I’m guessing we’re probably doing at least something right. And everyone says it will get better. We’ll figure things out, make friends, start extracurriculars, and though it seems impossible to believe now, we’ll have fun.

That’s Jameyanne for you, ever the optimist. It is also quite possible that I drown in legal opinions and you never hear from me again. But I think I’ll go with option 1.

Summer Writing Roundup

I’ve been at Harvard for a week and a half, and by this point summer feels like a distant, golden memory. So maybe I’m a little late with this post, but I still wanted to quickly talk about the goals I set for myself this summer and whether I actually achieved them. (Cue awkward laughter.)

 

back in June, I set out a bunch of writing goals for the summer. I wanted to outline the hypothetical sequels for my small child magician novel. I wanted to have complete first drafts of all the short stories in the story cycle in my Phoenix Song universe I’m working on. I wanted to finish the fanfiction I was writing. And finally I wanted to get back to revising my memory wiping academy novel.

 

And… I accomplished none of that.

 

Okay, that’s not fair. I finished the outline for the second small child magician novel and started work on outlining the third. I revised three of the Phoenix Song Stories I’d already written and finished a rough draft of the fourth—which I’d been struggling with since December. I made a lot of progress on the fanfiction. And I got back to the memory wiping academy novel.

 

I also did a lot of other things this summer. I attended the NFB’s national convention, which was huge for me. I learned Unified English Braille (the updated Braille code which I hope to talk about in more detail in the future). ]. I got a new BrailleNote, which is more like a Braille tablet (also hope to post about that later). Then the new BrailleNote broke—apparently it had a defective motherboard—and had to go back in for repairs right before I started here at Harvard (luckily I got it back on the first day of classes). I learned the Harvard Law School campus and the T system, which was also huge, and there’s still more to learn. Finally, I had fun. I learned to play cribbage. I biked and kayaked and swam and went to the beach. I went to the midnight release party for Harry Potter and the Cursed Child, my first HP midnight release party, and the party was the best part about that book (but the less said about that the better). I read a lot, and I wrote a lot.

 

Maybe I didn’t accomplish my writing goals as entirely as I’d intended, but the important thing I’m remembering is the goal behind the goals. I wanted to get myself to a place where I felt like I was at a different stage with each project so I could make progress on all of them without feeling like I was detracting from the others. I’ve now started my 1L year, and my writing time has been significantly cut down. In fact, my time for everything but reading and class has been significantly cut down. I’m hoping this will get better as I get used to what I’m reading for class, but in the meantime, it’s really nice to have projects at different stages so that, if I have a few minutes to squeeze in some writing (which has only happened once so far), I have choices about what kind of writing I’m doing and where in the process of the story I am. Right now, I have one project I’m outlining (the third small child magician novel), one project I’m in the first draft stage (the Phoenix Song stories), and one project I’m revising (the memory wiping academy novel). I feel like, with my crazy schedule and complete lack of free time, having the ability to choose what to write will actually work better for me, because it means I’ll be more productive rather than forcing it.

 

As I’ve already said, this summer was probably the last summer I will have entirely free. My goal, at its heart, was to make the most of it, and I definitely did that. So here’s to the summer, and here’s to a productive first year of law school to come.

Summer Writing Goals

Since I’ve finished my internship at the Disabilities Rights Center as well as my grand road trip of visiting law schools and the grand tour of the northeast with Stefania and Bruno, I’m taking summer off before law school. With the exception of a trip to Florida for the National Federation of the Blind’s annual national convention this week and the changes to the Braille code I need to learn (more on both those things later), I’m staying home, playing, and writing. After this year, I won’t have another full summer off again for who knows how long. So why not?

 

On the other hand, I don’t do well with no goals or deadlines. I just sort of flop around. In fact, writing-wise at least, I’ve been feeling like I’ve been flopping around a bit for a while. In college, I was part of a writing group that met every week and shared pages from continuing stories. There was pressure—not a ton of pressure because we were pretty laid back about it—but there was pressure to keep writing on the same project and to make progress on that project, because everyone wanted to know how things turned out. It was lots of fun, but it was also great for keeping me focused. And since college, I’ve been finding that I’m missing that focus. I’ve been having a hard time staying focused long enough to actually accomplish anything—or even to feel like I’m accomplishing anything. I feel so scattered, working on so many projects.

 

Here’s the thing. I probably have been making progress on all these projects. It just doesn’t feel like it. And it’s too easy, with so many projects, to avoid any problems I’m having with any of them, because the minute I get stuck, I can switch to something else and not actually address the reason I’m stuck.

 

I think it’s probably okay to be working on multiple projects at once, but I think I would be more productive if I was at different stages in each story—the planning stage in one and the writing stage in another, for example, or writing one and revising another. But when I have three or four things going, and I’m in the beginning of writing all of them, it’s hard to feel like I’m moving forward on any of them, even if I am.

 

Complicating all of this, I’m starting law school in the fall. Everything I’ve heard about the first year of law school is that you have no time to do anything ever. I don’t know how true this is, or how true it will be for me, because I’ve always found time for writing no matter what else I’m doing. But if I’m going to get any writing done in law school, I need to be organized about it. More than that, I need to feel like I’m moving forward, or I won’t be motivated to do anything.

 

So this summer, my goal is to clean up my writing desk—figuratively speaking. Right now, I’m in the middle of four pretty major projects. By the end of the summer, I want to be done with or at a different stage in three of them.

 

The first is a set of seven linked short stories set in my Phoenix Song universe—what I’m calling the world where “Dissonance” is set. I’ve written and revised three of these stories, and I’m partway through a draft of the fourth. By the end of the summer, I want to have a rough draft of all seven.

 

Second is a fan fiction novel I’ve been working on for fun. I’ve never written fan fiction before this. I don’t have anything against fan fiction, I just have so many story ideas of my own that I never had time for it. But I had this great idea and my friends really wanted to read it, and I was sort of blocked on everything I was writing last year, so I thought I’d give it a spin. It’s been a lot of fun, but I still have a ton of my own stories that have been taking a backseat to this, and if I have limited writing time in law school, I want to use it to work on my own original stuff. So by the end of the summer, I want to have completely finished that and gotten it off my plate.

 

Next, I came up with an idea for a sequel to my upper middle grade fantasy novel—the one I’m querying agents about. Actually, if I go ahead with the sequel idea I have, it will be a trilogy. Friends who have been published have advised me that it’s not always a good idea to write a sequel for a book that hasn’t been published, because there’s no guaranteeing that a publisher will want to publish a sequel, and you will have put a whole bunch of work into something that will go nowhere when you could have been working on something else. And again, upcoming limited writing time. My novel could definitely stand on its own, but I have an idea for a sequel that I love. So I started an outline to clarify my idea and make sure it is in fact a viable story—and assuming I get that far, I’ll need to pitch the idea to people with a reasonable amount of coherency. I don’t have any intention of writing the sequel yet, but I want to finish the outline and then outline the third book by the end of the summer.

 

This leaves my memory-wiping academy novel, which I decided earlier this year that I want to expand and split into four books. The first draft, which I finished just before I graduated college, was designed as a test to see if I could write the plot of a young adult trilogy into one book. The answer is yes, I could, but the book was one hundred sixty thousand words—which is way too long if you didn’t know that—and that’s when I glossed over a lot that I wanted to explore deeper. Plus I had a lot of extra plot I left out because I started panicking about the length. And also there were a bunch of plot holes that come from being one of my first drafts. So I started on that around Christmas but didn’t get very far (because of all the other stuff I’ve been working on). This revision will be my project in law school.

 

It’s a lot to get done this summer, but I write fast, and I’m pretty sure I can accomplish most of it. But I better stop talking about it and get writing.

Decisions, Decisions

Jameyanne and Mopsy standing in front of the Harvard law school library. Jameyanne is wearing a Harvard Law School T-shirt and has her hands in the air.For most of my life, I’ve had people telling me that I should go to law school because I would make an excellent lawyer. My response was always an unequivocal no. Absolutely not. I will never go to law school. It’s the last thing I wanted to do. Ever.

 

But almost a year and a half ago, I attended a dinner held by the Umbria chapter of the International Lions Club, which turned out to be several hours of listening to people complain about how hopeless and impossible it was to get money for their guide dog school and, when dinner was finally served, attempting not to shout at these same people who applauded when I poured myself a glass of water or cut up my chicken independently. By the time I got home, it was past two in the morning, and I had school the next day. But I was so tired and angry and frustrated—not just with what had happened at the dinner but with my whole first month in Italy. And as I tried to fall asleep that night, my thoughts shifted from an angry tirade to a new idea: I could do something about this. And I started considering the unthinkable: law school.

 

As untinkable as it was, I couldn’t let the idea go, and soon it wasn’t unthinkable at all. It was something I wanted to do.

 

And so began a journey whose ending I am just now reaching. First I made everyone swear not to say “I told you so.” Then I started studying for the LSAT with my mother, first on the trains to and from Ancona and Venice in June, then on the plane back to America, then all summer. We read the Princeton Review LSAT book cover to cover twice. Then I practiced with each individual section type, and then I did entire practice tests—using real old tests I bought from the Law School Admission Council. My score steadily improved over the month of September. Finally, in October, I took the LSAT. While I waited for my scores, I created a list of nine schools I wanted to apply to.

 

At the end of October, I received my LSAT scores. They weren’t as high as I wanted—I’d been consistently scoring six to eight points higher on my practice tests. but they were still really good, and I decided, since my LSAT scores were far from the complete picture, that I would apply to all nine of the schools on my list.

 

From November through March, I received acceptance after acceptance. In the end, I was accepted to eight of the nine schools, and many of them offered me significant merit scholarships. In the end, my decision came down to Harvard and Columbia. I’d visited a couple other schools, but they didn’t have the right feel, and I’d eliminated the others because they were either too far from home—I knew I wanted to stay in the northeast—or because they just weren’t in the same league as my top choice schools, and since I’m interested in going into the federal government, I need to go to the best school I can. It’s actually common advice, to just go to the best law school you get into. I knew that both Columbia and Harvard would get me where I wanted to go, so I decided to visit both schools and leave it up to my gut.

 

This month, I attended the admitted students weekends at both schools. There were a lot of things I really liked about Columbia. I liked the neighborhood and the feel of New York City. Everyone was really nice, and it seemed like it had all the opportunities I was looking for. Then I learned that Columbia Law School doesn’t have a dining hall, and in learning that this wasn’t available, I realized how important that was to me. It’s not that I don’t want to have to cook for myself during my first year of law school—though I don’t—it’s that the lack of a dining hall—the lack of any common space—coupled with the fact that all the law students live in apartments off campus, really made the school feel like there was no sense of community. It felt like people went to school and then left and went home to their regular lives. While I was sure I could handle this and still make friends and not starve, it wasn’t the situation I was looking for.

 

So when I went to Harvard, it was with the knowledge that I wasn’t completely in love with Columbia. I felt like I would have to absolutely hate Harvard for me not to choose it, but I didn’t hate Harvard. From the moment I stepped onto the campus, I had that gut feeling that this was it, and that feeling only grew. Everyone I met was incredibly smart and friendly. Harvard has law school only dormitories and apartments, as well as its own dining hall and gym—and the food is fantastic. Everything is so close together. The mock class I attended, the real class I sat in on, and all my interactions with the professors told me I would have every opportunity I want now and some more that I don’t yet know I want. Also, I really liked Cambridge. Like really liked it. And so did Mopsy. The law school is on its own little campus inside the larger university campus, but right outside the gates is Harvard Square, and right around the block is a Mike’s Pastries (I’ve always wanted to live in the North End of Boston because of Mike’s Pastries, so this is just an added bonus).

 

And so I made my choice. I thought it would be a really difficult decision, but in fact, when it came down to it, it was pretty easy. I firmly believe that things work out the way they’re supposed to, and that your gut feeling is really important when making these kinds of decisions.

 

And so a journey I started a year and a half ago has come to its conclusion, or really, I should say it has come to another beginning. I have made my decision, and I have made it official: in the fall, Mopsy and I will be attending Harvard Law School.

My Life as a Legal Intern

After I took the LSAT in October, I started work at the New Hampshire Disability Rights Center. I am having a blast. I am learning so much about disability rights, and I am having fun doing it.

 

In the two months I have been volunteering here, I have mostly been researching and writing. My first week, I researched and wrote a memo concerning problems and best practice policies surrounding mental health in higher education. I then got to watch the attorneys use my research to give testimony in front of the National Council on Disability. It was a crazy feeling. I also got to draft a Right to Know letter (the state equivalent of a Freedom of Information Act request), requesting information for a possible class action suit. I have been observing the intake meetings, where the attorneys go over the cases that have come into the office each week and decide how to handle them. I was astounded by how many different types of cases there are. Finally, I learned how to do basic legal research (really, really basic). I read the Air Carrier Access Act, and then I wrote this brochureon the rights of individuals with service animals when traveling by air. I have also written an article for the Brain Injury Association of New Hampshire’s newsletter about the rights of students with brain injuries to reasonable accommodations in higher education, and I helped verify information and make edits to a pamphlet on how to create an accessible campaign which will be mailed to all the presidential campaigns.

 

I have been working four days a week, and when I haven’t been working, I have finished all my law school applications and visited four law schools. And I have already been accepted to three schools!

 

I have also been writing a lot, and writing about writing on this blog. One thing I’ve discovered that makes me very happy is legal writing is not having an effect on my other writing. At least not yet. In the spring, I read all the archives of Query Sharkin preparation for writing a query letter for my novel (which I never actually did), and every time someone said they were an attorney, the Shark went “Oh no!” and then proceeded to explain how law school beats intuition out of your writing. In legal writing, everything is explained, and I mean everything, but in fiction, you want the reader to be able to skate smoothly from one idea to another. The idea that becoming an attorney could hurt my writing has been really disturbing to me, but so far it’s been more like two different modes of working. I can flip a switch and change from legal writing to fiction and then back again. At least, I can right now. I’m not doing a ton of legal writing at this internship, and when I really get into it in law school, things might change. So if I ever use the words “pursuant,” “furtherance,” or “hereinafter” in a story, you have permission to whack me upside the head.

 

I love being back on the student side of things. There is something both humbling and exhilarating in not knowing very much about what I’m doing: there is still much left to learn. I am learning it now, and I will continue to learn it over the next three and a half years.

 

The best thing about this internship, for me, is that it has really affirmed my plan to go to law school. My decision to go to law school was based on my experiences in Italy and my desire to make a difference for people with disabilities, but it was also driven by my feelings that nothing else I wanted to do (or thought I wanted to do) was working out. I really didn’t have any idea what I was getting into by applying to law school, and I was terrified that I would put all this work into it and then try it and hate it. Then I started this internship. I am having so much fun. I am fascinated by everything I’m learning. Now I have a better idea of the career I’m pursuing. I am confident it is the right one. And knowing I have made the right decision is the best feeling.